Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
“For vampires,” I muttered.
“For hybrids, too. You can do this,” Charlotte encouraged. “Take that first step and imagine the ne already done. It’s mind over matter.”
“If you can’t master this,” Malachi said, rolling his eyes, “I doubt you’ll be able to take the next steps, s might as well just stop right now.”
I took a step…and then I was a blur, darting back and forth in the small room, until I skidded to a stop in front of the Ancient vampire.
“There!” I cried. “I did it!”
“Very nice. Now let’s give you something hard to try.”
Xander–
I wanted to be sure my Beta didn’t feel like we were shoving him out of the way again, but I didn’t even have to say anything.
Zane was already clearing away our empty bottles. He turned to face me.
“I know the two of you need to go handle this stuff.
I’ll be here if you need anything from me, okay?” He shrugged.
I got up and clapped him on the back. “You got it. I’m going to head down to the security center and check out their tech setup. I want to find out more about those spiders Malachi was talking about.”
Mason nodded. “I’ll go with you to see what I can do about this phone. It could be just this one, but maybe something’s going on with the equipment that’s being distributed.”
“You think someone’s on the inside?” Zane asked.
“Could be,” my brother said with a grim expression on his face. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“No place is ever as secure as the people in charge want and need it to be. Not even Brightsky,” I concluded. “And Zane, just so you know, when all of this gets sorted, I’m also working on getting you security clearance.”
He grinned and waved a hand in my direction. “No rush. I decided I actually kind of like being a gentleman of leisure.”
I laughed. That was as far away from the Zane I knew as anything could be. “Right. What are you going to do while we’re gone?
Get your nails done? Maybe a spa treatment?”
“That actually doesn’t sound half bad,” Zane said with another broad grin. “A massage…”
“Ugh,” my brother cut in, holding up Goldie’s phone.
“All of that sounds better than dealing with this f uckery.”
Anything sounded better than that. We left Zane behind in the apartment and made our way throu long hallways and several levels to get to the command center. Mason peeled off to go to the equipmen while I asked for entry to the audio/visual hub.
“Xander, right?” A tall, lean man with pointed ears got up to shake my hand. “Pleasure to meet you. We’ heard a lot about you and your brother. I’m Franco.
This is Jordy”
At my look of surprise, Jordy laughed. “Yeah, we’re twins.”
Both had the same startlingly blue eyes, the irises rimmed with pale green, and slightly oblong pupils instead of round. Their white-blond hair hung past their shoulders, braided and tied back in a complicated design. They were identical. The only way to tell them apart was by their different colored shirts.
“What can we help you with?” Franco asked. He wore blue.
Jordy, in red, swiveled in his chair to gesture at the large bank of screens showing many places in the complex. “Want to take a gander at what’s going on around here?”
from.”
Franco pulled up a chair. “Have a seat. Tell us about what kind of security you had back where you came “Forgive my brother,” Jordy said with a roll of his eyes. “He doesn’t get out much.”
The two of them even sounded alike. It was weird. I took the chair Franco had offered and looked at the screen closest to me. It was showing a familiar sight.
The training grounds.
“Do you have anything on the outside?” I asked. “Can you see who goes in and out?”
“Yeah, sure. Of course.” Jordy typed quickly and the screen changed to show an empty expanse of tundra.
Together, the twin brothers walked me through the entire setup.
“But nothing in Standard?” I questioned.
Franco shook his head. “Standard’s the portal town, but we don’t have jurisdiction there. We could set up equipment, I guess, but someone would have to do the maintenance on it, which would mean someone from Brightsky would have to be assigned permanently to the town. Nobody wants to live there all the time. Not when they could be here instead.”
“But since it’s the place everyone who comes to the enclave has to go to first, wouldn’t it make more sense to have eyes there?”
I didn’t want to get too deep into the newcomers who’d shown up in town. Franco and Jordy were on the security team, but that didn’t mean Malachi had alerted them of something happening outside of the enclave.
Jordy shrugged. “Anyone seeing entry to Brightsky has to be approved, vetted, and confirmed. If th made it to Standard in the first place, they’re already pretty much guaranteed to be accepted into the “People do come to Standard who have no clue about Brightsky, though. Right?” I asked.
Franco answered this time. “Sure. It’s a legitimate town. We keep records of who comes and goes, o course.”
“Can I see them? I’m particularly interested in any new arrivals over the past, oh, six months.”
“Yeah, sure, no problem.” Jordy spun around again to do some more typing. He made a surprised noise.
“What the…..? Franco, look.”
His brother bent over Jordy’s shoulder to peer at the screen. “Where’d all those files go?”
“I don’t know,” Jordy said. “They’re just gone.”
Lanie–
I grinned at my grandfather. “Bring it on, old man!”
Malachi winced. “For the sun’s sake, Lanie. Please try to address me with a bit of decorum.”
“Oh, Ancient one,” I teased. “Is that better?”
“Marginally,” Malachi said.
I was feeling good about putting my body to the test and passing it. My muscles that had been aching were sore but in a good way now. I was pumped up.’
Energized. I felt like I could probably run up the walls and across the ceiling if I tried hard enough. I felt like I could fly.
“Calm down first,” Malachi added as I bounced back and forth on the balls of my feet. “You’re so easily distracted.”
Greyson chuckled, earning him a sharp look from Malachi. Charlotte frowned at him, too, shaking her head, but then her lips curled into a small smile. She took his hand and squeezed it. I could tell they were speaking to each other through a mind link.
The love that shone out of their eyes for each other was so beautiful, it almost moved me to tears.
“Your emotions are out of control,” my grandfather cut into my thoughts. “By the Goddess, I can practically smell them. Wipe those sappy tears away, granddaughter. Focus. If you don’t get yourself under control, you’re going to hurt yourself. Or worse, one of us.”
“I didn’t think I’d be able to hurt you,” I said, but I did as he commanded and dashed away my tears of happiness for my friends.
He was right. My emotions were all over the place.
There was no reason for me to be so overcome by them. To my surprise, Braden put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me against his hip.
“Stop plaguing her, Malachi. Lanie’s emotions are part of what makes her so unique. She can’t just turn them off like they’re coming out of a faucet,” Braden said calmly. “If she didn’t feel so deeply, she’d never be able to harness her gifts.”
Malachi’s eyebrows went up, but then his eyes narrowed. “Would you like to take responsibility for her if she allows her emotions to hamper her progress? What if it causes an accident because she’s too worked up?”
“Hey, you two. No fighting. Braden, my grandfather has a point. I do need to learn to manage myself. I’m not saying I don’t think I should feel,” I corrected hastily when Braden looked like he was going to protest. “But he’s right. If I want to learn how to use my hybrid traits, I need to be focused.”
Malachi shot Braden a smug look. For someone centuries old, my grandfather sometimes acted even “Let’s try telekinesis,” Charlotte cut in, bringing my attention back to the tasks at hand. She put a small, weighted ball on a table in front of me and stepped back. “Try to move this with your mind.”
it.”
“Can you do that?” I asked curiously.
She shook her head. “No, but it is a talent some vampires have. Malachi has it, so you might.”
My grandfather demonstrated by lifting the ball and setting it down merely by looking at it. “Now, you try I did, but even though I stared hard enough to make my eyes hurt, the ball didn’t budge. I frowned.
“What’s the trick?”
“There is no trick. You can either do it or you can’t,”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?