The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

“I knew this was a horrible idea,” Alpha Thomas from Virginia said. “How could we possibly trust the bloodsuckers to keep up the peace. What kind of fool is leading them anyway?”

Dad just looked to his left and when Master Nikolai nodded, Dad brought them into the videoconference. “I am Master Nikolai, Chairman of the Vampire Council, and this is Master Leonardo of the Syracuse Coven. Our Council is solidly behind the peace treaty, and all Covens have been informed as to the consequences of breaking the peace we’ve brokered.”

“Consequences? You let the man ESCAPE!”

“I didn’t LET anything, Alpha Thomas. Good men died when those traitors broke him out of my cells. I’ve already killed one rebellious Council member, and Louis will be killed when he is found. Any Coven that breaks the peace will be exterminated, and they all know this. I am here with Chairman Brent and his staff, working to keep all of you safe until I can find and destroy these rebel vampire covens.”

The discussion went on for ten minutes, but it was going nowhere. People were shifting blame, looking to use this to boost a candidate or sink another for the Council elections, or just trying to make themselves sound important. It was childish and I’d had it. “ENOUGH!” I slammed my hands on the table, denting the hardwood. “We don’t have time for this. Right now we know there is a potentially serious threat to our kind, but we don’t know where they might strike. It’s time for you to protect your Packs as you were sworn to do.” I laid out some of the ideas we were using, including the UV lights and explosives. “If you have other ideas to share on defending our women and children from the Vampire threat, then speak up. The rest can wait for tomorrow.”

No one spoke for a while, then the first Alphas started to contribute concrete ideas. I felt better when Brent finally wrapped up the call.

I was glad I had Vampire sleep needs, because this was going to be a long night.

Randall Meechum’s POV

JFK International Airport, New York

I watched from my first-class seat as the Delta Airlines jet touched down in New York. I had taken the first direct flight out, and the ticket agent flirted with me as she upgraded my ticket. I had to fill out paperwork to fly with my gun, but it all worked out. The sun was setting as we pulled off the runway.

I turned my phone on, and it quickly filled with messages. I sent a quick text to Talia, letting her know I had landed safe, and another to Master Jarrod.

Talia called me back as I was leaving the plane, and as I walked towards baggage claim I was caught up on all I had missed. It sounded like they had it well in hand, but she was worried about Jarrod. New York had more covens than any other city, and they’d already broken Louis out. His Coven in Toronto was gone, the eight vampires in it nowhere to be found.

A driver was waiting for me, one of the familiars Master Nikolai trusted implicitly. As we were driving, he filled me in on what was happening. “We’re going to the mattresses, so to speak,” he said. “The ones Master Nikolai can trust with his life are protecting the lower levels of the Headquarters; the lower the trust, the farther away the vampires are stationed. Master Jarrod and his Coven are all in place, working with Master Lukaku and Mistress Edith to contain this.”

“How are they containing it?”

“Master Nikolai is not a man to cross lightly. The Council members have been contacting every Coven leader personally to warn them. Only four have refused the call, and those Covens are going to be visited by those loyal to the Council. Examples will be made, and order will be restored.” It sounded like a plan, but the sooner we found the rebels the better.Content © NôvelDrama.Org.

We were halfway there when my phone rang. “Jarrod?”

“Tell him to bring you in the back way and be careful. We’re under attack.”

Master Jarrod’s POV

Vampire Council HQ, 5 floors underneath Manhattan

There were only two entrances to the sub-basements that held the Council floors. The normal way down was to take the elevator; a special pass card was required, and your face was scanned, and your identity confirmed by our security before the elevator started to move. The second way was through any escape tunnel that exited into the subway system below.

We didn’t see activity at either place because they attackers didn’t use the entrances.

Louis and Daniela had been planning for the takeover of the Council for years, and their Covens had used local construction projects to hide their activities. The first sign of attack we got was when the wall on the east side of the third sub-basement exploded into the storage room. “Defense protocol, attackers on third floor east,” the announcement from our security control said.

I’d been told the Council vampire staff was normally well-prepared and drilled for attack, but we were understaffed with the defections. Whatever defensive plans we had the attackers knew just as well. I raced from my new office to the security station in the back of the fifth sub-basement. Master Lukaku was already there and watching the monitors carefully. “You should go to the safe room with Marceline,” he said.

“No, I need to fight,” I replied. I wasn’t going to hide from this. “How bad is it?”

“Twenty-eight hostiles entered through the breach before they took the cameras out,” the man said from the station. “The elevator power has been cut, and we’ve got at least six more in the subway where the emergency exit comes out. Those cameras are gone too, along with the cameras near the subway tunnel.” That wasn’t good, we only had twenty loyal vampires plus the three Masters. “The radios we use for security are jammed as well.”

“How are you coordinating the response?”

“We aren’t,” Master Lukaku said as he watched. “We had six guards on the third floor, they were overwhelmed in seconds. We’ve locked down the individual floors, that will slow them down a little.”

“Master Louis knows our defenses, he will expect that. Can you text or call cellphones?”

“Maybe, I don’t have time.”

“Use the PA system, at least you can let the defenders know the movements.” He nodded and made a broadcast as I pulled my phone out. I had nobody from my Coven here, but I did have Randall coming in tonight. I dialed his cell, he picked up quickly. “Tell him to bring you in the back way. We’re under attack.” I gave him a quick status update, finishing with the attackers covering the emergency exit I wanted him coming through.

“I’m still twenty minutes out, Jarrod. Can you hold on?”

I looked at the monitors, all we had left was the cameras in the lobby and on the floors they hadn’t reached yet. The stairway was locked down, and the thick steel blast doors between floors were as tough as a bank vault. “I think so.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

Using text messages, over the next five minutes we redeployed our people to meet the threat. “I expected to Master Louis here, but Master Chen and Master Charles too?” I asked. Master Chen’s coven was in Chinatown, while Master Charles was in Brooklyn.

“They’ve been busy,” Mistress Edith said. She had been calling the other Covens, asking for help, but none were close enough to get here quickly. “You can’t use vampire speed in New York with cameras everywhere,” she said. “They’ll get here as soon as they can.”

“Oh shit, they brought a blowtorch,” Master Lukaku said. I looked at the camera he was staring at, it was the stairwell to the third floor. The steel was starting to glow red near the handle, and a flame punching through was shooting molten steel onto the concrete floor. He contacted the men on the fourth floor, updating them and directing them to set up defenses in that area.

“How long until they are through,” I asked.

“There’s three lock points to cut through and those doors are six-inch solid steel,” he said. “Half hour, maybe?”

“I hope it’s soon enough,” I said.

Erica’s POV

Northeast Texas

“How long until we reach Sulphur River,” Anastasia asked. Now that it was past sundown, she had come out of the trunk of the Mercedes sedan I was driving.

“Thirty minutes,” I said as I looked at the navigation computer. Eduardo was in the passenger seat, working on his laptop furiously. “Since the nearest Covens are in Dallas, Shreveport and Oklahoma City, we should get there first.”

“Unless they pre-positioned,” she said. We were lucky; since Eduardo and I could be out in the sunlight, we were able to drive in the afternoon. When we got the warning from Talia, Jarrod asked us to move to reinforce Sulphur River from attack. His reasoning was simple; there wasn’t time to move Anastasia by air, and he couldn’t leave her in the Coven house. It made more sense for Randall to fly during the day and for us to drive to help his Pack. “Can you check in with them?”

“Sure.” I used the hands-free capability to make the call.

“Erica?”

“Hi Dusty. Any activity there yet?” We all were worried about them, because the Pack was a likely target for the rebellious Covens. With Brent leading the Alpha Council and the changes to make peace with the Vampires, he had a big target on his back. Add in his son’s mating to Talia and the Pack’s friendship with our coven, and no Pack was a more attractive target.

“Quiet so far. We’ve got everyone except the warriors in the safe room for the night.”

“Good.” We discussed some of the things they were doing to protect their territory while I drove west. “We’ll call you when we are a few minutes away, I don’t want your guys taking shots at us.”

“It will be good to have you here, Erica. Hopefully it’s for nothing.” We could be so lucky. I heard shouting in the background. “I have to go, they’re here. Our cameras just picked up vampires crossing the border line.”

The line went dead. I put the gas pedal to the floor, pushing the sedan to over a hundred and forty miles an hour. I relied on my hybrid senses to keep me safe as I passed vehicles on the road like they were parked. I called Talia when I hit a stretch of open road. “It’s Erica. Vampires are attacking Sulphur River, they just crossed the Pack border.”

“I heard. How far out are you?”

“It could be over by the time we arrive.”

Anastasia got a phone call a few seconds later. “Malcolm, slow down!”

“The house, they set the house on fire!”

“What house?”

“The mansion. They were too fast and they threw Molotov cocktails through the windows. The fires were too hot and there were too many. We didn’t have time to save anything.”

Oh shit. “Malcom, did everyone get out?”

“I’m the only one who got out. I was cleaning downstairs and used the emergency escape. They killed the staff as they fled, gunned them down in the yard and the garden. I got out just before they breached the basement.” He was barely holding it together. “The mansion, it’s bad. They’ll never put it out in time to save it.”