Lycan Alpha Claim 3 (130 page)

The tension in the gathering area was suddenly much less, and Matthew released her.

The crowd was loud, many voices discussing all of it. Finally, Bowen called for silence, and a show of hands was required.

The names were read:

Joseph:
there was a smattering of hands but nothing significant.

Philip
: twice the hands of Joseph.

Bracus
: half the hands were raised.

Matthew
: the remainder lifted their hands until every hand was in the air like tree limbs of flesh.

Bracus and Matthew would travel back with her and the guard, and a courtship would begin. Clara had a brutal choice ahead of her: two of the Band and her childhood friend. Her heart and her duty were on opposing sides.

****

Clara was at the portal to receive her guests, thrilled to see Anna and Lillian, as she was sure that Matthew and Bracus were more than ready to see their kinsman, Jack.

The guards slid the heavy door aside, and the group entered. Lillian came to Clara and folded her in a fierce hug. It had been a month since the rite, and Lillian was showing, her precious bundle but a small bump beneath her skirt. Jack hovered about her, fussing over how tired she must be. It was interesting to see the fierce warrior so soft with his mate.

It was good
.

Anna
and—
there he was!
—Joseph had come as well. Clara looked at Anna. She smiled, and Clara knew that all would be well.

They made their way back to the Royal Manse, the long walk made pleasurable by the company. Lillian said, “Clara, I must say you do not look like a Queen!”

Clara laughed. “I do not dress as such except for ceremonial events. It is not who I am.”

Clarence walked beside her. “Some do not need royal garb to be royal, my Queen.”

She smiled at him for he was always formal. “Thank you, Clarence.”

“I agree. It is bearing, not wardrobe, that make one seem royal.”

Lillian looked at her mate amused. “And how many royals do you know?”

Jack blushed and gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. “Wench, you will learn your manners!” he said playfully, and all laughed at his teasing.

Peter closed the doors of the Royal Manse, sliding the bolt in place.

“Masters Charles, Bracus, and Matthew will be here to receive momentarily, my Queen.”

Clara inclined her head toward Peter. “Thank you.”

The group milled about in the huge foyer, looking at all the strange objects. Clara was sure it looked as unique to them as their dwellings had to her.

It was Anna though who startled Clara with a gasp, her hand going to her mouth. Turning, Clara saw that she was staring at the stained glass rendering of the mermaid, Clara's birth mother.

“Who is this?” Anna asked through her fingers.

Clara was not yet ready to admit her discovery, so she responded rather vaguely “It is a rendering after an actual person. I do not know who.”

Anna stared at it. “I have seen this woman. I know of her people.”

Clara stopped breathing. Anna had just recognized her mother. She may know her whereabouts.

Clara forced herself to remain falsely calm, and Jack and Joseph looked at her strangely. They were sensing something. She tried harder to calm herself. “Where does she hail from?”

“Her people are of the sea.”

“Do you say they live by the sea?”

She shook her head, looking at Clara. “Do you not see the throat slits?” she asked pointing at what looked like seaweed.

They approached the window, Joseph and Jack beside her, as curious as she. Clara could not see it.

“There!” Jack said. “Do you not see how the seaweed curls at the neck, changing color into gold striations?”

Joseph nodded his head. “This would explain much.”

Clara was lost. Charles, Bracus, and Matthew appeared.

Jack explained everything to them.

Charles broke in. “This means, that this woman
…
” He looked directly at Clara, who felt a wave of fear strike her.
Dear Guardian, say nothing
, she thought.

“Exists in the ocean?” he finished.

Thank Guardian.

Anna shook her head. “No, that is not what I meant. They do not have a tail and fins,
as fish
.
They can breath on land and
in the sea. That is what we know.” She looked at the males of the Band. “They look as you do but can breathe in the waters.”

They were silent, digesting this. But Clara was ahead of them, summarizing what it meant to her
.
If her father had loved such a creature— her mother
,
Clara self-corrected—it might explain why she was a
select.
Born without gills, but an affinity for the water
,
attractive to males of the Band, as she was attracted to them. She had some biological lock that they had the key for. And at the center of it were the Guardians. Somehow, they had known
about the inevitability of it all.

Charles and she looked at each other.

She was of both worlds, one of which they had never known about. They looked up at the window, clearly seeing how the artist had used seaweed to twine gills delicately like silver and gold lace against a lovely, pale throat. It was cleverly done, but if one knew what they were looking for, it was quite obvious.

Bracus and Matthew approached her, and Charles stood his ground. It had been a trying month with the three men determined to be her future king. She admired them all and was glad that she had the excuse of royal duties and oyster fields to tend, so things progressed slowly. But the males of the Band were impatient for her to choose, and she realized that it might be some time before she did. She needed to discover who she was, where she came from
.
She would find her birth people, these strange creatures of sea and earth.

****

She sat at the round table, the rectangular table long put away, as Clara did not liken to having anyone at the head of a table. With Bracus at her right and Matthew at her left, she was left facing Charles. Their eyes met. Clara knew that travel was in her future, as did he. Bracus’s hazel eyes softened as he looked upon her. She met Matthew's intense blue stare. She knew that these men would be a part of it.

Gazing around her, she recognized she was the happiest she had ever been. The drunken Queen, was no more. Her kingdom was ruled with fairness and democracy as her father would have wanted, and an important alliance had been formed. The Prince had not been seen these past months, and it was safe to assume that he had succumbed to the wilderness. With a suitor on each side, what worry could she have?

Yet Clara felt there was more, had to be more. She would journey to this sea, and there
she would uncover the remainder of her destiny, with whoever shared it with her.

THE END

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The vampires are a dying race, their females sterile. When it's discovered that human females of Druid ancestry can be viable breeders... the harvest begins.

Rachel Collins is a young woman living in the frozen north of Alaska in a dead-end job with a circular life. She yearns for something more.

When murders begin taking place in the city where she lives, she and her girlfriend try to be more cautious, only to be caught in the middle of a dangerous situation in which an unlikely savior emerges.

Can Rachel escape her destiny while two different factions hunt her?

***Note***

Adult Reading Material:

Content within intended for readers 18 years and older.

REAPERS

A Druid Series Novella

Volume 1

New York Times
Bestselling Author

MARATA EROS

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2011 Marata Eros

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Marata Eros Website

Marata Eros FB Fan Page

Font art by Bookish Brunette Designs

Editing suggestions provided by Hazel Novak

CHAPTER 1

I looked at the clock,
yet again
... and knew that if my boss caught me I'd be toast. Safe in my cubicle, I swung my gaze away from the the dreaded time and looked for Michelle. She'd be hanging by the cooler,
which she was.

Michelle caught me looking and lifted her chin up in greeting and grinned. She knew what I was about. It was all about getting out of here and doing something for ourselves. It had been a Long-Damn-Week and I was going to let my hair down and have some fun.

Michelle wrapped up her conversation with one of the petty chicks that lounged all day while we picked up the slack.

As Michelle walked toward me, I thought that maybe we wouldn't have to change: pencil skirts, thigh high stockings, stacked heels and blouses that yoked just where they should be to look sexy, nothing too much.

Michelle stood in front of me, tapping a foot. “Watching the time won't help it go faster.”

“Yes, I know, but I feel like the day should have ended already.”

“I've got an idea, let's go to Spinners tonight,” she nearly squealed in delight. I wasn't feelin' the love on that place. It was always packed with a rough crowd and you had to beat the guys off with a bat.

Michelle saw my expression and started to wheedle immediately, “Listen, give it a half hour and if it's super-lame, we'll just bail and go somewhere else. Like that brewery place... what's it's name?”

“Talbot's,” I replied absently.

She snapped her fingers. “That's it!”

“Listen,” she leaned forward and our hair mingled together, “that new gal... with the red hair...”

“Molly?” I said, automatically looking around for her.

“Yeah,” she waved her hand, dismissing the name. “She was talking about that piece of creepy news that's been circulating today.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Oh for shit's sake, Rachel! Don't you pay attention to anything?”

“Not really,” I said noncommittally. My life was beyond boring right now. I worked here, hung out with Michelle, worked out, read, fed my cat. I was dying for some Excitement.
Dying
. But the news wasn't going to deliver. Excitement... no way.

“You're hopeless! Anyway,” she sounded the syllables out slowly, “there's been another killing. Another bleed-out.”

That got my attention.

It had been almost a month since the first murder and they still hadn't found the killer.

Then there were the rapes.

Somehow, it was all connected. Men were killed and drained dry of their blood and if there were women with them, they were raped.

But none of the women could remember the attack or their attacker.

Our gazes locked. “So... they found another body. Two, actually.” Michelle said ominously, waggling two fingers.

Great. Just when I thought we could flounce around for the weekend. Talk about a wet blanket.

“Maybe... we shouldn't go to Spinners then. I mean, if it's not safe.”

“Eff-that, you're going! I just wanted to spread the gory gossip.”

“That's kinda sick, you know.”

Michelle nodded vigorously, she knew.

I sighed. There was no getting out of it once Michelle had her mind set. And, in my soul... if I didn't get a break from this job and do something out-of-body, I'd scream.

“I gotcha talked right into it, don't I?” Her eyes sparkled.

“I guess but, we need to be careful, especially now,” I said in a conspirator’s whisper.

“Hell, I'm more worried about the regular guys.”

“Were the women... you know, was there blood... there?” I asked.

She spun back around, her skirt twirling a little with the motion. “That's the major weird thing, they had all been bitten, but still had their blood. Only a pint gone.”

Well, wasn't that just
comforting
.

Michelle winked as she sauntered off, hips swaying. “Pick ya up at seven sharp.”

She didn't wait for me to respond. Michelle knew she had me, hook, line and sinker.

I gathered up all my stuff, slipped my heels back on my feet and headed for the door.

Unfortunately, my dragon lady of a boss was blocking my way.

“Miss Collins, I see you're ready to leave.” She looked at her behemoth of a wristwatch. “Two minutes after five.” She raised a humongous unibrow at me and I stifled a giggle. It was hard to be pissed at her when she looked so ridiculous.

Almost.

“Yes. That's traditionally when the work day ends for us here, Ms. Hogan,” I replied, thinking with mild irritation that Hogan had me by the short hairs. She knew I needed the job, she couldn't lambast me for leaving when the work day was through, technically. But... she liked to make me feel
diminished
for leaving so close to the chiming of the clock.

Hogan looked me over from head to toe, taking in my long black hair, so deep a black it had blue highlights in the right light. My eyes were a pale blue, I was shapely but not skinny, and on the tall side. I didn't consider myself a hot number but I held my own. Hogan, on the other hand looked like she was always trolling for a new bridge.

I had discreetly pressed my elbow into the elevator button and it dinged just as she opened her mouth to mention something else equally unimportant, her jowls swinging as she popped her mouth open then closed it again.

I felt my escape portal open at my back and walked backwards into its gaping mouth, never more glad to be out of mortar range of the enraged cow, aka my boss.

She glowered at me, starting to waddle forward and I blurted out, “Have a great weekend!” The door swept closed in front of me.

I did a mental forehead-wipe. Thank God I was out of there.

As the elevator descended I prepared myself for the onslaught of cold weather, my car would need at least five minutes to heat up. The days were long here in the north and heating my car in the underground parking garage was just part of what we did in Alaska.

The elevator doors hissed apart and the cold air swept into the tight space, momentarily stealing my breath. I huddled my full length coat around myself, silently wishing the car was already warm. I rushed out of the elevator's cocoon of heat, my heels making clicking sounds on the concrete as I made my way to my car. If you could call it that.

As I approached I knew my car stood out, it was a Smart Car and Michelle liked to tease and say it was a toaster that I drove, not a real car. I smiled, she had me there
.

I fumbled with my keys, finally yanking my glove off with my teeth, groaning as the cold air assaulted my fingertips, making them instantly numb.

“Hey, Rachel,”

I dropped my keys on the ground, spinning, my hand to my heart.

It was Erik, a guy from work. My shoulders slumped in relief. He scared the shit out of me.

“Scare you?” he smiled.

I smiled back tentatively. He had really been pursuing me and I wasn't that interested. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly but there was just something
off
about him.

Erik approached me and I stiffened a little, but he bent over, jerking the keys off the ground and put a finger through the loop of my key fob and hung them off his finger in front of my nose.

I tried to snatch them and he yanked them just out of reach.

“Meet me for dinner,” he stated, his eyes steady on my face, disconcerting.

“Ah... Michelle and I are going out tonight,” I said, trying to distract him.

“Rain check?” he pressed, never stopping his eye contact. I was starting to get nervous.

Damn.

I resisted the supreme urge to look around, seeing if there was anyone else. But there wasn't. I could feel the absence of others. I sure wasn't short on woman’s intuition.
Just another creepy service we offer
, I thought, getting the heebie-jeebies.

I closed my coat tighter around me and his eyes tracked the movement, a smile spreading on his face. “I'll let you go, I know you have plans.” But his face told another tale. I didn't think he'd forget my rebuff anytime soon.

I held my hands out and I was happy to notice that they weren't shaking. He'd really put me in a creeped out mood and I wasn't happy about it.

He dropped the keys into my cupped hands and smiled again, tipping an imaginary hat.

I turned after his back was to me and stabbed the key into the lock, opening the door in one movement I slid behind the wheel, slapping the flat of my palm on the lock after it closed. I heard the simultaneous click in the silence of the car and let the breath out I didn't realize I'd been holding.

Holy-hell.

I turned on the car and stewed for the five minutes, all the while wishing I could have driven off.

That encounter with Erik had put a bad taste in my mouth. Like diet pop, but somehow worse.

I pulled out of the bowels of the building, the night as black as when the day started. I entered traffic and began the drive to my condo, almost in the heart of downtown.

I couldn't wait to be home.

I threw my lights on, and glancing right then left I was so startled that I almost let my foot off the brake into opposing traffic.

Erik sat behind the wheel of his car. He'd been sitting there the entire time... waiting for me.

I gunned it at the first hole in traffic that appeared. What a whacko!

I'd have to tell Michelle he was a nut-job. She'd have him cracked in no time.

****

I had my head thrown back and my lips parted, the last swipe of mascara almost perfect... there! I stood back and looked at my reflection: definitely not work attire. I was so glad I made the decision to not perk up the whole mess with just a new top. Michelle probably would have flogged me if I had anyway. She'd be dressed-to-kill (as usual). I needed to make an effort. Sometimes, I wondered why I bothered. Michelle would go, shine, get picked-up, bang some anonymous stud in the bathroom or wherever, and I would sip my drink wishing I could go home and curl up with a book. I sighed. That's okay. She was... my vicarious slutty friend. And I loved her.

I grabbed my vanilla body spray and squirted a last dab. If I ended up dancing a lot, I'd be glad I wore it. It was frigid outside but once we were inside Spinners, with all the bodies packed in there, it'd be a different story.

I heard the doorknob jiggle and caught sight of Michelle coming through the doorway looking delectable in her slut suit. She twirled for me so I could get the full effect.

“That should be illegal!” I nearly screamed. She had a micro-mini on that was two part: it cupped her ass and was barely legal (skimming the indecent exposure laws by a millimeter). It was hot pink, setting off her platinum hair to perfection. She “helped” the color of said hair, but not by a lot. Michelle was a rare thing up here in the frozen north and I was betting that it was her coloring that got her so much attention, and the boobs... and the outfits. And, and....

I smiled as she circled me like a shark, gauging my potential for Attracting the Opposite Sex.

“I don't know... is this the shortest skirt you have?” Her brows closed the distance between her eyes.

I self-consciously ran my hand over my short black skirt, it barely covered the lace of my thigh-highs... a gorgeous pair that I had splurged on from Italy.

“Yeah, I can't go much shorter without the lace tops showing.”

Michelle gave me a blank look. “Seriously, that's part of the allure.”

“Ah... no. I say let them guess. It
is
underwear after all.”

“I say show it!” Michelle said.

“Mystery,” I replied.

She threw her hand up. “Whatever, I give up. At least you did right by the top.”

I had almost not worn it, it was a scorching crimson and showed off my raven hair, my eyes stranded like startled jewels in my pale face. It left my arms bare and was tucked inside the skirt.

Michelle allowed her glance to linger a moment longer on my outfit, then shook her head as we walked out. I gave a quick pet to Caesar the cat and waltzed out.