Four Alphas Bow To Only Me

The rock music blearing from the bass thumped through the floor of The Crimson Moon hard enough to rattle Rachel's teeth.

She balanced three martini glasses on her tray; two dirty, one with a twist, and navigated through the crush of bodies with the practiced ease of someone who'd been doing this job for two years.

Men on designer suits and ladies on silk dresses were seen gyrating to the rock music coming from the speakers.

The air smelled like expensive cologne, aged whiskey, and something else she could never quite name.

"Rachel! Table seven needs you five minutes ago!" Marcos, the floor manager, snapped as she passed the bar.

"On it," she called back, not bothering to hide her eye roll once her back was turned.

Her feet ached in the required four-inch heels. The black cocktail dress they made all the waitresses wear was too tight across her hips, and the diamond-studded collar felt like a leash.

But the tips at The Crimson Moon paid her rent, kept ramen in her cupboard, and occasionally allowed for luxuries like new underwear.

So she smiled, delivered the martinis to the trio of silver-haired men who didn't even bother to give her a second glance, and pocketed the fifty-dollar tip without comment.

"Girl, you look like you're about to murder someone." Suzy appeared at her elbow, somehow making the same ridiculous uniform look like haute couture.

Her best friend had that gift, turning everything she touched into something beautiful. Even waitressing looked like performance art when Suzy did it.

"Just counting down to closing," Rachel muttered sighting, scanning the crowd for empty glasses and raised hands. "Three more hours."

"It's your birthday." Suzy bumped her hip against Rachel's. "You're twenty-one. We should be out getting drunk, smoking joint and making bad decisions, not serving entitled rich people their overpriced alcohol."

"Some of us have rent due in four days."

"Some of us are going to die of boredom before we're twenty-two." Suzy grabbed a bottle of champagne from the bar. "Table twelve. Want to split it after shift? I've got that bottle of tequila we've been saving."

Rachel grinned. "You're a terrible influence."

"That's why you love me."

Suzy disappeared into the crowd, her dark hair swinging. Rachel turned toward the kitchen to grab her next order and froze.

Rowan Blackwood stood near the VIP section.

Her heart did something stupid in her chest. It always did when she saw him. He owned The Crimson Moon, owned half the underground clubs in Manhattan, if rumors were true, and he was absolutely, devastatingly gorgeous in a way that made Rachel forget how to form coherent sentences.

Tonight he wore all black. Expensive shirt rolled to his elbows, showing forearms that made her mouth go dry. Dark hair just long enough to run your fingers through. Sharp jawline. And those eyes, oh Gaud, even from across the room, even in the dim red lighting, they seemed to glow gold.

He was talking to someone she couldn't see, his expression serious. Then, as if he felt her staring, his gaze cut directly to her.

Rachel's breath caught.

For one impossible moment, those gold eyes locked with hers. Something hot and dangerous flashed across his face.

Recognition. Hunger. Something that made every nerve ending in her body light up like she'd touched a live wire.

Then someone bumped into her from behind, and she stumbled. When she looked back, Rowan was gone.

"Get your head out of the clouds, Morningstar!" Marcos barked. "Table fifteen!"

Rachel shook herself. Right. Work. Tips. Rent. No fantasizing about the completely unattainable club owner who'd never spoken a single word to her in two years.

She delivered drinks. Cleared tables. Smiled until her face hurt. The night blurred into the usual rhythm of controlled chaos that was The Crimson Moon on a Friday night.

The club catered exclusively to members, the kind of people who had more money than sense and wore it like armor.

Politicians. CEOs. Old money types who looked and acted like they owned the world, and young over pampered men who act like over grown babies, who act like the wait staff is beneath them.

Rachel had learned not to make eye contact unless necessary. Learned to be invisible while still being attentive. Learned that the bigger the tip, the more arrogance they can be towards the wait staff especially the young men whose fathers are the ones who actually makes the money.

"Twenty minutes to last call," Suzy said, appearing with two empty trays. "Thank God. My feets are killing me."

"Mine died an hour ago." Rachel leaned against the bar, stealing a moment to breathe. The crowd was thinning slightly as some of the early-leavers headed out.

"You still want to do tequila at my place?"

"Obviously. It's your birthday, and we're celebrating the fact that you've survived twenty-one years of this bullshit world." Suzy grabbed her hand and squeezed excitedly.

"Love you, babe."

"Love you too."

They'd said that to each other every day since they were seven years old, shivering in bunk beds at the group home in Queens. No one else had wanted the two skinny orphan girls with attitude problems, so they'd wanted each other. Built their own family from nothing.

Rachel was just turning to grab her last round of orders when pain exploded behind her eyes.

She gasped, grabbing the edge of the bar. The bottle she'd been holding slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. Crystal shards and vodka spread across the polished wood.

"Rachel?" Suzy's voice sounded distant, underwater. "Rachel, what's wrong?"

The pain intensified. It felt like something was breaking open inside her skull. Her vision blurred, doubled, then suddenly sharpened with impossible clarity. She could see every dust mote in the air.

Smell every individual person in the room, sweat and perfume and something underneath, something primal and wild.

Hear conversations from fifty feet away as clearly as if people were whispering in her ear.

"I-" She tried to speak, but her voice came out wrong. Deeper. Rough.

Her hands were shaking. No. Not shaking. Changing.

She watched in horror as her fingernails lengthened, sharpened, darkened to black points. The skin of her hands rippled like something was moving underneath.

"Oh God." Rachel stumbled backward, knocking into a table. Glasses crashed to the floor. "Oh God, what's happening?"

"Rachel!" Suzy grabbed her shoulders.

"Talk to me! Should I call 911?"

But Rachel couldn't answer. The pain was spreading, down her spine, through her chest, into her bones. It felt like her skeleton was trying to tear itself out of her body and rebuild itself into something else.

She opened her mouth to scream and tasted blood.

Her blood.

The scent of it hit her like a physical force, and suddenly she was starving. Not hungry, starving. A desperate, clawing need that made everything else disappear except the pulse points of every person in the room. She could see them, glowing beneath the skin. Could hear hearts beating. Could smell the life pumping through veins.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no-"

The lights exploded.

Every bulb in The Crimson Moon burst simultaneously in a shower of sparks and glass. Someone screamed. In the sudden darkness, Rachel could see perfectly-better than perfectly.

Everything was sharp and clear and edged in colors that shouldn't exist.

And that's when she saw her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

Her eyes were glowing. Not reflecting light-actually glowing from within. One gold, one crimson, one violet. Three different colors swirling like oil on water.

"What the fuck," she breathed.

The window behind her exploded inward.

Glass rained down as something massive crashed through from the street outside. Rachel spun, her new predator vision tracking the movement with inhuman precision.

A man crouched in the wreckage. Except he wasn't quite a man anymore. His face was twisted, wrong, with too-long fangs and eyes that had gone completely black. His skin was gray, papery, stretched too tight over bones that jutted at wrong angles.

The thing that resembles a man lifted its head and looked directly at her.

Then it smiled with a mouth full of broken glass teeth.

"Hybrid," it hissed, and the word sounded like worship and hunger and madness all twisted together. "Mine. MINE!"

It launched itself at her with impossible speed.

Rachel didn't think. Didn't have time to think. Her body moved on pure instinct, diving sideways as the creature's claws raked through the space where her head had been a second before. She hit the ground hard, rolled, came up in a crouch she'd never learned and didn't know how she did it.

The thing landed where she'd been standing and immediately spun to track her. Its movements were jerky, broken, like a puppet with tangled strings. But it was fast. So impossibly fast.

"Rachel, RUN!" Suzy screamed from somewhere in the chaos.

The creature lunged again. This time Rachel wasn't fast enough. Claws caught her shoulder, tearing through fabric and skin. Blood welled hot and immediate. She screamed-

And then there was someone else there.

A blur of motion, a snarl that shook the walls, and suddenly the creature was being ripped away from her. Rachel hit the ground again, gasping, clutching her bleeding shoulder.

Through her color-saturated vision, she watched as Rowan Blackwood, her boss's boss, the man she'd been crushing on from a safe distance for two years, lifted the twisted vampire-thing by its throat with one hand.

His eyes had gone completely gold. Bright, burning, inhuman gold. And when he smiled, she saw fangs.

"Bad idea," Rowan said, his voice a rumble that resonated in her chest, "attacking what's mine."

Then he tore the thing's head off with his bare hands.

The body hit the floor with a wet, final sound. Rowan dropped the head beside it and turned to look at Rachel.

She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Blood dripped from her shoulder. Her hands were still tipped with black claws. Her eyes still glowed with three impossible colors. And Rowan Blackwood was walking toward her with glowing gold eyes and murder on his hands, looking at her like he'd been waiting his entire life for this exact moment.

He crouched in front of her, close enough that she could smell him-whiskey and pine and something wild that made her want to press closer even as every survival instinct screamed to run.

"Happy birthday, beautiful," he said softly, and God help her, he was smiling. That cocky, dangerous smile that she'd only ever seen from across crowded rooms. Up close, it was devastating. "Welcome to the real world."

He reached out one bloodstained hand.

And despite everything; the pain, the fear, the impossible changes rippling through her body, the dead thing on the floor, the chaos erupting around them, Rachel found herself reaching back.

Their fingers touched.

Power exploded between them like lightning, and the last thing Rachel saw before darkness swallowed her was Rowan's gold eyes widening in shock.

Then nothing.

Rachel woke to feel of silk sheets and the smell of pine.

Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused, taking in an unfamiliar ceiling painted in soft gray. Crown molding traced elegant lines toward walls covered in what looked like actual wallpaper, the expensive kind, textured and subtle. A chandelier hung overhead, crystal catching morning light and scattering it across the room in prismatic fragments.

This was not her shitty studio apartment in Queens.

Memory crashed back like a tidal wave. The club. The pain. Her hands changing. The thing with the gray skin and too many teeth. Rowan tearing its head off. His golden eyes. The explosion of power when their fingers touched.

Rachel sat up so fast her vision swam. The room tilted sideways before righting itself, and she had to grip the mattress to keep from falling over. Her shoulder throbbed, the one the creature had clawed; but when she looked down, she was wearing an oversized gray t-shirt she didn't recognize, and there was no blood. No wound. Just smooth, unmarked skin where she should have had four deep gashes.

"What the hell," she whispered.

Her voice sounded wrong. Stronger. Deeper than it should be.

She looked at her hands. Normal hands. Normal fingernails; short, unpainted, slightly ragged from biting them when she got nervous. No black claws. No rippling skin. Just her regular hands that she'd had her entire life.

Had she imagined it? Some kind of birthday breakdown? Bad drugs in her drink?

But no. The memory was too vivid, too real. And this definitely wasn't her apartment.

Rachel swung her legs out of bed and immediately regretted it. The floor was freezing hardwood against her bare feet, and standing made her head spin again. She steadied herself against the massive four-poster bed and took stock.

She was in a bedroom that was probably bigger than her entire apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall showed dense forest, actual forest, with morning mist clinging to the ground between towering pines. Not a building in sight. A door to her left presumably led to a bathroom. Another door straight ahead was closed.

And she had no idea where the hell she was.

Rachel moved toward the closed door on shaky legs. Her body felt strange, not exactly wrong, just different. Like someone had taken her apart and put her back together slightly off-center. Everything was too sharp, too clear. She could hear birds outside the window as if they were singing directly into her ear. Could smell coffee brewing somewhere distant, along with bacon and something sweet. Could feel the air moving across her skin like a physical touch.

She reached for the door handle.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Rachel spun, heart hammering. A woman stood in the bathroom doorway, tall, lean, with silver-blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun. She wore tactical pants and a tight black tank top that showed arms corded with muscle. And her eyes were the same impossible gold as Rowan's had been.

"Who the fuck are you?" Rachel demanded, backing up until her spine hit the door.

The woman raised an eyebrow. "I'm Vera. Beta female of the Manhattan pack. And you're in the Alpha's private residence, so maybe try to remember your manners."

"Manners?" Rachel's voice cracked on a laugh that held no humor. "Something attacked me at work, my boss ripped its head off, I don't know what happened to my best friend, and I woke up in a strange place wearing someone else's clothes. Manners are pretty low on my priority list right now."

Vera's expression didn't change. "You're lucky to be alive. That feral would have drained you in seconds if Alpha Blackwood hadn't intervened."

"Feral what? What the hell was that thing?"

"Vampire. Well, former vampire. The curse makes them like that eventually. Lose their minds, lose their humanity, becomes nothing but hunger." Vera crossed her arms. "You should get dressed. Alpha wants to see you."

"I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what's happening." Rachel's hands were shaking. She shoved them behind her back. "Where's Suzy? Is she okay?"

"Your human friend is fine. Memories were adjusted. She thinks you had a medical emergency and Rowan took you to a private hospital." Vera moved toward a wardrobe Rachel hadn't noticed. "The clothes should fit. You have ten minutes."

"Adjusted? You messed with her memories?" Rachel said her eyes flashing fire.

"Would you prefer she remember watching a feral vampire attack you? Watching you sprout claws and fangs? Watching her eyes glow three different colors?" Vera pulled out jeans and a soft gray sweater. "Something's are better to be forgotten."

Rachel's stomach dropped. "My eyes... that was real?"

"Everything you remember is real." Vera set the clothes on the bed. "Get dressed. Alpha Blackwood doesn't like to be kept waiting, and trust me, you want him in a good mood for this conversation."

She left through the main door before Rachel could form another question.

For a long moment, Rachel just stood there, trembling. Then she grabbed the clothes and dressed with mechanical precision, her mind spinning in useless circles. Vampires. Werewolves, because that's what Rowan had to be with those gold eyes, right? Curses. Ferals. Adjusted memories.

This was insane. This was impossible.

But her shoulder had healed overnight from wounds that should have needed stitches. Her senses were still sharp enough to be unsettling. And she could remember with perfect clarity the way her fingernails had turned to claws.

The jeans fit perfectly, which was somehow more disturbing than anything else. Someone had known her size. Had prepared for her to be here.

Rachel pulled on the sweater, cashmere, soft enough to be criminal, and shoved her feet into the boots waiting by the bed. Then she opened the door and stepped into a hallway that belonged in an architectural magazine.

Hardwood floors gleamed. Art that looked expensive lined cream-colored walls. More windows showed that same endless forest. The ceiling soared fifteen feet up, supported by dark wooden beams. Everything screamed money, taste, and power.

Voices drifted from somewhere downstairs. Low, male, urgent.

Rachel followed the sound, her new predator hearing making it easy to track. Down a curved staircase with wrought-iron railings. Through an entryway with marble floors. Into a massive great room with a stone fireplace big enough to stand in.

Three men stood near the fireplace, deep in conversation.

Rachel recognized Rowan immediately. He still wore all black, though he'd changed into fresh clothes. His dark hair was damp, like he'd recently showered. When he turned at her approach, those gold eyes locked onto her with an intensity that made her breath catch.

"Rachel." Her name in his voice sounded like a prayer and a curse. "You're awake."

"No shit." She crossed her arms, trying to look braver than she felt. "Want to tell me what the hell is going on? Where am I? Why have you apparently been stalking me?"

A low whistle came from one of the other men-shorter than Rowan, with sandy hair and a cocky grin. "She's got fire. I like her."

"Shut up, Marcus," Rowan said without taking his eyes off Rachel.

The third man was older, maybe fifty, with gray streaking his dark hair and scars crossing his weathered face. He studied Rachel with the same intensity Rowan did, but there was something calculating in his gaze. Measuring.

"You're in my home," Rowan said finally. "About forty miles north of the city. My pack's territory."

"Pack. So you're werewolves." Rachel was proud that her voice stayed steady. "And that thing that attacked me was a vampire."

"Yes."

"And I'm... what exactly?" She held up her hands. "Because last night they grew claws. And my eyes, Vera said they glowed in three colors."

Something shifted in Rowan's expression. Softness, maybe. Or pity. "You're a hybrid, Rachel. The only one in existence. Part werewolf, part vampire, part witch."

The words should have sounded ridiculous. Should have made her laugh. Instead, they settled into her bones with the weight of truth she'd always known but never acknowledged. All those times she'd felt different. Not belonging. Like she didn't quite fit in her own skin.

"That's impossible," she said anyway.

"Your great-grandmother was a witch. Your grandfather was a vampire. Your mother was their daughter-half witch, half vampire. And your father..." Rowan's jaw tightened. "Your father was a werewolf."

"I don't have parents. I grew up in foster care."

"Because your mother died giving birth to you. Because your father tried to take you. Because your great-grandmother used the last of her power to hide you in the human world until you were old enough to survive the awakening." Rowan took a step toward her. "You were never supposed to exist, Rachel. The combination of those three bloodlines should have killed you in the womb. But somehow, you survived."

Rachel's legs felt weak. She locked her knees to keep from swaying. "Why? Why would someone want to create something that shouldn't exist?"

The older man spoke for the first time, his voice gravelly. "Because a hybrid's blood is the cure we've all been searching for."

"Thomas," Rowan warned.

"She deserves the truth." Thomas moved closer, and Rachel noticed he walked with a slight limp. "I'm Thomas, Gamma of this pack. And I'm dying, girl. We all are. Every werewolf in this city, in this country, is losing control of our shifts. Going feral. We have maybe a few weeks before we become nothing but animals."

The room felt too small suddenly. Too close. "And you think my blood can stop that?"

"We know it can." Rowan's voice was gentle. Careful. Like he was trying not to spook a wild animal. "I've been watching you for two years, Rachel. Waiting for your twenty-first birthday. Waiting for your powers to manifest. Because once they did, you'd have enough strength to survive helping us."

"Helping you." The words tasted bitter. "You mean letting you use my blood."

"Yes."

At least he was honest.

Rachel backed up until she hit the wall. Her mind was racing, trying to process everything. Hybrid. Cure. Dying werewolves. Two years of being watched.

"The club," she said suddenly. "You own The Crimson Moon. You hired me specifically, didn't you? To keep tabs on me."

Rowan didn't deny it.

"Jesus Christ." Rachel pressed her palms against her eyes. "My entire life is a lie. My job was a setup. You've been stalking me-"

"Protecting you," Rowan interrupted. "Every day for two years, making sure nothing found you before you were ready. Do you know how many supernatural creatures can sense what you are? How many would have killed you or kidnapped you or used you before you ever had a chance to understand your own power?"

"So I should be grateful?" She dropped her hands, anger cutting through the shock. "You manipulated my entire existence and I should thank you?"

"I'm not asking for thanks." Rowan moved closer, and God, he was big. She'd noticed before, from a distance, but up close he was overwhelming. Six-four, broad-shouldered, moving with predatory grace that made her prey instincts scream. "I'm asking for your help. My pack is dying, Rachel. Good people. Families. Kids who don't deserve to lose their parents to this curse."

"Why me? If I'm the cure, why not just-" She gestured vaguely. "Take what you need? Why bother waking me up at all?"

"Because you're human with real feelings, emotions and choices," Rowan said fiercely. "Because taking from you without consent would make me the monster, not the man. Because..." He stopped himself, jaw working.

"Because what?"

His eyes met hers, and something in them made her heart stutter. Heat. Hunger. Something that had nothing to do with blood and everything to do with the way he was looking at her mouth, like he felt like tasting them.

"Because the moment your power awakened, it called to mine," he said quietly. "Because when our hands touched, I felt the mate bond snap into place. Because you're not just a hybrid, Rachel. You're mine."

The word hung in the air between them.

Mine.

Possessive. Absolute. Terrifying.

"I'm not anyone's," Rachel whispered.

"Not yet." Rowan's smile was dangerous. Promising. "But you will be."

Before Rachel could respond, before she could process the absolute insanity of what he was saying, a howl split the air outside. Long, mournful, ending in a scream that was more human than wolf.

All three men tensed.

"That's Brian," Marcus said, already moving toward the door. "He's shifting. He can't stop it."

"Get the chains," Thomas barked.

Rowan was still looking at Rachel. "Stay here. Don't go outside. Don't-"

Another howl. Closer. More screams joined it.

"They're all going," Marcus said from the doorway, his voice tight with fear. "It's happening. The curse, it's accelerating."

Rowan swore viciously. He turned back to Rachel, and she saw desperation crack through his careful control. "I need your answer. Now. Will you help us or not?"

Rachel looked past him to where Marcus stood in the doorway. Looked at Thomas, who was gripping the back of a chair so hard his knuckles had gone white. Looked at Rowan, this man who'd apparently been watching her, protecting her, waiting for her for two years.

Outside, more howls. More screams. The sound of something breaking.

"If I say yes," she said slowly, "I want answers. Real answers. About my parents. About what I am. About everything."

"Done."

"And I'm not your anything. I don't care what you felt when we touched. I'm not some prize to be claimed."

Rowan's smile was sharp. "We'll see about that."

"Do we have a deal or not?"

He held out his hand. The same hand that had reached for her last night. The same hand that had killed to protect her.

Rachel stared at it for a long moment. Then she stepped forward and placed her palm against his.

Power crashed between them again; not as violent as before, but still very strong and steady. Thrumming. Like a heartbeat that belonged to both of them. Rowan's eyes flashed brighter gold, and Rachel felt something in her chest twist and pull toward him.

The mate bond, some instinct whispered. It's already started.

"Deal," she said.

Rowan's fingers closed around hers, and his smile turned predatory. Victorious.

Outside, another howl rose. But this time, there was something different in it. Not pain. Not madness.

Hope.