Claimed by the Alphas (Shifters of Appalachia Book 1) Read online

  CLAIMED BY THE ALPHAS

  COMPLETE EDITION

  VIOLA RIVARD

  Contents

  Part One

  1. 1

  2. 2

  3. 3

  4. 4

  5. 5

  6. 6

  Part Two

  7. 1

  8. 2

  9. 3

  10. 4

  11. 5

  12. 6

  Part Three

  13. 1

  14. 2

  15. 3

  16. 4

  17. 5

  18. 6

  19. 7

  20. 8

  21. 9

  Part Four

  22. 1

  23. 2

  24. 3

  25. 4

  26. 5

  27. 6

  28. 7

  29. 8

  Part Five

  30. 1

  31. 2

  32. 3

  33. 4

  34. 5

  35. 6

  36. 7

  37. 8

  38. 9

  39. 10

  40. 11

  Part Six

  41. 1

  42. 2

  43. 3

  44. 4

  45. 5

  46. 6

  47. 7

  48. 8

  49. 9

  50. 10

  51. 11

  52. 12

  53. 13

  54. 14

  55. 15

  Part Seven

  56. 1

  57. 2

  58. 3

  59. 4

  60. 5

  61. 6

  62. 7

  63. 8

  64. 9

  65. 10

  66. 11

  Epilogue

  Christmas with the Alphas

  Claimed by the Alphas

  Copyright ©2017 by Viola Rivard

  All rights reserved.

  Part One

  I quickly learned that as an alpha, he was afforded many luxuries in the pack. He had the choicest bits of flesh in the hunt, he had his pick of any female he desired, and when it came time to breed, he alone would be allowed the coveted privilege of claiming a mate.

  One indulgence he was not permitted was weakness. He had to remain resolute in all things and could never show fear or doubt. It was once I realized this that I began to learn how to love him. For this formidable, unshakable beast, there could be no surrender, except in my arms.

  Marie du Luponte, 1931

  An excerpt from Wolves of the Cordilleras

  1

  T he doe treaded on damp earth, stopping to chew at a patch of decaying briars. Caim watched from behind the trees, amber eyes blazing. The doe did not hear the soft rustle of fabric as he began to unbutton his shirt, preparing for the shift that would allow him to release his pent-up anger and frustration into his prey’s flesh.

  He could be quick. Tonight, he would not play with his food, would not let it run before recapturing it between his powerful jaws. There was no time for that. He would be quick, and he would be done before anyone noticed he was gone.

  He let his shirt fall to the forest floor. He would ambush the wayward prey. He would sink his teeth deep until he felt the satisfying crunch of bone and tasted the delicious gush of blood as it flowed over his tongue and down his throat.

  The sound of footsteps made him freeze as he was unfastening his pants. He recognized the smell of Asch. A low growl tore from his chest.

  Picking up on the sound, the doe went rigid. Then, she was gone, bounding off into dark foliage. His wolf fought the urge to give chase.

  “Put your clothes on,” Asch ordered. “The pack has taken care of the hunting for us tonight.”

  Caim turned to face him. Folding muscled arms across his bare chest, he lifted one foot and brought it down on his shirt. He stamped it into the mud, glaring defiantly at the other alpha.

  Asch mirrored his pose, though his own eyes held no contempt. It was for that reason that Caim was the first to yield. He looked away, giving a brief incline of his head.

  “You can’t meet her half naked. She’ll think you’re some kind of savage.”

  Caim scowled. “I am a wolf, and I have no interest in meeting her.”

  This was only partially true. He was interested in meeting her, but it was purely a morbid fascination. He was very interested in meeting the human female who sought to tear apart his pack and enslave him with her body. He would make sure she understood that, despite the power her feminine cycle had over him, she would always be below her alpha.

  Asch cleared the distance between them, coming to stand in front of Caim. He reached out and placed a hand on the back of Caim’s neck. The other alpha was the only male who had license to touch him in such a vulnerable place. He was asking for Caim’s trust.

  “You want to talk about it yet?”

  Caim considered this. He liked to think of himself as an uncomplicated wolf. He enjoyed hunting and eating and rutting and sleeping. His position as alpha allowed him to do all of these things gratuitously as no one, not even Asch, interfered with his tireless pursuit of pleasure.

  Every now and then, though, the disdainful part of him that was human surfaced, and his mind was flooded with worthless emotions: regret, guilt, sadness, and dread. These were not things that a wolf should concern himself with, and they were certainly not suited for the mind of an alpha.

  The very few times in his life when he had felt those disturbing emotions, Caim had turned to Asch. After a decade of training and sparring, the other alpha was quite nearly Caim’s equal in power and in skill, though he believed that Asch’s human upbringing held him back from his full potential. But it was Asch’s deep understanding of human emotion that made him an invaluable ally. The older male had a way of putting things into perspective for Caim, and because of the long-forged bonds of trust between them, there was nothing he could not confide in Asch.

  Nothing—except for this.

  Caim removed Asch’s hand from his shoulder. “I do not want to wear these clothes, Asch. I do not want to be in this form. I want to shift.”

  Asch seemed to deflate. He gave Caim a weary look and nodded before turning to walk away.

  “Do what you want, Caim.”

  * * *

  The rain had stopped falling over an hour ago, but Mila’s boots were still heavy with water, squishing with each step she took down the muddy path. The boots were a size too big and had belonged to Cora. Her cousin had given them to her after Mila had broken the heel on one of her plumberry Adela del Olmos. If someone had told her a year ago that she would intentionally ruin a pair of seven-hundred-dollar shoes, she would have laughed until her chai latte came out of her nose.

  God, she could use a latte.

  When Mila had met up with them on the Tye County border, Cora, Harrison, and the Ramsey brothers had gaped at her as she’d gotten out of her sports car. Her chestnut hair had been curled and glossed and her nails manicured. She was wearing her plumberry pumps and an embroidered cocktail dress that hugged her curves in all the right ways.

  At the time, Mila had thought they were speechless because she looked so damn good. In retrospect, they probably thought she was a complete moron, and she couldn’t agree more.

  After just three hours of driving, the rusted old pickup truck they’d set out in had broken down. Big surprise. What was supposed to be a half-day trip to the Lazarus pack’s territory had now turned into a two-day journey filled with freezing rain, tar-like mud, poisonous snakes, and no sleep.

  The road had disappeared ju
st before dawn, swallowed up by plant overgrowth and roots. Harrison, the wizened town sheriff, assured them that this meant they were almost there. Shotgun in hand, he trailed a few yards behind the women while the Ramsey men, Wayne and Billy, took the lead, whacking at impeding tree limbs with dull machetes. The first rays of sunlight creeping over the tree-lined horizon did little to quell the icy chill that had taken root in Mila’s body the night before.

  Cora had been mercifully quiet for a few hours. Damp blonde hair clung to her pale face and there were dark circles under her eyes. At the sheriff’s pronouncement, some of the color returned to her cheeks. She looked over at Mila with reverence in her watery brown eyes.

  “I just want you to know, Mila, that I always knew you were a real hero.” Her sweet, twangy voice grated on Mila’s already frayed nerves.

  “Thanks, Cor,” she replied dismissively. Since the sun had come up, Mila had tried to distract herself from the cold by preening her fingernails. They were all chipped, and a stubborn layer of dirt lined her cuticles.

  “You know,” Cora continued, “when you came to Tye County, everyone thought you were just some good-for-nothing city girl, all brains but no sense.”

  Mila gaped up at her. “They did?”

  Cora gave an airy wave of her hand. “Oh, yeah, they were all taking bets on how long you’d last out in the fringes.” Eyes narrowing, she said, “But I told them right from the start: my cousin is a Foster, and we Fosters have real gumption and nothin’—not even life in the big city—can take that kind of grit from your bones.”

  The moon-faced teenager always looked adorable when she was angry, and Mila felt her initial irritation wane.

  She wasn’t sure why she was surprised that the townspeople had initially thought she was a snob. Even after living with them for two months, she sometimes still treated them as if they were beneath her. It was very highhanded of her, considering the only thing that separated Mila from her cousin was the fact that her mother had tested into a New York university while Cora’s mom served drafts at The Fox Barn.

  “But you know, Mila, no one’s callin’ you an uppity brat anymore. To all the folks in Tye County, you ain’t nothin’ but a big hero.”

  Her words were a blade, twisting in Mila’s gut. She didn’t deserve Cora’s admiration or the people of Tye County’s. If they knew her real reasons for volunteering to join the Lazarus pack, they would probably think she was insane, at best.

  Mila scratched the back of her head. “I’m not really a hero.”

  “But you are,” Cora asserted. “Volunteering to be a slave to the lusts of a monster, to bear his demon spawns, Mila? That’s gumption.”

  Uh oh, I’m losing her.

  “It’s really not that big a deal.”

  Cora gave her a frantic look.

  “You must know about Misty Coffey,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. Mila leaned in. “The girl from Massie County. No one knows if she was asking for it or not, but one of them got to her just the same. They said the baby chewed its way out of her stomach and—”

  Mila jerked her head back, scowling. She gave her cousin a light whack on the head.

  “Haven’t you read Wolves of the Cordilleras yet? Marie du Luponte clearly writes that werewolves don’t shift until the first full moon after they’re born. Geez, you would think you people would know more about weres, considering you share a border with them.”

  “Daddy says books like that are for…” She looked both ways to see if the men were listening. “Were-whores.”

  “Were-whores?”

  Voice grave, Cora said, “You know, women who like the idea of, well, rollin’ in the hay with a wolf.”

  Mila averted her eyes and let out a nervous laugh. She never would have considered herself to be a were-whore. In truth, she’d never even met a werewolf in the flesh. So, maybe it was naïve of her, but the idea of being the mate of an alpha werewolf had to be about the hottest thing she could possibly imagine. It was that thought—not bravery or gumption—that had led Mila to volunteer in the place of nineteen-year-old Twyla Wright, whose name had been called at the lottery.

  In fringe counties, places on the edge of human society, most towns were plagued by frequent attacks by shifters. With limited financial and military support from the cities, local governments relied on striking deals with nearby shifter clans. The most efficient—but also the most controversial—means of securing a clan’s protection was to provide them with a mate.

  According to Marie du Luponte, werewolf females were invariably infertile, which meant that in order to secure their line, alpha males had to take human females as mates. While most people on the fringes assumed that werewolf children were the byproduct of rape, those cases were actually in the minority. Most packs were sustained by a dominant alpha male and a willing human female. Werewolf mates weren’t slaves. They were cherished members of the pack.

  Mila had read all of Marie du Luponte’s work. The French scholar had been doing fieldwork in Spain when she vanished without a trace. She resurfaced over two decades later after the alpha she’d loved and served passed away and her pack dissolved. She had channeled her grief into creating positive awareness for a culture that had long since been shrouded in mystery. To Mila, her memoirs were nothing short of awe-inspiring.

  If wanting more than a mundane human life with a boring human man made her a were-whore, well then, so be it.

  The sound of the sheriff cocking his gun jarred Mila back to reality. She stopped in her tracks, anxiety spiking. In the low, early morning light, she couldn’t see far into the woods without squinting.

  “Don’t hear no birds,” Harrison drawled. The Ramsey brothers had stopped as well, searching the autumn wood for signs of life.

  A wolf howled in the distance. The sound reverberated through her bones, her tired limbs becoming energized with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

  They had come for her.

  2

  Mila had always been a bit of a dreamer. Her mother had noticed this trait early on and tried in vain to nip it in the bud.

  “Don’t make the same mistake I did,” she would caution. “Focus on your education and being the best. Keep your head out of the clouds and don’t waste your life waiting for a knight on a white horse to come whisk you away. It’s not gonna happen, kid.”

  To her credit, her mother had been partially right. The man who had come to whisk her away wasn’t on a white horse; he was on a giant wolf.

  They were everywhere, surrounding her. Most were normal-sized wolves with blackish-yellow and grey colorings. They hung back in the forest while the core group advanced on the human party. Most of these wolves were larger than horses and Mila couldn’t fathom how they could possibly transition into human form.

  One black wolf towered over the rest, and his amber eyes narrowed on Harrison. He flanked a limber beauty with fur like snow. Astride its back was the man who could only be her alpha.

  Mila’s chest constricted at the sight of him, warmth unfurling in her belly. Sunlight framed his silhouette, highlighting wind-tousled copper hair and a strong physique. As he neared them, his piercing hazel eyes moved between the two women.

  When they lingered on her, Mila released a breath, relief flooding her veins. A deep, ugly part of her had worried he would be disappointed when he found out it was her, and not the thin, willowy blonde, who was to be his mate.

  As the wolves approached, the Ramsey brothers retreated to Cora’s side, their hands white-knuckled on the hilts of their machetes. The alpha ignored them, halting his wolf a few feet from the men and dismounting. He kept his gaze fixed on Mila and offered a slight incline of his head. When he spoke, his powerful voice resonated through the crisp forest air.

  “I am Asch, alpha of the Lazarus pack.”

  Ah-shh. It was more of a sound than a name, and she couldn’t wait to test it on her tongue.

  He was tall and muscular, wearing a beige, loose-fitting cotton outfit that she knew
made for easy shredding, should he need to shift abruptly. The thought of him changing into a wolf sent a shiver down her spine.

  Harrison spoke before her.

  “This here is Mila,” she heard him say from behind her. “She’ll come willing enough, so long as you hold up your end of the deal, wolf.”

  Mila’s temper flared, both because the sheriff was speaking for her and because he was addressing the alpha so disrespectfully. She cleared her throat before addressing the alpha.

  “Hello,” she said, giving a small wave of her hand. “I’m Mila.”

  She felt a little silly with herself and wondered if she was allowed to address him so casually. He didn’t seem to mind, though. His gaze softened on her when he spoke again.

  “I trust you have not been coerced into coming here, Mila?”

  Warmth blossomed in her chest at his regard. She’d been expecting a hulking brute, which, while having a certain level of appeal, couldn’t compare to the charming creature standing in front of her.

  “Yes, absolutely,” she blurted, a little too eagerly.

  His lips quirked up at her enthusiasm. He raised his hand, giving his wolves a signal.

  Addressing Harrison, he said, “You can have five of my strongest to accompany you back to your county. They’ll set up the agreed-upon borders and clear out any nearby threats.”

  She had almost forgotten the reason she was here: the werewolf attacks and the lottery.

  Two months ago, Johnstown, a hamlet on the outskirts of the neighboring Carter County, had allegedly been raided by werewolves. Farms were torched and livestock were slaughtered, and upward of forty people had been murdered, breaking the longstanding treaty with the nearby Blackthorn pack. There were really no unbiased details about who broke the treaty, and Mila wondered what the stupid townspeople could have done to arouse such ire among their former allies.

  While Carter County tried to appeal to Blackthorn, the denizens of Tye County weren’t about to wait around for their towns to be next. They instituted a lottery whereby all willing women over the age of eighteen could put their names in.

  The trouble with this was that most of the “women” were girls in their late teens, pressured into signing up by greedy families who were itching to get their hands on the five thousand dollar check that the mayor would pay out.