Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(44)

Eden laughed. “I’ve mated a warrior.”

“Through and through.”

“Then take me, warrior. And don’t let go.”

****

Set wriggled his now-attached tongue, disgusted at himself for letting Tariq fall into the arms of that whore. For thousands of years he’d kept them apart, and in the span of a mere two days, he’d lost a key component in his plan to win the games and take over the universe.

“Ziyad.”

His servant appeared and bowed.

“Have we located the Elixir?”

“Not yet, sire. But the Dogs are convinced they know who has it. A valkyrie.”

“Wonderful,” Set said, the sour taste of defeat scratching the back of his throat.

“There is one bit of good news.” Ziyad sounded painfully pleased, and Set’s interest perked. Ziyad was never truly happy unless causing pain.

“Oh?”

“Yes, sire. The girl has conceived. Your child will be born early, in just another month.”

At least everything hadn’t gone to pot. The spell Set had put on the woman to speed up her pregnancy had succeeded. He’d used the spell on the dead and on godly minions, but never on mortals. Then again, his seed had changed her in ways he hadn’t foreseen.

“Excellent. I want you to keep an eye on her. Once the child is born, you may have her. But until then, I want Zaliki taken care of. My spawn will need a warm home while I reconfigure a few things.”

“Yes, sire.”

Set shrugged. Some days were better than others. Now to find that damn valkyrie and get that vial before the child was born…





Alpha’s Sacrifice



A Fallen Alpha Novella



By Rebecca Royce





Alpha’s Sacrifice

Hayden Chaucer leads a small, but loyal pack in the Wine Country of California. Scarred from his years serving the former Alpha Prime, Hayden is ready for anything—except the arrival of a human madwoman who claims she’s lived a life with him. Not only does she know that he’s a werewolf and many more of his secrets, she’s his mate and now he will do anything to protect her and his pack.

Consumed by her visions and held captive by the True Believers for years, Chelsea flees to the only person who can help her…the wolf whose passion burns in her blood. Desperate to convince Hayden before her fleeting visions abandon her completely, all she knows is she must save his life, even at the cost of her sanity.





Chapter One


Hayden sat back in his office chair and listened to the sounds filtering up from downstairs. Nine of his pack members were giving wine tastings to humans who had made appointments to try Chaucer Family Wines. Some of the humans were on vacation and some of them lived in Napa and had heard the buzz about the blends happening at Chaucer. None of them knew that the Merlot or the Pinots they sipped were produced every year by the local wolf pack, who, in between creating wines served in the finest restaurants in the world or stored in the wine cellars of connoisseurs everywhere, shifted into wolves every time the moon became full.

And Hayden preferred it that way.

His office bordered the living accommodations for his pack. One quarter of the winery was actually an elaborately constructed series of bedrooms so that his pack could come and go without having to find quarters somewhere where they might be discovered by the outside world. None of them had a lot of privacy, but the twelve members of his wolf pack didn’t seem to be complaining. They were all grateful to get to live in such a beautiful location that at least, for now, kept them undiscovered.

He wanted to go downstairs and watch people enjoy what, outside of his pack, he lived for. Instead, he worked. Turning his attention from the happy noises in his winery, he stared back at his computer screen. An email he couldn’t ignore, waited for his attention.

Another death. Clarkson Petra, Alpha of the Austin Pack, had been murdered, along with most the strong males who swore allegiance to him. All evidence pointed to it being humans who ended their lives and not, as it would have been when the world still spun on the correct axis, other werewolves.

It was the third such murder in the last three months, and there was no question as to who was responsible for the acts: the True Believers, the human group determined to eliminate werewolves from the face of the earth. They’d always been around, but lately they seemed to have gotten stirred up and more active. They were succeeding where once they’d been a big joke.

No one in the werewolf community laughed anymore.

Hayden rubbed at his eyes. Cyrus Fennell, the Alpha of the Manhattan Pack, had sent him the news. They’d shared a strained but productive relationship since childhood. They’d both attended the Alpha training camps at Lucian’s, the now deceased Alpha Prime, farm. In any case, Cyrus hated Hayden’s brother, Savage, with a passion, which was why there was virtually no communication between the New York and San Francisco wolf packs. Sitting quietly with his small pack in Napa, Hayden had been the acting secret go-between when talks had to happen, but no one else could know about the conversations.

Cyrus wasn’t emailing because he needed Savage this time. The other Alpha wanted Hayden’s particular talents. Cyrus wanted him to do what he hadn’t done since he’d stepped away from Lucian’s special counsel ten years earlier.