Alpha Read Free Page B

himself out of it. He looked to his men. "Move!"
    They started to run with him.

Chapter 3
    M iranda dreamed of big , really big, monsters with hunched backs, fur, long teeth, and snouts like mutated wolves. She saw scales and wings and claws, but the one that had her attention the most had been the one who spoke to her.
    It said it wouldn't hurt her, and maybe she only believed it because she was dreaming. Or high. Someone had clearly drugged her with something before her shift ended, because there was no way in hell any of this was real.
    Not a chance that warm feeling she got when she touched the monster was real. She’d felt herself falling and heard an angry rumble, but she couldn't remember hitting the ground. Then there was nothing except for that feeling of warm safety. Like a blanket, it surrounded her, and she snuggled into it.
    Then the dream got worse. Her body got hot, and she tried to kick away whatever it was that was smothering her, but couldn't. Her car was overheating. That's what it was, but even when she kicked off her blanket, she couldn't cool off. Miranda wanted to crack open one of the windows, but she couldn't seem to make herself move. Something was jabbing her in the side, and every time she so much as twitched, that pain throbbed and stung like someone was slowly sliding a thin knife across her bare skin.
    She kicked out and moaned when the heat got worse. She couldn't breathe. The air was too hot and she was going to suffocate in her car!
    "Help."
    "I'm here, honey."
    That voice, it was the same as the one in her dream, but different. It sounded smoother, less rough than when it came out of the mouth of that creature. And it did belong to the creature. She was sure of it. It sounded too similar.
    Something caressed her face. The touch was smoother, but Miranda still thought of that enormous creature. Her mind shrunk it down to be more of a regular size, but she still envisioned the hair, the pointed ears on top of a wolf's head, and the long muzzle and claws.
    He'd saved her. He might not be real, but he'd still saved her. Even now, his touch lessened the pain in her side and the heat in her body. It was still there, and it still hurt, but now she could manage it. Now she could let the muscles in her body relax out of the tightly strung bundle of wires it had turned into.
    Miranda slept.
    At least, she thought she'd slept. If she had, it felt like she'd only been out for less than a minute before her mind jumped back into awareness. Her eyes snapped open like she'd been jolted awake with electricity.
    Miranda sat up. It was bright. She inhaled deeply through her mouth and nose, then cringed.
    " Ah! " She hissed and reached for her nose. The smell in her room… it was strong. A lot of musk. Lot of male. Not that she knew that for a fact, but something about the scent itself just screamed male at her.
    There were a lot of scents in the room, piled on top of each other. In the distance, Miranda could smell food—pork fat, eggs, and grease—like someone had cooked a ton of bacon and eggs very recently. Above all that, there was the clean Febreeze scent she liked so much, but even it couldn't hide everything else in the room. Even as Miranda breathed through her mouth, she could taste those smells. The food smell in particular made her mouth water, but it was something else that made her drool.
    One smell in her room did that. It was… one of the male scents. It smelled like sex times a thousand. That should have grossed her out, but instead, her body tightened and a warmth she wasn't comfortable with pooled in her belly.
    Hard and fast, she panted for breath as her heart slammed under her ribs like the damned thing was trying to escape from prison.
    A strange panic settled over her as one thing became perfectly clear once the shock of all those smells left her.
    This was not her car. This was definitely not the backseat of her car. This was a bedroom—a big bedroom with a canopy bed and a