Falling For The Alpha King

Chapter 1 Seline

“Get off the bar, Ronnie! Nobody wants to see you naked!”

The 68-year-old human gives me a saucy look. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew me forty years ago.”

I let out a sigh, before grabbing the man by the arm, and forcing him off the bar as some of the regular patrons hoot and wolf whistle. “This is the third time this week, Ronnie. I am this close to putting your name on the ‘do not allow’ list.”

I hand him his shirt and the belt that he had tossed onto my shoulder. “Put it on and Ellie will take you home.”

“I have a car!” Ronnie immediately protests.

I dangle the keys in front of him. “Not anymore, you don’t. Pick them up tomorrow. Ellie!” I nod at the other bartender who is getting off-duty.

She approaches me, looking amused. “’Sup, Ronnie? Seline giving you a hard time?”

Ronnie immediately turns to her, having found a shoulder to complain on.

I make a face. “Take him home. And you’d better get your keys tomorrow, Ronnie!”

However, Ronnie is already on another drunken rampage. I just shrug.

He’s no longer my problem.

It’s still a few hours shy of midnight, so the bar is pretty full. But the human clientage is slowly decreasing in number. I see a few new faces, but that isn’t surprising considering that Arrow Brooke is a town that attracts Others like curious moths to a flame. It’s rare to have so many species of Others coexisting in one place.

I slide behind the bar, smiling at the man in the cowboy gear. “What can I get ya?”

He looks uncomfortable, but then asks slowly, “I heard this place offers A- negative?”

My lips twitch at the shy demeanor of the young vampire. “Would you like it chilled, separate, or half and half with our tap beer?”

He stares at me in stunned silence before stammering. “H-Half and half, please.”

“Coming right up,” I crouch down and grab the key hanging from my neck, before opening the fridge door. Carefully selecting the blood pouch, I grab a mug and pour some of it out before closing the fridge and locking it. After nine, there is no worry about some of the human staff coming across the blood in the fridge, since they’re usually gone by that time. But I still prefer to be careful. Nothing good has ever come of humans discovering the presence of Others. Even in this town, with the small human population, it is only a handful of trusted human—who have lived here for generations—who are aware that something darker lurks in this town and the forest that surrounds it.

The door opens, the bell against it ringing obnoxiously. “Seline, my sweet, one of the dinner special for me and my lady!”

I glance at Mr. Hamrington and eye the woman by his side. As always, Ashley looks like she has a stick up her ass. Not surprising, since she’s married to the elderly-looking Donald Hamrington. I remember when she married him eight years ago, expecting him to die any moment. But the town mayor is also a vampire, a very old one, and he’s not set to die for another couple of centuries. Age has done nothing to make him any less shameless as he keeps marrying young women, stringing them along in the hopes of inheriting his fortune, and then dumping them once they are in their forties or

fifties.

Shameless, perverted vamp!

But then, he also gave me the job here so I shouldn’t be judging his lifestyle. “Be right there!” I nod at him before knocking on the glass window that separates the bar from the kitchen. “Marty! Two orders for the dinner special and one Dancing Wino for the mayor!”

Mr. Hamrington winks at me and I just roll my eyes.

However, it’s like the town mayor attracts trouble. It’s not even a full five minutes before a group of rowdy-looking men walk in.

One of the benefits of having warlock abilities is the ability to sense what type of Other is crossing the threshold of this bar. My skin tingles when an Other approaches, and who they are is like a taste on my tongue.

I wouldn’t work at this bar if I wasn’t comfortable mingling amongst Others, but panther-shifters are the bane of my existence. Those sly and arrogant creatures enjoy causing trouble wherever they go. This particular group reek of trouble.

I heard from some of the regulars about a group of panther rogues moving together, but I had hoped that they would have the good sense not to come here and create a ruckus. Unfortunately, I was proven wrong.

I hate being proven wrong.

“Hey, legs! Over here!”

I can see one of the motioning in my direction like a man possessed, and I hope to everything holy that he’s not referring to me. I see the mayor frowning, and I shake my head at him. I don’t want him getting involved. Not everyone in this town knows him as anyone else than a bored vampire who indulges in beautiful women and scams them.

Better that it remains that way.

I see one of the waitresses, a fawn shifter, approaching the table and I tense,

ready to intervene if they harass her. But they don’t seem interested in Marie. It seems that they don’t take kindly to being ignored. Especially by a female.\ I hear a wolf whistle in my direction before shouting, “Get your juicy ass here, legs! Don’t make me come over there!”

I exchange a look with Mr. Hamrington, who’s scowling now. He gives a discreet nod, however, and I set down the cloth I was using to wipe down the bar. The shy vampire is also beginning to look a little irritated. His voice is low as he whispers, “Do you need any help?”

He’s sweet and attractive, in a harmless way, and extremely young from the looks of it. The panther shifters will eat him up.

“Thanks, cutie,” I smile at him tersely. “But I’ve got this. You enjoy your drink and tell me if anything else on the menu catches your eye.”

Grabbing my notepad and a pen, I walk over to the table, ignoring the way the shifters begin hooting at me. As soon as I reach them, I slam my notebook down on the table, so hard that a few of the customers around us look over. “What can I get ya?” I ask, my voice saccharine-sweet.

“Maybe a piece of this ass,” one of them sneers in a disgusting manner.

I smile at him and reach out to touch his arm. He lets out an instant howl of pain as he receives the worst electric shock of his life.

I don’t even flinch but I let them hear the crackle of electricity coming from my hand.

Pissing off a warlock is a bad idea.

Even if she is half a warlock.

I see them stiffen as they realize what I am, and the sudden wariness in their eyes is almost gratifying.

When they don’t say anything, I smile and say coolly, “Maybe you should leave before I really lose my temper. You won’t like me if I lose my temper. My therapist says I have unresolved anger issues. You know how that is. I

might just do something insane.”

They seem to take me for my word, and I watch them scatter out the door, their tails between their legs.

On the days I don’t despise my deadbeat of a father, I’m grateful to him for contributing to my warlock half.

Some of the customers laugh. While I feel amused, I know that panther shifters aren’t so easy to shake off. Once they regroup and really feel the insult of what I just did, they’ll come sniffing around, more vengeful than ever.

However, the constant foot traffic has me occupied, and soon the panther shifters are the last thing on my mind. I have other problems in life. One of them being my landlord who thinks I’m his personal slave.

“I’m not at home, Frank!” I hiss into the phone tucked between my ear and shoulder as I struggle with the impossible employee bathroom door. “If I was home, we could talk about this. You know I’m working at this hour.”

Frank hurls something abusive my way, which gets lost in translation since he’s chewing something on the other end. All I get is some garble that I assume I should be offended by.

“Look, Frank, I said I’d pay you and I will. My paycheck doesn’t come till the end of the month, like every other normal person. And no, I’m not performing sexual favors for you.”

I cut the call, and with an afterthought, put my phone on silent.

Fucking pervert asshole!

If he wasn’t offering dirt-cheap apartments, I wouldn’t have to even look at his ugly mug.

I wash my face in the sink and pat it dry with some paper napkins before running my fingers through my hair and studying my reflection in the mirror. I have bags under my eyes from working eighteen hours a day. My piercing

grey eyes, which I got from a father I’ve never met, have a tired look within them. My hands go to my hair, lingering around the roughly chopped edges. Lacy keeps pestering me to clean them up, but it’s just so much easier to hack at my thick black mane with a pair of kitchen scissors.

I’ve always hated my long hair. When I was a child, I remember my mother dragging me down the steps by my long hair. The first thing I did when I moved away from her was chop it off. Now no one can grab a fistful of my hair and hurt me.

I let out a sigh and study my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“I’m not ugly,” I tell my doubtful-looking reflection. My ivory skin is flushed from the cold water, my high cheekbones bare of makeup. My mouth is too wide, though, and I’m not a fan of the mole above my upper lip.

But I wouldn’t call myself ugly.

“So why can’t I find me a man?” I demand at no one in particular. “Twenty- nine years, and no one has ever sexed me up. This is just insulting.”

But I doubt my reflection has any answers to offer, so I just grab my cigarette box and make my way to the back alley to smoke away my troubles.

But my troubles have a way of finding me.

I’ve barely let out two puffs when I feel a crawling sensation along my arms.

I’m not alone.

I look sharply in the direction of the entrance of the alley, and see a familiar group of males standing there.

“Lost, boys?” I ask, loudly, throwing my cigarette down and crushing it with the heel of my shoe.

The panther shifters bare their teeth at me, approaching me. It’s six against one.

I smile.

The odds are clearly in my favor.

“You think you scare us, warlock?” one of them spits out. “You’re a female.

And we know what to do with females.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I laugh lightly, my fingers flexing as I prepare myself for the upcoming fight. “I was worried, seeing how you’re only traveling in an all-male pack.”

They seem to catch the hint a little late but they snarl. “We’ll put you in your place.”

I shrug. “Many have tried.”

I can see them bunching their muscles, preparing to shift and attack, and my own smile slips. But before anything can happen, I see something move in my peripheral vision.

So do they, they seem.

I can’t see who it is, but a deep voice asks quietly, “Is there a problem here?” The sound makes my blood hum in a strange way. I can almost feel the vibration in my body. He comes forward into the dim light from the only bulb working in the alley, and I suddenly feel this crawling sensation within my skin, as if something wants to burst out.

Who is this man?