Alpha's Prize

Chapter 1

1

Sedona

My eyes crack open, gritty and sore. I’d rub them if I weren’t in wolf form.

Where am I?

I rise and knock against metal bars. Oh fates. I’m in a cage—a f*****g cage.

Now Sedona, my mom would say, lips pursed. Do you really have to swear?

Yes, mom. If ever there was a time for the ‘f’ word, this is f*****g it.

I’m in a cage, like a f*****g dog. A goddamn pet.

I rub my head against the bars, but that doesn’t help the pounding pain. My mouth is dry and I fight to swallow around a serious case of cottonmouth. Worse than any hangover I’ve had in the last three years of college. Not that I’m a party girl or anything.

Well, sometimes I like to party, but who doesn’t?

I twist in the confined space, but it’s impossible to get comfortable. A low growl starts in my throat, and my wolf hunches down to pounce. I slam against the bars and whine in pain. A few more tries and I give up, slumping muzzle to paws, squeezing my eyes shut against the ache. My headache screams louder. My captors dosed me with something to knock me out. How long have I been floating in and out of consciousness? Twelve hours? Twenty-four?

I’m in a large warehouse. Other cages line a giant metal rack of shelves—like the kind products are stored on in Costco or Sam’s Club. Most are empty. A skinny black wolf with yellow eyes blinks at me from where he lies on his side in one of them.

Cigar smoke tinges the air and the sound of men’s voices, speaking in Spanish, comes from behind a door. It swings open, allowing a shaft of light to fall from the corridor. The masculine voices draw nearer until a group of men gather around my cage. The same assholes who grabbed me on the beach.

If I were smart, I’d shift and get some information out of them. Who they are, what they want with me. But my wolf doesn’t feel like talking.

I surge to my feet, my back and head pressing against the top wires of my tiny prison. My lips peel back to show my fangs. A deadly growl rumbles in my throat.

“Que belleza, no?” one of the men asks.

There is more discussion in Spanish, but I don’t catch any words, besides Americana and Monte Lobo.

They’re wolves, judging by their scent. All of them. Their leers send a cold prickle of fear through me.

I snap my jaws through the wires, snarling.

Ignoring me, the men pick up my cage and carry me outside to a gleaming white passenger van. They open the back doors of the van and lift me inside.

I throw myself against the wires of the cage, barking and growling.

One of the men chuckles.“Tranquila, ángel, tranquila.” He swings the doors shut with a decisive click, leaving me alone once more.

~.~

I bounce around the cage in the dark. The van seems to ascend, traveling over bumpier and bumpier ground—must be a dirt road. I shift back to human form to think, hunching naked between the bars.

My head is clearing from the sedative, although my stomach still roils like I just rode a double upside down loop roller coaster.

I need a plan. Some strategy to get the hell out of here. I grope the padlock on the outside of the cage. It’s solid. I’d need wire cutters or a lock pick to get free, but I’ve got nothing. My older brother, Garrett, taught me how to pick locks. I watched him hell around as a teenager, picking every lock our dad tried to use to keep him in, or out, depending on the situation.

But I have no hairpin, no purse. Not a stitch of clothing.

Where are they taking me? My stomach knots. If this was a random kidnapping, I’d say I’d be ransomed back to my family. But I’m an alpha’s daughter. Someone might have a bone to pick with my dad, in which case... I’m going to be gang raped by a foreign pack. Turned into their s*x slave. Fates, I hope they’re not into torture.

My wolf whines as the scent of my own fear clogs my nose.

Think, Sedona, think!

They’re wolves. They picked me up off of a tourist beach in San Carlos. I’m young, female. They’re probably not going to kill me. Female shifters are rarer than males. I’m a commodity. Maybe they’re going to auction me off?

Fuck. This is bad. Very bad.

Garrett didn’t like the idea of me going to San Carlos with humans. Like a fool, I blew off his concern. Thought he was being overprotective. I’m a shifter. What’s the worst that can happen?

Turns out, a-f*****g-lot. I can almost hear my dad saying, I told you so. If I get out of here alive, I’ll happily agree.

The van rumbles to a stop. My wolf fights to take over, to protect me, but I force her back. My only play is to pretend to cooperate, then gouge their motherfucking eyes out with my thumbs and run. To act docile, it’s better that I be naked and afraid, like the stupid reality show.

I roll to my side, pull my knees up and cover my breasts with my forearm. There. Helpless as a baby rabbit.

The van door opens.

“Please,” I rasp. “I’m so thirsty.”

One of the men mutters something in Spanish. Oh yeah. This game is going to be harder because I don’t speak the language.

Damn, why didn’t I take Spanish in high school? Oh right, because I wanted to be in every art class possible. And I had no idea one day I’d have to speak with my Mexican kidnappers.

“Let me out of the cage,” I plead, praying someone speaks English.

They ignore me. Two men pick my cage up by the handles on each side and carry it out of the van. They don’t set it down, either. They walk up a tree-lined path, the cage jostling and swinging between them. Beyond the landscaped lawns and high-walled building, there’s only thick woods. My captors brought me to a fortress on top of a mountain.

My pulse gallops into high gear. “Please,” I beg. “I need water. And food. Let me out.”

“Cállate,” one of them hisses. Even I know that word. I am from Arizona, after all. Shut up.

Okay, so they’re less than sympathetic.

Two older men—also shifters, judging by their smell—dressed in Italian suits and shoes shined up like mirrors, emerge from behind a giant portcullis made of steel and carved wood.

Drug dealers.

That’s my first thought, based on the way they’re dressed, although if there was a shifter drug cartel, I would’ve heard of it. Wouldn’t I? But who else wears thousand dollar suits on a wooded mountain?

The well-heeled men speak to my captors in low tones and usher them in.

I try my naked and afraid game again. “Please help me, señor. I’m so thirsty.”

One of the older men turns and looks directly at me, and I know he understands. He says something in sharp tones to my captors, who mutter back.

Yeah, that didn’t get me very far. But they have to open this cage sometime. And when they do, I’ll be busting noses, shifting and getting the hell out of Dodge. No more nice wolf.

My stomach lurches as the cage sways. I have to clutch the metal rungs to keep from sliding with the movement.

The men follow a path along the inside of the high polished adobe walls. An enormous villa or mansion made of gleaming white marble rises up on the other side, majestic. It has an otherworldly quality, like we’re in a completely different era. Or dimension.

We arrive at a modern security door and one of the older men pulls out a keycard. He opens the door and leads my captors inside and down a flight of steps. There’s a damp coolness to the air. My nose wrinkles at the musty smell.

I blink as my eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Oh lordy. I’m in a dungeon. I swear to the fates, there are iron doors with peephole windows all along the corridor. One of the old men barks something in Spanish and they stop and set the cage down to wait for him to unlock a cell door.

The minute I see what’s inside, I shift, my snarls echoing off the stone walls.

The room holds nothing but a bed with iron shackles attached to the four posts, ready to hold a prisoner. And now I know why they brought me here.

I throw myself against the cage walls. Somebody, somehow, is going to feel my fangs.

A sharp jab pricks my neck and my legs go out from under me again.

My growls echo in my ears as my vision fades once more to black.

~.~

Carlos

The back of my neck prickles as Don Jose leads me down the marble steps of the palace.

“Where are we going?” My dress shoes click on the stone, echoing against the walls of the dimly lit passageway, which glow from being scrubbed and polished daily.

The head of el consejo, the council of elders, inclines his head. “We need you to see something.” He keeps walking, expecting me to follow, like I’m still a clueless pup.

A low growl rises in my throat. Don Jose glances back and I swallow back my wolf’s response.

“Calm your wolf, Alpha, if you would. You will want to see this.” The slight deference in his words doesn’t touch his arrogant tone. I grit my teeth until he takes the turn to descend into the dungeons—the holding area for enemy wolves and insurgents.

“Enough,” I snap. My wolf’s distrust is too intense to ignore. “What is it you’re showing me?”

Don Jose hesitates.

“I’m not a pup anymore,” I say softly. “I’m your alpha.”

For a moment the old wolf’s gaze meets mine. He drops it a second before it turns into a real challenge. “You know our birth rates have been falling these past few years.”

“More like this past half a century,” I correct.

“Indeed. And many of the births produce only defectuosos,” Don Jose spits. “Weaklings, unable to shift. In days of old—”

I raise my chin, daring him to finish his point. I f*****g hate the elders’ days of old proclamations.

“In days of old, a shifter who has no animal is not a shifter,” he says stiffly. “They were removed from the pack.”

Removed. A nice way to say killed.

“You know my decision on this, Don Jose. Any wolf born to the pack is part of the pack. We do not turn our back on our own.”

“Of course,” he bows his head again, his back rigid as he scowls at a point on my tie. “But the pack must remain strong. Otherwise the weak blood will dilute us until no pup has the ability to shift at all.”

“All right.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Get to the point.”

“The council has been working on a solution. While you were away at school, we had to make many difficult decisions. For the good of the pack.”

“For the good of the pack,” I murmur. “All right then. Show me.”

I prowl behind Don Jose through the dimly lit passage.

“You’ll see.” Jose’s dark eyes are cunning as he orders a guard to open the cell door.

The trouble is, I have no beta. I have Jose as part of El Consejo, the council of elders. I could easily best any of the individual members, but together, they are stronger than I am. The only reason they keep me as their puppet leader is because the pack law uses blood royalty to determine alpha. Someone from the original alpha bloodline bears the name of alpha, even if he doesn’t rule like one.

The cell door swings open and I freeze.

Cuffed spread-eagle on a bed lies a beautiful, naked female. Her long, thick brown hair fans out around her head on a pillow-less mattress. Lush breasts, a flat tummy, legs that go on for a mile. And between them—ah, carajo—a perfectly waxed mound and her tender pink center on display for all to see.

What the actual f**k? A kick of heat flashes through me, thickens my c**k. My hands curl to fists. My wolf is howling, adrenaline pumping through my veins, but I don’t know if it’s preparing me to claim the gorgeous female or fight for her freedom.

The woman strains against her bonds, the whites of her huge blue eyes flashing. Her full lips are chapped and bleeding. When she whimpers, red hot fury kicks through me. The need to protect her, to rescue her from this predicament, shoves to the surface, erasing all traces of my ill-timed lust.

“What in the hell is this?” I stalk forward and catch one of her cuffed wrists, yanking on the chain. “Unbind her,” I thunder.

Later, I’d replay the scene over and over again, berating myself for my stupidity. A sinister chuckle is all I hear before I whirl to see the heavy door swing closed, locking with a resounding clang.

Rage makes me shift in a flash, shredding my tailored clothing midair as I launch toward the door, my huge wolf body hitting it at full force, but not budging it even a millimeter. I snarl, leaping about the room, my fury too great for rational thought as I snap and growl, prowling the perimeter, searching for any way to escape. Of course there’s none. I know these cells well.

Shit.

I turn back to the girl. Oddly, despite my ferocious display of fury, her blue eyes don’t hold panic now. She watches me with avid interest. Maybe because we’re in the same boat—two prisoners left to… damn.

I know what they want.

Somehow, they’ve found a she-wolf from another pack and they kidnapped her to use for breeding. I knew they wanted me to mate but I had no idea they’d go this far.

I will kill them all—tear their damn throats out, every single one of the pinche council members. Holding me—their alpha—against his will, to be used as a goddamn stud?

Fuck no.

I roar and throw myself against the door one more time, though I know it’s useless. Remembering a camera should be in the corner, I leap at it, clamping my fangs down on the smooth plastic and crushing the glass lens between them.

Fuck. Them.

I circle the small cell again and return to the bed, where I clamp my jaws down on the chain that holds one of the girl’s wrists.

She closes her delicate hand into a fist, keeping her fingers away from my teeth.

Fates, her scent.

She smells like...heaven. Sugar cookies and almonds with a touch of citrus. And wolf. This female sure as hell isn’t defectuosa. I wonder what her wolf looks like. Black, like mine? Grey? Tan?

I give my head a shake. It doesn’t matter. I’m not mating her. I’m getting her the hell out of here.

I growl and pull with all my might, tear at the damn chain to pull it out of the wall.

The gorgeous female joins in, her youthful muscles bulging in a show of spectacular athleticism. The two of us heave together with all our might, but the chain doesn’t pull free.

I sink on my haunches.

“Thanks for trying.” Her American English contains a sweet, musical lilt.

No. I’m not interested in this enticing American, no matter how charming and beautiful she may be. That’s what they want.

They think if they throw me in here with her, I’ll claim the prize they caught for me. Sink my teeth into her and mark her forever. They’re relying on my alpha instinct to mate another alpha and reproduce.

Do they think I’ll forgive or forget this manipulation? Do they seriously think I’ll let any of them live after this stunt?

I shift back to human form.

Carajo. Now I, too, am naked, my clothes shredded from the shift. And this raging hard-on isn’t going to make the beauty in chains feel any safer.

I whirl to turn my back to the bed. Well, hell. Of course my c**k is harder than stone. No matter how pissed I am or how much I want to rescue her, the chained beauty is undeniably the most erotic sight I’ve ever witnessed.

“Fuck.” I pick up the tattered remains of my trousers and find my boxers within them. They’re torn, but might stay on if I sort of hang onto them. I step into them.

“You speak English.” There’s a note of relief in her voice.

I scowl. She shouldn’t trust me. Because if she knew what I want to do to that luscious, naked, fully available body of hers, she’d be screaming.

My shirt lies a few feet away. I grab it and brace myself against her intoxicating presence before I turn back.

It doesn’t help. She’s as beautiful as I thought. No—more. Somehow I make it to the side of the bed to arrange my shirt over as much of her skin, which is a shade of burnished gold with tan lines in the shape of what must have been a miniscule string bikini. My mouth waters imagining what she must have looked like on the beach where she earned her tan. I know she filled out her bikini in a way that made every male in the area groan.

I drape the fabric over her p***y and stretch the other end up toward her breasts.

She quakes, her thighs straining against the iron manacles on her ankles and I catch the scent of her arousal.

Fates, is that all it takes? A single brush of fabric against her most sensitive bits and she’s already ripe for the taking?

I seriously will not survive this test.

Arranging the shirt becomes a torture in itself, because when the scent hits my nostrils, I yank the fabric too high and expose her p***y, then slide it off her breasts when I give it an impatient jerk down.

The way her n*****s rise and fall with her quickened breath doesn’t help matters, nor does those big blue eyes fixed on me.

“For f**k’s sake,” I mutter, stretching both ends simultaneously. My fingers brush her skin and I barely bite back a growl of excitement. It’s baby soft. Smooth. My c**k strains eagerly toward her and, like an i***t, I inhale deeply. The smell of her pheromones and arousal makes me dizzy. Judging by her scent, she’s close to ovulation—they must’ve known that. Must’ve known that no full-blooded shifter male could survive being locked up with a naked alpha she-wolf in heat over the full moon without claiming her at the very least, if not marking her forever his.

I manage to cover her p***y and one breast with my shirt before I drop the fabric and step back. One more brush of her skin and I swear I’ll be pawing every inch of her.

I somehow drag my eyes away from her uncovered breast, with its peach-tipped n****e beaded up and hard. I wonder which part of this scenario turns her on—the bondage, nudity, or my attention on her f*****g gorgeous body. No, I definitely don’t want to know.

My breath grows short as a fresh shot of lust kicks through me. I clear my throat. “You’re American?”

She nods. “Are you?” Her voice comes out half-whisper half-croak and she clears it and runs her pink tongue along her chapped lips.

I bite back a groan.

Fates know I want to lie and say yes. Pretend I’ve been kidnapped from America, like her. Brought to Monte Lobo and thrown in a cell. Rage at my own predicament almost brings on another shift.

“No.” I reach out to twitch the fabric up again, but only succeed in making it slide away from both breasts.

Fuck—those n*****s. They are begging to be in my mouth, my tongue treating them to the adventure of a lifetime.

I close my eyes and pace away a few steps to master my lust. “Are you hurt?” It comes out gruffer than I mean it to.

“I’m thirsty.”

I go to the door and pound my palm against it, making thunder of the steel echo against the walls of our cell.

I’m not surprised when there’s no answer. “She needs water,” I shout in Spanish. I can’t see out the window because it’s a one-way glass, frosted on the inside. This time I hear a low voice behind the door. Motherfuckers. They’re standing there listening to this whole thing. At least I disabled the f*****g camera.

“My name is Carlos. Carlos Montelobo.” I steel myself once more to face her. “I am so sorry you’ve been mistreated this way.”

She licks her lips again. She has to stop doing that. “It’s not your fault.”

That’s where she’s wrong, and I’m an asshole if I don’t tell her.

Her eyes travel down from my face to my naked torso, reaching my waist before they skip back to my face. She blushes.

Oh fates. So sweet. So f*****g sweet.

I stab my fingers through my hair. “Unfortunately, it is my fault.”

Her eyes narrow.

I hold up my hands. “I mean, I didn’t know they were doing this, but this is my pack. I’m supposed to be the f*****g alpha. Only I was locked in with you by the council of elders.”

“Why?”

She knows why. I can tell by the way her gaze darts to my erection.

I swallow and sit down on the bed, my focus traveling once more to her bonds, as if I might discover some other way to free her. “Our pack suffers from too much in-breeding. We’ve dwindled in size and many of our numbers are unable to even shift. We call them defectuosos. Most females are barren and cannot reproduce. I knew el consejo was working on a plan to introduce new breeding, but I had no idea it would be this.” I jab a hand in the air to indicate the cell.

“They want you to breed with me?”

“Yes.” Guilt drops down on my chest like an anchor, dragging me into its depths.

Her cheeks grow pink and she pulls at her chains.

“Shh.” I touch her before I realize my own intent, stroking her cheek with my thumb. “Don’t worry, beautiful. I won’t force myself on you, I promise.” When she continues to tug on her bonds, I grip both her wrists below the shackles. “Stop.” My voice sharpens with command.

She freezes, her wolf responding instinctively to the dominance of an alpha male. Her glare doesn’t match her obedience, though.

And her body’s response doesn’t match the stink eye.

Yeah, my body is right there with hers. Restraining her has my c**k waving like a flag. Her exquisite breasts are just inches from my chest. I can feel the heat of her body, the puff of her breath against my neck.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself any more than you’ve already been harmed.” I ease my weight from her and release her wrists.

She flushes, and I want to tear out my own throat when tears pop into those incredible blue eyes. One escapes and slides down her cheek. I reach out to thumb it away. “Don’t cry, muñeca. I won’t claim you and I won’t let them hurt you. You have my word.”

She jerks her face away from my hand. “Why should I trust you?”

She’s smart. “You shouldn’t.”

I’m not even certain I can honor my word, but I know I will die trying. “Right.” She gives a bitter laugh.