Alpha’s Bane Read online

  “So the rumors are true,” I mutter. “This place has gone to the leeches.”

  Grizz gives me a sharp look and pushes me gently toward the office door. “Someone to see you, boss,” he calls and raps the side of the cube.

  The door opens and I get my third shock. Spiked hair, lip ring, dark tattoos running up and down muscular arms. And those ice blue eyes piercing me through. I sway as if stabbed, and he automatically puts his hands out to steady me.

  Trey Robson.

  “Sheridan.” It’s just like the first time he spoke my name. Trey stares as if he’s not sure I’m really here. I’m tall, but he towers over me. And I’m lost, drowning in the past, the heat and memory in his pale blue gaze.

  * * *

  Trey

  Sheridan Green glares up at me, looking like she stepped out of my dreams—wet dreams—and into my life. My wolf presses against my skin, clawing to touch her. I don’t know whether to yell at her, slam the door in her face, or pull her into the office and reacquaint myself with every inch of her body.

  My dick is not so ambivalent. It’d be easy, so easy, too easy, to yank her to me, hike up her skirt, and have her against the wall.

  Then she opens her mouth. “Get your hands off me,” she spits, her green eyes sparking.

  “Fuck,” I rasp, and let go of her as if burned. “What’s going on?” I ask Grizz without taking my eyes from Sheridan’s angry face.

  The grizzly shrugs. “She came in looking to talk to Garrett. I figured you’d want to know.”

  “Garrett?” I cross my arms over my chest, mirroring Sheridan’s stance. She’s got her hackles up. As if she has a right to be mad at me after what she did. “Your cousin isn’t here.”

  “I learned that,” she snaps. “Right before I ran into a freaking vampire.”

  A growl rises at my chest. Not at her. I’m not happy about the leeches.

  “Come in.” I step back, holding the office door open. She marches in and turns in a circle, hands on her hips. For a moment I see the office through her eyes. The messy stacks of paper, the dim light broken by the glow of an ancient desktop computer. The empty cans of beer overflowing from the trash can. Not exactly a professional work environment.

  Whatever. It’s my business and I get shit done when I want, how I want. I’m done trying to please her. Those days are over. She killed any tie we ever had to each other.

  A little voice in the back of my head whispers, You had it coming. I have to admit, I snuffed out the feelings we had for each other as efficiently as I could. Our relationship was on life support by the time I was through with it. But Sheridan was the one who plunged a knife into my heart, and twisted it until there’s was nothing left. No love, no feelings. I’ve been an empty shell ever since.

  “Vampire, Robson, really? What the heck is going on?”

  Heck. She still doesn’t swear. Still the perfect pack princess, working so hard to please everyone. Her family, her pack, her alpha—everybody but me. She doesn’t have a problem treating me like dirt.

  Right now she’s looking down her nose like I’m dogshit on her designer shoe. Her fancy-pants high heels that make her legs under her skirt look long and sexy as fuck.

  My eyebrows snap together and I glare right back. Who the fuck wears high heels to an underground fight club?

  “What are you doing here, Sheridan?”

  A perfectly polished fingernail stabs me in the chest. “You answer me first, wolf. Why is there a leech out there? This is pack territory. Why haven’t you thrown him out and staked him as an example?”

  “I can’t. He belongs to Lucius. We have a deal.”

  Sheridan sucks in a breath. “You’re dealing with vampires?”

  “Fuck.” I turn away, scrubbing my hand through my hair. I hate leeches more than anyone. They’ve turned my dream into a nightmare. “It’s complicated.”

  “Explain.”

  I whirl back on her with a snarl. “I’m not your wolf.” I was once. But never again. That’s why this is so hard. “I don’t answer to you.”

  She straightens, her chin going up in the stubborn stance I know so well. “I’m here on behalf of the Phoenix pack.”

  “Garrett’s dad? You should talk to Garrett.”

  “I thought he’d be here.”

  “This isn’t pack territory. Not anymore.” I swallow to stop my wolf growling in my chest. He hates the leeches as much as I do. “We made a deal with the new kingpin.”

  “I can’t believe this. The wolves I know would never ever deal with vampires—”

  “The Sheridan I knew would never choose her own glory over her friends. Oh wait, she did.”

  She pales. “That was years ago,” she whispers. “I thought you’d be over it.”

  Never. I’ll never be over you. If I talk, I’ll beg like a dog. For her to come back, forgive me, anything. Instead of answering, I raise a mocking eyebrow. Cruel, but she deserves it.

  She looks away, color returning to her cheeks with a flush. A tendril of hair curls around the perfect shell of her ear. I tighten my hand into a fist to keep from touching it.

  After a minute, Sheridan turns back, her face a cool mask. “I’m here representing the Phoenix pack. We’ve heard Fight Club was attracting trouble. Alpha Green sent me to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Spy on us, you mean.” I cock my head and bare my teeth in a nasty semblance of a grin. “Just like old times.”

  She flinches at that. Points to me. “I’d like a sit down with Garrett, to talk about this new vampire presence and what it means.”

  “Then call him. I’m sure your cousin will be happy to hear from you. Or are you not on speaking terms with him?”

  She presses her lips together and gives a small shake of her head.

  “Imagine that. It’s almost like no one trusts you anymore, since you betrayed us.”

  “Are you ever going to let that go?”

  “Nope.” I grin to hide the flash of pain. She’s so beautiful. So perfect. So out of reach. An ant has a better chance of dating the sun.

  Her father was right. I never should’ve put my dirty paws on her.

  “Look.” Her voice softens. “I’m not the bad guy here. Fight Club”—she flicks her fingers at the door—“You’re attracting attention. Cops, FBI, CIA—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I raise a hand to stop her, mentally cursing Agent Dune and his damn midlife crisis. “That business with the CIA wasn’t us.”

  She shakes her head. “You were involved. And now the heat’s on and you’re taunting the humans under their noses. Gambling. Illegal fights. Drugs.”

  “Hey”—I spread my hands—“I have nothing to do with drugs.”

  She leans forward and sniffs my clothes pointedly. “Last time I checked, recreational pot wasn’t legal.”

  I roll my eyes. “Maybe I have a prescription.”

  “I don’t care about the pot. I care about the harder stuff. Sucre sang.” She rattles off something French-sounding. “Sugar blood. It’s a new drug on the streets, and it’s deadly.” She pauses, her eyes faraway for a moment. “That’s why the vampires are here,” she says to herself, as if she’s just figured it out.

  I stay quiet, drinking in the sight of her in a sleek suit. She looks good. More makeup than she used to wear, and her hair is pulled back tight, but the stuffy suit she’s wearing doesn’t hide her perfect curves.

  Sheridan. Fuck. She’s catnip to my wolf. Not catnip—wolfbane. Sweetness and poison in one perfectly made up package.

  As if to prove it, she faces me. "This little turf war with the leeches makes it clear that you guys can't stand alone. You need our protection. Maybe even become part of the Phoenix pack again."

  "What the fuck?” I can’t keep my voice down. “We've been on our own for years, ever since you—"

  "You only exist because we allow it,” she says, cool as a judge pronouncing an execution sentence. “Shut Fight Club down, Trey. Or I will."

  Chap
ter Two

  Twelve Years Ago

  Trey

  She-wolves in bikinis, empty beer bottles, sand between my toes. San Clemente State Park is the perfect place to camp with the gang on an October weekend.

  My mom’s easy, but I’m not sure how most of these kids got their parents to let them come—must be because Garrett, our future alpha, headed up the trip. Either that, or they lied and said it was a school outing.

  I know if I was Sheridan Green’s dad, I would never let her sleep anywhere near the likes of us. Of me. Because she is in serious danger of getting marked right here and now.

  And it’s not just the stolen beer keg talking.

  We’ve never hung out before—we run in totally different circles, but somehow we ended up playing frisbee in the water together this afternoon. Now she leans against me in front of the small beach fire someone lit, the skin of her bare shoulder warm against mine, her scent in my nostrils. I haven’t touched her yet, mostly because I don’t trust myself. I can’t even believe we’re hanging out. Homecoming queen, pack royalty, straight A student—she’s everything I’m not. At seventeen, she works in the upper offices of Wolf Ridge with the rest of the royalty, not on the factory floor, like me and my mom.

  And she’s the most gorgeous she-wolf this pack has ever seen.

  I thought she’d date an alpha kid from another pack, someone like her cousin Garrett, who is and has everything. Or even Jared, who at least has a mid-pack pedigree.

  “You know what I can’t figure out, Robson?” Her voice is husky and soft so only I can hear her.

  “What’s that, sweetheart?” I take a hit off the joint Jared passed me and offer it to her. She shakes her head, but I don’t sense judgment.

  “Why a guy as smart as you sits in the back and screws around during class. If you applied yourself, you could get a full ride to college somewhere.”

  My chest tightens but I force a laugh. I wrote off college a long time ago. Probably about the time my eighth grade teacher told me I was as worthless as my imprisoned dad, and I should get my ass into vocational school. “What makes you think I’m smart?”

  “You wouldn’t be in the advanced classes if you hadn’t tested in. And you ace every test even though I never see you study.”

  She’s been paying attention.

  That in itself makes my world shudder and rearrange.

  “Nah, school’s not for me. I can’t stand authority.” I flash her my bad boy smile and she leans into me, her forest green eyes lit by the flames.

  “You follow his authority.” She lifts her chin in the direction of Garrett Green, our pack leader’s son.

  “He’s different.” I mean it. Garrett may be one-hundred percent alpha, but he’s one of us. He doesn’t care for school or authority, either. He won’t toe the party line. He’s told his dad point blank he will never run the brewery. More than anything, though, he’s a friend. He’s as loyal to his mini pack of teen wolves as we are to him. He’d do anything for us.

  And I’ve had way too little of that in my life, so yeah—I’m sticking close. Where he goes, I follow. And we sure as hell aren’t going to college to become suits at Wolf Ridge Brewery.

  She turns her gaze back to the fire.

  Across the way, Garrett howls and strips off his swim trunks. With a whoop of excitement, the rest of the boys follow, dropping their suits and shifting to howl. A bunch of girls, do, too, calling to me and Sheridan. She stands up and hesitates, shooting an unsure glance at me.

  As much as I’d give my left nut to see Sheridan Green naked, there’s no fucking way I’m going to let her do it front of the rest of the gang. Yeah, we’ve all been shifting together since we were kids, but that was before puberty. Before our teeth bore the serum capable of permanently marking a female.

  “Not here, sweetheart.” I snatch her up by the waist and run, carrying her toward the cluster of tents while she giggles and fights me to put her down.

  I drop her in front of her tent and turn my back. “Last one on four legs is a rotten egg!” I shove down my trunks and shift while she’s still ducking into the tent.

  She squeals in frustration and then darts out, her tawny coat thick and shining. She runs at top speed down to the water and I chase, nipping her heels, my wolf already ready to mate, to mark.

  Down, boy. Sheridan Green is about as far off limits as a nun in the Vatican.

  My wolf doesn’t give a shit.

  He wants her. Preferably in human form, naked and on the beach.

  He wants her tonight.

  * * *

  Present

  Sheridan

  For a second Trey just stares at me, eyes wide as if I shot him in the chest.

  Again.

  The pain and shame of that night comes back to me like a black fog rolling over my body. I’ve tried so hard these last twelve years to claw free from it, to believe I did the right thing. Especially since the Tucson pack has done well for itself.

  My first boyfriend then turns and kicks the leg of the desk.

  “Fuck,” he spits. “Fuck fuck fuck.” He kicks a trash can and it goes flying.

  “Lovely,” I drawl, stopping a rolling beer can with my foot. “You always were so eloquent.”

  “You were never this much of a bitch,” he shoots back, and I flinch.

  “I can’t believe I ever loved you,” I mutter. I don’t mean him to hear but he glances up sharply, anger flushing up his neck. Stupid sensitive wolf hearing.

  I raise my chin, daring him to comment.

  “What the fuck is this, Sheridan?” There was a time I would melt when he said my name. Very inconvenient to remember that right now. Trey is angry. Very angry. But the wolf in me feels his heat and interprets it differently. She remembers when Trey’s big body and all his anger at the world became fiery passion he unleashed on me. The perfect alchemy.

  “You show up after twelve years, talking big… let me explain something, sweetheart.” He jabs a finger in my direction. “You don’t have the authority to shut me down.”

  “My alpha does.”

  “So you’re going to turn tail and run to him? You were always good at tattling on us. Twelve years hasn’t changed a damn thing.”

  I flush. Score one for the angry he-wolf.

  “That’s not why you’re here.” Trey crowds me, giving me an eyeful of the flexing muscles of his chest, and suddenly I can’t think straight. “I think you got tired of your pretty little place in the pack and pretty little life. Is that right, sweetheart?” The shaded edges of his neck tattoo fill my vision. It’s hot, almost too hot to breathe. “You always wanted to walk on the wild side. That’s why we were together in the first place. I wanted to get my dirty paws on a pack princess, and you”—his breath warms my ear and I feel dizzy—“you were slummin’.”

  He steps back to survey my dazed expression, a satisfied look on his face. My blood rushes faster, faster, and my wolf wants to know why we still have so many clothes on.

  “That’s why you’re here.” Trey folds his arms over his broad chest, effectively closing himself off. “Another taste of the dog’s life. Then it’s back to your cushy gig, after you piss all over everything I’ve done. Because you’re still out for revenge.”

  “This isn’t personal.”

  “The fuck it isn’t.” He tosses his beautiful head, and I recognize the flash of pain beneath the fighter’s stance. It’s the very thing that attracted me to him when we were teens—what gave him depth. He wasn’t another dumb meathead follower of Garrett’s. His emotions ran deep, and though he kept them bottled up most of the time, they came out through his fists, and with me, through passion.

  I just want to move close and comfort him. As angry as he is, I know he won’t hurt me. He would never hurt me.

  “You still have it out for me.”

  “I don’t.” I swallow, trying to wet my mouth. I need to remember why I’m here. I need to remember that Trey is a player, and any attraction I feel for his bea
utiful fighter’s body will soon be obliterated because deep down he’s a lying, cheating low-down dirty dog. “I represent the pack.”

  “Not my pack.”

  I want to scream at him, ask why he’s playing stupid. “The Phoenix pack. Wolf Ridge. Your old pack.”

  “That never was my pack.” His lips barely move.

  “Please,” I scoff. “Tell your mom that. She misses you, by the way. Still works in the factory—I see her every week.”

  His eyes narrow. “I talk to her twice a week.”

  Okay, maybe that was a low blow, insinuating that he abandoned his mom.

  “You know, I’m surprised your father lets you descend from on high to mingle with the commoners.” He prowls around me, and I fight the urge to turn, face him, keep from giving him my back. He’s the biggest predator in the room and my wolf knows it. She shouldn’t be so aroused. A little more arousal in my scent and Trey and anyone who walks in this room will know how I really feel. My wolf wants to climb him like a tall, tattooed tree.

  Down girl!

  “I’m not a pack princess.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. What did they make you when you graduated college? CEO?”

  “I’m a VP of Finance.” I cross my arms over my chest. “But I earned it.”

  Trey scoffs.

  “No really, I did. I interned every summer. By the time I graduated with my MBA, I had worked in every area of the company.”

  “Every area?” Despite himself, he sounds impressed.

  “Yep. Factory floor, janitor. I even did a summer in marketing at our sponsored and outdoor events. When we were short on staff, I helped out wherever—waitressing, even behind the bar.”

  “You slung drinks.” Treys’ voice is dry, disbelieving.

  “Yep. “

  “Good, we need a bartender who can make change. Wednesday night, 7 p.m. Wear a skirt.” He sneers at my outfit. “But lose the jacket.”