Alpha Boxed Set Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  WALK AWAY

  STAY

  HOME

  BEG

  HEAL

  Loose Id Titles by Treva Harte

  Treva Harte

  Alpha

  (The Boxed Set)

  Treva Harte

  www.loose-id.com

  ®

  eISBN: 9781623001803

  ALPHA

  Copyright © 2014 by Loose Id LLC

  Publisher acknowledges the author and copyright holder of the individual works, as follows:

  WALK AWAY—Copyright © February 2006 by Treva Harte

  STAY—Copyright © September 2006 by Treva Harte

  HOME—Copyright © January 2007 by Treva Harte

  BEG—Copyright © September 2008 by Treva Harte

  HEAL—Copyright © June 2009 by Treva Harte

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the U.S.A. by

  Loose Id LLC

  PO Box 806

  San Francisco CA 94104-0806

  www.loose-id.com

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * *

  DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.

  Chapter One

  “He’s gay.”

  “He’s not.”

  “They’re all gay.”

  “You’re going to make me cry.”

  “Who is gay?” Leila broke into the chatter between the two waitresses as she peered through the little bar’s murky light.

  “They’re not. God couldn’t be that cruel.” Sasha stared off to the left and jerked her chin instead of pointing. “We’re talking about Them. Three of the most gorgeous men that have ever stepped into this place.”

  “They stick close to each other, they don’t look at women, and they’re way too good-looking. Gay, gay, gay.” Thea hissed the words to them both.

  “Indoor voices, girls.” Leila looked where Sasha was still staring. “Oh!”

  “You see?” Both of the waitresses chorused together.

  “They are gorgeous.” Leila automatically smoothed her chestnut hair, even though they weren’t looking back. “Drop-dead, finger-licking gorgeous.”

  “If they were interested, it wouldn’t be my finger I’d want licked. Or theirs.” Thea pursed her lips. “Yum yum.”

  The tallest one in the group, the one with the rich brown hair that fell to his shoulders, suddenly looked their way. Leila gulped. Intense blue eyes seared her for a moment. Then he turned his face away and spoke to the other two. Two dark heads bent close to his. He didn’t look back up.

  “He’s so not interested in women.” Thea shrugged. “We lose again, ladies. But I win my bet, Sasha. Pay up, girl.”

  “He might not be interested in me—us. But he’s not gay.” Leila held on to the counter, trying to settle her stomach. It was as if he’d hit her. Not that he ever had. Not physically.

  “How do you know?” Sasha asked. “Did he try to wrestle you to the floor and have his way with you one dark night?”

  “He must have been about twelve. He doesn’t look all that old, and Leila hasn’t gone out with a guy in years.” Thea giggled.

  “Actually, that’s exactly what Dek did.” Leila let go of the counter, very carefully. “If he asks, tell Jeff I’m taking my break early. No. Tell him I’m leaving early.”

  “What?” Leila knew she never took breaks, much less left before she was supposed to. She never changed routine. She worked her job from start to finish, like a good little girl.

  That’s what she was now. A Good Girl. She’d worked her ass off to get that reputation, and she hadn’t messed up in years. Five and a half fucking years, almost exactly. Not since Dek walked out of her life. He’d grown up—gotten harder and muscular and even more masculine. She’d thought he was devastating before; now he was overwhelming. At least she was overwhelmed.

  She ignored the other two gaping women and walked away, one step after the other, balancing her weight as if she were drunk. When she got to the employee exit, she rested her head for a moment against the splintered wood barrier that lay between her and escape. She wasn’t sure she had the strength for this. Not again.

  She thought she heard noise behind her. Dek?

  Leila pushed the door open and ran into the night.

  If he did follow her, she was dead meat. He could catch her. She heard her footsteps slapping against the pavement and the hitch in her breath. He could outrun her easily. If he did follow her. If he wanted to.

  She turned the corner sharply. Paused a moment. She didn’t hear anything behind her. In the distance a car’s horn honked. The wind rattled a trash can. They were all normal sounds. Safe sounds.

  Dek wasn’t normal. Wasn’t safe.

  The first time she’d met him, she’d known. Of course, he had made it pretty obvious when he tried to kill her stepfather…

  * * * *

  “I tell you, I saw the little b—booger turn. I’m bleeding from where he attacked me. Damn it, he’s dangerous.” Rod’s red face turned even redder in the silence that met his words. He swung toward her. “You were there! Tell the cop! Go on, girl.”

  She swallowed. She hated his sweaty face. Hated the piggish eyes that glared at her right now. They might be under the same roof, but that didn’t mean she had to like pretending he was kin. She didn’t have to enjoy living with him, listening to him…obeying him.

  “Damn you, girl, if you don’t talk up, I swear—”

  She took a half-step back. The policeman put his hand on her shoulder, and she tried not to flinch. The eyes under the police cap were all right. They were searching her up and down, but they were human eyes. They might even be kind. She took a deep breath.

  “Tell me what you saw…Leila, is it? Don’t be afraid.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s me. I-I didn’t see anything. I mean, I came in and I saw Rod—I mean, my stepdad—screaming and swearing and bleeding. I didn’t really look at anything else.”

  “How the hell did you miss what was going on, you stupid sl—child?” Fascinated, Leila watched his red face slowly turn purple. She waited for her stepfather’s head to blow off. Instead he whirled and pointed at the one person left in the room who hadn’t said anything. “I tell you, he went for my throat. You think something human went for me like this?”

  Leila stared at the bleeding
wounds.

  “He tried to jump me.” Dek’s voice was whisper-soft. “Rape me. I fought back. What else could I do?”

  “You see any of that, Leila?” The policeman sounded safe. But he wasn’t. No one was safe. Leila knew that.

  What should she do?

  “I—No, sir.” Her voice firmed. “Nothing.”

  “Your stepdad ever try to hurt you the way the boy here said?” The cop’s voice hardened.

  Jesus. He was smarter than she’d expected. Or else Rod had what he was like written all over him. Written so clear that anyone could see. Except Mom. Mom always believed Rod.

  Leila gazed down.

  “No, sir.” But she let her voice get more Southern and liquid. Let her lips tremble as she said that final word. She knew what it sounded like with that little catch over the syllable.

  The cop’s breath audibly hissed.

  “I’m the one who is bleeding here!” Rod’s voice rose. “Arrest that mongrel bastard.”

  “I’ll have the authorities take him back to the County. I’m taking you in for questioning.” The policeman didn’t take his eyes off Rod. “Step outside for a minute with me, Mr. Voss.”

  “What the f—hell!”

  His voice faded a little as he got outside. Leila shut her eyes, tried to pretend she was alone and everything was all right. She’d made a decision, and now she’d have to live with whatever happened next.

  “I owe you.” Dek’s whispery voice cut through her self-protective shell, and she opened her eyes.

  She stared at the slight teenager who was maybe a year or two older than her. Her stepdad had brought home a stray kid to abuse and bully, like he did now and then. But this time he’d brought home something that took him on. Who would have thought it?

  “You don’t owe me anything, Big Bad Wolf.” Leila crossed her arms. “It was my pleasure. Wish you’d ripped his liver out.”

  “I wish I had, too.” Dek smiled, all pointy, big teeth.

  “But for now you’d better run out the back door while Rod is keeping the cop busy out there.”

  “I already had that in mind.” He hesitated. “What about you?”

  “What about me? You’re not concerned about me.”

  “You’re wrong. I am.”

  “Well, you can’t do anything for me, so you might as well do something for yourself. Go on.”

  “Come with me.”

  “What?” Leila blinked. She’d planned to escape the second she hit eighteen and no one could drag her back. Three months, one week, and four days from now.

  “You heard me.”

  Or she could go now. Even if he did get out of trouble with the police, Rod wouldn’t be chasing this particular stray.

  “That’s a hell of a big decision to make. Why should I trust you?”

  Dek flashed that big smile, looking as trustworthy as any wolf in sheep’s clothing. He didn’t look like just a kid. Why did that make the back of her neck tingle with nerves and…and something else? He was dangerous. But dangerous wasn’t all bad, was it? “You can find out why on the way out of here, kid.”

  * * * *

  Leila almost smiled at the memory. Rod Voss had been a nasty pig, but just for once, he hadn’t been lying to the authorities. She’d been the liar. She’d never forget the first time she’d seen Dek turn. One minute he’d been another victim for Rod to pick on, and the next he was a big bad wolf who’d almost gobbled down the little piggie. Too bad she’d walked in before he’d finished the job.

  Then again, her timing with Dek always sucked.

  “Little Red Riding Hood, did you think taking a shortcut would save you?”

  Leila jumped. She’d slowed down, getting lost in the past. He hadn’t gotten lost, though. He’d honed right in on her because there he was, leaning up against her apartment building, looking too casual and too beautiful to be believed. Damn it. Not only could he follow her physically, he was already back to walking into her brain and picking up her thoughts.

  Busted. There was no way to escape Dek once he was on the hunt.

  “I should have known.” She was proud that her voice didn’t shake. Then again, she never let anyone see what she really felt. Not even Dek. Especially not Dek. “So, Big Bad Wolf, you’re back again.”

  “Yeah. And this time you’re finally all grown up, Little Red.” The wide, predatory smile was still the same, even after all these years.

  “I’m grown up enough to know I’m not interested in a quickie this time.” So what if she lied while her legs shook and her pussy clenched with need? The important thing was to get rid of Deklin Kinkaid.

  He reached out for her arm. She tensed, prepared to fight if he pulled her close. Instead he turned her wrist over and gently traced the veins under her skin with one roughened fingertip. His finger tickled. It aroused.

  “Your wrists are still tiny. Damn, you’re so dainty.” His voice roughened almost to a growl. Then he bent his head and licked the pressure point where her wrist beat wildly. His rough tongue scraped against her vulnerable pulse. He looked up at her, those blue eyes impossibly hot. “I’m interested in something that would take a long, long time, Leila.”

  Oh, Jesus. She was toast.

  But before she grabbed him, she remembered. It wasn’t just her. She had someone else to watch over.

  Good girl. She was a good girl now.

  “I’m not interested. At all.” She enunciated clearly and pulled her arm away.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You smell interested. All hot and spicy.”

  Leila cursed those hot, spicy feelings that were running through her, filling up the air. Damn pheromones. The way she felt, she probably reeked of sex to him.

  “So I’m interested in sex. What of it? That doesn’t mean I’m really interested in you. Maybe I just like a guy who can do it doggy-style. Any guy.” Leila edged toward the street. Much more of this conversation, and she’d be underneath Dek with her clothes ripped off. She’d been there before.

  God, she wanted to be there again.

  “Call me shallow. I can live with that, as long as I’m the guy on top of you, making you howl.” Dek’s voice was impossibly low, incredibly sexy. “I can do that, Leila. Remember?”

  “Listen. I said no. You left last time. You’ll leave again whether I say yes or no. It’s going to end the same way, so can’t you just accept my answer and this time go before we have the sex?” Leila crossed her arms tight against herself, refusing to let the need overwhelm her. She was stronger and smarter and had more to lose now. She could fight this lust.

  WHAT WAS WRONG with her? She wanted him. She wanted sex. Every millimeter of his body was in tune to what she was screaming for. He tasted it, smelled it…he just couldn’t see it. Even though his eyesight was blurring a little from the haze of raw desire coursing through him, he saw her crossed arms, that rigid stance. He had learned to read human body language, and Leila’s body was sending up the message like a big flare in the night sky.

  No. Not now. Not ever.

  Damn it, why?

  The animal in him wanted to fuck the “no” out of her. It wouldn’t take much to have her whimpering under him, writhing, wanting him again. She loved him being inside her. He remembered those scratches and bites she gave him when they fucked, the cries to keep going, to go faster, harder. He could hear Pleeease, Dek like she was groaning it in his ear right now. Her ass grinding against him, her breasts jiggling, demanding his hands all over them…Dek forced himself to stop the crackling-hot replay in his head. But, dear God, sometimes he’d thought he really had met his mate after a bout with her. He’d never met anyone else who came close.

  But she wasn’t. She was a human, and humans went by different rules. Ridiculous rules.

  But he had to—Dek took a deep breath—play by those rules. For now. He had to try to think like them. Well, at least he had to think like Leila. She wasn’t like most humans.

  Sudden insight hi
t. “Is it because I left before?”

  “Naw. Why would I be upset because you came after me like I was prey, couldn’t seem to get enough of me for a month, and then—disappeared? No calls, no note, nothing. Asshole wolf.” He thought her eyes glittered, but he wasn’t sure if it was with tears or anger. With Leila it could be either. “I was younger then. Stupider. I thought something had happened to you and I’d never know what.”

  She didn’t understand. She probably never would. Dek circled closer to her, and she backed up a half-step.

  “I’m a were. You’re not. We weren’t supposed to stay together. I have to stay with my own. My pack.”

  “I bet you aren’t supposed to fuck with non-weres, then, either, but you did. If you can break one rule, why not another?”

  Dek winced. He had broken the rules to be with Leila. Others did it, too, but he’d learned breaking those particular rules wasn’t smart. He was older, understood more than when they were teenagers together. He struggled for the right words to explain. “I found my first packmate in Del Rio, in an alley near where you worked, after I’d walked you to your job.”

  “You always did walk me to work. Said it wasn’t safe for me alone.” Her voice softened for a moment. “Once you said…the real reason was you wanted to spend every minute with me that you could.”

  “Yeah. Well…” Dek swallowed. “It wasn’t safe to be alone, as Grey discovered. He’d turned, and the humans had turned on him. My packmate was beaten, left for dead. I had to get him out of town fast.”

  “You couldn’t have told me?”

  It would have killed him to hear her voice again, knowing he couldn’t go back. Back then he truly had meant it about wanting to spend every minute with her. He’d followed her everywhere. Damn it, had he ever been that desperate? Dek looked at her, at those pert breasts and that firm chin. He licked his lips. Oh, hell yeah. He had been just that desperate.

  “No. I couldn’t tell anyone from the outside. Grey…Grey is one of mine. We’re family.”

  “Family? You could have had—” Leila stopped short. “Fine. Understood. You left me for your family.”