Catch Me, Alpha (God of War Book 2) Read online

  Catch Me, Alpha

  Emilia Rose

  Contents

  Trigger Warning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Also By Emilia Rose

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2021 by Emilia Rose

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator” at the email address below.

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  ISBN: 978-1-954597-05-1

  Cover by: The Book Brander

  Editing by: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  Proofreading by: Zainab M., Heart Full of Reads Editing Services

  Beta reading by: Leshae Scheepers, Brittany Pugh, Kayla Lutz

  Emilia Rose

  [email protected]

  To Sean.

  Thank you for believing in me.

  Trigger Warning

  This book contains dark themes, such as memories of sexual assault and violence. If these are trigger topics for you, I suggest not reading further.

  Chapter 1

  Ares

  “We’re all going to die here,” Aurora whispered, peering down into the hole we had dug inside her brother’s cave. It dropped off into a deeper epicenter cavern with monstrously jagged rocks hanging from the ceiling, torches perched on the walls every few meters, and twenty pathways diverging from the center.

  With canary-yellow foam seeping from their mouths, hounds patrolled around an array of at least a hundred dead wolf carcasses and bones directly underneath us. Laid out in rows of ten by thirteen, each fallen wolf had a white orb floating above his or her head.

  “We should go,” I said to Aurora, grabbing her hand. “Now.”

  Something about this wasn’t sitting right with me.

  Aurora hesitated and glanced down into the hole, digging her claws into the dirt. Strands of dirty-brown hair fell into her face, hindering my view of it. The thick stench of blood drifted through the air, making Ruffles scurry away in disgust. Refusing to stay here much longer, I yanked on Aurora’s arm.

  But she didn’t move.

  “Mom,” she whispered, voice on the verge of cracking.

  Among the fallen wolves underground, Aurora’s mother—the woman I’d torn to pieces and the woman Aurora had buried mere days ago—laid in the center with her throat ripped out, her eyes glazed over, and her skin a discolored gray.

  “Calm down,” I whispered into her ear. I placed a hand over her trembling lips to muffle her cries, yet Aurora started heaving uncontrollably. “They’re going to hear you.”

  “What … are they … doing to her?” she asked me, her tears catching on my index finger.

  I swallowed hard and watched the white orbs pulse above each wolf’s chest. If I had known what they were doing down here, I wouldn’t have come, because this looked like some dark magic shit that I wanted no part in.

  The asshole who had killed my mother walked into the cavern with dragon tattoos etched into the side of his head, fresh scars covering his body, and dead eyes that had seemed to come alive when he saw Aurora the other day. He must’ve relished in the thought of being able to take another close family member away from me.

  Walking down each row of wolves, he whispered something to them. Even with my amplified wolf hearing, I couldn’t understand what he had said because it sounded like a dead, ancient language but not quite Latin. Instead, the words came almost divine. Almost.

  After he strolled back and forth down all the rows, he stood in front of the fallen, lifted his hands to the ceiling, and waited. The white orbs sank into the bodies of the dead wolves and disappeared inside of them.

  Toward the right, one dead man’s toes twitched.

  And then, suddenly, at least half of the wolves started moving.

  Aurora tensed beside me and grasped my hand.

  The wolves stood to their full height, their fatal wounds still carved out of their bodies. Some wolves were mere bones held together by the thinnest shred of tendons and ligaments. Yet … these weren’t normal wolves anymore. A murky haze lay in their eyes, the same kind that all hounds had.

  I stared at them in complete shock, my heart pounding inside my chest. How has he …

  “More,” Mom’s rapist shouted. “Make me more!”

  “Aurora,” I said through the mind link, pulling her closer. “We have to go now. We can’t stay.”

  Hounds, rogues, demons, or whatever abominations they were, there were too many of them for us to stand around here, just waiting to be caught. We couldn’t fucking defeat them all by ourselves. We needed backup—warriors, packs, a damn army—to defeat the undead hounds.

  The group of basically soulless hounds marched through the cavern and disappeared down one of the desolate pathways. While most of the wolves had come back to life, some didn’t. Scattered around the cave, bones lay in piles with the white orbs pulsing above them still.

  Mom’s rapist walked to one, absorbed the orb through his fingertips, and brushed his callous fingers against the decaying and dry bone. And that was when I smelled it.

  Mom.

  I didn’t have to see her to know that those were her bones lying in that cave or that he had removed her skeleton from her grave or that the hound who had destroyed her was trying to bring her back to life.

  A growl ripped its way from my throat at the mere scent. The hound lifted his nose, stared right up at me through the small hole in the ceiling, and roared back in return. If he wanted to disturb Mom’s peace as she ran with the wolves in the clouds with the Moon Goddess, then he’d have to fight me for it.

  Aurora grabbed my hand, yanked me toward the exit of the cave, and sprinted toward home. “We’re going to die,” she said, running into the sudden fog. It had been sunny mere moments ago. “You said it yourself, Ares; there are too many of them to fight. Calm down.”

  Though I wanted to stay and kill that man, I hurried after Aurora. I needed to protect her, especially because she couldn’t protect herself. It would take her at least five minutes to shift if we had to fight, and there were hundreds of undead hounds down in that cave.

  I scooped up Ruffles in my arms. “Faster, Aurora.”

  Weaving in and out around trees, hopping over roots, ducking under branches, Aurora ran fas
ter than I had ever seen her run as she easily retraced the steps back to her mother’s pack house, which was closer than ours.

  Birds flapped their wings, hurrying to get out of our way, and disappeared higher up into the trees. Paws hit the ground hard behind us, becoming louder by the second. We were screwed, fucking screwed.

  “Aurora,” I said through the mind link, “can you shift?”

  I was itching to shift, seconds away from turning around and killing this hound once and for all. Thick, unruly rage pumped through my veins as the urge only intensified in me.

  “No, I can’t shift that quickly. They’d catch up to us.”

  Ruffles climbed up my chest and peered over my shoulder, hissing in my ear. I plucked her off of me and tossed her into Aurora’s arms. She clawed her way up Aurora’s chest, wrapped her arms around her shoulders, and bared her teeth at the woods behind us.

  “Then, you have to run,” I said. “No matter what you hear, don’t stop until you reach our pack. If I’m not back in ten minutes after you arrive, prepare our warriors for battle. We are not going to die this way.”

  Losing all control, I shifted into my monstrous brown wolf. After digging my heels into the dirt and sliding against sharp rocks and branches, I turned around to glare into the dense white fog that sat heavily in the forest, almost making it impossible to see.

  Defying everything I’d commanded her to do, Aurora grasped Ruffles and stopped beside me. I growled at her, warning her to leave. Instead of listening, she drew her silver dagger from her back pocket and crouched in a fighting stance, holding it in front of her. Ruffles jumped down between her legs, head low and ass wiggling, as if she was getting ready to attack.

  “We do this together,” Aurora said.

  I growled again in both wicked rage and immense pride. Our mate was a warrior, our luna was a protector, and if we somehow survived today, our pack would be stronger than every other pack in Sanguine Wilds.

  Five hounds barreled through the forest with their paths headed straight for Aurora because she was the one with the stone in her back. They were attracted to that thing for some ungodly reason—a reason we needed to figure out as soon as fucking possible.

  Taking the brunt of their attacks, I killed one hound at a time.

  They should’ve been weak and recovering from the hound attack last week, yet their strength today far exceeded their strength a few days ago. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was protecting my mate and Ruffles.

  With the dirt in my claws, I cut through each one and trusted that Aurora and Ruffles could kill off any ones that slipped past me. As I grabbed another one in my bloodied paw, I scanned the woods for others. There were at least a hundred hiding within the trees. Where were they now?

  Yet while I couldn’t hear anyone, I could feel the gaze of their leader on me.

  He watched me from somewhere deep in the woods, making my fucking blood boil. The ache to slaughter him grew more intense with every moment that went by. I let out a low, threatening growl through the fog.

  “Keep one of them alive,” Aurora said, standing over two dead hounds. “We can use him.”

  I sank my teeth into the third hound’s arm, broke his bones, and ripped his limb right from his body. Howling in pain, the hound fell to the ground. After I was positive that nobody else was going to attack, I shifted into my human form and snatched him by the neck.

  Infused with whatever kind of dark magic this was, the hounds were becoming stronger and more violent. We needed to mobilize our pack and other packs quickly if we wanted to survive because it was clear that the hounds had already begun raising an army …

  An army of the dead.

  The eerie feeling of Mom’s rapist scrutinizing us disappeared. Aurora snatched Ruffles in her arms and patted down her puffed-up fur, whispering to her that we were safe for now. And while we might be, one thing was certain.

  I’d be back to slaughter that man even if it was with the last breath I took.

  Chapter 2

  Aurora

  Long after we’d killed those hounds, I clutched the silver dagger to my chest and walked onto our property with Ares. The fog had almost instantly cleared, but still, my mind was clouded with so many questions. Were hounds really created from the flesh and blood of innocent wolves? Was that what Jeremy had wanted me to find out? He had said that the hounds were out for some kind of divine revenge, but … this was more than I’d expected.

  And what about Mom? Mere days ago, I’d laid her to rest behind her old pack house while hundreds of her pack wolves looked on. The hounds had cold heartedly dug her up from the ground, brought her down into that cavern, and made her a monster. What would I tell my old packmates?

  The hounds were raising an army of undead wolves for a battle, which seemed to be against us for some reason.

  Ruffles rubbed her face against my neck, her soft fur only slightly calming me. Townsmen and women whispered to each other as we walked with the hound almost lifelessly dragging behind us. Warriors scrambled to prepare a prison cell.

  We needed to understand what this was all about before that army could attack us again because an attack by a pack of hounds that large would undoubtedly destroy this entire pack. Ares might be the god of war who thirsted for the blood of his enemies, but our pack wasn’t zombie-hounds strong. Not yet at least.

  When we walked by the training field, Marcel made announcements to the warriors, waved everyone off for the morning, and jogged over to us. Charolette sat on a small hill with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face as she glared at Marcel. Although I didn’t know what they were fighting about this time, it was probably—definitely—about the Malavite Stone.

  With his foot, Ares kicked the prison door open before the guards could get it for us. The hound smacked against each wooden step that Ares descended and howled in pain through his snout.

  Marcel followed us down the stairs. “What’s with the one arm? You do that to him, Roar?”

  Ares growled at Marcel for nicknaming me and pivoted on his heel to posture over his strongest warrior. Since we’d left the cave earlier, Ares had been on edge and ready to slaughter anyone who stepped on his bad side. The smallest remark would set that man off.

  Swinging open a cell door, Ares hurled the hound into the chamber next to Dad. Dad decided not to acknowledge my existence as he scraped his nails against the hard stone floor, sending a shiver down my back.

  I tried to ignore him. Ruffles brushed her fur against my calf and waved her gray tail back and forth, watching with magically wide eyes as Ares snapped the cage’s lock. Purring as if she thought it was the sexiest thing in the world, Ruffles rubbed against his ankle.

  Ares relaxed just a bit. “We have a problem.”

  Marcel leaned back against the stone wall and crossed his big arms over each other, his greasy silver hair falling into his face. “We have a lot of problems,” he grunted and nodded toward the cage Liam sat in. “Like, when you finally let me kill him, who will become the next beta? How will you convince Charolette to use the fucking stone? How are we going to find Charolette’s father?”

  Ares growled, “That hound did nothing to father her.”

  Ruffles meowed at me to pick her up. When I grabbed her, she did her infamous look someone up and down and then look away gaze, giving Marcel a sassy attitude, like she did with almost everyone who wasn’t Ares.

  “The hounds are raising their army, one dead wolf at a time,” I said with a breath.

  Marcel furrowed his brows, creasing his forehead. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The hounds—”

  “What is your damn problem, Marcel?” Charolette shrieked, storming down the creaky wooden stairs. Gaze fixed on Marcel and thin arms crossed over her chest, she turned her body toward Ares. “You want to know what he said to me during practice? He said—”

  Ares growled to silence her, the sound echoing through the small red-
lit dungeon. “The only thing I want to know is when you’re having your surgery,” he said to her.

  Everyone in the room fell into a deafening silence; even the mice that Ruffles liked chasing around at night didn’t squeak.

  Fuming with anger, Charolette balled her hands into fists and stormed back up the stairs. Liam glanced at her departing figure through the cell bars. When she slammed the door, unused cuffs and torture equipment attached to the ceiling by silver chains clattered against the side stone wall.

  Though I wanted to ask her why she didn’t want the surgery done, I couldn’t get myself to follow her.

  I’d asked her about twenty times to have the surgery to insert the stone in her spine, and I was tired of hearing the words, “No, I don’t want it.”

  Strongly against using any sort of divine rock in her back, she either had already accepted her death or just really wanted to piss off her brother. It was important for her to live, but it was even more important to protect this whole pack from an unavoidable war that could kill us all.

  Ares stepped toward the exit and sighed. “Can you talk to her?” he asked me.

  Ruffles meowed in response for me, hopped out of my hold, and walked up the stairs. I rolled my eyes at her more dramatic than usual ass and followed her toward the heavy stone door.

  “You should call a meeting with the other alphas in the region. We need more than our pack for this war,” I shouted before I left the prison.