The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

The red light came on as the main feed showed a crowd shot of people applauding. “Thank you for having me on,” I said.

Nikki picked up the questions. “I’ve watched the video a half-dozen times, Vicki, and I still can’t believe it. Can you walk us through what happened yesterday?”

“I was walking along the beach with a friend, Terry Foster, and my stepmother, Karen Volkov, when we heard the Mom screaming for her boy. We ran over and found out her son was gone. She pointed to where she last saw him, and Terry and I went into the water to find him.”

“We have cellphone footage showing what happened next,” Lance said. The video showed four of us in the waves, my thong bikini bottom prominently featured by the person recording the video.

“We were looking through the shallow water, and we didn’t see anything. There was a dropoff a little farther out, and a bit of a rip current. I figured the current might have him, so I dove in and swam with the current as I looked along the bottom for him.”

There was a clock along the bottom, counting up. “The clock shows the time you spent underwater in this rescue,” Nikki said. “You weren’t afraid?”

“I’ve been a lifeguard and an open-water scuba diver since I was fifteen, and I’ve been free-diving a lot longer than that,” I said. “I just reacted to the situation.”

The clock was past thirty now. “What was going through your head now?”

“I was praying that I would find him before it was too late,” I said. “I had no idea how long he’d been under before we got there, or how far the riptide had carried him. With the surf, visibility was only about ten feet. It was a needle in a haystack.”

The clock was now over a minute, and Nikki kept going. “How long can you hold your breath underwater?”

“Close to four minutes if I have time to prepare. In this rescue, I could only take a few deep breaths before diving, plus I was swimming hard. I was almost to the end of my endurance when I saw an arm.”

“Wow. What was going through your mind when you saw it,” Lance said.

“Get him to the surface,” I said. “I knew if I went up to catch a breath, I might not find him again. I pulled him to my side and kicked for the top.”

The video showed me coming up on the left edge before the cameraman spotted me. “One minute, forty-two seconds,” Lance said.

“My prayers were answered,” I said. “I yelled for help. Terry was close enough to take over and get him to shore, where he and Karen started CPR. I barely had the energy to make it out of the water, as you can see.” No wonder my story went viral; I was on my hands and knees at the water’s edge in a tiny bikini, my boobs hanging down as I breathed hard, and my ass on full display.

“You’re a true hero,” Nikki said as she wiped away a tear. “You are a senior in high school, right?” I nodded in response. “What is in your future?”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

I smiled as now I could make my pitch. “Since I was a young girl, I’ve been fascinated by sharks. I plan to get a degree in Marine Biology, and I’ve got a project I’m just starting to help in conservation efforts for sharks.”

“Really? What kind of project,” Lance asked.

“One of the issues we have in protecting shark species is that we don’t know enough about their movements and where they mate and birth their pups. If we learn more about them, we can better target our conservation efforts.”

“How do you plan to do this,” Lance asked.

“My idea to make inexpensive trackers available on a wider basis, and offset the cost by letting people ‘adopt’ a shark they could track online. The University of Miami tried this a decade ago, but the cost of a tracking device and the cost of catching and tagging sharks was very high, and few got tagged. I want to enlist commercial fishermen, anglers, biologists, and government in large-scale tagging and tracking efforts. Sharks are amazing predators; I don’t want to see any more species going extinct like the Great Hammerhead Shark.”

“That would be a tragedy,” Nikki agreed. “Thank you for joining us this morning, and good luck with your project.”

“Thank you for having me,” I said. The light on the camera went off, and I let out a breath as Lance told everyone that the weather would be next after the commercial break.

“That was FANTASTIC,” Adrienne said as she rushed forward.

“I was so nervous,” I said. “I didn’t know anyone had a video of the rescue!”

“I don’t think those shots hurt your reputation one bit,” she said as she pulled me into a hug. “We’re going to have to beat the boys away with sticks.”

“Great,” I said. Everyone thanked me, then it was back to the helicopter.

“How would you like to fly us back,” the pilot asked.

“Are you kidding me? YEAH!”

“Get in.” He put me in the front left seat, the collective sticking up between my legs, and rudder pedals on the floor. After getting me buckled in and the headset on, he went around to the right seat. The copilot sat behind me with Adrienne on the other side. He walked me through the pre-flight checks, and let me start the turbojet engine. “If I say HANDS OFF, let go of the controls and the pedals. I’ll keep control until we are away from populated areas, so don’t touch until I tell you.”

“All right,” I said. As we took off and flew east, the pilot explained what he was doing and why.

“We’ll start simple. I’ll keep the rudder and collective, and you take the cyclic when I tell you. Do you see that creek down there?” I nodded; we were about a thousand feet above the winding water. “Pretend we’re looking for a lost fisherman and follow the river with the aircraft.”

I took the cyclic and started to fly, moving the stick side to side to stay over the water. The pilot even let me dive down to five hundred feet for a bit before we came back up to cruising altitude. By the end of my time, I had all three controls and was FLYING A FREAKING HELICOPTER!

He took over for the landing approach, and set it down right on the mark. I hugged both men and thanked them profusely before following Adrienne back across the lawn. I waved at the two men as they took off again.

“BEST DAY EVER,” I said with a big grin.

************

Thankfully, the Summit was ending after the farewell luncheon. Adrienne and I had just enough time to return to the trailer before we had to go. Both of us packed our bags, leaving comfortable travel clothes out for when we returned. A driver would be taking us to the private airport shortly after things wrapped up, and we were in a hurry to get back home.

Mom had packed the dress for me with this meal in mind, and it was classy but comfortable. The four of us shared a table with Amy and Kai, who were sitting with their Alphas. Steve and Carolyn Dauntless were proof Luna liked opposites; he was tall and thin with a deep tan and bright white hair, while she was short and muscled like a gymnast, with a fair complexion and raven-black hair to her waist. The males stood up as we approached the table and got introduced.

“So this is the infamous Sharkbabe,” Steve said as he brought my hand to his nose in greeting.

I blushed, thinking he had misheard my nickname. “Sharkbait, although I think I’ve outgrown that nickname by now,” I said nervously.

“Sharkbabe is what they are calling you on social media now,” Amy said. “You’ve gone VIRAL! First the rescue, then the interview this morning? Have you even turned your phone on today?”

I shook my head, no. “I turned it off before the interview, and I couldn’t use it while I was flying the helicopter! I kind of forgot about it. I left my phone with my travel clothes.”

“People are posting memes about you everywhere,” Kai said.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook, and half the boys at school want me to get them a date with you,” Amy said with a chuckle.

“Oh, Luna,” I said as we sat down. “What the hell did I get talked into doing?”

Leo pulled me into a side hug. “You did a great job this morning; everyone was proud of you, and you planted a seed. The real question is what you do with your newfound fame.”

I sat back and thought about it; I didn’t know. “I never planned on having to deal with ANY of this stuff. I just wanted to finish my shark tracking project, graduate, and go to college!”

Kai just laughed. “You’ll never be able to go back to the way it was, Vicki. Like it or not, you’re a celebrity now. You either OWN it, or it owns you. Just like this morning, when you used your platform to talk about your project. You can take your fame and turn it into money and awareness, or you can wait for it to fade away.”

“It won’t fade away,” Amy laughed. “Have you SEEN yourself in that bikini? Shit, girl, you looked like a model! I wish I had abs like yours!”

I shook my head because Amy’s body was just as hot as mine. “I just need time to think about what to do next. I’d like to find a way to push my project forward. If I can build on this morning, maybe that can help.”

Adrienne just chuckled. “I bet those people you talked to earlier this week are DESPERATE to ride your coattails now. Not even Ocean has that kind of audience, not anymore,” she said. “You should talk to them about how we can fast-track your idea, or at least turn the notoriety into donations to shark conservation funds.”

“I will,” I promised. “Amy, what are you two doing next?”

“I would like to hear this as well,” Alpha Steven said. “You both have school to finish, and Kai’s active duty stint begins shortly after graduating from Oregon.”

She got a little nervous. “I’d like to bring Kai home to meet my family,” she said. “Alpha Leo, could we travel home with you?”

“Of course,” Leo said. “You will always be welcome with our Pack, so don’t worry about that.”