The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

————– ———————-

Back at the station . . .

————– ———————-

Captain Grom poked his head out of his office. “Melissa, could you come in here for a second?”

She rolled here eyes, sighed, and strode back into the office. “Forget where your stapler is again?” she asked casually.

He smiled at her. Grom knew she had a heart of gold and that a lot of what people saw was just a front, so he let her attitude slide. Besides, she was good at her job.

“No, not this time. Listen, I just got a call from Mayor Jefferson’s office. Did you know that Arbiter Hewitt never registered as a vamp?”

Mel shrugged. Of course she knew, but she wasn’t going to sell out her best friend.

“Of course not,” the Captain replied. He should have known better than to even ask. “Jefferson, and by ‘Jefferson’ I mean ‘Lord Frost,’ seems to think that our whole police force should be on the ‘up and up’ . . . yes, I believe those were his words. Anyway, he says that the bare minimum they’ve requested –”

“And by ‘they’ you mean ‘Lord Frost’,” Mel piped in.

“Precisely. Anyway, even if she was Turned by a rogue, she needs to register with at least a birth certificate. From the way he made it sound, they’ve already requested it directly from her but just don’t seem to have received it.”

“Perish the thought.”

Grom looked over his spectacles at her. “Mel, having an Arbiter here is a blessing, and Sadie’s managed to do more in a month as far a improving the precinct’s stock in the Gravestones than the rest of the force in the last couple of years. I know she doesn’t seem threatened, but trust me,” Grom’s voice said, dropping to a whisper as he glanced around, “Frost isn’t just some aristocratic wannabe. He’s got strings on more puppets than you can imagine, and I don’t want him to do anything that might cost us the luckiest break we’ve gotten in a while.” He rolled his shoulders, knowing what he was going to suggest wouldn’t set well with Melissa. “Her superiors in Washington have authorized us to provide whatever information the mayor requests in order to keep Arbiter Hewitt within the minimum requirements of the law. In other words –”

“Give him the birth certificate. I don’t know what the big deal is,” she said.

Grom sat back in his chair. “For vampires, age is key. Age determines hierarchy and pecking order. And here comes a veritable unknown, throwing their nice little order out of whack. They want to find some way of bringing her under control, and that starts with knowing how old she is. Listen, Sadie doesn’t play by the rules, so just knowing her age isn’t going to get them what they want. But it WILL let us keep her here. And you’re better at cutting through the red tape than anyone else around here, so I’d like you to get what the mayor has asked for and pass it on.”

“Captain –”

“I know, I know. She’s your friend, and you don’t want to sneak around behind her back. But do you think you or anyone is going to convince her to stop antagonizing Frost? Do you think she’s actually going to mail a copy of the certificate to be entered into the Book of Names? She brought this on herself. When she finds out, I’ll tell her it was all my doing.”

Melissa sighed, snarled and then walked away. She hated this, but she wasn’t going to refuse the Captain’s order or risk losing Sadie. She put a sign on her desk saying she’d be in the research lab, and went about poking into Sadie’s past.

Several hours and many cups of tar-black coffee later, she finally found something. Sadie apparently didn’t leave much of a paper trail for the early part of her youth. Sadie found her service records, piloting records, certification records . . . but none of them had a birth date attached. That section seemed to be smudged on every form Melissa looked at.

After a while, she’d remembered the name of the rogue vamp that Sadie said had bit her when she’d been complaining about a visit from Frost. ‘Something Hogan . . . Clark Hogan?’ she thought. That sounded right. She started looking for his obituary and, when she found it, checked the surrounding counties for some sign of Sadie Hewitt.

“He really did get decapitated,” she mutted. “Doesn’t actually give a cause of death for him.” Then she saw an artist’s rendering. “Must’ve been one pissed off werewolf.”

“Werewolves are inevitably pissed off,” hissed a voice behind her. “It’s why they’re at the bottom of the food chain . . . well, still above humans.”

Melissa knew she must be as white as a sheet. She wasn’t afraid of much, but she was afraid of demons. She was especially afraid of Bartholomew since he took an interest in her. “Must really piss you off to be a servant of us lower beings, don’t it?” she asked. She cursed herself for playing into his game. She knew he was smarter than her, stronger than her, and while he wouldn’t actually physically harm her, he’d already shown he could get to her in other ways.

“Spying on the bloodsucker I see,” the yellow-scaled creature continued. “I’m sure she’s going to be thrilled to hear about this.”NôvelDrama.Org exclusive content.

‘Fuck!’ Melissa thought. ‘So much from Grom taking the fall. He’ll tell her, just to make her not trust me, and there’s no point in asking him to keep his mouth shut.’ She knew he was standing close behind her, and she minimized the windows on her screen.

“Awh, let me watch,” Bart crooned. “I’m sure you like being watched. Your slutty friend does. You know, I might be willing to keep my mouth shut if you’d be willing to open yours open,” he said. His lips were now just inches from her ear.

“I’m looking at sensitive databases,” she said calmly. “I’ve been given permission to look at them . . . you haven’t.”

“I suppose,” he said. “I notice though that you didn’t say anything about my offer of letting my trouser snake kiss the back of your throat. Intersted in trying some demonic hot sauce?”

Melissa’s skin was crawling. She wished Sadie were here, because she always had a comeback. But Mel’s normal defense was just to make herself as unapproachable as possible. That didn’t work with Bart anymore.

“Bart, I’m working. Get out of here and let me get back to business. I might even overlook the sexual harassment and not send you to see the shrink again.”

“Okay, I’ll go,” Bart said with a humorless chuckle. “But the minute you want to experience the kind of heaven that only a denizen of hell can bring you –” He had stopped and she could feel his brimstone breath on the back of her neck. “– give me a call.”

Melissa waited until she heard his footstep disappear before she even turned around. She was alone in the room. She jumped to her feet, closing and locking the door. She fighting back tears as she went back to work.

It was another hour before she finally found what she was looking for. Someone in Harris county had scanned all the old records into image files, making it easier to scan. After a well crafted search —

“Sadie Hewitt, born to John and Pam Hewitt in Webster, Texas . . . January 2nd, 1897.” Melissa’s eyebrows went up. “Hunh. That would maker her a hundred and fourteen years old. She looks damn good for her age.” I wonder what else I can find about her,” she muttered. She kept up her search, wanting to find out more about her friend. Then something caught her eye . . . a scan of an old, old newspaper article. Mel did a ‘find on page’ command and looked for ‘Sadie.’ It only took a second for that little green highlighted area to pop up.

“That can’t be right,” she said, settling back as a chill overtook her. “That just can’t be right.”