The Alpha Killer

Luna Rhoda Heranus’s POV

Northeast Iowa

I felt like I was waking from surgery or something. My head ached, and my limbs felt numb. I fought against the fog in my brain, trying to think.

I finally got my eyes open. It was light out, and things were fuzzy at first, but I could see my legs in front of me. I took a sniff, I didn’t recognize anything; the smells of woods and another scent, one of cow dung and hay, came across. I looked up, seeing a small creek going through the trees around me.

I tried to move but couldn’t. My arms were behind me, around the tree I was leaning back against. I couldn’t move them much, then I figured out the wrist pain was from handcuffs. I tried to contact someone, anyone through the link and it wasn’t there. I screamed for help, and no one answered. I struggled to get free and it was hopeless.

Phillip.

Oh Luna, where was Phillip? I thought back to the last thing that happened; we were playing out back. The door opened, then a pain in my neck and then nothing until now. I’d been drugged and kidnapped!

The realization shook the rest of the fog from my head. I tried to get my feet under me but couldn’t stand; the tree was rough barked and big enough around I had no freedom of movement. I couldn’t shift, my arms would tear off if I did. I took a few deep breaths, trying to keep calm and think. Then I screamed for help again.

Nothing.

I closed my eyes and sought out my wolf, but she was still asleep. Probably silvered. If the cuffs were silver, they would prevent my wolf from doing anything. No shifting, no linking. That meant the person who took me was a werewolf.

I heard leaves crunching downhill, coming closer. I scooted up the tree as far as I could, but I was completely helpless. I was shocked to see a young girl, maybe just out of high school, coming up the trail by the creek. She was carrying a plastic cooler and a briefcase-like bag. As she got closer, I was shocked to see the scarred “T” on her cheek.

The mark of a traitor, which meant she wasn’t part of a Pack. I was being held by rogues, unstable werewolves with no Alphas and no rules. What could they want with me? “WHERE IS MY BOY,” I yelled as she walked up from the creek.

“He’s not your boy now, is he Rhoda?”

My blood turned cold. “What do you want? Money?”

She just laughed as she set the cooler down just out of my reach. “Oh, Rhoda, do you think this is about money? Do you think the Alpha Killer cares about MONEY?” I was fighting to maintain control now, if I was under that bitch’s control I was as good as dead. “No, this is about justice.”

“I haven’t done anything,” I pleased. “Let me go.”

“I’m sure your mate heard that a lot over the course of that ten months she was held,” she said. “Before story time, we need to make sure you’re alert and healthy. You’ve been out of it for a long time.” She reached into the cooler and pulled out a bottle of water. Opening it, she brought it to my lips. I was very thirsty, it was cold, and I drank it down eagerly. When the bottle was done, I felt better.

“Who are you?”

“Erica Connally.”

“I’ve never heard of you. Why are you doing this?” I couldn’t stop looking at her face and wondering what she had done to deserve the brand at such a young age. It would prevent her from being accepted by any Pack, a life sentence of being alone and vulnerable.

“I think you should see for yourself. I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole thing yet, so we can watch this together.” She pulled an iPad out of her bag and opened the case, powering it up and going to a video file. She started it playing and folded the case so it was held up, again just outside the reach of my feet. The volume was turned up high and a young woman’s face filled the screen.

The interviewer gave a date, just a few days ago, and his name, Randall Meechum. Meechum? They were Alphas in Texas. His deep voice continued. “Can you tell me your name, birth date and family?”

“Tania Stillwater, born June 18th, 2000, formerly of the Tomah Pack. My parents are, I mean were, Johann and Rosa Stillwater, Alphas of the Pack. I have an older sister, Talia.” Oh fuck. The Stillwater Alphas were dead, years ago, and Talia Stillwater was the Alpha Killer. This girl was her missing SISTER.

“So, you were Alpha blood but not the Alpha heir.” I was shaking now. It couldn’t be. Justin told me he needed a woman of Alpha blood to carry our son, could it be her? I remembered now, she ran away from the Pack just before her parents died. She was never heard from again, yet here she was.

“No, my sister was, she had faith that the Goddess would give her a strong mate to lead with her. It didn’t quite go that way.”

“I see. Can you tell me about the last few days you were at the Tomah Pack?”

“Mom and Dad had a meeting with the surrounding Alphas. It was being hosted by the La Crosse Pack. I didn’t want to go, one of my friends was having her birthday party. Talia had to go, she was sixteen and it was time to start looking for her mate. You know, all these Alpha get-togethers are chances for high-ranking wolves to look for their mates. We were down at the beach, playing on the rope swing. I had just gotten out of the water and was drying off when I got a link from Beta Todd that my parents were on the phone.”

“Beta Todd Aldrige?” I knew him, he’d even visited our Pack a few times, he was now Alpha of the Tomah Pack. The Council had installed him as Alpha after the Stillwater family was gone.

“Yes. He told me to shift and run up to the road, he was waiting in his SUV with the passenger door open. I jumped in and shifted, but instead of handing me the phone, he injected me with something.”

“What’s the next thing you remember?”

“I woke up in a basement, chained by my neck to a post.” I could barely watch, barely think as she talked about her captivity. It couldn’t be, but when she described the Alpha who raped her and left her pregnant, I knew it was my Justin.

“Tania, I’m going to lay out some pictures for you. If you recognize the man who held you captive, let me know.” It only took a few, and when Justin’s picture was shown, I could tell by her eyes.

“It’s him.”

I closed my eyes. “Oh Luna, please stop, I can’t watch!” I looked over at the young woman, she was watching with tears in her eyes. She paused it, glaring back at me.

“Can’t watch her talk about how your mate had her kidnapped? How he chained her to a fucking post and raped her repeatedly until she was pregnant?” She got up and walked to me, grabbing my hair and banging my head back into the tree behind me. “You’re going to face the truth of what you’ve done. You’re going to watch every last second of her story, even if I have to fucking super-glue your eyes open and duct tape your head so you can’t look away.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want you to see yourself like every werewolf in the country is going to be seeing you soon. You think this mark on my cheek bothers me? It’s a fucking badge of honor to me. I got it for helping my best friend Talia escape after she lost an Alpha Challenge at sixteen against an adult Beta. Talia became the Alpha Killer, the Alpha Killer took you, and now I get you to myself for a while. Now watch.” She moved back, starting the video again.

It went on for hours, well after the sun had set. I was crying; she had been brutally raped in that basement. All those times I felt Justin screwing the surrogate, I had comforted myself in my pain, thinking I was lucky he had found a volunteer. Instead, he was raping a fourteen-year-old girl who had been taken from her family.

I threw up on myself as she told about her baby being taken. Erica gave me another bottle full of water, I spit out some and drank the rest, but she didn’t clean it up. I sat there, tasting and smelling it as Tania told of being sold into slavery.

When it was over, I looked up at her. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”

She pulled something out of her bag. “You should have, Rhoda. You stole my friend’s baby and ruined her life. You will pay dearly for that.” She hid her hand from me as she walked around in the dark, dappled light of the moon through the trees. I felt a needle in my arm, and then the fire started.

“What did you do,” I said as the pain raced into my chest.

“What your Beta did to my friend,” she said. “I’m taking your wolf.”

Tania’s POV

Three Years Earlier

I woke up, hot and sweaty in the dark, and couldn’t move around much in the cage I was in. The dog kennel had a steel tray on the bottom, and a thin pad covered it. I was lying on my side, my knees up and unable to straighten them in the cramped quarters. I rolled until I was on my hands and knees, it wasn’t tall enough for me to sit up or even get fully up. “Hello?”

“Quiet, you don’t want to bring Sir Mark in here, he’ll whip us all,” a female voice said.

I looked for her, but with my wolf gone my vision sucked. “Where am I?”

“Eros Island,” another voice said. “Welcome to hell.”

“Don’t listen to them, you’ve got to be strong and survive,” a third voice said.

“How many girls are in here,” I asked.

“Twelve of us total now, two are out with guests. Now go back to sleep. Your first day will be hard enough without extra punishments.” I heard the girls settle in, it sounded like the room was filled with cages. I didn’t know how long I had been out. The last thing I remembered was the auction, finding out my life was worth exactly eight thousand dollars. I had jewelry my Mom had given me back home that was worth more than that!

I couldn’t sleep, so I just laid there on my side, crying silently for what had happened. I lost my wolf, my freedom and now I’d been sold as a sex slave.

I was shocked when the door banged open, I jumped and banged my knees into the cage, then the light came on. “Wake up girls, it’s another beautiful day. Breakfast in twenty minutes.” The man was big, barrel-chested with long black hair and beard, and behaved like he was King around here. He probably was.

He went around the room, unlocking the cages and opening the doors. I could see there were a dozen cages, six along each side of the room, sharing walls. Each was about three times the size of mine, enough to hold a single bed mattress and tall enough to sit up. Compared to my cage, it was a palace. “Slave Cindy.”

“Yes, Sir Mark.” A beautiful blonde woman from the cage at the end, the voice I recognized as the one who told me to get more sleep. She crawled out of her cage and knelt on the concrete floor, head down, hands facing up on her knees which were spread wide, back straight and her naked butt on her heels.

“Get Slave Tania cleaned up and fed, then bring her to Sir Ken in the staff dining room.”

“Yes sir.” The man unlocked my kennel and walked out.

“Come on out, we don’t have much time,” Cindy said. She helped me to my feet, my knees and back were sore but loosened up as we walked out of the room. “Quick tour. This is the slave sleeping quarters. The bathrooms are ahead of us. When we are not needed, we are locked in here. Lights out is at three AM, wakeup at nine AM.” The other girls were leaving the showers and getting ready.

All were nude except metal collars around their necks. I looked in the mirror, I had one too. “I’m collared now.”

“Yes. They will explain it, but that is a smart collar. They know exactly where you are at all times, and you will set off alarms if you are anywhere you are not supposed to be. The doors will work for you in approved areas, if not they will not open for you. They can also administer an electric shock on command. Trust me, you don’t want that.” She helped me sit on one of the toilets, there were four in a row, all in the open. Showers were along one side of the room, and four sinks in a line on the other. I quickly relieved myself, then she guided me into the shower and helped me wash my hair and body. After I dried, we went to the sinks. “Let’s get your makeup on, you want to look good.”

I just stared at her. “I’ve been sold, drugged and locked in a fucking dog kennel, why the hell do I want to look good?”

She turned me to her, hands on my face. “Listen to me carefully, Tania. This place is hard, but there are far worse places than this to be a slave. The Masters own this island. Rich men and women travel here because they can have all the sex they want, any time they want, with beautiful women as young as ten and as old as forty. The Masters watch everything, and they want to keep the customers happy. The more you are chosen, the higher your status and the better your treatment. Do everything well, and you may even find one of them likes you enough to buy you and take you home as their personal slave. Not freedom, but better than here.” She picked up the blush and started working on my cheeks.

“I’m a slave, Cindy. I just turned fifteen.”

“You are, that won’t change. If you have a bad attitude, show disrespect, fail to follow orders or don’t fuck and suck with all your heart, you will be punished. They can make things very bad for you, and if you don’t work out, they will replace you with another. You’ll end up strung out, down by the docks with your bare ass out the car window taking dick for a buck a man.”

I was fucked, literally and figuratively. “So, you cooperate?”

“You survive, Tania. You do what they say, when they say to the best of your abilities. Don’t give them a reason to punish you.” She looked at my face and decided it was good enough. “Come on, let’s get to the dining room, we’re running late.”

That was the start of fourteen months of slavery on Eros Island. They kept me shaved and looking young, that was a fantasy of some of the men. I quickly learned how to role play the slutty student, the horny daughter, the innocent church girl, the sexy cheerleader and whatever else they needed.

The best of men were gentle, even loving with me.

The worst would degrade and hurt me.

Either way, I smiled and took it.

My last client was a pure sadist. He tied me, whipped me, beat me, cut me with knives, burned me with cigars, broke my bones and left me half dead in his room. It cost him a lot in usage fees, because I was out of commission for weeks. The scars he left behind meant I was picked less and less. The Masters bought a replacement for me, and I was stuffed back in a crate.

My life took another turn as I was sent down to the lower levels of hell. My life was now worth five hundred dollars, plus shipping.