Chapter 95: Chapter One

Alex

~Present Day~

“Turn it off already,” Mason grumbled. “We get it, even plants are attracted to your scent. Now, hurry up, my nuts are freezing.”

“That right there—” I rolled my eyes. “—is why you’ll never have pups.”

“For the last time, wolves do not have pups!” Mason growled, nearly swiping me with one of his claws as I tried to focus on everything but the current predicament I was in.

“Maybe she’ll be nice.” Mason offered in a gruff albeit slightly encouraging voice as he slapped me twice on the back and then held out a berry in his paw.

“Dear God, man! Do I look like I need a freaking berry right now? If you don’t have whiskey or anything stronger than that, don’t, just don’t.” Mason’s paw trembled. “Shit.” I reined in my emotions, careful not to kill any nearby flowers with my emotional intensity. “Sorry Mason, I didn’t mean it. Not really. Damn it, stop whimpering and just give me the stupid berry.”

Mason wound up and threw it at my face.

“Deserved that.”

“Yup.” He shook out his paws as they returned to fingers and shoved them in his jean pockets. “Besides, I was trying to make you feel better, you don’t have to be such a jackass about it.”

“It’s what he does,” Ethan said, sweeping into the room with all his creepy vampireyness. That was what I called it when he looked like he was one bite away from orgasming on the spot in front of God and everyone. Have a little decorum—am I right?

“Eat,” I yelled in his direction. “And for the love of God, could you please, block your thoughts for one second?” The vision of him sucking Genesis’s blood while simultaneously stripping her of every inch of clothing burned into the forefront of his mind as he bit down on her neck. “I’m busy having a nervous breakdown and the conversation you just had with your wife about nakedness and whipped cream was it? Yeah, not helping.”

Ethan lunged for me.

I ducked behind Mason and held up my hands. “Lover, not a fighter.”

“Son of a bitch, invade my private thoughts again, and I’ll gnaw your arm off without numbing you first!”

“Promises, promises,” I sang, then willed him to calm down. His eyes dilated slightly before he gave his body a shake. “Better?”

Calming down another immortal always took a bit more concentration, but lucky for him I needed something to concentrate on other than the fact that I was going to enter into a room and go under lockdown with a weak, sniveling little human.

“Give me a tranq gun, then ask.”

I gasped. “You’re going to tranq Mason in the ass?”

“Nobody’s tranquing anyone in anyone’s ass!” Cassius entered the room with a resounding crack. I hated it when he did that, as if we weren’t all painfully aware that he was like one percent away from being an actual archangel and owning our asses on a silver platter.

I bowed.

Just to piss him off.

He growled in my direction. “The humans are ready back at the compound.”

“Goody,” I said in a dry voice. “Pray let’s not keep them waiting, my liege.”

Cassius leveled a glare in my direction as ice filled my veins, freezing me on the spot. He smirked.

“He can’t perform sexually if he’s frozen.” Ethan pointed out, his fangs flashing in my direction. “Though the idea does have merit.”

“Bite me!” I yelled.

With a wink, he shot me a knowing glare. “You’d enjoy it too much, Siren.”

“Yes, I just live for teeth cutting into my soft flesh, it gets me off, said no man ever.”

“Well, some men—

“Not now, Mason!” I interrupted.

Cassius waved a hand in front of my face, unthawing my body. “She’s scared.”

“Aren’t they taught that we’re attracted to fear?”

Fear, after all, was the reason that we were in this predicament, wasn’t it?

Humans were needed in order to keep the immortal race alive— but over a hundred years ago, because of the arrogant asshat Ethan, we’d had trouble calling their numbers again.

Meaning that mating with humans to create immortal children had suddenly stopped working. The humans kept dying, and a great chasm erupted between both races.

The humans that knew of us and served us still tried to raise their human daughters and sons to please us, but the remaining council members, me included, decided that we didn’t want their deaths on our hands; ergo, we allowed ourselves to go extinct.

And then Cassius, with his damn hero complex, decided, hey, why not call one and I’d take her? Only problem? Genesis wanted fang boy, and Cassius was still in love with my adopted sister.

Insert mind-numbing visuals that no brother should ever have to see in his entire existence here.

Long story short, the humans are no longer dying and in order to fight a pissed off fallen angel, all of the council members need to be at their strongest.

Meaning.

I had to mate.

I shuddered for the third time that hour.

Mating with a human was, in my mind, a lot like befriending a sad, blind yet arrogant mouse. No, thank you.

“Yes,” Cassius nodded thoughtfully, interrupting my trip down memory lane. His scolding look said it all. Suck it up. Be a team player. Basically, in Cassius speak, he meant, don’t be an ass, aka don’t be yourself. “They are.”

I tried to read the rest of his thoughts, but he blocked me with the precision of a well-practiced creepy old man—damn him.

“Stop knocking. I won’t ever answer,” Cassius grinned. “Now, there are three women. I want you to pick ~one~.”

I pouted.

“One,” he repeated, emphasizing the word.

“How about all or nothing?” I offered with a flick of my hand.

“How about I rip your skull from your neck and feed it to the bird outside my window?”

“Tempting,” I croaked. “Very tempting.”

“Go,” Cassius urged. “And remember your powers will be somewhat dwindled behind the cement walls of the room; we don’t want you killing them.”

“Hah, death by orgasm, nice.” I made my way toward the door then froze as Stephanie moved to block my way. “What up, sis?”

“Be ~nice~.” Her eyes swirled white and blue. “Please?”

“I ~am~ nice,” I lied.

“You’re manipulative. There’s a difference.”

“Old habits?”

“Just…” She took a deep breath and pressed her hands against my shoulders, her fingers digging into my flesh. “Please give this a chance. There’s a war coming, and we need to be strong, every one of us.”

And there it was.

She may as well have taken the weight of both the human and immortal realm and settled it quite nicely on my six-foot-five frame.

Fantastic.

Cassius was our king.

What he said went.

And we weren’t strong on our own, we needed mates.

And because the very idea sent Mason into a pinecone and berry coma where I’m pretty sure he started reverting back to a childlike state as he rocked back and forth in the corner— I offered as tribute, hah, see what I did there?

Damn it, the immortal version of The Hunger Games.

Fight or be killed.

And I couldn’t fight if I was half of the whole I was supposed to be.

I was one of the four oldest immortals, and a council member to boot.

My job for centuries had been to make sure that the humans, at least the small percentage that didn’t work for us, had no clue about our existence, and of course to make sure there were no feedings.

Of any kind.

Not the vampire kind.

The werewolf kind.

The siren kind. Not that we fed, we typically just had lots and lots of mind-blowing sex with anything that looked at us twice, but I digress.

Things ~had~ been peaceful.

Until a human was called. That was how we did things; we trained a specific type of human female because it was the only way immortals could mate and the only way to make us stronger.

Long story short, she stole Ethan’s heart while thawing Cassius’s, the Dark One currently staring daggers in my direction.

And Cassius decided that he didn’t want to live the rest of his life like a jackass and fell in love with my adopted sister, Stephanie, another Dark One.

Technically, their love was forbidden.

But Sariel, one of the only archangels that wasn’t being held captive by the psychopath fallen one Bannik, had given his life for Cassius.

Thus, I tilted my head, nobody really knew what Cassius was or wasn’t. All I knew was that he was powerful, and he’d frozen my ass on more than one occasion.

I sighed.

The last thing I wanted to do was mate with a weak, smelly-looking human who only knew about six percent of the hundreds of sexual positions I’d need her to know if she ever had any hope of pleasing me.

I wasn’t an asshole.

I just had needs.

Needs that had to be fulfilled. Otherwise, I’d be the one dying.

Wouldn’t Cassius just love that?

I was being hard on him.

But I was pissed.

The last thing I imagined myself doing was marching toward the proverbial immortal altar in my favorite Versace leather pants.

“In the car. Now,” Cassius commanded again. This time, his eyes beamed completely white. Chill, no need to get all archangel on my ass.

Stephanie gave me a hopeful grin while Mason nodded in my direction. It was as much of a thank you as I was going to get from the guy.

“Wish me luck.” I pushed past a stone-faced Cassius and started the long awkward trek to the compound.