The Alpha Territories, chapter two

Dominic Her hair was matted and so filthy it could have been any color. Her body hidden under a ragged dress that looked as if it had once been a sack, was lush and curvy, nothing like what was currently trending in the kingdom. Those thoughts faded as her eyes locked on mine and her mouth dropped open in a soft ‘O’.

Eyes of gold, liquid honey that drew me in. “Oh fuck,” she whispered, her husky voice driving deep into me like a spike to the chest.

My heart rate skyrocketed and I held my breath to literally stop it in its tracks. My fangs dropped of their own volition as if I were a teenager again, unable to control myself. I tore my gaze away in just a split second, but it was enough to burn her into my mind.

A bell tolled, signaling the start of the auction, and the honey-eyed girl was shoved to the back of the group of women. Gone from sight, but certainly not forgotten. What the actual fuck had just happened?

Had Anthony spiked my drink with something? I whipped around to look at him, but he was chatting with Raven, a vampire who currently ruled the Seattle area. Anthony, Earl of DuMont, represented everything that was wrong with our territory—the pomp and circumstance, the excess and extravagant entertainment.

Even knowing we’d be tromping through mud, shit, and piss to get to here, Anthony wore shiny, leather unsealed boots, velvet pants, a silk coat with an ascot at his throat, and a bright blue cloak. I’d pay good money to see him sitting on a horse, about to go to battle, while rain poured from the sky. I bet he’d piss his pants before the first bugle sounded.

As he ended his conversation and moved to join me, his foot slipped and he reached out for Raven’s arm to right himself. I rolled my eyes in disgust. Vampires were supposed to be fast.

Graceful. It had been fifteen years since the Veil had fallen, unmasking the supernatural creatures that ruled the world in secret for so long. Fifteen years since we’d gone from hiding to living in the open, and those fifteen years had made my brethren lax, none more so than Anthony.

“This should be fun,” he said when he finally picked his way through the dreck to take his seat beside me.

I let out a non-committal grunt by way of reply. In my opinion, this place was a perfect example of the changes that had not been in our favor since the falling of the veil. Before, we’d come to the mainland to find food and servants, but we’d been more discreet.

We’d chosen the best and taken them away without anyone knowing. Now, we and the other supernatural factions made no secret of using humans as food, servants, and entertainment. Rather often, simultaneously.

I hated the market and view of humanity at its lowest. I hated the stench and the filth. I hated the pleading and crying, for reasons I didn’t want to explore.

It would take an hour to get the mud out of the cracks and crevices of my leather boots, a task I would be doing myself, not a human servant. A warrior depended on his equipment to be in top-notch condition, and boots were an essential part. I hadn’t wanted to make this trip, and I definitely didn’t want to spend time with Anthony.

We’d arrived the day before, and last night he’d insisted I join him for dinner with his friends. I’d turned him down, and he’d pulled out the responsibility card in his sniveling tone. “I thought your purpose was to guard me, General. Are you shirking your duties?”

I very nearly pointed out that I was there to guard the shipment, not him, but I kept my mouth shut and joined his “soiree” as he’d called it, eating the rich food, which included a series of women for dessert.

Anthony and his companions liked to fuck their food, but that had never been my style, and Anthony knew it. So I’d drank the wine spiced with human blood and I watched the debauchery around me with thinly veiled disgust. I finished off my wine, then got up to leave.

Studying maps of the sea, determining where a threat might attack on our return trip home seemed like a better use of my time. As I’d strode for the door, I’d felt Anthony’s eyes on me. With his dick in the woman on his lap and his fangs in the vein on her neck, he looked to be in ecstasy.

I couldn’t help wondering if part of his joy was watching me leave. I was Dominic Blackthorne, General of the Crown Prince’s army and bastard son to King Stirling. Men like Anthony would not let me forget that I would never be legitimate.

We had never been friends, and never would be, but I had to wonder what game he was playing. Because if there was one thing I knew about the man, he was always scheming and looking for his next step up in the ladder of our society. When he’d made their last trip to procure humans, the ship had been raided on the return voyage.

All the humans had been taken and four of my guards had been killed—a feat in and of itself for anyone not supernatural. Anthony had returned to court with a tale of the danger he’d faced but with no actual visuals on the killers, as he’d been hiding in his room. His only clue was that he was sure he’d heard animalistic growling.

Which of course not so subtly pointed at our werewolf neighbors and added fuel to an already tense situation. He’d demanded I accompany him on this trip to protect his life—of all the people he could have asked for, it surprised me when my name had even been mentioned. I’d agreed to join the next trip, not to protect Earl Dumont’s life as he’d like to believe, but to make certain I didn’t lose any more of my troops—and to see if those responsible would attack again.

While it was possible that the werewolves were behind the incident, I doubted it. My money was on Vanators. The vampire hunters had been on the rise in the last fifteen years.

Still, they didn’t tend to attack by ship, instead preferring the cover of darkness on land. And why had they stopped? If their forces were strong enough to kill four of my men, why not take everyone on the ship out, Anthony included?

There were too many unknowns to suit me, and I was left with an overall feeling of unease. The same feeling that I’d had before every battle in my life. A war was coming, even if I was the only one who could feel the rumbling under my feet.

Dragging myself back to the present, I focused on the dais before me. Despite it being their turn, the werewolves had forgone this shipment, which meant it was now ours. As emissaries of the Crown Prince, Anthony and I were alone in the front row.

Behind us were a dozen or more of the vampires who opted not to inhabit the Empire and stayed on the mainland interspersed among humans. They acted as go betweens for the King and the human government. I nodded at a few that I recognized, and they tipped their heads in return, even as my mind ticked back to the girl with the golden eyes.

I was going to have to get laid when I got home. I knew it had been a while, but I’d been busy, and sex had been the last thing on my mind. Apparently, my dry spell needed watering if I was so hard up that a ragged street rat caught my attention.

I snorted at myself and adjusted my dick as it stirred to life. The manager of the auctions had learned his lesson the hard way to keep the supernaturals apart, and the vampires were often given the best of the best due to our deep pockets. From the looks of the women I’d seen in the pens, though, I had serious doubts that had happened today.

Perhaps that was why the werewolves forfeited their turn? Once we were seated, the auctioneer nodded toward Anthony and then addressed the crowd. “You all know how this works. We’ll introduce the first specimen, let her show her wares, then you bid.”

And then it began. I refused to wonder who would end up buying the honey-eyed woman. Perhaps Raven.

He liked his women on the exotic side. I’d been to auctions before, before they segregated the supernaturals, but it had been at least five years, and it looked like nothing had changed. Someone grabbed a woman from the side of the stage and tugged her to the front.

She resisted, flailing her arms and letting out little shrieks as she fought back, which only made the vampires around me excited. They missed the thrill of the chase, and they lapped her fear like kittens drank warm milk. The auction attendants dragged her to the center of the small platform that served as a stage.

Terror filled her brown eyes and her heart beat louder than the rest of the women. Faster. Closer.

Anthony’s eyes burned bright and he licked his lower lip, his tongue playing with the tip of one fang. Before he even made a bid, I knew he’d try to purchase her. And he’d use her first, before he put her back with the group, before the ship reached landfall.

That was, if he didn’t kill her. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But I suspected he’d be more careful on this trip since I was along.

Which again begged the question, why had he really asked for me to come on this trip? He was purchasing her for the kingdom, and Anthony liked to pay for as little as possible from his own pocket. He wouldn’t want to reimburse the King for a dead human.

“What’s your name?” the auctioneer asked the woman as two other workers held her forearms to keep her from running.

She stared wide-eyed into the crowd, blinking in the light shining upon her. She didn’t answer. “Okay then,” the auctioneer grunted.

“We’ll just call you Daisy.”

He turned his attention to the audience. “Daisy looks to be in her early to mid-twenties but she appears to have given birth to at least one child. Could be good for any breeding programs ya might have going on.”

“Let me go!”

The woman tried to pull loose from the two men, to no avail. The auctioneer walked over to her. “Her body strength appears to be subpar, so you won’t get much manual labor out of her, but she is a looker.”

He grabbed her chin and held her face up so we could see, her long brunette hair hanging like a curtain down her back. Then, he grabbed the top of her tunic and ripped it down the middle. Both men pulled off the remnants then held her arms as she tried to cover her naked breasts.

“She’s got nice tits,” the auctioneer continued.

“So she’d be good for fuckin’ or food. Or perhaps you’d like her for both.”

Anthony was practically salivating, but he remained quiet as others started to make their bids. “Two hundred,” a man called out.

“Three hundred.”

The bidding continued and then began to slow. The auctioneer called out, “Do I hear twelve hundred? Going once, going—”

“Thirteen hundred,”

Anthony said in a clear voice that sounded as smug as he looked. “Fourteen,” a low voice behind us called.

That was Raven. Anthony opened his mouth to continue bidding, but I grabbed his arm and squeezed in warning. “No more,”

I muttered through gritted teeth. His gaze flattened in fury and he opened his mouth to defy me, but something in my expression must’ve stopped him because he swallowed hard and nodded. “Fine, then. I was thinking we could have shared her on the long journey home.”

The asshole had no concept of what constituted a long journey. “It’s only two days to cross, Anthony. And we’re not to touch the females until they’re claimed, after the Harvest Games are complete.”

His brow lifted. “The Harvest Games haven’t started yet.”

“A technicality, as you well know. The women are not to be touched. Understood?”

I stared him down until he looked away. “Spoilsport.”

Our conversation over his attempted misuse of royal funds would wait until we were on the ship and away from outside ears. The auctioneer handed Daisy off then brought out the next woman. Her name was Becky and she was a hairdresser.

“Amelia was saying we need someone who can do updos for the other girls,”

Anthony mused. “Especially in light of the Harvest Games coming up. This one would be useful.”

I looked away, already bored of this conversation and unfathomably irritated by the name of what once had simply been called the Testing. If the kingdom was devolving with opulence, the annual Harvest Games was the biggest one of them all. Mocking the humans once more, as if a woman fighting for a place in our world had any chance at true freedom.

Anthony bid on Becky, and won her. A parade of women crossed the stage, almost every single one of them exposed so the purchaser knew what they were getting. Some tried to cover themselves, their hands splayed wide, but some stood proud with their chins up and their skin pebbling with the cold.

Rather than pay attention, I let my mind wander from the return trip. If it had been the Vanators that had attacked, were they working with another supernatural group? Perhaps they had joined forces with the werewolves in order to fool us?

The vampires were at the top of the hierarchy, and everyone coveted our place. We negotiated on behalf of all the territories with the humans. Whoever it was that had come after the boat had equipment that would have taken a large budget to obtain.

It could have been the Shifters to the east of our kingdom, the tensions there were rife with animosity just waiting to spill over. Finally—thankfully—only one woman was left. The girl with the golden eyes.

Two men dragged her out and my blood stirred again in a way I didn’t like. They didn’t bother trying to remove her clothes as they led her to the front of the stage. Her eyes flashed with pure fire as she stared them down.

Her hands curled into fists, and I tried not to laugh at her defiance. That is, until one of the handlers grabbed at her shirt, and her curled fists flew. Right into his nose.

The blood spray was immediate and the portly man in the wolf pelt vest howled, spinning away from her. More than a few vampires let out soft sighs at the scent of fresh blood. All were old enough to control themselves, but still . . .

“Fucking whore!”

The portly man caught himself and stood, blood dripping down his lips. “I’ll kill you!”

She didn’t run and I couldn’t help but arch a brow as she lifted both fists. “Go ahead and try.”

Anthony rose from his seat patting a kerchief under his nose as if the blood offended him. I put a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back hard enough into his seat that he bounced. “You’ll miss the show. I rather would like to see if she stops him,”

I said. Behind me, Raven laughed. “A bet, old friend?”

“Sure,”

I said with a clipped nod. “What are the stakes?”

Raven stepped up beside me. “If she loses, I’ll take her and she’ll become my maid. If she wins, you purchase her for the Harvest Games. Can you imagine the stir a firecracker like that would make with the Duchess trying to turn her into a lady?”

“This is a waste of time,”

Anthony grumbled. “This one is chum at best. Just look at her.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out why he thought so, before turning my attention back to Raven. “I’ll take that bet, friend,”

I said with a grim smile. The chance of her actually beating a guard who outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds was slim, but for some reason, I had the sense she was stronger than she looked. I held a hand out and Raven grasped it hard.

“Done.”

The pen warden circled around the woman and she mirrored his movements, never taking her eyes off him. “She’s fought before,”

Raven murmured. “Damn, I might not get my maid after all.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d seen enough fighters to recognize the grace in her movements, the way she kept her feet from lifting off the ground, instead sliding them along. She wasn’t as lithesome as some of the women who had been sold to fill harems of the lesser nobles.

She also wasn’t as sturdy as the women who had been purchased for manual labor. Her breasts were full and her hips rounded, made for midnight sins that never saw the light of day. Her dark auburn hair was a matted mess precariously held up by a golden pin.

Narrowed eyes glittered with a fiery anger that was so clearly alive in her, despite her situation. Maybe that was what intrigued me. The guard lunged at her then, open-handed as if to smack her in the head.

She ducked, and as his back turned to her, she struck, hard. “Ouch.”

Raven winced. “She knows where the kidneys are. Perhaps I do not need a maid all that badly. I do so love to grab their plump asses, and I suspect that one might not be so. . . allowing.”

“Backing out already?”

I laughed at him. “Coward.”

“You there,”

Raven grabbed one of the auction attendants, “what is the girl’s name?”

She hesitated and then looked over her sheet, “Sienna.”

Anthony rolled his eyes. “We do not need any more women, and if you were so bored, why did you not stay for the festivities last night?”

I very carefully reached over and put my hand on Anthony’s shoulder as the girl—Sienna—moved around the pen warden, blow by blow driving him to his knees. “Anthony,”

I purred his name and the earl’s gaze dropped to my mouth. I slowly slid my hand up to his neck and then, with a speed that had him still thinking he wasn’t in danger, tightened my hold. “Question me again, and I’ll tear your head off and throw you out with the chum. Understood?”

He looked astounded, not that I blamed him. Typically, I kept myself in check. But not today.

Not now. I shoved Anthony back hard enough to send him sliding through the mud until he came to a stop against the bottom of the stage. Trembling, he touched at his throat.

“How dare you?”

I looked up just in time to see that the guard had finally landed a blow on the girl, straight to the stomach. She doubled over and when he lifted his filthy boot to kick her while she was down, I stood. “Stop.”

I let the command roll out of me, not using just my voice, but also tapping into the control every vampire had on humans. The guard froze, and the girl forced herself to her feet. She paused for the scantest of moments before kicking him in the balls with all her might.

Laughter rolled through the crowd as the fat man fell over, wheezing. Sienna stood, visibly shaking but still . . .defiant. Interesting.

“Well,” the auctioneer cleared his throat.

“I don’t suppose any of you would like to open the bid?”

Raven snorted. “She won, Dom, thanks to your interference. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d wanted her to win.”

My jaw clenched. “I was merely wagering for sport.”

“Anyone? Or should I just send her to the chum pens?”

A vision of her thrashing through the waves as her blood spilled out, her golden eyes dying in front of me . . .fuck me. I should just walk away. Her eyes trapped mine.

Fire and anger burning hot in them. Defiant. Wild.

Everything in me tightened. I wanted to fuck her. Even worse than that?

I admired her. “One hundred,”

I called out. “Are you insane?”

Anthony choked as he crawled to his feet. “We’ve already spent our allotted money, and she’s not worth it.”

“A bet’s a bet,”

I replied. “Do I hear one-fifty?” the auctioneer asked, smiling at Raven who shook his head.

I looked at Anthony, took two strides and put my boot on his hand, holding him in the mud. “Today is not the day, Earl.”

“Sold to the General! Thank you everyone, your wares will be delivered to you…”

The sound of the auctioneer faded as the girl took a step toward me, her body humming with energy that fairly drew my cock to life. This was a mistake. I should have left the girl to Raven.

“Let’s consider her a present for the Duchess.”

I ground my heel into Anthony’s fingers. “Understood?”

Anthony glared up at me, but then nodded. “Of course. Whatever you want, General.”

What I wanted was to grab the girl and throw her up against the wall, burying my cock and my fangs into her over, and over. Instead, I turned away from the stage doing all I could to not look back, forcing myself to keep on moving. “Raven. You owe me a drink for taking that one off your hands.”

But it would take far more than a drink to forget those eyes. Damn me, what had I done?