The Omegas Excerpt:
Chapter One
Eric strode into the living room holding an envelope. “I found the solution to our problem.”
Sugar uncurled her legs from under her and sat straighter as she watched Eric’s lanky form approach. They had both survived growing-up in the same low income neighborhood. Friendship forged in such fires never died.
He handed her a letter and joined the rest of his pack lounging on her mismatched furniture.
Sugar examined the front, then the back of it. “Pal Robi Incorporated. What’s this?”
“It’s our salvation.” Eric shifted in his seat to lean forward. “Read it to everyone.”
She glanced at him with a questioning look. What was he up to? Slidding her fingernail under the corner, she tore it open. The letter was printed on good quality paper with a huge golden company emblem stamped at the top. An errant blond curl slid in front of her eyes and she shoved it back behind her ear.
To the Omega pack:
I have reviewed the details of your plight. Pal Robi Incorporated deals mostly in security issues, but I find your problem worthy of my personal attention. Enclosed you will find a non-negotiable contract. Please review it closely, and have your signature notarized. The return fax number is listed on the contract so proceedings can begin. Mail the original to my office. Thank you for your business.
Sincerely,
Daedalus Pal Robi
Cold claws of fear gripped her stomach. What had Eric done? “You hired a vampire?” Her shout shattered the silence around them.
The other wolf shifters responded to her outburst with low growls directed at Eric.
What had she gotten herself tangled in? She wasn’t pack, just a plain vanilla human. The Omegas were her neighbors and also her closest friends, each of them an outcasts from their old packs.
Driven by loneliness, Eric had solicited Sugar to help him search for others like himself. Werewolves with no attitude. Geeks of the underworld. Pansies of the paranormal.
Their friendship spanned years, since high school, when he’d rescued her from a home of drug abuse. Eric had treated her like a little sister, advising her on life in general. When he survived his werewolf attack, both their worlds shattered and their roles reversed.
Eric found four others to join him: Sam, Tyler, Katrina and Robert. No alphas ruled in this pack. They needed each other, so they became a family. All five lived in the apartment next to her.
Eyes wide, Eric held his hands out in front of him. “Mr. Pal Robi is offering to teach us how to fight.”
Sugar tilted her head as she surveyed her friend. “Yeah, for a substantial fee. How can you guys afford this?” He always thought with his heart.
Eric looked at his pack, pleading. “Before you make any judgments, let’s have Sugar read the contract out loud.”
She held it in front of her.
This is an agreement between Pal Robi Incorporated and Eric, Sam, Katrina, Tyler, and Robert, from here forward to be known as the Omegas.
Scope:
1. Pal Robi Inc. will provide to the Omegas, training in defense, hand-to-hand combat and small weapons use.
2. Training will take place for the duration of the period beginning with the trainer’s arrival until the challenge date.
3. Combat training is inherently dangerous. Pal Robi Inc. is not responsible for injury or death sustained during such training.
4. Trainer will not intentionally hurt and-or kill any Omega during the period of this agreement.
Responsibilities of the Omegas:
1. Omegas will provide trainer from Pal Robi with appropriate lodgings.
2. Omegas will provide daylight security of said trainer.
3. Omegas will submit to the direction of the trainer without question for the duration of the training.
Fees:
1. Omegas agree to pay Pal Robi Inc. $8,000 in cash prior to the beginning of training.
2. In addition, Omegas will provide the trainer with fresh, consumable blood upon request.
Penalties:
1. Failure to provide payment renders this agreement null and void.
2. Failure to abide by the terms specified represents a breach of contract which renders the agreement null and void.
3. Breach of contract will result in an immediate investigation. Vengeance will be swift and unmerciful.
Sugar placed the contract on her lap while waiting for their reactions.
Robert held up his hand to speak, like a kid in a classroom.
She sighed. How could this pack of puppies fight a pack of wolves? “Robert, speak up. You don’t need to ask permission to talk anymore, remember?”
He grinned sheepishly. “What do they mean ‘vengeance will be swift and unmerciful?’”
They turned to Eric, but it was Tyler who answered. “It means if anything happens to the vamp, we can kiss our asses goodbye.”
Sugar folded the letter closed. She agreed with Tyler. Vampires were bad news. Literally, all over the news swearing they had turned a new leaf and won’t hunt humans anymore. Wouldn’t catch her becoming a donor any time soon.
Eric stood and faced his pack mates, staring at each one in turn. “How can we not hire him? The Ayumu pack officially challenged us. One of us has to fight and beat one of their alphas in a month. There’s no other way.”
“We will be absorbed again,” Katrina whispered in her thick Asian accent, as she hugged her knees tight against her chest. Being a submissive female in a pack equated to being anyone’s meat. Sugar had tried to help Katrina come to terms with those old wounds, but they kept her captive.
Tyler shuffled closer to Katrina, petting her long, black, silken tresses. She shrank from him, fear etched on her delicate features.
He looked at Sugar and shrugged.
She crumpled the letter in her hand. How did preying on weaker members of the pack equate to strength? She just couldn’t understand shifter culture.
“You should run away.” The weight of Sugar’s words hung in the sudden silence.
Eric crossed his arms. “There will always be another Ayumu pack wherever we go. We’re finally happy. We have jobs, friends, and a home. It’s all worth fighting for, right guys?”
Sugar watched her friends’ expressions harden and her heart sank. So it would be a fight.
They nodded to each other, sealing their fates.
There went their quiet life.
Worst of all, a vampire would be moving in next door.
* * * *
Daedalus Pal Robi strode across the foyer of his house and tossed his car keys to a passing vampire. “Can you park it the garage for me? I’m done hunting for the night.” He pointed to a piece of wood protruding from his abdomen. That was a close call. He would let the others think the vampire-gone-bad he’d been hunting and finally killed had done this. In truth, a clumsy fall almost ended his long existence.
The human police were discovering decapitated bodies in the river. They thought a serial killer responsible so far. Daedalus knew better, decapitation was an excellent way to hide bite marks, as well as burning the bodies or shredding the flesh to make it look like a shifter kill. As Nosferatu Prime of Northeastern America, it was his responsibility to take care of these issues before the humans did. Vampires didn’t need more bad publicity. History did that for them.
Daedalus killed the lazy son-of-demon. It didn’t take much effort tracking and staking him. In his over-confidence, Daedalus had spun around to leave and tripped on a fucking extension cord. It sent him flying face forward onto an antique wood chair, hence the chair leg sticking out of his stomach. A little to the left and two inches higher and a pile of dust would all that would have been left of him.
His nest mate stared at the injury. “Do you need help, Master?”
“Nah. Just a flesh wound. It won’t take long to heal.” He closed the door to his study behind him and crossed the room to the fireplace. Leaning against the mantle with one hand, he wrapped the other around the wood shaft. He took a deep breath and yanked the son of a bitch out.
“Fuck.” Wood burned. It didn’t matter where in the body it stabbed him. He tossed the piece into the fire and rested his forehead against the mantle. Blood trickled from the wound in a steady thin stream. He’d have to feed to finish the healing process.
He pressed his hand to the wound and retreated to his comfy chair close to the fireplace. That was too close. If he’d perished, how would people remember him? The Infernal Champion of the Brotherhood, Vile Butcher of Babylon, and Subjugator of the Accords, to name a few of his titles.
For the last two hundred years he’d been trying to be good. Whatever that meant. It started out as an experiment but over the last century it had transformed into a true desire. After an age of depravity and lack of role models, he still wasn’t clear what he should and shouldn’t be doing.
The Vampire Council ordered no killing of humans so he enforced that law to the best of his ability. If a few unsavory ones vanished in the night and nobody missed them then he turned the other way. Ridding the human race of evil doers seemed good.
Someone knocked on the door.
He jerked in his chair at the sharp noise and stifled a moan at the stabbing pain. Careless again. Too lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard the footsteps. He’d grown complacent in job surrounded by his loyal nest. “What?” Yanking his leather jacket closed, he hid his healing injury.
The door cracked open and Clementine, his vampire secretary, stepped inside, her eyes downcast as always. She hurried across the room and handed him a large business envelope. “This arrived while you were gone, Master.”
“Thank you.” He glanced at the return address, glimpsing the word Chicago, and fingered the edges of the seal. It wouldn’t behoove a Prime to tear it open like a boy on Christmas morning. “Could you call for a donor to attend me, Clementine? I feel like eating in tonight.”
She bobbed her head and backed out of the room. One day she’d stop fearing him, he hoped.
Ripping open the envelope, he saw what he’d been hoping for. The shifters signed the contract. He could afford to leave his nest for a few months and take this small side job. He grinned and buzzed his personal security team.
“Yes, Master?”
“We’re going to Chicago tomorrow night. Come by my study so we can make arrangements.” Training a few shifters to defend themselves seemed like a good thing to do.
Content Warning: Graphic sexual content.
The Alpha Excerpt:
Chapter One
Tyler followed Eric into the kitchen with Robert and Sam in tow. “What’s wrong with you, Eric? You almost lost control of your beast.”
Running his fingers through his hair, he tried to hide the blush heating his cheeks. Spice is home. He’d lost hope of ever seeing her again. The desire in her eyes when he loosened her jacket and the smell from her pussy set his beast-side on a craze.
I, Eric Turner, the geek next door, turned her on. The sexiest, most confident girl he’d ever met, his high school obsession.
“Sorry, she took me off guard.” He looked at Robert, his calm, overly serious second in command of the pack, who shook his head at him. “Damn, I almost changed in front of her. What a disaster.” Eric’s mouth went dry.
Sam handed him a glass of water. If anyone understood losing control of his beast, it was him. Ever since the Omegas conquered the Ayumu werewolf pack, their females kept knocking on the door. The bodybuilder had trouble refusing them, and his beast liked the attention. He didn’t completely transform mid-intercourse anymore but they heard his howls.
Eric needed to stop thinking of the pack as Ayumu. They were all Omegas now and he their alpha. The sip of water he tried to swallow went down the wrong way and blocked his windpipe. Nothing came out, not a cough and not a breath.
“Eric?” Sam asked.
Katrina scurried into the kitchen. “I make tea. You want some?” She stopped. “What is wrong with Eric?”
He coughed out a manly squeak and pointed to his throat.
Redheaded Tyler pushed pass Sam and pounded on his back.
Not a moment later Spice sashayed into the room. Even in his distress, her presence drew him like a magnet to iron.
A solid smack on his back set off a cough. He expelled the water from his throat, and it landed on her generous, rounded chest.
She stood with arms out at her sides, and her mouth hung open.
“Smooth, real smooth.” Sam patted him on the shoulder and exited the room. The others followed in silence but a few seconds later, Eric heard their restrained laughter from the direction of the living room.
He grabbed a dish towel from the rack by the sink and raced over to her. “I’m sorry.” Without a coherent thought in his scrambled brain, he dried her tight, white sweater.
Tension in her shoulders as he bent over to stroke around her curves clued him in that he’d done another boneheaded maneuver.
Her intense stare weakened his knees as he glanced up with her breast cupped in his hand. The urge to fondle it sent a shiver up his spine, but the ingrained gentleman inside of him beat down the beast, who wanted more than just a touch.
He jerked his hand away. “Sorry.” Alphas shouldn’t apologize that much. Daedalus would kick his ass if he heard him.
Eric straightened and swept the annoying hair out of his eyes. Why did he decide to let it grow? Who cared if all those guys in romance books had long freaking hair?
“Don’t be.” She gave him a small, seductive smile.
He kept waiting for this wet dream to end.
“Who’s Daedalus?”
Nothing more deflating to a man’s ego than to ask about the resident stud vampire. “Sugar’s boyfriend.”
“The one she has to ask permission to cut her hair. Then you’re not together?”
“No.” That question showed how much she paid attention to them as kids. He and Sugar had been best friends since sixth grade. Dating her would be like dating a sister. Even though they were identical twins, Spice got placed in a different category from Sugar. She topped the list for the five-finger-knuckle-shuffle when he needed it.
She leaned closer and ran her finger down his chest. It left a trail of heat along his skin. “What’s happened since I left two years ago?” Gesturing around the room, she raised an eyebrow. “New house, new boyfriend, new friends, and…” She stepped to press against his body and gazed at him with green sparkling eyes. “New Eric.”
Where did he start? We hired a Nosferatu vampire to teach us how to fight about a year ago, who by the way, is banging your twin sister. Oh yeah, all of us are werewolves, except Sugar, and I defeated the local alpha in a fight to the death so it made me top wolf in Chicago.
“Nothing much. We pay rent to Sugar and live here.” The old Eric she referred to still resided inside of him. He still liked Star Trek, ‘live long and prosper,’ worked from home for a computer software company, and read as much as Sugar.
His heart twisted a little. She didn’t like him; she liked the changes the beast made inside of him. After the werewolf attack, his eyesight returned to twenty-twenty. He got stronger and faster, which meant leaner and more muscular.
She moved back and placed her hands on her hips. “Six of you live under this roof?”
“Seven. Daedalus lives here too.”
Shaking her head, she grinned and looked at the floor. “Unbelievable.”
He heard the front door open and close. “I’ve got Thai.” Sugar’s voice, higher and more musical than Spice’s, called out.
“What’s going on?” Daedalus must have given her a ride from work. “Why are you guys so serious?”