Alpha Betrayed: A Dark Shifter Romance

Juliet

The rooftop garden is beautiful. Potted plants and large raised flower beds cover the entire space, creating a sanctuary from the pulsing city street below.

Our private table is next to a bed filled with wildflowers attended by happily humming bees and surrounded on three sides by a burbling fountain and massive fruit trees already heavy with fat cherries and ripening apples.

If I weren't brunching with a kidnapping sociopath who handcuffed me to the table as soon as we sat down, it would be a delightful way to spend the morning.

As Jean-Paul greets the newly arrived server, bidding him to fill both our glasses with "bubbly and just a kiss of orange juice," I give my wrist an experimental twist.

The cuff is too tight for me to pull my hand loose, but he hooked me to the leg of the table. All I have to do is flip it over and drag the cuff off the end and I'll be free. The wrought iron piece is heavy, and it will take a few extra seconds to flip it, but that's okay. It's not impossible.

Especially if I've bought myself a few extra seconds with some hot coffee flung in Jean-Paul's face...

"Could I have coffee, too, please?" I ask the server, who clearly isn't going to be any help.

He barely looks at me as he pours the champagne, but when he does, he notices the cuff and doesn't blink. This is safe territory for Jean-Paul, or he wouldn't have brought me here.

The man is deluded about how easily this whole "forced marriage" thing is going to work out, but he's not stupid.

"Yes, and tea for myself," Jean-Paul adds. "Earl Grey with cream and honey. Not sugar. Honey. The good kind Chef keeps at the back of the pantry."Content © copyrighted by NôvelDrama.Org.

"Of course," the server says. "And would you like the usual or something different? I can tell you about the specials if you'd like."

Jean-Paul scrunches up his nose and snorts in a way that's very French. "Not at all. I already know none of them can compare." He winks at me. "My usual is a perfectly balanced feast of sweet and savory delights sure to fuel your body and spirit for the day to come. You won't be hungry again until after seven o'clock. Mark my words."

"Wonderful," the server says in a flat voice that makes me guess he isn't a big fan of this particular customer.

I wonder why. What else has Jean-Paul gotten up to on this roof? Does he bring captive women here on the regular? Are they louder and more freaked out about it than I'm being at the moment?

Or maybe he's just a lousy tipper.

As the server leaves, Jean-Paul lifts his champagne glass and holds it out toward me. "To the start of a beautiful partnership. One I hope will be full of laughter, love, and unquestioned, unrepentant, unbridled power."

I keep my uncuffed hand in my lap. "No, thank you. I don't drink."

He snorts again. "Well, that's something we'll remedy soon enough. Trust me, chère, you're going to want something to take the edge off. Remember, you have big decisions to make."

"The abandoned church," I say, figuring a location outside his compound is my best bet. It will be harder to defend, less familiar to his people, and hopefully easier to escape from than a chapel on his pack's property.

"You don't want to see pictures first?" His brows lift as he pulls his cell from the front pocket of his linen suit coat. "It's a little worse for wear, but a beautiful old girl, nevertheless. I adore it, but some find it a bit...macabre."

"Macabre sounds on point," I say, glancing down at his phone as he flips through images of what looks like a church built in the 1960s. It's basically a giant triangle, with a thick carved steeple at the top, and a giant stained-glass window stretching across the entire front. From the exterior, a small hole in the stained glass on the upper right is the only sign that the church is in need of repair.

Inside, it's a different story. The paint is peeling in the sanctuary, someone's chopped the heads off the statues on the wall above the pulpit, and there's an ancient toilet perched haphazardly in the choir loft behind it.

"We'll remove the toilet, of course," he says, flipping back to the first image of the front of the church. "But there won't be time for other repairs on such short notice."

"Leave it," I say with a tight smile. "It'll be the cherry on top of this shit show of a wedding."

Jean-Paul's lips turn down in an exaggerated frown. "Now, now, don't be so negative. With the flowers and candles and you in a striking gown, the sanctuary will be beautiful. Too beautiful for a toilet." He winks. "Unless we put flowers in the bowl. That could be fun." "Fun isn't high on my list at the moment, but knock yourself out," I say, willing the server to return with the coffee.

I need to get away from Jean-Paul now, while there are only two people to outrun and no locked doors or gates between me and the outside world. One of Jean-Paul's guards is stationed at the top of the stairs, leading down from the roof, but the other two who rode in the limo are waiting by the car. The rest of them apparently returned to the pack compound with Daphne and the sailing crew.

This is my best shot at escape, and I mean to take it.

If I wait until I'm on Jean-Paul's home turf with only his loyal subjects around, breaking free will be infinitely harder.

My would-be husband continues to pout as he tucks his cell phone away in his coat pocket again. "Very well. Though, if you ask me, it's foolish to turn one's back on fun. There's so much suffering and pain in the world, Juliet. And it comes no matter how we try to avoid it. In order to achieve balance in such a cruel reality, we should open our arms to fun whenever and wherever it appears. We should dance with it, caress it, roll with it through the flowers in the grass until we're covered in pollen and bee stings, yes?" I frown. "Bee stings are your idea of a good time?"

"Indeed," he says, a mischievous light flickering in his eyes that I don't care for. At all. Whatever joke he's about to tell, I have no doubt I'm the punchline. "Though I prefer to be on the giving end of the sting rather than the receiving one. Do you enjoy these things, mon lapin? A little pain before your pleasure in the bedroom?"

Stomach roiling again I give a small shake of my head.

He chuckles again. "What a shame." He shrugs and takes a sip of his mimosa, swallowing before he adds, "But don't worry yourself. I intend to respect your preferences. Despite what Daphne seems to think, I'm not a monster. I will do my best to please you when we're making love."

I'm still fighting the urge to puke over the thought of "making love" to this creep when he adds, "In the world outside our boudoir, however, I must insist we play by my rules. I have a reputation to uphold. I'm known for being a certain kind of king. A king who is wise and, I confess, a bit devious. But that's why my people love me. Other leaders wait until threats to their pack are on their doorstep before taking steps to neutralize their aggressors. I see problems coming ten kilometers away and make calculated, creative, some might even say poetic moves to head trouble off at the pass. And this leads us to your next decision." He brushes a thumb over his champagne-damp bottom lip, a chillingly gleeful look creeping into his dark eyes. "Are you sure you don't want that drink? It might help dull the initial...shock of my request."

"I'd rather have coffee." I scan the roof behind Jean-Paul, but there's still no sign of our server.

"It will come," he says. "This boy knows I prefer the hot drinks with the food and services me accordingly. When things proceed as I prefer, you'll find I'm a most amiable man, Juliet. A pussycat really. But cross me, disappoint me, or disrespect me, and you will see just how ruthless I can be." He leans in, his tone going flat as he adds, "When I ask my next question, I will need your decision in thirty seconds. Do not argue, do not weep, do not think you can change my mind. The die is cast, and my course is set. All that remains is for you to help me aim the arrow. Do you understand?"

"What kind of decision?" I ask.

"Do you understand?" he repeats, still staring at me with that black-hole gaze that makes all the blood drain from my limbs to pool in my churning stomach.

This man is far more dangerous than he first appeared. When I run, I'll have to give escape everything I've got. If he recaptures me, I won't be handled gently.

"You want an answer in thirty seconds," I say, forcing myself to maintain eye contact, even as something primal inside me yearns to curl into a ball in a corner and rock there for a while.

He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Yes. Correct. And you promise to do this?"

"Do I have a choice?" I ask. When he chuckles and shakes his head, I shrug. "Then sure. I promise."

"Oh good. That's wonderful." He nods and keeps nodding until it starts to get creepy. "I know that might be difficult, but I suggest you go with your gut. Instinct rarely leads a shifter astray." He snaps his fingers and calls in a louder voice, "Bring them out. We're ready."

I hear the bodyguard by the stairs murmur something, presumably into the com device all Jean-Paul's bodyguards wear. Then, the sound of a door swinging open on the other side of the roof is followed by footsteps on the gravel and a high-pitched whimpering sound.

Not long after, the two bodyguards I'd assumed were waiting in the car appear. One is dragging a bound and gagged redhead in a pink sheath dress with tears streaming down her mascara-streaked face, the other grips a handcuffed boy of no more than sixteen or seventeen with shaggy brown hair hanging in his eyes.

But I'd recognize that jawline anywhere. We used to tease my cousin Lucas when he was little that he looked like a shark but that he'd eventually grow into his prominent square jaw. It looks like he has, but not quite completely. He needs a few more years and the chance to put on twenty or thirty pounds to fully balance his most prominent feature with the rest of his frame.

Recognizing Lucas gives my brain the jog it needs to put a name to the second captive.

"Bethany?" I breathe, summoning another round of pitiful whimpering from my other cousin. The entire time we were growing up, Bethany was a blonde.

Sometime in the years I've been gone, she must have decided to dye her hair.

It probably looks good when her face isn't splotchy and pink, but right now, in head to toe red and fuchsia, she looks like a second-degree burn come to life. She's clearly terrified and has every reason to be.

This isn't going to end well, my gut knows that even before Jean-Paul announces, "And now, Juliet, you will prove your loyalty to me and your commitment to this marriage by choosing which of the threats to your throne we should keep prisoner, and which we should eliminate. Not to get ahead of myself, but I intend to take control of Zion when your father passes. That will be easier, of course, without other heirs to contend with."

He rubs his hands up and down on his thighs, clearly getting off on this horrible game, this impossible choice. "Tick tock, my love. Remember, an answer in thirty seconds, or I'll kill them both and you will be in trouble for breaking your promise to me. I do not take a broken promise lightly. The last woman who disappointed me in such a fashion now hangs on a hook in my playroom, waiting for me to remove the nipple clamps I applied to her traitorous tits last week. I would hate to do the same to you, especially so soon after our wedding, but..."

He pulls out his cell and glances at the screen. "But it looks like time is running short." He glances back up, his eyes like lasers burning into my brain. "Which will it be, my sweet? Which will you save? The kind but vapid socialite or the green baby boy, just barely out of his awkward stage? Which life means more to you in this moment, and which will you murder? I'm on pins and needles."

I almost throw up but force the gorge back down my throat.

There isn't time to be sick.

Because I know he isn't kidding.

If I don't choose, and fast, he'll kill them both.

So, I do what I have to do.

Tears streaming down my face, I suck in a breath and say a name.

A second later, a single shot fires and the body of the family member I betrayed slumps to the ground.

Only then do I bend over and wretch clear liquid on the white rocks by my feet.