Surrogate For Alpha Dom

Sinclair

I growl down at the man before me, who is younger than I thought he would be, for one with

such power. He has thick black hair and a day’s worth of stubble on his thin cheeks. The man

glares up at me with dark, angry eyes and opens his mouth to speak but before he can, I slap him

– hard with an open palm.

–

The man gasps with surprise and pain, his eyes going wide as he stares down at the floor, and I

smirk. I doubt this man has been slapped anytime recently, if ever. He has the smug look of

someone used to being in charge.

But he’s in my house now.

“You’ll speak when we tell you to speak,” I growl, and then I turn to the head of my

–

reconnaissance team, who is standing against the wall, his hands on his knees, panting a little.

Craig isn’t a small man to see him so undone by the efforts suggests that this diminutive priest

is, indeed, powerful in other ways.

“How did you catch him?” I snap. Craig looks up at me and does his best to straighten up.

“We followed the leads, sir,” he replies, looking me in the eyes, “that we gleaned from the

conversation with the other priest, who wished to remain anonymous. They were…fruitful. We

found this one’s lair, for lack of a better word. It was actually in a sewer -in an abandoned

maintenance room. He was living there doing…” Craig hesitates and then shrugs. “Forgive me, Sir,

for the dramatic language, but ‘arcane magics‘ are the only words coming to my mind now. Lizard

skins…and and snail shells, in jars – he had a cauldron –”

“Thank you,” I say, interrupting and nodding towards the head of my investigative team. “You.

will give your details to Alastair, as soon as you can. For now, though I want everyone here for

the interrogation.” I lean forward towards the priest, who watches me with wary eyes and a

clenched jaw.

interrogation,” I continue, lowering my voice and slowing

if need

baring his

him faulter. And then I

to rip this man’s head off.

arms crossed as he looks down at the

people want with my brother’s child.”

man just grins at Roger, a too–wide expression that shows all

at him blandly for a moment and then shifts

standing behind the

it swiftly against the priest’s neck.

flies through the priest’s body, making him shriek and twist in pain, but my man, well

away quickly. The priest goes a

again,” Roger says, kicking the leg of the chair to get the priest’s attention.

want with

eyes narrow, though, as the priest looks up at Roger again and just huffs a short, humorless

“It doesn’t matter,” the priest says, shaking his

his

as a crash

upstairs –

heart stops as I recognize it, instantly,

Ella

just sitting here, tense, in my rocking chair by Rafe’s basinet, one hand on the edge of

him quietly as he falls

–

little tapping sound at the glass

expecting a little bird – maybe a squirrel –

terror flooded me when I saw a black–masked face calmly tapping on my

to ice as I froze, as he quietly pointed to the basinet and

coming for

–

go so fast – the man pulled back his arm, and made a fist, and crashed it

the window –

it should have broken his hand – Sinclair paid to

body, head–first, into the room through the hole he made with his fist, the rest

cracking and shattering around him

–

hit the floor, only half an instant later, my instincts

child’s rolling basinet behind

into the

gets to his feet at the foot of the window. As

–

–

behind him, working their way up to the

unnaturally fast

is on his feet now, grinning at me, starting to prowl