The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

“– and the white line’s getting longer and the saddle’s getting cold. I’m much to young to feel this damn old –” Sadie sang along softly with the music coming from her boombox, but she wasn’t feeling it. She had a pile of lumber in her yard which was slowly being transformed into a deck for her mobile home. She’d picked up Mary and her tools and brought her over to help, but it was just the two of them. Mary only needed a ride because she couldn’t take her tools to the nether-realm that wraiths used to navigate around the world.

The wraith, normally a solitary creature, had apparently been perfecting her home-building skills for decades, so she took the lead on construction. Others who had promised to help had not shown up.

She understood why Vladimir wasn’t there. Ever since her ill-timed kiss with the married werewolf, Vlad had avoided speaking to her. She had tried to apologize to him for her forwardness, but he had simply grunted and turned away. She saw hurt in his eyes, and wished that she could take that moment back. She’d also tried to get her friend Terrence to come over, but her fellow vamp was seriously creeped out by wraiths. That and once Lord Frost had found out that his bodyguard had gotten close with Sadie, the two-thousand year old bloodsucker had found “chores” for his employee to do. Fitzpatrick also had issues with wraiths, and Devlin . . . well, her relationship with Devlin was still tenuous, but improving.Text © owned by NôvelDrama.Org.

The one that had surprised her was Mel. Almost a week earlier, the girl had just stopped talking to her. She always had an excuse to avoid Sadie, and she never came over to share a meal or a bed. The vampire had no idea what she’d done wrong, and Melissa wasn’t talking.

“Would your rather I come back another time?” Mary emanated from behind her, almost spooking Sadie out of her Daisy Dukes. Wraiths made no sound unless they meant to. “You don’t seem to be enjoying my company.”

“No Mary, it isn’t you at all.” Sadie had to be careful not to run her last friend off. Wraiths were shunned by most of society as just being too creepy to be around, but Sadie was able to get over it. The only other members of the undead club still had feelings but unlike vampires had little by way of support groups. The isolation often drove them to depression or madness, and sometimes they just faded into nothingness. Mary seemed like a decent sort, and Sadie didn’t want her bearing the brunt of the vampire’s frustration.

“Sorry,” Sadie continued. “I just keep thinking I’ve done something wrong but have no idea what it is.”

“You mean with young Melissa?” Mary asked.

Sadie nodded. It was weird seeing the wraith in normal work clothes. Blue jeans and a sleeveless shirt actually flattered the woman’s trim figure and bluish-white skin. She was as beautiful in her second afterlife as she had been in her first one.

“Did you have a fight?”

“No,” Sadie muttered. “Everything was fine until Monday and then . . . poof.” She maneuvered her end of the board into place and raised the nail gun.

“Wait until I’ve got my end in place,” Mary said shortly. “You’re rushing things.” The wraith’s voice and face softened a bit. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to working with other people.”

Sadie smiled. No reason to alienate the one person still talking to her. “Sounds like you’re used to getting your way too.”

Mary went back to work. “I am . . . or was. I used to be nobility, you know? Before being a vampire OR a wraith.”

“Really? Anyone I might have heard of?”

“Probably not. We were minor nobility in England. Enough to have servants and land, but we never had much political clout.”

Sadie wasn’t sure how far down this conversational path she wanted to go. She didn’t mind listening to someone’s life story, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to share much of her own. “Are you sure you want to talk about this?” she asked. “You being a wraith and all, I know it has to get painful at some point.”

Mary looked away. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be troubling you with my rantings.”

The vampire cursed herself. She realized that Mary wanted to talk. No one had probably taken the time to listen to her since her second death, and some burdens are hard to carry alone.

“It’s no trouble.” Sadie thought carefully about how to phrase this. “I shouldn’t assume that everyone shares my burning need for privacy. I’d like to know you Mary, it’s just –”

“It’s okay,” the wraith replied, securing her end of the board. “I won’t ask anything you’re not willing to tell. But . . . but I’d like for someone to know my story. Someone who might remember me if I fade into the great oblivion.”

“I’m listening,” Sadie said softly.

Mary’s mouth cracked a thankful smile, then her words floated through the void between them. “I was Turned by a vampire named Lord Andrews. I apparently caught his eye at court, so he made my father a deal. He would try to help elevate my family’s status. He had the clout to do it as well. My father encouraged me to ‘accept’ the proposal, which basically meant I had no choice. The local vampire Council approved the Turning, so I accepted the blood and spent my day below the earth.”

“Our people are ever the romantics, aren’t they?”

Mary shook her head. “It wasn’t so bad actually. Lord Andrews, while arrogant and conceited beyond all reason, was actually not unkind to me. I was to be his mistress, as he was already married to a human woman. It turns out that she had not approved, and knew that I was to be her replacement. She was angry that he had Turned me instead of her. She kept her feelings mostly concealed from her husband, but not from me. She had no problems letting me know how she felt. Then, Lord Andrews died during a war with France, leaving all of his riches and resources to her. And even though I no longer had any claim or even a chance at a claim to his wealth, she still hated me.” Mary’s hands were trembling as she hauled another board into place, and Sadie saw those delicate fingers form claws that buried themselves into the wood.

Sadie nailed her end into place. ‘Here comes the bad part,’ she thought. ‘The part that would invoke such a need for vengeance that a wraith could be born.’

“She started by chaining me up in irons, stripping me of all my clothes and leaving me in rags. I was her servant . . . her slave for a year. She used her influence to ruin my family, making sure they knew that it was somehow a result of my actions. I heard that I was disowned by the father who had put me into this position. Even if I were to escape, I had nowhere to go. She had her guards rape me at their leisure –” Mary stopped, put her tools down and stepped away.

Sadie wanted to comfort the girl, but she knew that Mary was just gathering her thoughts. The wraith needed to get the story out. Finding someone who would listen was such a rarity that she was probably afraid to that moment that Sadie might leave.

“Finally, she came to me in my cell, acting as if she were my friend. She told me that the pain would all end if I would give her what her husband had denied her . . . immortality.” Mary’s face became a sinister mask. “She had made my life hell because of a gift that I had never wanted. It became my only weapon, the only thing that I could hurt her back with. I spat in her face.” Now Mary’s face looked pained. “I sometimes wished I simply given in.”

“What did she do?” Sadie asked in spite of herself.

“The next day, she had a party. I was bound and put on display for every sick friend that she had. Publicly whipped, tortured, and used as a sexual plaything for anyone who so desired. She and her friends had very twisted imaginations.”

Sadie just wanted to vomit. That, or she wanted to break someone in half. The Gift wasn’t worth this much pain. Nothing was.

“They ended the evening by securing what was left of me to the dinner table and bleeding me dry.”

Sadie actually snarled. To bleed a vampire dry was the ultimate in agony as every cell in the body screamed in constant pain once the blood level got to a certain point.

“They just left me there as they went to their homes and their beds, laughing at the upstart woman who had got what she deserved.” Mary’s eyes were shimmering black now and her face held an unflattering cruelty. “That night, I rose for the second time. I didn’t know what it meant at the time . . . wraiths never do. I felt a thirst for something besides blood, and it was a thirst that could not be quenched. I simply stepped out of my bonds and sought each of them out, one at a time. I knew . . . I just KNEW where they were, and from each of them I took my pound of flesh. But when I came back to her . . . I waited until the last to settle my score with her.” Mary looked down. “I will not tell you what happened to her,” she said. “I do not wish you to think less of me than you probably already do.”

“She deserved whatever it was,” Sadie said softly. “I don’t think less of you. You would not have been allowed to come back as a wraith if your need for vengeance had not been justified.” Sadie decided to walk over and give her new friend a hug. She understood better than Mary could possibly imagine.

“It only took her a day to die,” Mary whispered. “Sometimes, I think of that and it doesn’t seem fair. I recovered a great deal of the wealth she had stolen from my family, and I burned the rest of her estate to the ground.”

‘Note to self,’ Sadie thought, ‘Don’t piss Mary off.’

They stood like that for several minutes, letting the darkness and silence envelop them. Mary had needed to speak . . . to confess . . . and she had found a friendly ear for the first time in ages. But reliving those moments, even after centuries had passed, was no small matter for her. Sadie accepted her and didn’t judge her, and that made the vampire worth more than gold to Mary’s tortured soul. Mary slowly pulled away and smiled, and then the two of them got back to work, with no more words needing to be said.