Keeper of the Alphas - Complete (18 page)

By the time dawn broke through the tips of the trees, Marcus was already up. He grabbed a net bag and a saw and tossed his sheepskin coat over his shoulders before heading out.

The morning was brisk and it took him a second to adjust. The morning dew had frozen over and his boots cracked ice-stiff leaves and branches. He walked a few yards through the woods to a familiar stump, where he dropped his bag and his saw. He shrugged out of his jacket and took off his clothes, folding them up on the stump. The cold smarted and pinched his bare skin and he fell to his hands and knees, letting the change shiver over him. Warm, soft fur sprouted from his body and the Beast lifted his big head. Smells were sharp, crystallized in the air. Old scents, no animals nearby for now.

He started to walk. The muscles on his back shifted heavily as he lumbered forward, marking a familiar line. Every morning, he put his nose to the ground and walked the perimeter that separated the woods from the sleepy town of Tyburn, from the cabin to the trailer park. Sniffing for shifters, hunters, or normal, run-of-the-mill humans. Generally speaking, shifters kept to one side of the perimeter, humans to the other. But every now and then, something slipped through. Which was why Marcus kept a tally of who came through and made sure everyone was in their place. It used to be he would report to Lynn.
Caught scent of a coyote on the perimeter, might wanna keep an eye out
; or,
There’s a black bear in town—is he under your protection?

Now? It was just due diligence. And with everything that was going on, the perimeter was bustling with activity. Used to be he caught the scent of a shifter passing over every couple weeks. Now there seemed to be a new trail daily. Not to mention, the woods were wrecked with the heavy boot prints of hunters as they set traps and went hunting.

He put his snout to the ground and disturbed the dirt. He caught the human scent of hunters, a couple days old. Wolf smell, recent, but one he recognized distinctly as Jayce’s burnt, old leather scent (the same smell he’d tasted on Cami, which had thrown his Beast into a frenzy). And another track, fresher…

Very fresh.
Bear
.

He swung his head up, but it was already too late. The grizzly launched at him, a round explosion of fur. She was smaller, but feisty, her paws batting at his face and neck, claws out. He roared, bared his fangs, and pinned her under him. It registered suddenly in his bear that her swats didn’t hurt, not like she was fighting, more like she was—

Playing.

He drew a heavy paw off of her and the smaller bear blinked back up at him, paws curled up by her chest.
Onya
. He’d know his former clan-sister anywhere.

She whined underneath him and batted his snout again, as though chastising him for not recognizing her sooner. He grunted. She craned her head forward and tasted his muzzle once with her tongue, a submissive gesture, one she should save for her Alpha, Aldric. Marcus huffed, his breath white in the cold, and tilted his head out of reach.

Bones cracked. First hers, then his. Then he was human, naked, on all fours on top of her, and she under him. Her eyes, wide and soft brown, stayed on his.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said evenly.

“I needed to see you. I knew you’d be here.” Her eyes flicked over him once. “You’re kind of a creature of habit.”

Her nipples pebbled in the cold pink buttons on her large pillowy breasts. Not that he was looking. She swatted him again playfully, this time with her human hand. His lips pressed in a line. “Your Alpha will smell me on you.”

“You should be Alpha of Tyburn, Marcus.”

His jaw tightened. “We’re not having this conversation again, Onya.”

He shifted to pull away, but her small hands reached out and gripped the sides of his face, holding him in place. When she spoke again, her voice was low, urgent. “He’s planning something.”

Aldric
. Marcus’s expression sharpened, eyes locked on her. “Tell me.”

“Aldric wants a war.”

“Between shifters and hunters.”

“Between shifters and
everyone
. The way he talks…you know. He’s always spouted off about how shifters are the superior race but now he’s taken it to a whole new level. Marcus.” Her eyes darted frantically between his. “I’ve heard him talk about taking the clan into Tyburn. With packs of coyotes, foxes, any shifters he can rally to his side. And believe me, he
can
get the numbers. Everyone is terrified of disobeying him.”

“What does he want with Tyburn?”

“
It
. All of it. He plans on killing the humans. Turning the young and strong. And that’s only the start.”

Marcus set his jaw. “The start of
what
?”

Her eyes filmed with glossy fear. “Complete shifter takeover. First this town. Then the next. And the next. Until there’s nothing left.”

“He’s lost his mind.” Marcus barked a bitter laugh.

“Maybe,” Onya challenged, “but who’s going to stop him? You?”

That hit a little too close for comfort. Marcus grimaced and pulled off of her fully, turning away from her.

“If you challenged him for the title of Alpha—”

“I
can’t
,” Marcus snapped. “We fought. He won. I was banished. That’s all there is.”

There was a small silence from Onya before she said, “Maybe, in times like these, the rules are meant to be broken. Who cares about being
correct
if it’s not what feels right?”

“Forget it,” Marcus said, his tone low, warning.

Onya sighed and hugged her arms around her chest. “There is one other that can stop him. The Keeper.”

“Cami,” Marcus said under his breath. His veins ran cold at the thought.

Onya slipped her hand to his shoulder. “You can’t protect her forever. You’re keeping her from becoming what she’s destined to be.”

“Because being Keeper worked out so well for her mother,” he said.

“Either you step up and become Alpha or she faces Aldric head on. You or her. Who’s it going to be?” No response from him. He felt Onya nuzzle against his shoulder and press a small kiss to his back. “You’re covered in her smell,” she mused softly. “Honey and jasmine. Is she your mate?”

Marcus thought about Cami. Sweet, gentle, sensual Cami.

Cami covered in Jayce’s smell. Cami drunkenly pouring herself over strangers at the bar. Wild and unpredictable
Cami
. He felt an ugly shade of jealously prickle inside his chest.

“No,” he said, and in the same breath, he twisted around and closed his hand over her throat. She gasped softly, her eyes stuck on his.

Big eyes.
Cami
eyes. His cock twitched.

“On your hands and knees,” he said.

Onya didn’t have to be told twice. Just like the days when Marcus was the Alpha, when he, as Alpha, had full reign of his domain. When he could take what was his when he wanted it. She seemed to remember exactly which position to assume; her arms on the ground, her head resting on the back of her hands, and she pushed her ass up in the air, on display.

The dirt floor was cold. Tiny ice crystals cracked under his knees as he knelt behind her. The winter weather pricked her skin, but the adrenaline pumping thickly through his veins kept him warm.

He watched as she parted her legs wide, spreading her pink slit for him. The lips of her pussy glimmered in the soft dawn light, wet and pink. He could tell she needed it, badly.

Marcus was quick to oblige. His breath came in white puffs and he wrapped his fingers around his length, warming it with a few strokes, bringing himself to full hardness. Her perfect, pale, round rear remained high and open. She waited obediently, though he could see her legs inch apart just a little further, impatient.

He pushed inside of her. She was tight—it
had
been a while—and her body gave a small resistance to his thickness, a whimper falling from her mouth. But he continued, easing until he was all the way inside her, and then she yielded, suddenly arching up against him with a gasp.

They were humans, yes, but they moved with animal instinct. He took what he wanted and she took
him
, completely, gratefully. After a few tight gasps, her fingers dug divots into the packed dirt and her body finally succumbed, melding pleasure with pain.

His thrusts were wild, uninhibited. Angry, even, forceful, though not with her. Taking it out on her pussy, though maybe unfair to Onya, gave him some carnal release, and she was far from complaining. Instead, her body gripped his cock, throbbing around it. Her body grew taut and her thighs shook with the mounting pleasure inside her.

Marcus could feel his own pleasure coiling deep in his groin, building. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked. She gasped sharply and lifted back to move with his grip, pushing up fully with her palms on the ground. Here, she pistoned back on his cock, pushing her hips back to meet his. Her breasts, big for her short body, hung down. Her sensitive nipples scraped against the pointed leaves and chips of ice with every thrust, making them tighten further. There’d been a time when he liked it like this. Simple, brutish, instinctual sex.

If only one name didn’t roll through his mind.
Cami, Cami, Cami…

He tightened his jaw and growled through his teeth when he came, trapping her name behind them. Onya’s body butterflied around his and she whimpered over and over as she pushed herself back on his cock, drawing out her own release.

They panted for breath in cold, misty puffs of air. Marcus pulled out of her and sat back. The hot, burning anger and twisted jealousy in his veins had been released with his orgasm, but he still didn’t feel satisfied.

“Be our Alpha,” Onya begged as she sat back and looked back at him.

That made him feel rotten in the pit of his stomach, the high of his orgasm quickly fading. Marcus caught the back of her neck and leaned his forehead against hers briefly. He felt his breath patter on her face, and she felt his. “Wash yourself in the springs so Aldric doesn’t catch my scent on you,” he told her.

She nodded once. He peeled back then. His bones cracked. So did hers.

The sheets were soaked when Cami woke up. Ninety-proof sweat stains. There was a dull throbbing in her head, but not the vomiting sickness she’d expected to wake up with. She had Marcus to thank for that but was determined only to do so with a gun pointed to her head.

There was another glass of water sitting next to the bed. His thoughtfulness was really pissing her off. But there was a matter of the bonds on her wrists. Sober now, she twisted her palm to grab a hold of the rope tied to the bedpost. Anger was a funny thing. She burned through the rope in no time, leaving blackened, melted plastic edges. She sat up, hands still bound together; that would be a little trickier to burn through. And she had to pee. Badly. She hopped out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, shimmying out of her panties. She peed, got back up, and fought with her toilet paper, trying to clean herself off with one conjoined hand. She tugged her panties back up over her hips and went back to the bed. She sipped the water a little bit at a time and felt more human.

No way was she going to be able to get makeup on. Or get dressed. Marcus was going to have to live with her as is. Cami opened the door and made her way downstairs, steeling herself for a fight.

Marcus, however, was nowhere to be found. There was coffee going and a plate tented with tinfoil on the table, next to a note:

Out. I’ll be back soon. Eat this.

Spare me no romance
, she thought, half-tempted to roll her eyes. Even on paper, he was dry as anything. She lifted the tinfoil to find toast and eggs. She half thought about sawing her way through the rope with a knife but got the image of accidentally ripping her wrists open stuck in her head and decided against it. So she folded one hand to keep it out of the way and plucked up her fork with her other hand, picking away at the eggs and toast. Everything felt better with food inside of her.

She was still scraping up eggs when the door clicked open. Marcus and about thirty degrees of winter cold poured inside before he shut the door behind him. Despite the bitter chill, he was still underdressed, with only the sheepskin (open) for warmth. He had an armful of freshly chopped wood logs and yet carried them like they were nothing.

“You’re alive,” he said as he carried the wood over to a near-empty iron holder by the fireplace and dropped them in.

“Kinda,” she said, pushing the eggs on her plate.

He looked over at her and added, “How are you feeling?” His eyes were soft now, concerned, and it melted away the budding anger inside of her.

“Like a prisoner,” she said, and then lifted her bound hands up to him. “Daddy.”

He stepped over and his fingers caught a loose loop in the rope. He tugged it and the whole thing unraveled instantly. She frowned at that, flexing her fingers, but then looked up at him. “Thanks for…your weirdo way of taking care of me last night.”

She expected banter, expected some smart, chastising comment from him. Instead, his forehead creased and he said, “We should talk.”

Cami plucked up a piece of toast and nibbled the crusty edge. “About what?”

He sat down across from her, his presence huge and all encompassing, making the kitchen table look like something from a dollhouse. “I walked the border line of the woods. I ran into my clan-sister—”

“You have a sister?”

He shook his head. “We were from the same clan…not blood siblings in the way you think. It means she’s got a close ear to her Alpha, however.”

“Aldric?”

He nodded. “He’s preparing an attack.”

“On us?”

“On Tyburn.” Before Cami could wrap her head around the enormity of the statement, he leaned over and said, “I’ll purchase your plane ticket back to New York. You need to leave. Get as far away from here as possible. Take Jayce—”

“Jayce?” Cami interrupted, her face folding in confusion.

Marcus nodded. “He’ll learn to control his wolf’s urges soon enough. I heard the way he spoke to you, Cami. In the woods. He cares about you, very much. He can give you a life, a
normal
life.”

“What about you?” Her voice surprisingly vulnerable, even to her own ears, and she could tell he had to force himself to meet her gaze.

“I’ll stay here.”

Her voice got small. “But—”

“But
nothing
, Cami,” Marcus growled, his tone firm, leaving no room for argument. “It’s not safe for you here. And you’re not safe around me. I almost killed Jayce because I smelled him on you. Last night, I nearly killed the man talking to you at the bar.”

“He was a hunter,” Cami defended. “It was my fault, I got drunk—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marcus said shortly. “Once my Beast starts to rampage…he’s very single-minded. And I can’t have that hanging over you.”

“Would it be better if you Marked me?”

Marcus’s expression went slack with surprise. “What?”

“You know. That Mark…thingy. Would it make your bear feel less threatened?” Cami pushed her hair over her shoulders, ponytailing it back. “Because I’ll do it. If it makes this less complicated.”

“Cami…” Marcus’s voice was pained, his patience straining. “You don’t want a life with me. I’ll never take you out to dinner and a movie. We won’t go on dates; we’ll go on territorial walks in the woods. Instead of a wedding dress and an engagement ring, you’ll get a bite mark embedded into your skin. My Beast will flare up any time a man comes near you.”

“So?” Cami said, but her voice lacked its usual luster.

He said nothing, but his expression spoke volumes. Soul-crushing, definitive apology. A
breakup
face.

“Well…” Cami let out a humorless breath of a laugh. “You know, from someone like you, I expected something better than the old ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”

A whole lot of nothing from Marcus. His mind was made up. “I’m sorry,” he said, but she shoved her chair away from the table and let it squeak across the floor before the words fully left his mouth.
I’m sorry
. The two most humiliating words in the English language.

“Whatever, Marcus. Have the house. Have Tyburn. Have your bad
Teen Wolf
spinoff. I don’t care. I’m outties.”

Before Marcus could say anything else, Cami ran upstairs and shut her bedroom door hard behind her. In her exit, she heard the fireplace burst to life, tall flames roaring up the chimney. She pressed her back flat against the door and tried to catch her breath, her heart hammering in her chest.

Emotion fluttered around her rib cage and made her sick.
Tuck it away
. She imagined a small, sturdy pink box inside of her. She closed it. Locked it. Wrapped a couple heavy-duty chains around it for good measure. And sunk it in the deepest, darkest ocean, weighted with stones.

Anger, though. That wasn’t as easily contained. It tendrilled out, tingling in her fingertips. Her hands refused to be still, so she grabbed her duffle bag off of the floor and threw it onto the bed. She snatched up handfuls of clothes and started shoving them in the bag, filling it up. No folding, no neat and delicate packing process; she was all arms, spinning like a whirligig. Cleaning clothes up off the floor, out of her drawers, shoving makeup away, jewelry. Erasing all traces that she’d ever been back here, getting rid of any evidence of this awful nightmare of a trip.

A clattering broke through her hot rage. Cami glanced down, holding the dress she’d worn the first day she’d stepped foot over the threshold of this house. On the floor lay a small brass key.

It took Cami a second to realize what the key was for. That first day, she’d stopped in the office of her mother’s lawyer, Adeline Cortez. Who had given her two keys: one to the house on Argonne, and a second to her mom’s lockbox.

Huh. Totally forgot about that key.
Well
. She picked it up, twisted it in her fingers. Might as well make one more pit stop before she turned tail and never saw this place again.