Alpha Beast (Southern Shifters Book 8) Read online

  Either way, she had a feeling that she needed to get away from them all. Although where that left her best friend, Sienna she had no idea. If this pregnancy information was true, then she'll be more vulnerable than ever.

  Marcy's heart ached. She needed to talk to Sienna and get to the bottom of this entire situation. She sighed.

  Except she had a promotion to accept and a move across the state to make.

  A stabbing pain in her frontal cortex brought Marcy out of her head and back into the present danger she still faced. She moaned.

  "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Bhric had turned her to face him so fast the pain tripled in her head.

  "Headache," she gasped.

  "Shit. This is bad. We need to get her to Simon."

  "Agreed." Gage mumbled. "But first, we've got to do something about--"

  Gage stopped mid sentence and they all turned to see what had happened.

  Marcy's eyes widened at what she saw. The giant of a man from before had come around the corner and he was butt naked.

  And he looked pissed and bigger than before if that were even possible. Marcy sucked in a breath.

  Again, Bhric shoved her behind him and Gage flanked her.

  "I thought he was with you?" she asked.

  "He is. But I'm not taking any chances." Bhric's gruff answer did not settle her nerves a bit.

  "Calder," Bhric said his name, but she would have sworn it was some sort of secret command. It made her heart stutter and she held her breath.

  "I'm fine now."

  The approaching man stopped several feet in front of them and she tried to peek around Bhric to get another look. Of course, with a man wider than a linebacker blocking her it wasn't going to happen unless he allowed it.

  "We need to get her out of here. You sure you're good?"

  She didn't know if the man nodded or what, but Bhric must have been satisfied when they all began moving again.

  Silently they moved to the stairwell and walked down the three flights to the first floor, but instead of the lobby or the parking garage, they took the opposite doors toward the loading bay.

  "Why are we going this way? My car's in the garage."

  Bhric shook his head. "Forget the car. We've got our bikes stashed out back."

  She jerked away from him. "I don't want to leave my car here. I'm going to need it."

  Bhric frowned at her. "What's more important? The car or getting out of here in one piece?"

  That question sobered her. So maybe her head wasn't in the right place. "Excuse me. I'm new at this cloak and dagger crap."

  Bhric smirked and grabbed her hand again and steered her toward the back entrance of the hospital.

  There were so many things wrong with this scenario she couldn't seem to land on anything particular. They were going into the dark bowels of a building full of sickness and death with a naked man leading the way.

  Eventually they emerged from the building and crossed a small parking lot and a row of large trash bins. They headed into the tree line. A pit of dread settled in her stomach as she followed. Gage was still behind her. She could hear his footsteps in the grass and occasionally his breathing.

  That gave her a little comfort. Gage she kind of knew, but more importantly Sienna trusted him implicitly.

  True to Bhric's word, a few minutes later they entered a row of thick bushes to reveal three motorcycles hidden from sight.

  Big, black machines that would hardly be considered nondescript or not noticeable. "Do I even want to know why you parked out here instead of the garage? I mean that's not normal."

  Bhric pulled his bike to an upright position and straddled the massive metal frame on a leather seat. "Never said anything about normal."

  When she frowned at him, obviously hoping he'd get the message that his non answer sucked, he sighed.

  "We didn't know what the situation inside looked like when we got here. So we prepared for all contingencies, including an alternate route of escape."

  "So, what you're saying is that you are like a boy scout. Always prepared."

  He stared at her with those lethally intense dark eyes. "I might be prepared for anything, but a boy scout I'm not. So don't pin your hopes on that notion."

  While she got his message loud and clear, her mind got snagged on a different part of that sentence. "You're prepared for anything?"

  She didn't mean to make the question come out sounding quite so husky or sexual, but it did. And there was no taking it back now.

  A slight smile crept across his face. "I can be ready for anything you need, babe. Just say the word."

  She wasn't one hundred percent sure they were talking about the same thing, but that didn't stop her brain from going straight to sex. She suddenly wanted to know what it would feel like to be pinned to a bed by his massive frame. Or maybe a wall, or a desk...

  "Hop on. We'll deal with your anything when we get somewhere safe."

  A dark part of Marcy, the one that couldn't stop thinking about sex all the time, didn't want to wait until they were safe. Maybe safe was overrated.

  And maybe she'd finally allowed her sex addled brain to take her to crazy town. Sex was great. Hell, it could be amazing. But it wasn't worth risking her life over.

  She walked over to the motorcycle and swung her leg over behind the man currently scrambling her brains. She had a feeling being on a machine that vibrated between her legs and forced her to hold on tight to a man she couldn't get out of her head was not going to make this situation anymore bearable.

  She turned her head and sucked in air. She watched Gage climb onto his bike and the now dressed Calder do the same. Where had he gotten clothes? She then spied the leather saddlebags attached to each one the of their bikes and imagined them filled with all kinds of things. Clothes, maybe guns and bullets. Hell, maybe even condoms. He did say he was prepared for anything.

  As the motorcycles shot into the still inky darkness of the early morning hours, Marcy pressed her cheek to Bhric's back and let loose with the grin she couldn't suppress.

  Ready for anything indeed.

  9

  One minute they were racing off of the hospital grounds with Marcy clinging to Bhric's extremely hard body and the next they were surrounded by other bikers with guns pointed at them.

  She hadn't noticed anything wrong until Bhric's body tensed and not in a good way. Something had gone seriously wrong. She looked up and saw one of the men from the hospital driving a bike and pointing some sort of handgun in their direction.

  She screamed, hanging on for dear life as Bhric slammed on the brakes and did a complete one eighty turn in almost the blink of an eye. She didn't care if that sounded like a cliché in her head. She'd gone into full on panic mode with nowhere to hide.

  Just like in the hospital, Calder took the lead and Gage took up the rear. It was then it dawned on her that they were being protective. They weren't doing anything by accident. Either they would make sure their leader wasn't shot by laying down their own lives, or it was her they wanted to protect.

  Gunshots erupted as the three bikes bobbed and weaved through the mob of cars and bikes on the highway. It would not only be a miracle if they didn't die, but also if no one else who happened to be on the road wasn't shot as well.

  What kind of insanity had she been swept into?

  They rode like this for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes. Fear had seized her everything and it was all she could do to hold on and keep breathing at the same time.

  She closed her eyes tight and held on, waiting for that one bullet that would strike her down. Why hadn't she insisted on them taking her car? There had to be more protection inside her little Fiat, right? All these random thoughts about statistics and dying deluged her mind.

  How many people died each year from gunshot wounds? How many hospital emergencies involving guns did her hospital manage each month? Would it be any different at St. Josephs?

  So caught up in fear and sur
vival and death she didn't even realize they had stopped until Bhric twisted and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into his lap.

  His hands went everywhere as tears rolled down her face.

  "I'm so sorry, Marcy. Are you hurt anywhere?"

  She tried to answer, but only a sob came out. He traced her arms and then her legs, he felt along her back and across her stomach. After which she finally managed to shake her head before she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face into his neck as the torrent of tears continued to stream from her eyes.

  "It's okay, babe. We're okay. You're safe." He pulled her free from around him and held her face in his hands. "You don't have to be afraid. I swear to you I will always keep you safe."

  "I don't know what I did to deserve this."

  "You did nothing. This is my fault. I've been keeping an eye on you and my enemies somehow found out. Now they want to go through you to hurt me."

  "Then tell them that's not possible. We don't even know each other. Until today we'd never even met. Not officially."

  His eyes shuttered closed and his brow furrowed with worry lines. Part of her wanted to reach up and smooth them out. A desire that truly made no sense. He may have been one of the most rugged and beautiful men she'd ever met, but he was hardly her first. She liked men--a lot. But she did not lose her mind over men--ever.

  "We have met before. You just don't remember it."

  She pulled back and twisted her mouth into a firm disagreeing frown. "I have an excellent memory and there is no way I would ever forget meeting someone like you. You're like a beautiful freight train that no one can look away from."

  "Don't you mean wreck?"

  She shrugged. "I turn my clichés into whatever I want. You might be hard to turn away from, but that has nothing to do with you being a wreck and everything to do with you being so damned gorgeous it hurts."

  He smiled then. An incredible fifty watt thing of beauty that nearly took her breath away. It should be illegal for one man to look that good.

  "Gorgeous, huh?"

  She smiled back at him. "Don't let it go to your head. A too big ego can wipe out pretty in a heartbeat."

  Her mountain man shook his head. "Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

  "All the time. Doesn't change a thing, babe," she said.

  Bhric burst out laughing, which turned out to be a deep melodic sound that had magical powers. As in she felt it right between her legs.

  OMG. He had magical pussy powers. She snorted, jerking loose and lost her balance. She flailed her arms and tried to find something to catch her before she landed on the ground face first.

  Lucky for her he appeared to have excellent reflexes as he caught her and pulled her back into his arms.

  "Maybe we should go inside before you actually hurt yourself." He lifted off from the bike with her in his arms and she marveled at the ease of which he carried her. She didn't think of herself as fat, but she certainly had meat on her bones. It made her fluffy.

  "Where are we?"

  He continued to carry her through the garage and into the house through a set of automatic sliding doors.

  "A friend's house. Sort of. We needed a safe place to hide and this is a veritable fortress."

  "A friend who happens to live in Sweetwater?"

  He stopped and looked down at her, confusion written all over his face. "We left Sweetwater hours ago, Marcy."

  "We did?" How could she have missed that? Oh yeah. Eyes closed in full freak out mode, that's how.

  "Then where are we?"

  "Deep in the mountains, between my place and yours. Someplace no one will dare bother us."

  He continued into the kitchen and she felt her jaw drop at the sheer size and opulence of the place. "Uhm...Is your friend loaded or something?"

  "Or something," he grumbled.

  He didn't look too happy about the 'or something' but she decided to not pursue it for now. There were so many questions to be asked that getting the details about his friend seemed pretty low on the priority scale.

  "You can put me down now," she said.

  He grunted and slowly eased her down until her feet touched the floor. "I liked having you in my arms."

  She looked at him, shocked he'd said that. This strange pull she felt to a virtual stranger puzzled her. "What did you mean earlier when you said we'd met before? You didn't mean literally, right? Cause I still feel adamant I would have remembered."

  Bhric's eye twitched for a moment before he fully released her and looked away. Had she imagined that? What the hell was going on?

  "A couple of months ago you came to see Sienna. We met then."

  "That's impossible. A couple of months ago I was..."

  Wait. A couple of months ago-- She mentally calculated the weeks and events that had occurred since then. The timing was about right.

  "A couple of months ago you were what?" he asked.

  She narrowed her eyes and looked him in the eye. He already knew. But how was that possible? Unless...

  "I was going to say a couple of months ago I was no where near Sienna. But there are a couple of days that are kind of fuzzy."

  "Fuzzy how?"

  "As in I don't remember." The heat of embarrassment flooded her face. "I woke up one morning on my couch and I couldn't remember anything after work from two days before. But why do I get the feeling you already know that?"

  She took several steps away from him, renewed fear making her leery of him once again.

  He shrugged. "I wasn't there when you woke up, but I'm the one who left you there."

  10

  Bhric knew he was walking on dangerous ground by bringing that weekend up. He couldn't tell her that he'd had her memories taken away or why without putting her at more risk. But he didn't like the sense he got from her about them being strangers.

  They weren't. Far from it. Even if she didn't remember, he did. He remembered every intoxicated moment they spent together that night as if it were yesterday. Those memories had gotten him through many lonely nights since and he hated they didn't share them.

  And the attack at the hospital wasn't helping matters. Shifters with guns? That kind of insanity could have gotten her killed.

  "What do you mean you left me there?" Her voice rose on every word as the tension in her voice tightened.

  "We were celebrating the union of Gage and Sienna. You drank a lot of tequila. No one thought it was safe for you to return alone, so I brought you home. You don't remember any of that?"

  She bit her bottom lip and shook her head. Why the fuck was he testing her like this? Melena's spells never failed.

  Because part of you wants her to remember, dickhead.

  He wasn't sure whether that was him or the beast. Whichever didn't really matter, only the fact that thinking like that was a sure pathway to danger. For her and him.

  "Did we--" She hesitated and her lip trembled.

  "No," he lied again. They had and not a drop of liquor had been involved.

  "Well, then I'm going to kill Sienna for not telling me. She knows that tequila is not my friend. Although I've never had a black out that severe before. But it's all starting to make sense and god dammit the least she could have done was fill in the blanks."

  Bhric barely heard a word she said. Between the adrenaline still running thick in his blood and his sudden fixation on her mouth, he could only think about one thing. The potent memory of being inside his mate for the first time and the blow to his sanity it had created.

  They'd been on the bike still making their way through the mountains toward Sweetwater when Marcy had asked him to stop. He'd pulled over to the side of the road, making sure to move far enough from the highway they would be out of sight.

  He didn't like to be followed or spied on no matter the situation. She climbed off the back and paced alongside him.

  "I don't feel any different? Are you sure this is going to work?" she asked.

  Although while she said that he co
uld see the nervous agitation as she shook her arms and moved back and forth in front of him. To call her unsettled felt like an understatement.

  "I'm sure, Marcy. Powerful spells take time. Melena warned us it wouldn't take affect until you slept. She wanted to give me time to get you somewhere safe."

  She rubbed at her arms and hugged her shoulders. "Well, I can't decide whether I should be scared or what. It's freaking me out."

  He was actually getting a little worried watching her. As her panic rose, so did the beast inside him. He needed to put a stop to this before her anxiety drove them both insane.

  "Come here," he held out his hand and urged her to take it.

  To his surprise, she took it immediately.

  He gently pulled her to him, well inside his personal space. This close, he couldn't resist touching her more. He reached up and stroked his fingers down her cheek before tucking some of her loose hair behind her ear.

  "You have nothing to be frightened of. Once you've forgotten about us, your world will return to normal. Absorbing as much information as you did in a few hours would make anyone nervous."

  "Maybe," she muttered, her fingers strumming against her arm. "I need a distraction. Something to take my mind in another direction.

  "Tell me what you need. I'm here to help." He couldn't stand to see her like this. But fear and worry could do a number on even the strongest of people.

  "You might not like my answer," she whispered, looking down at the road where her foot tapped.

  "Try me, babe. I doubt you could ask for anything that I couldn't handle."

  She looked up then, her gaze intent but still wary. "Sex. I need to have sex."

  Every fiber in Bhric's body froze. Not in a million years would he have guessed that's what she would say. He forced air into his lungs with a deep breath as he willed the animal to stay calm.

  "I told you that you wouldn't like it." She started to turn and walk away and Bhric caught her arm and stopped her.

  "Not like it is the complete wrong set of words for what I feel right now." She looked up at the sky, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze. "I am surprised, however."