The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

“My head hurts now,” I said.

“You’ll be fine,” Mom said. “Relax and have fun tonight.”

I did. The party was epic, and the weather was unseasonably warm. I had a great time with my old Pack and didn’t get to sleep until after two in the morning. That was only midnight West Coast time, but it meant the four-thirty AM wakeup was WAY too early for me. I slept the whole flight.

The press and paparazzi were out in force as I walked in with my Mom to the FBI Branch Office in downtown Boston. It didn’t take long to swear out the complaint about the sexual assault. An Assistant US Attorney read it over and assured me she would act on it promptly.

I thanked Lawrence for his help as we walked down; he was returning to his Pack immediately. Mom, Fiona, and I all entered the limo that Emily had sent for us. Since it was only three in the afternoon, the driver took us to Emily’s office. Fiona waited in the lobby while Mom and I went to talk with Emily.

“Welcome, it’s great to see you,” Emily said as she came out from behind her desk to meet us.

I introduced my mother before looking around. I couldn’t see any remnant of Corvinus’ office remaining. Leather and glass furniture, hanging textiles, and movie poster prints gave the room a modern feel. “You’ve settled in nicely,” I said.

“I’ve consolidated my position here,” she said. “It wasn’t easy; I had two challenges to fight off, and I had to replace two Coven members. I was lucky enough to find strong but not dominant replacements.”

“Unlike wolves with ranks, most challenges within a Coven come from junior vampires in it,” I sent to Mom. “Is there anything I can do to help? You’ve done so much for me already,” I said.

“There is one thing I would ask, but I will understand if you refuse,” she said. “When I go to New Orleans, I expect one or more of the other Masters to challenge me. I’d like the edge only you can give me.” She opened a drawer in her desk, removing a blood donation bag and kit.

“You don’t trust me with my own,” I teased.

“I think it’s better this way,” she said evenly.

“It is in my interest to keep you in power,” I said as I held out my hand for the kit. Mom helped prep the area, then inserted the needle into my arm and taped it down. It would only take fifteen minutes to give her the blood she would need to strengthen her. “Did you hear anything back from your contacts on a research vessel?”

“I did, but I wanted to wait until you agreed to the blood first. I didn’t want you to feel obligated after what I have to tell you.”

Mom and I both looked up. “What did you find?”

“It’s easiest to go see it, and you can tell me if it meets your needs. I have my plane on standby; if you change your return flight from Boston to New Orleans, we can leave in thirty minutes and be there tonight.”

I was game; she wouldn’t waste my time, and New Orleans was one of three other Vampire-controlled cities I felt safe in besides Boston. I had an ally there, and we had decent relations with Minneapolis and Los Angeles. “Are we seeing the Supreme Vampire?”

“It was his idea,” she said. I got on my phone and canceled my return flight, linking to Fiona while Mom texted the change in plans to Leo, Brent, and Alpha Steven. I thought about Linda. “My director is heavily involved in making this work, can I have her meet us in New Orleans?”

“That won’t be a problem.” I got the destination airport, then called Linda and told her to get to the airfield. Calling the jet charter service, I set her up with a private flight leaving in an hour, with a return flight the next morning. Mom would fly commercial back to Minneapolis, so I got that flight as well. By the time I’d purchased her ticket, the blood donation had finished too.

Emily opened a safe wall, revealing a refrigerator where she carefully stored the blood. “Thank you for that,” she said. I washed up and drank a bottle of juice before we went back to her limo. Thirty minutes later, we were in the air.Têxt belongs to NôvelDrama.Org.

We landed twenty minutes before Linda’s jet would arrive, and we waited in the limo with Supreme Vampire Cyprian Pontalba. He knew we would be hungry, so his driver had stopped at Liuzza’s By The Track, bringing shrimp po’boys, garlic-fried oysters, and gumbo. Linda was lucky she wasn’t late, because the food was disappearing fast.

As soon as she got in, we drove towards New Iberia.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, Brian was getting perp-walked past the press before I’d finished dinner.

*********

Driving through the town, we followed the roads through the swamps until we reached an industrial area about eight that night. “Most of these companies provide support for offshore oil drilling in the Gulf,” Cyprian told us. “I have a substantial interest in one of these companies, C&C Technologies. You’ll be meeting with Steve Clarke, the President of the company.”

“What do they do?”

“They perform underwater seabed surveys, pipeline mapping, and inspection services. Many of these rigs are in water over a mile deep.” The limo parked in the small lot, a steel building with the company’s logo in front of us. “We have some other business, so we’ll be back in an hour.”

“Other business,” Fiona asked.

“Vampires have to eat too, and they like to spread things around,” I said as she got out.

“Only one fresh scent, and it’s human,” Fiona told me as she opened the door for us.

A black man in his fifties, his short hair graying on the sides, opened the door of the building. “Welcome to C&C Technologies, I’m Steve Clarke,” he said with a strong Cajun accent.

“Vicki Lawrence,” I said.

“Lifesaver, model, shark conservationist, and now television producer,” he said. “I’m a big fan of your work.”

I smiled and continued. “Linda Cartwright, director, and Fiona, my head of security.”

“Nice to meet you all. Well, come on back,” Steve said as he held the door open. He led us through the offices into a warehouse. The big space overflowed with rolls of cable, towed sonar arrays, and other equipment.

“Cyprian said you do marine surveys and inspections. What is involved with that?”

“Lots of towed sonar arrays and magnetic mapping equipment for the survey work. With the inspection and repair, it’s mostly remote operated vehicles. We do have a two-person submersible capable of diving to over two thousand feet, and remote vehicles capable of diving more than five miles down.” Damn. That was some impressive equipment. “The Scout has worked well for us, but the new technologies require more than she can give us,” he said. “Underwater pipeline inspection and repair has gone to autonomous robot crawlers with artificial intelligence that can be deployed and retrieved weeks later. They are too big to deploy from our old vessel, so we had to buy a bigger survey boat with a heavier hoist capacity. That left the Sea Scout without much to do, and boats cost money to maintain.”

I knew all about that now. We walked out to the pier behind Steve. I stopped when I saw it; the ship was a thing of beauty. “Holy shit,” I said. The catamaran design was almost twice the size of my yacht, with a forward superstructure, a big open area aft, and not one but TWO A-frames. One went nearly the entire width of the stern, the other on the side, plus a marine crane.

“Do you mind if I record the tour,” Linda asked as she pulled her phone out.

“Not at all. This boat is the Sea Scout Multipurpose Survey Vessel by All American Marine,” Steve said as we walked towards the gangplank. “Launched in 2009, it’s constructed of welded aluminum, so it’s lighter than a steel hull and won’t corrode. One hundred and thirty-four feet long and thirty-seven feet in beam, it’s big, stable, yet can turn on a dime and race to the job site. Top speed is twenty-six knots, and seakeeping is excellent. It’s big and fast enough to pull a water skier across the Gulf of Mexico nonstop. Come on.”

I was shocked at the speed. It was twice as fast as the other research vessels I’d looked at on the Internet, and four knots faster than my motor yacht was! In my terms, it was as fast as a Great White, but not quite as fast as a Mako.

We walked on board; since Steve was expecting us, all the lights were on, and the working deck was well-illuminated with work lights from the superstructure. It was more than enough to work safely after dark. “This deck area is HUGE,” I said. It was twice as wide and deep as the fantail of the Ocean Explorer, thanks to the catamaran construction.

“With the A-frames, you could easily deploy a submersible or remote-operated vehicle, or multiple shark cages,” Linda said as she looked around. “Great lighting and shooting positions from the forward superstructure and the room makes shooting safer for the camera operators.”

Steve walked over to the A-frame at the stern. “The big frame has a 14, 000-pound capacity, while the auxiliary has 10, 000. We can run winch cables up to five thousand feet long. The hydraulic crane has a five-ton capacity and launches the sixteen-foot Zodiac up there.”

“More than enough for what I need,” I said. Even the most massive Great White that the Ocean Explorer brought aboard was less than three thousand pounds.