Flame of the Alpha (13 page)

Dante’s hips bucked wildly as he tried to restrain himself, impaling his body deeper on Captain
Jolen’s
cock. The man cried out and dug his fingernails hard into Dante’s flesh as his cock pulsed, unleashing a jet of hot cum deep in Dante’s ass. The rush of sticky heat intensified the rampant desire in his own balls, drawing another strangled cry from his throat.

The sound echoed through the room, a rough, growling roar hardly recognizable to
his own
ears. Jagged strands of electricity poured through his body, calling to the inner beast that lived within his soul.

His head reeled. He fought for control, but the animal in him was stronger, more desperate than he was. His balls tightened, drawing up flush against the base of his shaft and raw, violent need coursed through his veins. Lightning flamed up and down his skin, tearing at his self-control, drawing on his last reserve of discipline.

He watched through a veil of streaming pleasure as his arms widened to forelegs, his hands turning into broad paws covered in dark golden fur. Claws sprouted where his fingernails should have been. His jaw shifted and the sound of cracking bone and cartilage filled the air as it readjusted itself into a muzzle. Teeth lengthening, tail sprouting, ribs cracking and reshaping themselves -- all those nuances of the transformation were lost to him as he shuddered violently and unleashed the pent-up desire he’d been trying to hard to hold back.

Colors, vibrant and organic, flashed before his eyes. Above him, Saint Valentine’s tranquil bronze features seemed to distort themselves. His lips broadened into a fragment of a smile while his brows drew down as though in a concerned frown.

Dante had no time to make sense of the oddly contrasting visage. Through the chaos of emotions pouring through him, only one coherent thought made itself known.

It wasn’t the orgasm that made him lose control. Not entirely.

It was her
. It had always been her.

A razor-edged slash of pain against her labia cut through Sophia’s euphoric afterglow, drawing a sharp cry from her lips. Her head spun. Hell, the entire room rotated on its axis, whirling around her as though she stood still and the rest of the world had gone on tilt.

The offering she’d presented her Patron Saint had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced, whether on her own or during a Lighting of the Flame ceremony.

Having Dante in her, thrusting his massive cock inside her tight channel, grinding his pubic bone against her ass, his balls slapping the nether regions of her folds…it had all been too much.

Despite the captain’s warning, Dante had done nothing to prevent her from giving in to the bliss of release.

So she’d come. Saints, had she come.

Her orgasm had been violent, wild,
furious
. It had shattered from her very core and spread outward, hard and fast. And she’d let it, without a thought for the repercussions.

Until now.

“By all holy Saints!
The man’s a shifter!”

The captain’s wild cry resonated through the room, bringing Sophia’s surroundings back into focus. She grimaced, knowing instinctively what had brought the sudden agony upon her tender, bruised folds.

There was a reason
panthera
leo
didn’t have sex in their animal form. The tiny spikes that protruded from an erect lion’s cock were enough to elicit raw agony in a woman -- human or otherwise.

Dante had slid his shaft out of her, leaving her sore pussy empty but thoroughly satisfied. She could feel the soft fur of his paws brush her cheek as he clutched the edges of the cage.

Her heart hammered hard against her breastbone, thudding into the metal bars.

They were dead. Oh, Saints, they were
so
dead.

She barely had time to register that thought when Dante leapt off her and swerved around the cage. He came to rest in front of her, where she could take in his fully transformed form.

Her mouth went dry. He’d gone from six and a half feet of pure masculine perfection to ten feet of raw, untamed physical force.

She’d thought him beautiful before, all feral strength and brawny muscle, but he was absolutely regal in his lion shape. Powerfully built, with strong, lean limbs and a rippling dark blond coat that hinted at the sturdy muscle beneath, he was by far the most stunning creature she’d ever seen.

His long tail swung from side to side in silent challenge. The brown tuft at the end of the tail stood straight up, daring the Captain to come closer. When he tossed his head back, his wild mane ruffled around his elongated muzzle and he roared, the sound shaking the foundation of the statues at the base.

“I never thought…I mean, I knew there was something not right with him, but this…this is insane.” The captain’s voice had gone dangerously soft. Sophia wished she could see him, but judging by the confidence in his tone, she doubted he was quaking in his non-existent boots.

“Dante!
Listen to me! You have to leave. Run. Get out of here! Understand?”

Her words seemed to fall on deaf ears. He turned his massive head and pierced her with those feline golden-flecked eyes, but there wasn’t a hint of retreat in his stance.

Her eyelids drifted closed momentarily as fear pressed in on her from all sides, more tangible and concrete than the metal bars keeping her prisoner. When she opened them, it was just in time to see all hell break loose around her.

Captain
Jolen
darted left, to the corner of the room where his armor had been discarded. Dante stalked him, moving slowly, but with a determined purpose.

Man against lion. It shouldn’t have been a fair fight.

The captain swung sharply around a six-foot statue of Saint Valentine and rammed his shoulder into it, bringing it toppling down a few inches from Dante’s head. Dante reeled backward, his paws slipping on the marble as another rampant roar broke free from his throat.

He shoved at the loose pieces of shattered bronze, clearing them out of his way. From her captive position, Sophia focused on the captain, who was rapidly tapping out a message on his inner wrist implant.

Her blood turned to ice as she recognized the pattern and the colors beaming from beneath his skin.
A distress call.
Reinforcements would be storming the Academy walls in ten minutes, if they were lucky. If the captain had thought ahead and brought backup, men who were even now awaiting his signal, they had perhaps two minutes.
Tops.

“Hurry!
He’s called for help!”

Dante heard her this time. He spun around, claws grasping for purchase on the slick marble. He skidded toward the captain and clocked him hard with a back-handed paw across the chest.

The captain went flying toward the far wall, where he slammed with a loud, bone-crunching crack. He slid down the length of the wall and came to a grinding halt at the base, his right leg twisted beneath him at a skewed angle.

“Damn it!” she snapped. “Get me out of here. We don’t have much time!”

Dante ambled toward her, moving with that same slow, deliberate speed. He neared the cage and sniffed, his nostrils flaring as he took in her scent. Before she could urge him to hurry once more, he swept the tip of his rough tongue out and trailed it over the edge of her jaw.

A shiver born of exquisite sensation ambled up her spine. Sophia’s heart beat faster, but this time the panic was a fleeting impression at the edges of her mind. Lust clouded her vision, hazing her common sense with flickers of the sudden need to shift, to join him with the same wild abandon and show him she was right for him.

Show him that maybe, just maybe, she was meant for him.

Such an absurd thought. She knew better. She was a priestess. She’d dedicated her life to Saint Valentine, giving up the idea that she might one day meet her Alpha mate. And yet --

A sudden shaft of blue light split the crimson illumination in the room. It crackled with energy, tearing through Dante’s left shoulder a moment before the scent of scorched fur and flesh reached Sophia’s nostrils.

Dante pitched forward, his head making contact with the edge of the cage, his weight propelling the metal enclosure to skid across the marble floor until it slammed against the opposite wall.

Sophia didn’t wait for the enormity of what had happened to register. The flash of a small weapon no larger than the Captain’s palm, gripped tightly in the man’s hand, made a brief impression on her senses, but a split-second was all it took for her instincts to kick in.

She’d been denying her birthright for years. In the blink of an eye, it all came rushing back with the fierce ferocity of an ability that had never really been far away from her psyche, only pushed to the side and ignored for much too long.

Her skin rippled as her bones twisted, elongating and thickening as the shift overcame her. For once, she didn’t fight it. Her tongue scraped against lengthening canines. Her vision became sharper, more acute. The metal bars groaned beneath her expanding mass, squeaking in protest.

Her breath halted in her lungs, squeezed by the tight constraints of her cage. The antique handcuffs snapped first, popping with a loud snap. The hinges gave way next, scraping and grating against the metal as they fought to contain her growing bulk. Even the nipple clamps slipped away, no longer finding the same type of purchase in her flesh.

And then she was free, and soaring through the air. Another blue flash pierced the space mere inches from her left ear. Adrenaline poured through her veins, hot and insistent. It drove her forward, her prey frozen in the span of a split-second in her field of vision.

The protective nature of her inner lioness had been unleashed, and she’d be damned if she denied it again. The children were in danger. She was in danger. Her mate --

Saints, this wasn’t the time to think about it.

Blood pounded red-hot in her field of vision. Captain
Jolen
was still down, holding the weapon with his left hand, steadying his aim over his left wrist. He fired again, faster than she’d expected, but she swept out of the way at the last moment. She was quicker than Dante. Sleeker, too, despite the feral muscles she wasn’t used to having.

The laser missed her, though it grazed the tip of her tail as it swept aside. No matter. The scent of scorched fur only added to the wild fury already streaming through her veins.

The captain tried to rise. The weapon shook in his hand. He said something to her -- not a scream, not a plea -- she didn’t know what.
Couldn’t hear him past the roar of blood and fury in her ears.

And then, he did something wholly unexpected.

He threw the gun down.

Stunned by his unanticipated action, Sophia’s center of gravity flowed forward. She landed with a thud, half on top of him, and kicked the weapon across the floor with her hind leg.

The breath flew out of the Captain’s lungs. He gasped for air, but she was stronger, pushing down on his chest, letting her momentum and fear for Dante spur her on.

He struggled, flailing and bucking against her, clawing at her leg with his fingernails. Her claws extended and she pressed down on his windpipe, but stopped short of scoring his flesh. After what seemed to Sophia like an eternity, his body went slack.

She held him there for a moment longer. The wild, untamed part of her urged her to kill him, to end the threat. She might have, too, only she knew the threat wouldn’t be over with the demise of this one man. If anything, the danger to her and anyone the Academy sheltered would only grow worse if she murdered a Central Command official in cold blood.

Her body teetered on the edge of metamorphosis. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, leaving behind a sizzling wave of dizziness. She sucked in a breath and rode out the pain of the transformation, until she found herself once again in human form, kneeling over the Captain’s body, her hand gripped around his throat.

She released him and staggered to her feet, then rushed over to where Dante lay, crumpled against the side of the cage. He’d transformed as well, his chest gleaming with rivulets of sweat. A raw, circular wound marred his left shoulder and blood trickled down his arm.

“Dante?
Oh, Saints.” She knelt beside him and pressed two fingers to the side of his throat, her other hand instinctively grabbing his inner thigh as she leaned over him.

“How many times do I have to get shot for you to touch me just a little higher?” he rumbled, his voice throaty and hoarse.

A relieved laugh bubbled up from her throat. She wanted to hug him, kiss him fiercely, leap into his arms and never let go.

And she would, she vowed.
But not now.

“Can you walk?”

He nodded, wincing as he lifted his arm a couple of inches. The wound bled again, and Sophia thought she could make out the jagged white edge of a shoulder bone.

“Damn it.” Fighting back a shudder, she grabbed his other elbow and helped him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

He leaned against the cage as she retrieved his pants. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked as he slid them on.

Sophia swallowed hard. “What would I have said? That I’m just like you and I get along on Earth just fine -- and, oh, by the way, would you like to stay here forever and ever?”

He fixed her with a piercing green gaze. “You want me to stay?”

She turned away and picked up her robe. “We can’t stay. Officials are on their way even now. They’ll take this place down brick by brick. It’s not safe any longer.”

She tied the sash tightly around her waist and ran for the door. As it slid open, Dante grabbed her wrist and turned her to face him. “But if it was…you’d have me stay?”

Sophia debated with herself for only a moment before truth won out. She’d done enough lying, enough hiding from what she really was. Standing on her tiptoes, she brushed a brief kiss across his lips. “I need a Flame. Not just for a one-time ceremony, but forever. I think that’s what Saint Valentine had been trying to show me. I’ve chosen Flames for years, and they’d never been…” She cleared her throat before continuing. “Like you.”