Huntress and The Alpha

2. Favorites

Irina

It was early morning as we headed back to Moscow. I leaned back on the plush leather seat of the council’s private jet and willed my muscles to relax. I’d made it back to the safe house on the outskirts of Barcelona only hours earlier.

I felt keyed up but needed sleep. I’d barely got to run on the treadmill at the safe house before we left. Demetri, the head of the Hunter Council, needed us back quickly. Who knew what for?

Nothing good, I’m sure. He would have communicated a minor mission remotely. Recalling us to the hunter councils’ primary training base in Russia usually meant big s**t in little China. We returned there as infrequently as possible as neither Alec nor I liked it there, and Erik also held a thinly veiled hatred for the place.

Training there as a child was brutal; it wasn’t a friendly childhood home. The facility was huge and mainly underground to hide its size from humans. Inside the building, it was white, clinical, and cold. It was a sea of emotionless faces attached to human-shaped weapons and reminded me of things I’d rather forget, for example, training in torture, where hunters took turns as torturers and tortured. Some hunters enjoyed 'practicing' far too much. For me, I allowed my dragon to have partial control as she liked the pain.

I suppressed a shiver and pushed the unwanted, sadistic thoughts from my mind; I needed to close the memories and visions before they engulfed me and triggered the ghosts of pain sealed forever in my synapses. I hated going back to that place.

The plane taxied, its engines roaring as it gathered speed; I felt the wheels jolt as they left the Spanish tarmac and headed us in the motherland’s direction. I sometimes wondered if a plane taking off was like taking flight as a dragon. Something I’d never thought to ask Erik about. I guessed if a dragon ended up being my mate, I’d maybe find out for myself. Alec’s theory was that once a pureblood hunter found their mate, they could be turned into a full shifter, provided one of their beasts was the same as their mates, a bit like hybrids. Pureblood hunters were almost extinct, so his theory was based on rumor and guesswork.

Hybrids and humans could be turned into full shifters too, but it was perilous unless they were a fated mate to a shifter. Turning was complex and required a combination of their mate’s venom and magic. Hence, why it was dangerous for humans as they weren’t very durable. Me, I had three options, but I wasn’t sure I could lose any of my beasts in favor of gaining the ability to shift into just one.

Stopping myself abruptly, I shut that line of thought down. I did not want a mate, and a mate sure as hell wouldn’t want my black soul. I wasn’t going there now.

The plane’s steep trajectory finally leveled out. I unbuckled my seatbelt and passed Alec on my mission to the unmanned bar at the front of the aircraft.

Alec was a hybrid. These days, the council recruited and trained hybrids as hunters because of the dwindling numbers of pureblood hunters. Dwindling was perhaps generous; there were two of us left. Hybrids being recruited was another loose term, as their parents handed hybrid children over to the council in shame, just like Alec’s useless family had. Hybrids came from two different species mating. Alec had a witch mother and siren father, but hybrids couldn’t fully shift into their beast form. They were often just as strong, if not stronger in human form, yet, they were shunned as second class.

“Rebel,” Alec said.

His eyes were still closed, and his body relaxed in his seat, but he looked pale. We worked three weeks straight hunting and killing Jack. We both needed rest, not to be dragged back across Europe.

“Oh yes, I live life on the edge. Unbuckling my seat belt before the sign. Dangerous!”

Sarcasm was something the boys taught me, and the training had never quite beaten it out of me.

The truth was, I needed to kick the last vestiges of my overexertion away to allow me to get some sleep, or I’d rip some i***t’s head off back at base. I rummaged in the storage bins and homed in on my quarry, a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Yes!

I was a whiskey girl. Not vodka that my fellow hunters drank like water. After pouring out the large measure, I rummaged in the ice bin, not waiting for the air hostess. I wouldn’t get a telling-off for my impatience. She’d flown with me before, and like most people, I terrified her. My reputation was excellent for keeping people in line but not great for making friends.

“Nice hunting. Bit early for JD, though, isn’t it?”

Alec, of course, was not in the least bit afraid of me and never stopped at a chance to give me s**t.

“Maybe it’s almost too late for JD? We never actually went to bed.” I tipped my glass to him.

“You didn’t even try to get any sleep. You jumped on the treadmill for an hour.”

“One hour too few to calm me down; I’m not even halfway to being relaxed after that mission. We’ve been on his case for three weeks straight. I take him out, and then bam, it’s back to Russia. It’s bullshit.” I downed the JD and poured another. “You can’t tell me you are glad to be going home.”

Alec’s face mirrored my dislike of the hunters’ headquarters.

“Ha, home isn’t a word I’d use for it,” his tone was bitter. “Although I suspect you had no intention of sleeping last night. You’d have found another activity to blow off some steam!” He waggled his eyebrows.

Typical Alec, mind in the gutter. He knew my options for unwinding included s*x, and he didn’t judge me for it, but he liked to rib me all the same. Just like an annoying big brother, sometimes he jokingly lamented being unable to ‘help me out.’ He didn’t see me that way, and neither did I. Despite his preference for men, I’d known him to take women to bed. He called himself an equal opportunities lover.

We had worked as a team and looked after each other for a long time. He had my back, and I had his. He was my brother, blood or not.

“Are you ‘slut shaming’ me, as the Americans would say?” I asked.

“Seriously, are you asking me that?” He hiked a brow. “And you realize if you say, ‘as the Americans would say,’ you blow our cover?”

“Blow our cover on a private jet?”

“You know what I mean!”

“Well, you needn’t worry because you’ve made us watch so much reality TV over the years; we maintain our cover fine.”

“That was research!” He clutched his chest dramatically.

“What were the Disney Princess movies for then?”

“Still research!”

“Romantic comedies?”

“They were for you. Your mate will thank me.”

I snorted. “It’ll take more than your soppy romances to train me.”

“Well, you don’t want a mate, so I guess that’s okay.”

“Touché,” I said.

“Be nice to have a vacation though, time on the beach ogling hot men. Sign me up.”

“We should search for your mate, then.”

“Or mates.” He waggled his eyebrows again.

As a siren hybrid, he could end up with two mates, a triad.

“What would you fancy if you got one?” He grinned widely. He loved to debate mate scenarios.

Me not so much, but he caught me mid-alcohol-fueled relaxation, so I indulged him. I drank my third glass down and refilled it, one-third of the bottle gone.

“Bear?” He asked, not waiting for my reply.

“Good physically, not so much mentally.”

“But so hunky!”

I laughed.

“Dragons.”

“Aside from Erik, I’ve only met one other, that dragon king bastard, so not much to go on.”

“Sirens?”

“Sirens are clever and charming but too scrawny for my taste,” I smirked over my glass and deliberately roamed my eyes up and down his frame.

“What?” He held his hands out, outrage in his tone. “There’s nothing scrawny about me. I’m a perfect package.”

I snorted into my drink. Perfect i***t, more like.

“Sure, you are. You keep telling yourself that.”

Alec knew he was gorgeous and not at all scrawny. He was six feet and built like a long-distance runner, with a sharp jawline and a Roman nose. His floppy, slightly wavy, blond hair had a surfer look. Sirens were all alluringly beautiful. The legends of tempting sailors to their deaths had a kernel of truth.

“Witches?”

“Male witches range from deranged, haggard, old men who are ugly as sin and twice as evil, to alluring and attractive, with an otherworldly aura. The latter probably looked like the former but used magic to mask it.”

“You hurt me!” He held his hand to his heart.

Alec could banter for hours, but I was tired and ready for some shuteye, so I placed the JD bottle down and reclined the chair, hoping Alec would take the hint.

“Werecats?”

“Too proud and vain.”

The alcohol relaxed me further as I settled back into the seat and closed my eyes. “Not in the market for a mate. We’ve got a lot to do. There’s no rest for the wicked.”

“Oh, and you have been wicked!” He cackled. “Anyway, statistics show a clear winner.”

“What statistics?” I cracked an eye open.

Alec grinned like a Cheshire Cat. “Your bedpost.” He cackled again like the half-witch he was.

We both needed sleep!

“f**k off, Alec; I’m sleeping.”

“You started it with your liquor party. It’s not my fault you don’t enjoy talking about your mate.”

If my eyes were open, I would have rolled them.

“I’m too tired to debate about my favorite species of male - who is not currently warming my bed - while trapped in a steel can heading back to HQ!”

“Wolves.”

Don’t punch Alec. It wouldn’t be fair. He’s harmless, like a baby bird. A baby bird I wanted to throttle to shut up.

“Do you want a prize or something?” I peeked at him through a raised lid. “I’m sure you’d love to live with a pack of wolves.”

He waggled his eyebrows. Maybe I could shave one off when he was asleep?

“I would take one for the team.” He grinned more broadly.

“More than one, I’m sure.”

“Very true.” He waggled those damn brows again, then sighed. “Let’s get some rest instead of talking about what we can’t have.”

At last!

I settled back to enjoy the effect of the alcohol before it burned away. We had about four hours before we touched down, so I let the tug of sleep and liquor take me under as I closed my eyes to darkness.