The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

It was still a couple of hours until sunlight, but Sadie couldn’t get back to sleep. She didn’t upset easily, but Bart had gotten under her skin. Mel had avoided her after the altercation with the demon and then took off early. Sadie didn’t think that the girl would stay mad for long, but she should never have been put in that position. Sadie really hated demons. But a week had gone by and Mel was still sulking.

‘No more partners from work,’ she thought, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stop it. For all her purported promiscuity, she only slept with people she actually knew and liked. She’d tried one-night stands and found them oddly unsatisfying.

She lifted the red silk sheets and rolled out of bed, stretching her naked frame until she heard that little crack in her neck. A friend and chiropractor she had known had told her she should stop doing that, but it was hard for him to complain too much when she was riding him like a racehorse on his own table.

‘I wonder whatever happened to him?’ she pondered as she pulled on her workout shorts and sports bra. She’d cleared an area underneath a tree next to her house and hung a heavy punching bag out there. Then she was out the door and down the steps, loving the feel of gravel and grass underneath her bare feet. She needed that sometimes . . . the connection directly to the earth. She sometimes thought that was the reason she liked to wear as little clothing as possible, but then she remembered that she was actually just vain and hot as hell.

She did a couple of rounds running up and down an old trail that led to the base of the hill that her trailer was on before settling down into a sparring match with the bag. She was going to have some scratches, but they’d heal quick. As much as she loved her trailer, she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if people stopped living in the concrete and steel world they’d created and remembered where they all came from. When the two solid-black Hummers pulled up her driveway, she reversed herself and wished that some people would stay the hell out of her nature.

“Vamps,” she muttered.

The sky was overcast and the sun was low behind the trees, so the occupants of the two vehicles started to clamber out. She waited, knowing full well that the chief clown of this circus would be the last one out, waiting until one of his lackeys finally got around to opening the door.

“Sorry,” she shouted, “but my red carpet is at the cleaners.” She strode over, watching them stare at her mostly bare legs, exposed midriff and hefty bosom with great interest. It was trashy by their standards, but they looked anyway. ‘Hypocrites,’ she thought.

One of the vampires, clad in the finest black suit that money could by and looking completely out of place in the wilderness, had been in the process of opening the last door when she yelled. She recognized him as Dazza, whom she had already determined she didn’t like. He glared at her, then opened the door. He actually grabbed a mat from inside and placed it on the ground. Finally, two more vampires got out.

The first man was the epitome of tall, dark and sexy. Apparently having been Turned in his late twenties or early thirties, he had short black hair, almost elvish features but with a slightly broader face. And he had light-blue eyes which, against that pale complexion, had an eerie, soft quality that she found quite appealing. His mouth upturned slightly when he saw her, but it wasn’t a sneer. Sadie definitely recognized slightly-concealed amusement, and that’s what that smile was.

‘I hope I get to like him,’ she thought, drifting into her own private daydream for a second.

The second vamp had been older when he had been turned, but his mortal age wasn’t what got her attention. The vampire hierarchy was arranged almost entirely by age, with old vampires on top. As vampires aged, they gained slightly in strength and speed, but also in their presence. This “presence” was tangible to almost every creature that walked the planet with the exception of wraiths. A true vampire lord could use his or her presence to manipulate those lower in the food chain. It wasn’t quite mind-control, but it could certainly rattle someone’s brain. And Sadie could feel this guy’s presence from fifty feet away.

‘Crap on a crutch,’ she thought.

“Miss . . . Hewitt?” the attractive younger vampire said. “We do pardon the interruption, but Lord Frost would like to have a word with you.”

Sadie froze up for just a second. She knew this guy. He was the head of the Midian Council, and he was definitely old. Rumor had it that he had sat at the side of Roman emperors at the Coliseum, back in the time when they first started recording the identities of vampires in the Book of Names: a tomb of knowledge about the vampire race that Frost had locked up in the basement of the Midian Temple. He was the undisputed Lord over the western half of the United States. Hell, he’d come over on the Mayflower, stepped off and headed west.

She grinned. She knew how to start this meeting off properly.

“Let me slip into something more comfortable,” she said, jumping from the ground to the door of the trailer and disappearing inside. She was only gone for a minute before reappearing with an ice cold Guinness. She plopped her butt down on the top step, popped the cap on the door frame and took a long, slow swig.

“Okay, now I’m comfortable.”

Frost, much to his credit, was unphased. He’d proabably had to deal with a rebellious vampire or two in his life. Technically, there was nothing illegal or “against the rules” about Sadie’s lifestyle. It was just frowned upon.NôvelDrama.Org owns this.

“Miss Hewitt,” the vampire lord started, his voice pleasant enough.

“That’s ‘Arbiter’ Hewitt, thank you,” Sadie responded. The man standing behind Lord Frost got a twinkle in his eyes. ‘I definitely need to meet him alone sometime.’

“I understand that you have chosen not to present yourself to the Council and to your peers? I hope that our reputation abroad hasn’t hasn’t been tarnished, as I see no reason why you would shun us so?”

‘God, does he ever listen to himself talk?’ Sadie thought. ‘No one talks like that except bad British actors pretending to be Dracula. And I heard that Dracula never actually sounded like that either.’ “Yeah. Cop work, ya know?” She took another drink. “I REALLY regret it though. I’m sure you guys through a great wine and cheese soiree, but the criminal underworld has been painfully negligent in accommodating my schedule. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course, hence my decision to greet you in person. I would hate for anything to keep you from protecting the streets of our fair city.” He walked a bit closer, pushing his presence outward and trying to get a feel for this woman. He, like everyone else here, was slightly taken aback by her extreme erotic beauty, but he was not so easily put off by her demeanor. Though he could sense little of her presence, he had a feeling she was much more controlled than she let on. It made reading her difficult.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of checking up on you in the Book of Names, but there doesn’t seem to be a record of your Turning. Unfortunately by law, all vampires are required to register. How is it that you have not?”

She rolled her eyes. “Got Turned by some guy named Clark Hogan. He was a rogue down in Texas about –” She paused and scratched her chin, “– about eighty . . . ninety . . . maybe a hundred years ago. Something like that. Time flies when you’re drunk in the old West. I binge drank through the Great Depression. Anyway, old Hogan never asked for authority to Turn me, and no one got around to telling me about it until after he’d been decapitated by that opium addled werewolf.”

“How does a werewolf ‘decapitate’ someone?” Dazza muttered, not liking the continued lack of respect the Lord was being shown.

“Very slowly and with a lot of dental floss,” Frost’s bodyguard said, trying to keep a straight face.

“Mr. McDermott, I think we could have all done without that visual. Don’t you agree, Arbiter Hewitt?” Frost asked.

Sadie wasn’t even trying not to laugh. “Dental floss?! Oh that’s rich! Can I steal that one?”

“Go right ahead.”

“Terrence,” Lord Frost said, his voice carrying a definitely deeper feel to it now: he was tired of the games. “Anyway, since the vampire that turned you is dead, you will at the very least have to provide a birth certificate so that we can record your name and age into the Book.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Sadie said, giving him a quick wink. “I’m sure I’ve got that in one of those boxes I haven’t unpacked yet, but I’m sure it’ll turn up.” Actually, she had unpacked everything and the certificate in question was sitting in the first folder in the top of her filing cabinet. She was registered with the federal government as an Arbiter, so she doubt even Frost would be able to bring any heat on her about not being a registered vampire.

Frost nodded, quite aware he would probably get no cooperation from this woman. But before getting back into the car, he turned around.

‘Shit,’ Sadie thought, polishing off her Guinness, ‘here it comes.’

“I completely forgot. The mayor is having a fund-raiser to help the police department. On the agenda is to provide much needed repairs to the Gravestones precinct house. That IS where you are stationed, correct?”

Sadie almost growled. ‘He knows damn well that’s where I am, otherwise he wouldn’t even have brought it up.’

“Yes,” he continued without waiting for affirmation, “well the mayor likes to have representatives from all the public services present. We were having lunch just this past midnight and I suggested that you should be allowed to attend. It would help your precinct greatly by securing additional donations, and it would give you a chance to socialize with some of the other Council members without taking you away from your work. Your Captain agreed that it was a good idea when the mayor called him. I suspect that you’ll find the invitation on your desk when you get into work. I just wanted to give you a heads up so that you might pick out a dress before the weekend.” With that, he climbed into the Hummer.