Taming The Alpha: A Wolf Shifter Mpreg Romance (Savage Love Book 3) Read online

  A hard fist clenched around his shoulder, hoisting him up. He was aware of the fierce, bruising pressure of each individual finger. Scrabbling for purchase, he managed to get his feet underneath him and then just stood there, swaying, not sure if he was the one rocking or if it was the world underneath his feet doing so. Lifting one hand, he went to hold his jaw and missed somehow, grasping at empty air.

  Blinking rapidly, Ulysses tried to peer through the combined haze of pain and darkness.

  Someone very tall and broad stood in front of him, their features shadowed and indeterminable. Ulysses felt abruptly small and weak and that made him angry, the heat of rage chasing away much of the pain. He didn’t like to be reminded that he was slim for an alpha wolf, that he was shorter than the average dominant male. He didn’t want to be shown that he was less, when he tried so damn hard to be more.

  Blinking again, he managed to clear away the last of the fog in his brain and got a good look at his assailant. The guy looked like a mishmash of lumberjack and hipster, seemingly entirely composed of scraggly facial hair and a baggy flannel shirt. The shirt had useless pockets on the front, one of which held what appeared to be a vape pen.

  “What the fuck do you want, hippie-boy?” Ulysses snarled. He wanted to bear his fangs for that extra bit of added intimidation and restrained himself from doing so, knowing even the slightest display of shifting would be unwise in the presence of so many humans.

  The other man lifted his fist and cracked his knuckles, then shook out his hand. He made it seem as if punching another man in the boniest part of his body was no big deal, as insignificant as pummeling a pillow. “You knocked into my girl, man. That isn’t cool. You’re so drunk you can’t walk, you should probably go.”

  Around the hipster’s broad shoulders, Ulysses could see his friends and co-workers. None of them seemed to have noticed yet what was going on, didn’t seem to miss his presence at all.

  Awareness of a brewing fight was stirring through the bar, the nearest observers passing this news along to the others. Soon enough, word would reach Tony and Brody and all the rest. They would see him being intimidated by this dumb tree-hugger, and he would become a laughingstock in their eyes.

  That wasn’t what he wanted. He would do anything to prevent that.

  Squaring his shoulders, Ulysses also cracked his knuckles. He puffed out his chest, showing off the fact that his stature had little to do with how muscular he was. The fibers in his shirt stretched, tore slightly. “Back off,” he said.

  The hipster didn’t take the warning. He swung his fist around from the side, his entire body following through with the blow.

  Ulysses stepped easily out of the way and ran into the hipster’s second fist, which jabbed in from straight ahead. The punch collided with the front of his face. He felt his nose flatten in a ponderous, sickening sort of way, like a building collapsing in on itself. His lips were hammered against his teeth, punctured; the taste of blood filled his mouth as he staggered back, lifting both hands to clutch at his face.

  The same trick again. The same fucking trick.

  Before he even finished putting his foot down on the ground, Ulysses grabbed at his fury and yanked it up to the forefront of his mind. His heart started pounding, the beat of his most vital organ thrumming in his ears, pulsing in his veins. Surging forward, he reached out with both hands to grab the hipster, to force him to the ground, to rip him to pieces.

  Then, there was another person in front of him, blocking his attack, shoving him back.

  Ulysses staggered for the second time in as many seconds, panting, shaking with anger. His drunken state no longer felt so good and free. Instead, his stomach roiled like he was about to be sick. He felt dizzy, off-balance, no longer in control.

  “That’s enough,” the other person said. Their voice was very deep, very masculine. Judging from his dark clothing, this man who had interfered in the fight was most likely a bouncer. The bouncer turned to pierce the hipster through with a fierce glare, making him shrink back, like a wilting flower in the face of harsh sunlight. “Back off or you can count on never being allowed back in here.”

  Ulysses thought it was extremely unfair that he and the bouncer had both said “back off” but only one of them had been listened to. He snorted, crossing his arms. The sound brought the bouncer’s interest in his direction, not that this was necessarily a good thing. The bouncer looked faintly disgusted and most certainly displeased.

  “As for you, you’re out.”

  “Out?” Ulysses repeated, incredulous. He forgot for a moment to be angry, forgot to be anything in the face of this ridiculous statement. “What do you mean, I’m out?”

  The bouncer glanced around, glowering at the watching crowd. “Show’s over,” he snapped. “Go back to what you were doing.”

  Very, very slowly, the other bar patrons started to mind their own business once more. The lull in conversation resumed. The din escalated. The line reformed, albeit at a canted angle to avoid coming anywhere near Ulysses.

  Looking satisfied at this progress, the bouncer lowered his voice. He was clearly making an effort to be nice, although that was the last thing Ulysses wanted right about now. “Here.”

  Ulysses looked at the handkerchief being offered to him, then back up at the bouncer. His mouth had already stopped bleeding and his nose had only let out a tiny trickle as a result of its abuse. He didn’t need the scrap of cloth. He didn’t need that kindness.

  After a moment, the bouncer tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. “Look, kid,” he said, “you’re drunk. You’re aggressive. Go home. Need me to call you a cab?”

  “I didn’t start this!” Ulysses snapped, causing others to look back in his direction again. Brody was definitely watching by now, and he had no intentions of looking like a fool in front of his best friend. “You can’t kick me out. I dare you to try.”

  The bouncer sighed. He looked to be in his mid-30’s, with glasses a few years out of style and sensible hair. His black shirt was tucked into his pants, which was such a “dad” look that Ulysses was suddenly certain this guy was married, with at least two kids.

  “Look,” the bouncer said, repeating himself. “I have a sixth-degree black belt in taekwondo. I can handle you on my own and drag you out of here by your ear in front of all your friends. Or, I can call the cops and get you stuck in the drunk tank for the night. Or, you can just walk out of here and go home. I can call you a cab, buddy. What do you say?”

  Ulysses hesitated. Maybe without even knowing he had done so, this random bouncer had struck all the right notes within him to make him feel extremely unconfident. He didn’t want to have a spectacle made of himself. He didn’t want to look like a fool.

  Best to just go, then.

  “Fine,” he grunted, looking away. He kept his shoulders squared, fighting against the disappointment that his fun night had been cut short. He didn’t want this herk to see the effect his words had. “It’s boring here, anyway. I’ll just go.”

  The bouncer nodded, not smiling, not letting his guard down for an instant. “Good idea, buddy. What do you say I call you that cab?”

  “No,” Ulysses said. He pressed his lips together firmly, mentally standing his ground. “I have to go tell my friends that I’m getting out of here. And then I’ll go.”

  He started to head off towards his table, only to be stopped by a firm hand that planted itself against his chest. Once again, he was able to feel five individual fingers all digging into his flesh. The sensation almost made him lash out, though he held off on that as best as he could and managed to reduce the severity of the reaction to a flinch.

  The bouncer looked at him with a grim, inexplicable sort of expression that he didn’t immediately understand. “You are in no condition to drive home.”

  “I’ll walk. I live nearby.”

  He was lying. He didn’t live nearby, not near enough that walking home would be a feasible option.

  The bouncer looked at h
im, and Ulysses knew the man was going to see through the lie, was going to drag him to a seat in the corner while a cab was called to pick him up.

  “Fine. Just don’t be stupid. And don’t come back here again if you’re going to cause more trouble.”

  And just like that, Ulysses was standing alone in the middle of the bar. He was surrounded by a shifting, swelling, clashing sea of people, but he was all alone.

  His chest ached strangely.

  Shoving away the sensation, he worked his way through the crowd to get to his table. One of the random women was sitting in his spot, having effectively replaced him.

  No one seemed to notice or care. Brody was laughing at someone’s stupid joke, and Tony was tangled up in the arms of a woman with a skirt so short her bare ass was on display for everyone to see. And Steve, Lorenzo, Filip, and all the others were having a grand old time without him.

  Ulysses stopped a foot away from the table and announced, “I’m going home, guys.”

  A few pairs of eyes darted idly in his direction and then away again, as if he was a ghost that might or might not even exist.

  “Stupid security guard is kicking me out.”

  Still no response.

  “I guess I’ll be leaving, then.”

  The woman sitting in his chair spared him a glance which seemed halfway interested, as if she was considering asking if he needed someone to keep him company. Then, even she went back to ignoring him.

  Stung by this rejection, by his friend’s complete inability to care about what he was doing, Ulysses took a step away from the table. Then, another. Two more steps back and faceless silhouettes swarmed into the space between himself and his so-called friends, blocking them from view.

  The spell broken, he turned away and hurried over to the door. He yanked it open, emerging out into the cool Pensacola night. The Florida sky was cloudy and yet somehow deep, seeming to drag his gaze ever upward when he stopped to look.

  The smell of brine filled his senses, carried to him from the ocean nearby on the chilled breeze. This was what one might call winter in Florida, a cooling of heat and lessening of humidity which categorized a drop in tourism. No one wanted to hop in the ocean when the waves were as cold as ice, and Pensacola’s beaches were its main attraction.

  That wasn’t to say the city wasn’t busy. Far from it. The bustle only seemed a little different this time of year, calmer and less frenzied. The tourists were older, less like college students and more like middle-class families wanting to capitalize on the calm atmosphere and smaller crowds. Everything slowed down.

  Ulysses felt his heartbeat slowing down in response. The breeze was a soothing touch to his brow, a cold pack for his feverish anger. He just stood there along the side of the building, ignoring the muffled din from inside, and let himself wind down. The sick feeling faded from his stomach, leaving hunger in its wake. Even his pain started to lessen already, his nerves numbed from the cold.

  I’m perfectly fine to ride home.

  Hell, maybe he’d stop by a store on the way home and grab some beer to continue his night of relaxation in peace. This hitch in the plan couldn’t prevent him from enjoying himself.

  Feeling at least a little bit better, like his plan to continue drinking at home was a score against the bouncer, Ulysses went over to where he had parked his motorcycle.

  He owned a chopper, which had once been Harley-Davidson cruiser. It was now a one-of-a-kind custom ride, and he had done most of the work himself during his spare time at the shop. He was in love with motorcycles in general, far more than most bikers were. It wasn’t the allure of speed and danger, the illusion of badassery, which spoke to him; rather, he loved the designs, the way everything worked together. He enjoyed working with his hands, getting up close and personal to the most minute of details before backing away to admire what he had done.

  His dream was to someday build his own chopper from scratch, but for now he settled with continuing to modify this one.

  Every feature of his chopper was accentuated to the extreme, the bike reduced down to its frame and then basically stretched. The frame was lengthened itself and so were his handlebars and fender.

  Of course, the stripping of the chopper had necessitated a decrease in engine power, but his baby could still move like nobody’s business.

  Ulysses mounted his bike, wavered dizzily, and righted himself. He drove out of the parking lot and onto the street.

  After that, he remembered very little.

  2

  Steady beeping, mechanical in nature.

  That was the first thing Ulysses was aware of when he came to, and he had no idea what it meant. He felt as if he had heard this sound before, though he couldn’t place it.

  It wasn’t something he normally heard when he woke up in the morning, that was for sure.

  Curious now, he tried to open his eyes and found the process a little more difficult than it should have been. His eyelids felt like they were glued together with the sleep-gunk his father affectionately termed “eye boogers.” They peeled open ponderously, from one edge to the other.

  It was before his eyes were even fully open he realized something was terribly wrong. The ceiling was white, and not the normal cream color he associated with his home. This was blank, stark white, like empty paper or canvas. It hurt to look at, but he looked anyway, dread unfurling inside his stomach.

  He was looking up at a featureless ceiling, devoid of even a ceiling fan. There were lights up there, he supposed, but they weren’t his lights.

  He didn’t look around yet, because he was becoming aware of more and more things as the seconds passed. It wasn’t just his eyes that hurt from looking at the strange white ceiling. His head hurt too, pulsing with abominable throbs each time his heart beat. The pain was fierce and jabbing and unfortunately familiar, just one of many pleasant side effects of a hangover.

  It was a relief to have something explained for him, because none of the rest of his hurts had any definable source as far as he could tell. He couldn’t even pinpoint what parts of him hurt the worst or why. He was just one walking bruise, a wound given life and purpose by some cruel god.

  The dread in his stomach morphed, turning sharper, more concentrated, until it felt like he had swallowed a handful of needles. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was afraid.

  He was in a hospital room, in very bad pain, and he was afraid.

  Carefully, Ulysses tried to lift up his head. His neck wouldn’t move, which sent shockwaves of panic through his body, making his muscles tighten and the pain worsen. Was he paralyzed? Oh god, was he? There were so many things a shifter’s healing prowess could take care of, but he was certain paralyzation was not one of them.

  Stop, he thought. Stop, calm down. Breathe. Think. Am I?

  Biology had not been his strongest subject in school, so he couldn’t rely on any knowledge like that to help him. But, what he had seen from movies and television, a paralyzed person could feel nothing below the point of where their spine was broken.

  He couldn’t move his neck, yet he was aware of the pain throughout his entire body.

  He couldn’t be paralyzed.

  Ulysses tried again, with more urgency, to lift his head, and this time he felt something new. Fabric. Stiff fabric. A brace of some kind, around his neck. That was why he couldn’t move his head.

  What did that mean?

  He had no idea, and he was still very afraid.

  Since moving his head around was apparently not an option, he settled for moving his eyes around as far as they could go.

  To the left, a pristine white wall interrupted only by a nondescript window. A small table with chairs seemed to be in the corner, though he could not see far enough to confirm that.

  To the right, the view was more interesting. He could see a huge jumble of medical equipment, tons of monitors and tubes and beeping lights. None of it made any sense to him, although he was stricken by a sudden terror upon seeing all these things. Wer
e they keeping track of his vitals, recording his functions, and just generally doing passive things, or were they keeping him alive?

  What happened last night?

  Maybe it hadn’t even been just last night. There was no telling how long he had been in here. He could see a door behind all the medical equipment, but not a calendar, or a clock, or anything else that would give him a frame of reference.

  Ulysses closed his eyes again, breathing rapidly even though it hurt to do so. His chest heaved up and down.

  The mechanical beeping, which had been continuing on at a steady pace in the background this entire time, started to increase in tempo.

  Something rustled on the other side of the room, in one of the places where he couldn’t see.

  “Ulysses?”

  He knew that voice.

  Robert Olson.

  Of all the people in the world who had to be here in a hospital room with him, why was it Robbie?

  A face appeared at the edge of his vision, a face he knew just as well as the voice. Even now, in this situation, Robbie was beautiful. Not handsome, but beautiful, without being feminine or womanly. Long curls of auburn hair hung in his face, partially obscuring the beautiful structures while accentuating others. His jawline was soft and sweet, clean-shaven, and his cheekbones were absolutely to die for.

  His blue eyes, which always reminded Ulysses of sapphires, were filled now with dark, intense worry.

  “Lee!” Robbie said, a little louder than before. He leaned in closer.

  Ulysses flashed back to standing in line, seeing a familiar shape enter the bar before being lost in the crowd. He could identify that shape now, the perfect form which had stood out amongst all the others. It belonged to Robbie.

  “Hey,” Ulysses said. At least, he tried to say it. He was very thirsty, his tongue a parched dead thing in his mouth, and his attempt at words resulted only in a slight hissing sound. Licking his lips, feeling the cracked texture beneath his equally dry tongue, he tried again. “Hey. Robbie.”