Cursed, mated, and in for the fight of their lives… Warlock Nate Hawthorne just wants a cup of coffee. Is that too much to ask? Apparently. Because instead of precious caffeine, all he gets is cursed by a pack of werewolves who want to use him for his magic. Now the only way to fix the damage is a mate bond to a grumpy and oh-so-sexy alpha in the rival pack, who happens to hate him. This is so not how he wanted to start his day. Ian Armitage never intended to take Nate as his mate. The Hawthorne family can’t be trusted. Ian knows that better than anyone. The fact that he’s lusted after the way-too-gorgeous man for years? Totally irrelevant. Ian’s just doing what is necessary to protect his pack. This whole mating arrangement has nothing to do with love and never will. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Nate and Ian will have to work together if they have any hope of staving off the pack’s enemies and averting disaster. That’s assuming they can stop arguing (and keep their hands off each other) long enough to save the day… The Alpha’s Warlock is an explicit M/M paranormal romance featuring a snarky warlock, a brooding alpha werewolf, knotting, enchanted socks (long story), and a guaranteed happily ever after. This series does not contain mpreg.
View MoreFor anyone who’s ever needed a cup of coffee more than life itself,
but couldn’t find their shoes
Chapter 1
Cursed
It had been years since I set foot in the Armitage pack's territory, and I'd hoped to keep that winning streak going for a while longer. Of course, being kidnapped and cursed had a way of changing your plans.
Not that I was really setting foot in it now, more like setting hands and knees. I'd fallen so many times that I'd stopped trying to get back up, and was just crawling through the thick, loamy mud under the drenched forest canopy.
The patter of chill rain on the back of my neck was bad enough, every drop sending new shivers down my spine, but my soaked jeans were chafing in every direction and on every sensitive bit of me. Why had I worn skinny jeans this tight again? Oh, right, going out clubbing, and not planning on being kidnapped and cursed. Mud squelched through my fingers and seeped into my ankle boots.
I'd been so careless, so arrogant. My father, such as he was, had been dead for two glorious years, and the magic he'd stolen from me all my life was finally back where it belonged. I could take anyone, right? A powerful young warlock, paranoid as only years of living in the shadow of a criminal with a lot of enemies could make me.
And all it took was a few drops of witchbane poison in my fruity cocktail.
So impressive. My father, may he rot in hell, would be laughing his freaking ass off.
With a grunt and a pitiful moan, I lurched from crawling to belly-flopping in the mud. A wet and filthy rotting leaf poked into my mouth, and I spat it out, my stomach heaving as the flavor of mold burst on my tongue. I wasn't going to make it. Where the hell were the pack's perimeter guards? Someone had to patrol this huge territory, what with rival packs only a few miles away and a master vampire and his brood in the next town over.
Especially since one of those rival packs had snatched me from the club, and especially especially since they'd done it as the first step in a plot against the Armitage pack.
Or at least so I'd gathered as they chained me up in an abandoned warehouse, drew a circle of burnt celandine, and had their pack shaman start a ritual nauseatingly similar to the one my father used to do every month at the new moon.
“Armitage can't defend against this,” one of the werewolves in the corner of the room had said to another, gesturing my way. “Once his energy's bound to yours, he'll have all your resilience and all his powers, all under your control. He'll be the perfect weapon.”
He'd sounded like he was trying to talk the other were out of some serious doubts about the plan. I thought the other were was probably the smart one, since I had some serious doubts myself.
Strike that, I had no doubts at all. I was going to die here in the forest, my magic drained out of me by this fucking curse, my body withered away to nothing and sinking into the mud until only a few bones wrapped in skinny jeans remained.
And then I heard the growl.
It was the kind of sound that would make any human's nervous system go into overdrive; it had a low, throbbing undertone to it that raised all the hairs on the back of my neck. I managed to turn my head and peer into the pre-dawn gloom. A pair of glowing golden eyes looked back at me, set in the face of a wolf with his (probably his, but I sure as hell wasn't going to try to inspect) teeth bared.
Finally. Jesus, would it kill them to keep a better eye on their borders?
“I'm Nate Hawthorne,” I rasped faintly, drowned out by the rain. It didn't matter. With the wolf's supernatural hearing, I could have been twice the distance away and he'd have heard me as well as if I'd had a microphone. “I need to see Matthew Armitage.” The wolf stared me down. My head started to spin, and I dropped down, my cheek hitting the ground with a splat. “Take me to your leader.” I started to giggle, my chest heaving as the laughter morphed into sobs, the curse draining more of my life away. I could feel it like a physical tug on every vein and nerve.
The wolf tipped his head back and let out a long howl, a call that probably carried all the way to the other edge of the pack's territory. And then he came a cautious couple of steps closer, sniffed me, let out a disgusted huff, and settled on his haunches a few feet away.
He was waiting for someone, then. Backup. Maybe, hopefully, someone who could find me a shower and a borrowed pair of boxers. At least he wasn't ripping out my throat.
I probably passed out for a few minutes, because between one second and the next, another wolf was prowling out of the forest. Even with the rising sun hidden behind clouds, and even with my vision as bleary as it was, I could see that he was enormous, easily half again as large as the first. Most of the werewolves I'd seen fully shifted had some shade of gray fur, but this one had a coat like a tawny owl, variegated hues of brown and tan, dappled like sunlight through trees.
The wolf came right up to me with a nonchalant saunter that was more than a little insulting. To be fair, if I'd been a giant predator with four-inch razor-sharp retractable claws, I probably wouldn't have been too terrified of the twink in skinny jeans lying in the mud like a lump, either.
He sniffed me like the other werewolf had, and then shoved one dinner plate-sized paw under my shoulder and flipped me like a pancake. An expression that in a human would be utter horror and disbelief was oddly clear even on that lupine face. His lips drew back, exposing a wicked set of fangs.
“I need to see Matthew,” I choked out, hoping to convince him before he ripped my guts out and had his minion throw me down a ravine. I hadn't meant to tell the details of the story to anyone but the leader of the Armitage pack, for the sake of discretion, but...wasn't saving your own ass the better part of discretion? Or something? “I was kidnapped. By the Kimball pack, and it had something to do with your pack, and Jesus you don't need to kill me —” My voice rose to a squeak as he leaned in, his teeth fully on display, his enormous muzzle way, way too fucking close for comfort.
But he didn't bite, just sniffed me again, from my head all the way down to my feet, pausing at my wrists. Finally he let out a surprised-sounding huff.
A second later his huge form blurred, rippled, and reshaped into a man nearly as enormous compared to other humans as his wolf form was compared to garden-variety wolves. Messy auburn hair curled around his temples, and his freckles might have given him an air of innocence if it weren't for the cold, pale blue eyes. Oh, and the shoulders and chest bulging with muscle. And the claws.
Either way, I knew he was the opposite of innocent, and I knew damn well who he was.
My heart sank. Ian Armitage. My dead ex-lover Jared’s best friend and cousin, the pack leader's second in command, and one of the most feared werewolves in northern California. And he hated me.
The curse might still try to kill me, but now it would probably have to get in line.
Ian flexed his hand, extended his gleaming claws, and laid them gently across my throat. My vision blurred as my heart rate shot into the stratosphere.
“What the fuck are you doing here? One flicker of a lie, and you'll be dead in seconds.”
I had to struggle for breath before I could answer, and that was irritating as hell. Yes, I was less than thrilled to have a supernatural apex predator about to rip out my jugular, but mostly I was just cursed. And having him interpret my shortness of breath as pure terror was plain embarrassing.
“You can smell them on me, can't you? The Kimballs,” I panted, and he nodded, his grip on my throat tightening a nearly-puncturing-my-veins fraction. “They kidnapped me. And they started some kind of —” Deep breath. “Ritual.” I forced another breath into my lungs. “I need to see Matthew.”
Was the sun going down again? That wasn't right. It was just coming up. But everything had gotten darker.
Yeah, I was passing out. Everything went black, and Ian's furious face was the last thing I saw.
EpilogueYou Don’t Want a Choice“Mr. Castelli,” Laura said, and smiled warmly. “Go right in. He’s never too busy for you.”“You know it’s Blake.” She shook her head, laughed, and went back to typing.I hadn’t yet given up on trying to convince Declan’s assistant that I didn’t deserve any particular formality; after nearly four months of trying, though, I’d started to fear it was hopeless.I set the double latte I’d grabbed on my way at the edge of her desk—if she insisted on calling me Mr. Castelli, I’d at least make sure she said it with affection—and stepped into Declan’s office.He glanced up from his laptop and then immediately back down again, which I knew meant “I’ll forget what I was typing if I don’t do it right now.” At first that’d hurt my feelings. Shades of being treated like an unwelcome and disliked inconvenience at Castelli Industries, of so many times I’d been called on the carpet in my father’s office only to be ignored until he deigned to notice me. But I knew it w
Chapter 21A Lucky ManIf I’d really tried, I might’ve been able to look at a calendar and count how many times Declan had laid me out on his bed, naked and waiting for him to take what he wanted.But I didn’t need to count to know that it’d never been like this.He settled me on my back, head carefully placed on a pillow, kneeling between my legs and leaning down to stroke a hand through my hair and down my cheek, coming to rest across my throat. Instead of a threat, it felt like safety.All right, a little bit of a threat.But that only had my cock perking up, getting harder every second that he pinned me down, glowing eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that would’ve had any sane man running away screaming.Or spreading his legs.I went with option two, letting my knees fall open to give him full access, my arms relaxed at my sides. Touching him—I wanted to, and I would. But right now I knew what he needed from me, and that was complete surrender, allowing him to re-stake his
Chapter 20Ten Years AgoNo matter how many times I’d daydreamed about Declan kissing me, the reality far outstripped the fantasy—and how often could you say that about anything? His mouth took control of mine the same way his body had taken control of me so many times, opening me and tasting me and laying me bare for him to use however he wanted.Which happened to be what I wanted too, so badly that I ached for it. His tongue teased between my lips and twined with mine as his arms tightened, gathering me so close that not a millimeter of space was left in between us.Declan kissed me until I couldn’t breathe, my lungs hot and laboring. All the pain and fear of the last few hours melted away, a much better and more natural kind of magic than the ones I’d experienced so far tonight.I pressed against him, kissing him back with everything I had, trying to spread my legs and wrap myself around him and take him into me so that he’d never leave.Declan tore his mouth away and lifted his h
Chapter 19My Life MatteredWhen I woke up, the SUV was moving—but I couldn’t shift so much as a muscle. My head had gotten crammed against the door and my neck ached like a bitch. My arms lay limp, one dangling to the floor of the car and the other on my leg. I tried to twitch a finger.No go.I couldn’t open my eyes, either, or speak. My autonomous functions weren’t affected, though: I could still hyperventilate. Lucky me.Kidnapped. I’d been fucking kidnapped, and the first thing Declan would do would be call me. No doubt they’d gotten rid of my phone. Then he’d look for me. He wouldn’t find me. And then he’d probably request—and be allowed, professional courtesy and all that—to review the security footage of me leaving the party and the path I’d followed from there.For a brief, shining instant, I almost felt relieved. Declan would look for me, he’d see the video and know—despair squeezed my chest into a tight ball.He’d see me looking nervous and running out of the building as i
Chapter 18This Won’t Go OnDeclan hustled me out the door the second I emerged from the bathroom, ushering me downstairs and into a waiting limo. A nice one: black, not too stretched, no neon lights or anything tacky, nothing I’d have to be embarrassed about riding in.I tried to focus on how good it felt to be wearing decent clothes, going somewhere in a respectable vehicle, and for fuck’s sake, actually leaving the Morrigan and going somewhere, rather than on being in an enclosed space with Declan and our combined scents of sex and alpha desire.If I focused on that, I’d end up begging him to knot me in the car after all.The limo pulled out of the Morrigan’s driveway and into traffic on the Strip. It was Friday night stop and go. Maybe we had time for a fuck after all?“Where are we going? Am I allowed to ask?”“Not far,” he said, putting paid to my hopes. “A few blocks. If I’d been going with Wa—colleagues I probably would’ve walked. I thought you might appreciate going in style
Chapter 17I Missed Your VoiceSince I’d never slept in Declan’s bed before, I woke up confused, disoriented, and with a mouth that tasted like someone had murdered a particularly sandy desert and buried its corpse under my tongue.Well, that last part didn’t have anything to do with Declan’s bed, to be fair.I rolled over and groaned, throwing an arm across my eyes to keep the sunlight out, because someone had left the blinds wide fucking open when he got up and went to work.I knew I’d be fine once I had a couple of glasses of water and a bite to eat; hangovers weren’t really that much of a thing for werewolves without serious effort involving multiple illicit substances, and I hadn’t been to a party that good in like, six months. But seriously. Close the damn blinds. Fuck.It crossed my mind to find my phone, make some coffee, and send him a text complaining about the window.And then I sat bolt upright, head in my hands, and let out another groan.I’d slept in his bed. We hadn’t
Chapter 16Kind of EndearingI woke up the next day just after eight o’clock, early by my previous standards but late by the standards of the company I kept these days. The cold coffee pot, holding only a few teaspoons of dregs, told me that Declan had been up and gone for hours. The usual hundred dollar bill sat beside it.That felt a little bit like I’d been slapped. I’d sat there and worked on that stupid spreadsheet for three full hours the day before without even getting up for a glass of water. I’d only stopped when Declan stood, put on his jacket, and told me it was quitting time.But apparently he assumed I’d be right back to blackjack and vodka today.Well, fuck him.I made a fresh pot of coffee, ordered some room service—an omelet, because I knew if I had any carbs at all I’d fall asleep with my face in the keyboard—and dressed in the closest thing I had to what the other people I’d seen in the offices had been wearing, black slacks and a blue button-down. I couldn’t wear a
Chapter 15Try MeLetting it all go seemed easy at first.I’d spent so many years showing—and allowing myself to feel—only the most surface of emotions: anger, entitlement, arrogance. Under the circumstances, I chose to temporarily trade those in for indifference, apathy, and resignation, but it was just as fake and just as likely to keep people from looking any deeper.My family hadn’t looked any deeper. Neither had Declan. Clearly, no one wanted to.And it worked. When I didn’t try to fight back, didn’t bother arguing or demanding answers, Declan didn’t go out of his way to humiliate or torment me aside from the rough, careless way he used me. He texted me at some point during the day to let me know when he wanted me available to be fucked, I awaited him obediently, and he fucked me. Sometimes he put me on my knees instead, or in addition to. I opened my mouth or spread my legs, and I moaned and cried out when he made me come, but I didn’t talk more than I absolutely had to.I took
Chapter 14What’s Worse?Declan’s knot hadn’t gone down at all by the time I blinked my eyes open and slowly came back to reality, lying on my side with Declan wrapped around me from behind. The bite he’d left on my neck throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I could feel his, too, syncing with mine and vibrating through my back.And I felt safe again, which made me want to throw up and then run away screaming.Well, he’d already made me scream. Running away was out. And it’d suck to throw up all over the bed and be stuck here.Unfortunately, that left me with nothing to do but lie there enclosed in his arms listening to his steady breaths in my ear, savoring the heat of his body and the softness of the bed.Ugh. Savoring. I really was, and it made me swallow hard against a wave of real nausea.But it suddenly occurred to me that maybe Declan felt something similar. Pheromones. Hormones. Borderline mating-magic. I couldn’t be the only one completely at their mercy, could I? He might not
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