Scarlet - Alpha Marked, Book I

Alpha Marked: Book
I

Scarlet

Celia Kyle

April 2013

Published by Summerhouse Publishing.
Copyright, Celia Kyle. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains
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Summerhouse Publishing

http://summerhousepublishing.com

Celia Kyle

http://celiakyle.com

Editors

Chris Stout

Gwen Hayes

Cover Artist

Celia Kyle

This is a work of fiction. The
characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the
author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is
completely coincidental.

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The damned thing wouldn’t burn.
Scarlet had tried. Twice.

The invitation had appeared bright and
early, popping onto her counter the moment the clock had struck
8:01 A.M. and she’d officially hit thirty.

Unmated and thirty.

Fuuuccckkk.

She glared at the pristine page, at
the cream linen that boasted the handwritten words requesting her
attendance at the coming Gathering.

Request. Right.

She glanced at her scorched sink,
frowned and wondered if steel polish would remove the marks. That
thought brought her back to the idea of burning the invite and she
wondered if the local witch could help her out. Maybe…

The shrill ring of her phone busted in
on her illegal wonderings. If she were honest, which she didn’t
want to be, she had already broken the law by attempting to burn
the stupid paper. Having a Mark meant she had to adhere to the same
rules that governed the furballs. So, no circumventing a wolfy
summons. Even if she wasn’t a wolf.

With a sigh, she abandoned her spot at
the counter and snatched up the phone. Holding the handset between
her cheek and shoulder she greeted her caller. “Heya.”

The caller screamed. Scarlet took a
peek at the microwave clock. 8:14 A.M.

“
So, you got your invite.”
She smirked, kind of glad she wouldn’t be the only one forcefully
attending the upcoming annual Gathering.

Scarlet was one of three, the
first-born of the Wickham fraternal triplets. Each of them as
different from the other as the stars in the sky. Thankfully, it’d
only be her and Gabriella attending. The third, Whitney, had been
born sans the necessary birthmark, so she wouldn’t be receiving the
mandatory summons. Lucky bitch.

“
They can’t do
this!”

Scarlet eased her ear from the
handset. “Apparently, they can.”

She wanted to say “duh”, but
refrained. They should have been prepared for this, should have had
some sort of plan. Like, Operation: What the Fuck to do When Forced
to Parade Ourselves in Front of Mate Hunting Wolves When We Hit
Thirty. Instead, Scarlet had pushed the eventuality from her mind,
conveniently forgetting that particular law. Apparently, Gabby had
done the same.

She fingered the unmarred invitation.
“I’m pretty sure Mom covered all this during the whole ‘What to
Expect When You’re Marked’ lessons.”

“
Quit being rational and
logical,” her sister snapped. “I’m too busy for this, Scarlet. You
need to do something. Go…do what you do.” She imagined Gabby waving
her hands around, fingers fluttering, and she smiled. Her sister in
a tizzy was something to watch.

Her mongrel cat Burger came sneaking
over and twined around her ankles. While listening to her sister
rant and rave at the injustice of their summoning, she fed her
sweet boy. Scraping out the rest of his organic, homemade cat food,
she stood and placed the empty container in the sink. She’d have to
make him more food for the pet sitter before she flew out to the
Gathering. Mentally, she ticked through the contents of her
freezer. He tended to like the shrimp and salmon more
than—

“
Are you even listening to
me?” Gabby’s screech nearly blew her eardrum.

“
Not really.” She stared
down at Burger. “Do you think I’ll have to get rid of my
cat?”

The thought poked at her heart and
deflated it. She’d rescued him when she first graduated from
college. It’d been her and Burger against the world.

“
Scarlet!” She heard her
sister panting and gasping with rage.

“
What? I mean, Burger’s a
cat, they’re wolves. I don’t want them eating him.” Silence met
her. “Just sayin’.”

Scarlet understood Gabby’s feelings,
sensed her sister near the edge of sanity, and there wasn’t a damn
thing she could do about the situation. She was as
freaked-the-fuck-out over the slip of paper as her sister, but she
dealt with things with humor. Humor few people
appreciated.

They’d both been born with a Mark, a
symbol of their inevitable mating to Alpha wolves.

And it’d be Alphas. Plural.
Not because they’d meet more than one wolf. No, because they’d
be
mating
more
than one wolf. Alphas ruled in pairs, the men sometimes related,
generally not. But there were always two.

Women in the Wickham line had been
partnering with the furballs for as long as they could remember,
though not necessarily every generation. Their mother hadn’t been
Marked and had happily settled with a lovely human man. But two out
of the three triplets had been born with the three-pointed,
spiraling symbol. Looking more like a scar than anything else, the
Mark was slightly raised and a hint darker than her natural skin
tone.

So she and Gabby would be mating a
pair of wolves. Subconsciously, she’d been waiting for the invite.
Once a Marked woman hit thirty and was still unmated, the Ruling
Alphas summoned the ladies to the annual Gathering to meet Alphas
from outside the female’s hometown.

Basically, werewolf speed
dating.

Sniff-sniff. Am I your
mate? No? Next!

The Alpha pairing could form at any
time. Once one wolf recognized a power that matched his own in
another wolf, they bonded. From there they either formed a new pack
or took over another. She was sure there was more secret furball
mumbo jumbo involved, but that was the extent of her non-mated
knowledge. Oh, she’d asked, and her mother had said: “You’ll find
out when you’re mated, dear.”

Great.

The problems with Alpha pairs arose
from the fact that both were controlling and dominant as hell.
Which is where the Marked came in. The ladies acted as the balance,
the one who kept the two calm. Sure, the guys could rule without
one; the world was just better if they had a mate at their side.
Less bloody, too.

She took a deep breath. She’d have to
travel and meet some wolves. If she found her Alphas, group sex
would occur, one male in her pussy and the other in her ass, some
scar-inducing biting, and voila, mates. She’d never had sex with
two men at once. So, yeah, that was scary as hell. But then again,
two men pleasuring her at the same time
had…possibilities.

“
Scarlet? I don’t think I
can keep two men happy.” A sniffle reached her.

“
Oh, honey.” She sighed.
Poor Gabby. She’d been through hell the past few years. She’d been
dating, regardless of the fact that she was Marked, and had fallen
in love several times. Only the men had torn her heart to shreds
and left a broken Gabriella in their wake. “You know none of that
is your fault. It’s theirs. We’ve talked about this.”

Another sniffle. “But Allen
said—”

“
No. Allen said a lot of
things. He also put his dick in other women. His cheating had
nothing to do with you.” Part of her wished she were a wolf. Then
she could have gone and torn that sorry excuse for a man apart.
“Good sex takes two people, and Gabby, I’ve seen you on the dance
floor. Your crappy sex life is so not your fault. Hips don’t
lie.”

“
I know, it’s
just—”

A low beep interrupted her sister and
Scarlet glanced at the caller ID. Whitney. “Hold on a
sec.”

Her gaze shot to the microwave clock.
8:36 A.M.

Scarlet flashed over to her other
sister. “Whit?”

“
It’s a mistake. Scarlet,
it has to be. Has to.” She heard the tears in her sister’s voice,
the heartbreak that filled every word. “Why are they doing this to
me? I’m not Marked, Scarlet. Isn’t that enough? I finally got over
not having the stupid Mark and now they’re messing with me like
this?” Whitney sobbed.

“
You got an invitation?
From the Ruling Alphas?”

“
Yes.” Her poor sister was
such a sensitive soul.

Anger bubbled in her chest,
churned and grew until she felt as if she’d explode beneath the
feelings coursing through her veins. Scarlet and Gabby had always
viewed the Marks as a sort of death sentence, seeing them as
something that stole their free will. Finding a mate was biological
and had nothing to do with emotions. No gentle “getting to know
each other” period like with human men. Relationships between a
Marked and wolves were more along the lines of:
You’re our mate. Bend over. We mate you now.
That’d be followed by a grunt.

At least, that’s what she’d
gotten from her mother’s explanations. Scarlet and Gabriella had
agreed that they’d put off mating as long as possible. The wolves
that claimed them could be total assholes, and they’d be stuck with
them for life. They’d decided to enjoy a little freedom before the
ax finally fell. And then they’d sort of forgotten about the whole
Gathering thing.
Oops.

Geez, even when she’d adopted her cat
from the shelter, she’d gotten a trial run.

Go to a Gathering voluntarily? Nu uh.
Over their dead bodies.

The only one who’d craved a Mark was
Whitney. Sweet, delicate Whitney. From the moment they began
playing dress-up, Whit was the gorgeous bride who married not one,
but two men. Two werewolves. She just didn’t carry a
Mark.

And through a weird twist of nature,
Alpha wolves didn’t mate with human women unless there was a Mark.
Single, non-Alphas only mated female furballs. It was two for a
human or nada. It had something to do with the way a girl wolf
interacted with two boy wolves and yada, yada… She’d sort of tuned
her mom’s voice out after that.