Alpha of the Millennium

‘November 11th, 2017’

‘Lumen’

Eve

“Raphael, where are you taking—” I demanded, but before I could finish the question, he was pulling me into a side room.

He closed the door.

I looked around; it was an office. Probably Gabriel’s.

“Great. We’re in an office. You want to tell me what you’re doing now?”

“I just needed to be alone with you,” he responded, his eyes dancing with mischief.

“How many times do I need to tell you I’m not interested before you get it through your head?” I asked harshly, hoping that the ruder I was, the less I’d feel the desire in the pit of my core. The one that yearned for him.

“I know you’re lying. I can see right through you.”

“For the millionth time, I’m not ly—” But he grabbed me before I could finish, pushing me up against the closed door. He pressed his body against mine.

If it were anyone else, I would’ve bitten his head off.

No man gets to push me around, to press himself against me, without my explicit request for it.

But Raphael…

It was like he could hear my body asking for him.

He was feeding into exactly what my desire hungered for.

“You were saying?” He breathed into my ear, and I felt his warm breath on my skin. Fuck.

He moved his face back to center so we were staring right at each other, barely an inch apart.

I wanted him to kiss me. No, I needed him to kiss me.

I needed to taste his lips, to feel them against mine, to feel them on my skin, moving down my body.

Before I could fantasize for a second longer, his hand moved to my chest. I gasped as he pressed his palm over my heart. There was only the thin fabric of my tank top between us.

“Your heart’s racing.”

“It is not.”

In less than a second, he grabbed my hand and pushed it against my own chest, palm down.

I could feel my heartbeat, and without question, it was racing.

“If your body’s reacting like this now, imagine what will happen during the mating season.”

He was looking at me with such intensity, with such hunger, and all I wanted to do was give in.

I just wanted to let go of my mind, let my body take over... but then he’d win. I couldn’t let him win.

I pushed him away from me, walking over to the farthest wall in the room. “You have to leave me alone.”

“I can’t leave you alone.”

“Why?”

“I told you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop craving you, babe. It’s only you.”

The way he spoke, so genuine, would’ve fooled me if I were just some girl. But I wasn’t.

I had been alive too long, had seen too much, to be fooled by Raphael Fernandez.

“I don’t care,” I responded.

“I can’t have anyone else,” he continued, stepping closer to me. “Every year, every time I haze, I go crazy. Don’t you? Go insane with lust, with desire? All I want is you, Eve. But you’re never there.”

“And I won’t be again this time.”

“I don’t want the other girls, don’t you see? They don’t do anything for me. Nothing. But I have no other choice. You leave me no other choice.”

Wait. What is he saying?

“So I have them. But it’s never satisfying. It’s never what I need. You’re the only thing I need.”

“You screw them? The other girls?”

He nodded. “But I hate myself after. You have to believe me. I know it’s not right, I know I shouldn’t give in, but it’s like… I can’t control myself. When I’m hazed, all I need is sex. And if I don’t give in, it affects everything. It affects my role as Alpha—”

“Oh, shut up! Don’t give me that poor little Alpha of the Millennium story, Raphael.” I stormed toward the door, sick of talking to him.

The second he told me he was fucking other girls my arousal popped like a bubble.

The fantasy was over.

But before I could turn the doorknob, Raphael grabbed my elbow. He gently turned me around so I was facing him again. “You’re mad.”

“I’m annoyed.”

“Why?”

“You can fuck other girls! You’re physically able to… to… engage in sex with them…” I trailed off, already chastising myself for being so honest with him. Why did you give anything away?

“You can’t.” He said it softly, under his breath, and his eyebrows rose in question. “You can’t?” he repeated.

“That’s none of your business,” I snapped. But it was true.

I couldn’t get turned on… I couldn’t have sex… with anyone else. And it wasn’t fair that he could.

He reached up, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear, and exhaled.

The gesture caught me off guard. I was expecting him to smirk at me, to give me one of his cocky looks and push me up against the wall again.

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t upset me.”

“This season, this haze, it’ll be different, Eve. Because we’re both in Lumen. We want each other. We need each other.” He took my hand, and this time I didn’t pull away.

There was something about the words he was saying, the way he was looking at me... It was like he was a different person.

“Why did you come here?” I whispered.

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?” He pulled me to him, and the next second his lips were on mine.

The kissing was so gentle, but then it changed. The fire was back, burning inside my core— the kissing so hot, so urgent, I was seeing stars.

We were clawing at each other, needing to get closer, and then I felt the wall behind me.

Raphael had pushed me against it, and now his body was against mine. I could feel his hardness, but it wasn’t enough.

I wanted to feel more of it. All of it.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he whispered between kisses, and I opened my eyes to see him. His deep brown eyes were looking back at me, but it was a look I’d seen many times before.

What are you doing, Eve?!

I broke free from his grasp. I ran across the room. “No. No, Raphael. This can’t happen. I won’t let it.”

“What are you talking about?” he demanded to know, running a hand through his thick hair.

“You can’t have me. I won’t let you.”

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?” He pulled me to him, and the next second his lips were on mine.

“Let me be clear. I don’t, and I will never, want you. I do not consent to anything involving you. You want to have me? Try and take me. But it’ll be against my will.”

“I’ve never had a woman against her will in my life,” Raphael thundered.

I knew it would hurt him. That was why I said it.

Werewolves— and Alphas, especially— had been against rape for longer than I’d been alive.

To them, rape meant an inability to attract love. It meant the wolf in question was inferior. And werewolves were nothing without their superiority complex.

“I don’t understand why you’re running away from me,” he said.

He was stepping toward me again, but I was sick of this game.

It didn’t matter how wet with desire I was, how much I craved his lips back on mine, none of that mattered.

I pulled open the window behind me. “You don’t have to understand,” I told him before I jumped out.

I could hear him running to the window as I grabbed onto a tree branch and lurched forward, jumping to a different tree.

But I didn’t care. I shook my head free of those thoughts, free of anything to do with Raphael Fernandez.

I was in Lumen to do one thing, and that was to protect the Morgan sisters.

But still, the date rang out in my mind.

It was November 11th.

I had only a month and a half left.

I was walking through Woodsmoke, the Morgans’ neighborhood, when I saw the playground in the distance.

I upped my pace, my boots clunking against the ground until I reached the park bench.

“You came,” I said to the tall middle-aged man on the bench.

He had well-groomed hair and a warm smile and wore the nerdiest glasses I’d ever seen.

“What, that’s all the greeting I get?” he asked me.

I smiled and sat down next to him. “It’s good to see you, Kim.”

“And you. Everything okay?” Kimbringe had known me for a long time. Centuries. So he knew me well enough to know that I never just called to catch up.

“Fine. I just… I was looking for information.”

“Isn’t that what your ward is for?”

“This is over Killian’s head.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s about…” I trailed off, looking Kimbringe in the eye. He nodded, understanding immediately.

“I haven’t heard anything new about him. Not in a while, anyway.”

I exhaled. “You’ll let me know if you hear anything?”

“Of course, Eve,” Kimbringe responded, patting my hand. “Ah, before I forget...”

He stood up, patting the pockets on both sides of his jacket before he found the one he was looking for.

He reached in and pulled out a small gift bag. How it had fit inside his pocket, I didn’t know.

People like Kimbringe, Deities, they possessed more magic than any other being. They could do just about anything. Including fitting gift bags in their pockets, apparently.

He held it out to me.

I looked at him, and he let out a chuckle when he saw my expression. “Open it, you’ll like it.”

“If it’s pink lipstick, we’re not friends anymore,” I stated, taking the gift bag from him and reaching my hand inside.

I pulled out a pill bottle. More R21 pills.

“Thank you, Kim.” I nodded at him. I had only a few pills left in the bottle I had at the Morgans’, and there wasn’t exactly a Red Market in Lumen for me to top up.

“What are positive Deities for?” he asked with a smile. “But that’s not it. There’s something else in there.”

“What?”

“Something you’ll need soon. Never let them out of your sight, you hear me?” I looked at Kimbringe, wanting to roll my eyes at the urgency in his voice. But I knew better.

Kim was a powerful Deity, sure, but he was also the only person in my life who’d been a constant source of help.

So I reached back into the bag, feeling around. I didn’t feel anything at first, but then it was like they just appeared. They were hard, glass, I thought. There were five of them. No, six.

I pulled one out. It was a glass vial. Like the kind a high school student would use in chemistry class.

But me, I’d seen only one use for it in my life.

To carry blood.

“Kim, what’s this for?” I asked, turning back to him. But there was no one on the bench.

Kimbringe was gone.