New World Alpha: Book Three (A Harem Fantasy) Read online

  “We landed five hours ago.” Dee glanced up at the darkening sky. “I was hoping the weather wouldn’t turn on us, but we’re going to have to deal with it.”

  “I need to learn how to control this… gift… or burden… or whatever it is.”

  “It’s both, and more besides.”

  Speaking around a mouthful of beef jerky, I said, “Tell me about your grandfather, everything.”

  My tone wasn’t commanding, but it was firm, and Dee spoke after a second’s hesitation. As she went on, I could smell her relaxing and growing less agitated. Glancing down, I saw an alarming amount of food was already gone and I was still hungry, but I tried to stifle my stomach’s growls and my chewing as the silver-haired girl told me her tale.

  Chapter 3

  “I was the last child born in the compound. The youngest daughter of my parents, I was seen as a miracle birth. Premature and weak, Dr. Elenore Rigle saw that I got through those first few months. She was over a hundred at that point but still one of my grandfather’s closest confidants.

  “Father worked for the government, as all the young Alphas did at the time. Traveling around the world, putting out fires, and starting foundations. So, I was raised by my mother in those early years at the compound. My sisters and mother were… special. All of Grandfather Dean’s children were, but there was something about me that Grandfather saw at a young age, and he took me to his private retreat, where he brought no one, and there I learned much of what he’d discovered over the years about what he’d become.”

  Dee reached over and plucked the water bottle from my hands, taking a big swig before continuing, her tone lighter and her look distant but smiling as she described her early years in that forest paradise.

  “It was up in northern Montana, three thousand acres of wild mountains, forests, springs, cliffs, and all manner of animals. It was heaven on earth for a young girl just awakening to what she is. You see, Dr. Wagner’s formula, that’s the man who created the Enkyos Catalyst… His formula wasn’t meant to create a super soldier, like the government always thought he had. His intent was deeper and more altruistic.”

  She turned her gaze on me, the yellow catching the faint light and almost glowing in the darkness. The rain hammered the roof above as I finished the last of the food, my stomach still a touch rumbly but no longer burning with hunger as it had been.

  “Mankind has lost touch with nature. The philosophies of Rousseau were a fascination for the doctor, my grandfather as well. Dr. Wagner feared that eventually mankind would seek such great freedoms from the confines of nature, it would destroy it. He sought to draw the dual nature of man, that which seeks freedom and that which seeks perfection, into alignment with man’s primal self.”

  Dee shook her head sadly as she raised a hand before her and stared at her jagged nails, dark with dirt and blood from our recent adventures.

  “My grandfather discovered that what Dr. Wagner wished to do and what he actually did were two different things. Instead of binding our dual natures, and drawing us back to a more primal self, the Enkyos Catalyst… Changes us… We’re no longer the same life-form that Rousseau theorized about, but it is in there, deep down. The roots of what we’ve become. The good doctor and my grandfather were careful not to inject anyone else with the Catalyst in those early years, but life always finds a way.

  “My mother and her sisters were born, and the doctor learned more. But it wasn’t until a spy broke into the labs and absconded with a sample of the Catalyst that the government really took notice, and the Alpha Project took off. That was right around the time of DNA sequencing, and they were able to learn something about what we are. You see, humans have 92 strands of DNA in the nucleus of each cell, but if a person is capable of metabolizing the Catalyst, the number of strands in each nuclei balloons to 8,464 strands. Strands isn’t even the right term, because they aren’t paired like the rest of nature but arrayed like squares, with millions of genetic markers they’ve never seen before. Some can be found in other animals, but most seem to be new and unknown.

  “The questions only increased after the Paulson, AZ, affair.” When I frowned in confusion, she waved a hand. “I’ll tell you another time. Suffice to say, the… variants of Alphas increased after that, and it became more vital than ever that the government and my grandfather got a handle on it before one of the other countries trying to steal the Enkyos Catalyst were successful and made their own army of Alphas—or else the world would soon fall into war.

  “It began with the noblest intentions. Volunteers from around the world were provided by all the major powers, and Grandfather was there to guide the men through the Change. For several years things were wonderful. With the dawning of the internet age, the world was coming together like never before, and the men who went back to their countries brought new ideas and technologies that helped everyone.

  “This was when I met Matthew.” Donatella’s voice dropped, losing its excitement when she spoke of her former love. “He was the leader of a new age of Alphas. The most handsome and capable of the new generation, he formed strong ties with men from other nations and eventually they created the Council.

  “I was young, and Grandfather kept me at his compound in Montana for the most part, but I did journey to Virginia with him a few times. It was an incredible place, but even then I could see the seeds of what was to come. Matthew and the others didn’t like the rules placed on them by their governments, and I would hear them arguing with Grandfather about taking orders from weaklings and Betas… The word ‘cuck’ was thrown around a lot, though I didn’t know what it meant at the time.” Dee blushed and went on quickly, though I sensed a story there that she was avoiding.

  “I know Grandfather regretted teaching Matthew and the others about ascension. But they were present when he discovered it by accident… and though most of them didn’t have the sensory control to harness their primal sides, once they knew it was possible, there was no stopping them trying… After that, Grandfather spent more time with me at the Montana compound, teaching me everything he knew. He worried something like this might happen… I can see now that he feared what Matthew and the others would become. Feared how the power was corrupting them and what horrors they might cook up once they had access to the Paulson fiasco’s data on what the Enkyos Serum and its derivatives could do to a human population.

  “I don’t know if you’ve begun to realize, but the Change affected the way you perceive the world, even the way you think. The Change is so powerful, the mind can’t remember what it was like before and looks forward and backward from its current lens.

  “You told me about the night the gas Changed you. You experienced things that should have been disorienting and confusing. But because you’d changed on an instinctual level, it was the outer world that registered as wildly different. The Change is total and leaves us with… different motivations than humans.”

  The gorgeous young woman rested a cheek on one knee as she gazed out at the falling rain. Her expression caught somewhere between angry and sad.

  “I knew him as a boy… a bright-eyed teenager. He was so charming and sweet… My sister Hope was in love with him. Like, in looove with him.” She snorted a laugh, her back shaking as she lifted her head and leaned back, resting it against my leg and causing the hairs to rise on the back of my neck and arms from the touch.

  “She would wait outside the obstacle course with a bouquet of flowers every day, no matter how many times he patted her head and said she was sweet. Now that I look back on it, the man always wanted something above his station. Matthew would trail Diana around, like Hope and I followed him, but Diana had Grandfather and never gave the teenager a second glance.” Dee snorted a short laugh and tilted her head back to look up at me, her yellow eyes holding faint amusement. “Hope would like you too. She always had a thing for boyishly handsome men with blue eyes.”

  “Back to the story,” I said, reminding myself of the stakes involved and not wanting to get my hea
d spun around by the woman’s charms. Dee’s delicate features even looked gorgeous when she frowned, her small upturned nose crinkling. A small part of me wanted to smooth over the moment, but I stayed silent, letting instinct guide me.

  “There isn’t much more to say,” Dee said. “The last ten years I spent in Montana. My grandfather was old but still powerful, and he spent most of the time teaching me everything he knew. There was a network of people who brought me supplies and information… When the bombs dropped, that’s how I heard about everything.”

  “That’s who was on the other end of the walkie-talkie?” I asked and Dee nodded.

  “Sara and Leonard live in Wyoming on a ranch that avoided the gas. They were a big help to me those first couple of days. I need to let them know we’re free and what’s been happening.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to know where we are or what we’re up to until it’s too late.”

  Dee glanced up at me and nodded, her expression showing the same curiosity that filled her scent. “What are you planning?”

  “I’ll tell you when it’s set,” I said, pushing the young woman off my legs and leveraging myself off the cot, happy to see my legs no longer shook as they supported my weight. “You’re going to teach me everything you know about ascension, though.”

  “That could take weeks, months… we can’t afford to waste the time—”

  “I know, that’s why you have one day, or whenever this storm lets up. I want to be gone from here before Matthew or his goons have a chance to track us down.”

  Donatella’s perfectly sculpted lips turned down in a frown, but she didn’t voice any complaints as I led her out into the rainy night. Dee was right, of course. I couldn’t begin to learn everything she knew in one night, but I wasn’t after mastery—only a better understanding and control of the power residing within me.

  Chapter 4

  Dee spoke of the process as one of alignment. Drawing the two halves of the soul into alignment and awakening the genes that have lain dormant since the Change took root. The more you practiced, she promised, the less energy ascension would take, but it would never be free or even cheap.

  “You’ll want to load up on proteins and complex carbohydrates if you know you’re going to ascend the next day. This will mitigate the exhaustion, but you’ll still have to be wary of overexertion. It’s possible to push yourself too far, like you did today, and force the body to consume itself for energy. Do that too much, and your body will come back slower and slower, and be weaker.”

  I could feel what she talked about, a tremor of weakness in my limbs that took hours to fade and another big meal before it was gone entirely. It was a disconcerting feeling, like my bones might break if I pushed myself too hard while it was happening.

  “What is it really?” I asked. “What are all the gifts it gives you?”

  “Strength, speed, cunning… There may be others, but those are all I’ve experienced. I know Grandfather could sit for hours at a time in stillness, his mind in other places, lost down foreign trains of thought… He would become strange after those times, for months or even years afterward.

  “You have to understand there were only a handful who ever showed the talent, and I never trained with the men. They may have discovered things I know nothing about.”

  I was curious she didn’t mention the powerful instinct that guided your actions when you sank deep enough into the mindset, as I had on the plane. Filing that information away, I listened with fixed attention as she described her grandfather’s lessons with her, enhancing her senses so the primal part of her could find purchase.

  “Mastery over your senses is key to the Change, to controlling it. You’ve shown surprising speed in learning what I’ve taught you, but it takes time to control all of them at once. When you can, you’ll find ascension is as easy to take on and off as a heavy coat, and it will require far less energy.”

  “The couple who helped you, are they in contact with others?”

  “Yes,” Dee said, blinking at the change in topic. “The resistance group in Arizona and several other small groups around the country. They’re mundane humans, for the most part, I don’t know what use they can be—”

  “Let me worry about that,” I said, motioning for her to continue. “What else do I need to know?”

  Donatella sighed before continuing, but she spoke with growing excitement as she taught me. Her exasperation with my questions faded, and she seemed to become her old self for a time, forgetting the awful truths she’d learned about Matthew only a day before.

  I was expecting techniques like she’d taught me with the eyesight, that I could practice on my own, but instead Dee spoke more of the philosophies behind ascension and how the senses tied in with the primal self. Her instruction grew esoteric, and the words imprecise to describe the sensations and will she spoke of, but they hinted at truths I felt deep down.

  My hope that I’d be able to master this thing in a few days faded through the night. I could achieve ascendancy, smelling things from several miles off, seeing mountain peaks on the rim of the horizon as if they were a half-mile away, and even leaping over a boulder taller than I was. But I couldn’t release the power at will, and it often ran wild in me, pushing me to do ever more dangerous things.

  Finally, Dee called a halt when I went ascendant and thought it an excellent test of my enhanced balance to race across a tree downed over a two-hundred-foot gorge. It hadn’t even occurred to me the tree might be filled with rot and snap beneath my weight when I was halfway across, much to my chagrin when Dee shouted in my exhausted ears.

  It was several hours after midnight when we stumbled back onto the plane. The walls rang with the sound of rain outside, louder than I would have liked, but the interior was dry and warm, better than we could have hoped from a tent or abandoned building. Ava and Madge were cuddled around Shandra on a large mattress they’d pulled from somewhere and stuffed between two captain’s chairs.

  The exhaustion of having gone ascendant three times, even in short bursts, was threatening to drag me under on my feet, and bed had never looked so tempting, but duty called. Shouldering open the back office door, a dark sweat-matted head lifted from the desk and dark blue eyes, haggard but glowing with triumph, met mine.

  “I will choose my master!”

  Her words were dreadful, teeth gritted, and I saw the veins of her neck standing out. She looked like a drug addict in the throes of horrific withdrawals, and I could even smell her sickness on the air, twisted in with a scent gone manic. Then I noticed the cut cords on the ground and a small pool of blood.

  Rushing forward, I scooped Brianna into my arms and called for Dee. The woman weighed nothing, and her limbs were so weak she couldn’t wrap one arm around my neck like she tried to.

  “You did good, girl,” I whispered in her hair as I held her close, carrying her over to the long couch while Dee laid out thick blankets. “I’m so damn proud of you! The worst may not be over, but I’ll be here. We’ll be here.”

  “Please… bond me… sir.”

  “Courtney,” I said, and her eyes grew confused, “my name, or CT. You don’t have to call anyone ‘sir’ anymore.”

  “But… I… hmmm…” Her lids blinked heavily, and I saw exhaustion sweep her under as her eyes rolled back into her skull and she slumped on the couch, spent.

  Dee was watching me with a strange expression as I laid a blanket over Brianna and pulled a chair close to sit down. A sound from the door alerted me that the noise had woken the pride. My stepmom’s eyes met mine, and a grin flashed across her lips when she saw Brianna resting, the same joy I was feeling inside. I glanced to Dee, and Ava nodded, slipping her arm in the younger woman’s and drawing her back out into the main cabin of the plane, exclaiming about how wet and cold Dee felt from her night of training me.

  I sat there for long minutes watching the young woman sleep, and I tried to puzzle through our next moves before finally giving up and letting
sleep drag me under where I sat. Dark dreams claimed me, carrying me down tight paths of heavy foliage, while golden eyes glowed from the surrounding darkness. They were never close enough for me to make out what type of creature they belonged to, but the threat was impossible to ignore.

  Waking with a start, I groaned at the pain in my neck from having slept in the chair. Rubbing the aching muscles, I sat up straight and saw Brianna still resting on the couch. The young woman had snuggled deep under her blanket, but she wasn’t feverish or shivering when I checked, but resting.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered open, blinking blearily up at me as she cracked a smile.

  “You stayed.” She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against my palm, the warmth comforting me. “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” I whispered, “rest now. I have to speak with Ava and the others.”

  “Will you be back to…” Her dark blue eyes pled with me, but I shook my head.

  “Not yet. I want to make sure you’re safe first, have the doctor check you out. And then… I have a plan and you might be useful… as you are.”

  “Anything you need,” Brianna said, nodding. “Just… yawn… let me know.”

  “I will and thank you.”

  Brianna smiled and snuggled deeper into the blanket as I stood. The woman was brave and strong. Stronger than I had any right to expect her to be, and that forced me to be even more certain about my plans.

  Chapter 5

  SCENE ONE

  Seven boys stood awkwardly in a white room, shuffling from foot to foot. They appeared to be in their late teens, and their nervous glances at one another signaled they hadn’t known each other minutes before. That impression was enhanced by each being of a different nationality or race.

  They wore white smocks, with nothing on beneath, and slippers on their feet. The sound of a door opening and closing caused the seven to stand straighter as they carefully composed their features.