Lycan Alpha Claim (#1): (BBW Shifter Romance) (Brief-Bites Novelette) (7 page)

I feel clumsy—thick. “I had it right here—in
my junk drawer.”

Narah asks, “How big was it?”

I widen my index fingers to about five
inches apart.

Narah's low whistle threads through the
kitchen like a creepy string plucked. “Looks like you've got
yourself a Lycan problem.”

Arden gives me another look.

Her gaze moves between us, noting the
glance. “What's with all the surreptitious looks, guys?”

“
We wondered,” Arden
says.

Adrienne's lips tilt. “You wondered,
huh?”

“
What with the world all
vamping out,” he says then gives her a guilty look.

“
It's okay, Arden—there's a
lot of miscommunication.” She seems resigned to that
fact.

Arden smiles slightly. “I don't know. You're
as lethal as I thought a vampire would be.”

She grins. Fangs appear like sharp little
pearly curved claws.

We back away.

“
Chill out. I can't smile
without some fang.”

I'm as tense as I've ever been in my
life.

Arden recovers first. “So you're saying
there are Lycans.”

“
Yeah.”

I'm pretty sure the world at large doesn't
need to know that yet.

We look at each other again, he shrugs. “So
what can you do?” I ask, frustrated.

“
Depends on what our boy
wants.” She lifts a shoulder, black tank perfectly matching black
combat pants. Weapons stud her belt, hanging off her like deadly
jewelry. Except for her gage plugs in her earlobes, she doesn't
wear any. No—I take that back—a slim metal band of Tungsten
encircles her left ring finger.

“
That's it,” I fling my hands
out. “I don't know
what
he
wants.”

Her pupils dilate, capturing my gaze. A
weird sensation like static electricity flows over me and is gone.
“Quack like a duck.”

“
What?” I reflexively
laugh.

Adrienne frowns.

Arden cooperatively quacks behind me.

I whip my head in his direction. I'm a
little alarmed at how realistic he sounds.

His face is slack, eyes glazed.

I turn back to Adrienne and she says,
“Okay—so here's the news: you're a hybrid.”

“
A what?” I ask in a choked
voice.

“
Part-human,
part-Lycan.”

I shake my head. It was a mistake to call in
Final Enforcement.

She nods. “It's okay. A doctor will find
abnormalities during a rudimentary physical. They're really looking
for that now.” She chuckles again as though sharing a personal joke
with herself.

I'm not laughing. I sit on my bar stool by
the kitchen peninsula. Hard.

She continues. “That's why you've got a
Changer sniffing around.”

“
A Changer?” I ask through
numb lips.

“
Yup. You're Lycan enough to
be changed and he's probably the boy assigned to do it.”

“
Blue-eyes?” I ask, though I
don't feel like I really need the confirmation.

“
How bad did he tear up the
asshole—Duncan?”

I don't even pause, “Badly. And fast.”

She nods thoughtfully. “Okay, so he won't
hurt you.” She throws up her palms.

A quack sounds.

Adrienne's face screws into annoyance. She
looks at Arden. “Stop quacking.”

Arden wakes up.

“
That didn't work on me,” I
note.

Adrienne looks at me, and I notice for the
first time she's sort of pretty beneath all the piercings, tats and
gage plugs.

She shakes her head. “A little test of mine.
Lycans are resistant to vampire thrall.”

God
. “Well that's
something, I guess.”

We glance at Arden. He looks insulted. We
ignore him.

Adrienne puts hands to hips. “So you're
calling me in to—what?”

“
He's
stalking
me—this Lycan man,” I explain to her
slowly.

“
Don't condescend to me, Dr.
Phisher.” Her voice is instantly cold.

“
I apologize, that wasn't my
intention.”

“
Might be natural,” she says
coolly, her pale eyebrows rising slowly.

We stare at each other.

Finally she says something that gets my full
attention, “He is a protector—not a stalker.”

“
I don't want—if I am—Lycan,
to be changed or whatever he's planning. He has no
right.”

Adrienne's head dumps to her breastbone, and
she speaks to the floor. “This isn't about rights.” Her face rises,
eyes locking with mine. “You will die without him.”

“
Die?”

She gives a sharp nod.

“
What's his role?” I ask. I
have to ask.

“
It's different for Lycans, I
guess. For vamp female hybrids, a male Turner brings you over
through blood exchange.”

Gross.

She reads my expression and laughs.

“
So he's going to fang her?”
Arden asks with a nervous chuckle.

“
Nope,” she says, “he's going
to fuck her.”

Merck

I scent the female vampire hybrid the
instant she slides out of her vintage Mustang.

I don't attack for a couple of reasons. One:
she's female. Two: she's Final Enforcement. The word on the
supernatural street is she has two males. Vampires—one a former
Hunter.

My female would never be in a job as
dangerous as this one.

I hang back, watching their conversation
from my vantage point in a huge ash tree. My talons bite deeply
furrowed bark, readying my stance in case the truly bizarre
happens.

And Narah Adrienne decides to go berserker
on my change.

When Talyn collapses, Adrienne reaches for
her, and I jump from my perch.

I loathe what I'll have to do but I can't
have anything happen to Talyn.

I rush the back door, shouldering through
the glass in a ball of speed. It shatters into tiny pieces.

Non-tempered glass shreds me into
ribbons.

A human male shrieks, pinwheeling
backwards.

Hair sprouts from my skin as I go wolfen. I
shake hard, the glass clinks to the ground as my skin repairs the
shallow cuts that cover my exposed flesh.

Narah Adrienne looks up from an unconscious
Talyn.

“
Get the fuck away from my
change, vamp.”

She rises smoothly, a wisp of a female and
hisses, standing protectively over Talyn's body. “Do your worst,
wolf.”

My eyes flick to the naked silver hardware
in her hands.

I charge anyway.

I'm almost on her when two vampires plow
through the glass carnage.

Narah's gaze shifts to their presence, and
that's all the distraction I need. I backhand her, her head
whipping to the left.

Her foot also connects with my chin but
she's going down.

The two vamps close in.

They're her mates
, I
realize through scent alone. Their claim is all over her, knitted
between them in a trio signature of claiming.

And pretty soon, my life will be next thing
they claim.

The End

Lycan Alpha Claim 2, available now!

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I published
The Druid Series
2011
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Marata (Tamara)
xo

Special Thanks:

You
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my reader.

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husband
, who is my biggest fan.

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, without whom, there would be no books.

Dawn Y.

Marata Eros (the pen name
for
Tamara Rose
Blodgett
) is the author of over seventy
titles, including her
New York
Times
bestselling novel
A Terrible Love
, and the
#1 international bestselling erotic Interracial, and
African-American TOKEN serial. Marata writes a variety of dark
fiction in the genres of erotica, fantasy, horror, romance, sci-fi
and suspense. She lives in South Dakota with her family, and enjoys
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