Alpha Male Read Online Free Page A

my head and kicked me in the side.  
    “Stop!” Mel’s face appeared above me, and her hands searched out my wounds. “If you kill him I’ll never help you. Ever. I’ll die first.”
    Low voice hesitated. Then his trigger finger slowly relaxed, and he holstered his Beretta.
    “I told you to run, Mel. I told you. I—” My voice was a whisper. She leaned down to hear.
    “Shut up, Si.” It felt like she was covering me with warm butter on a tropical beach. The sharp pain and feeling of blood pumping out of my body turned into a dull, throbbing ache.
    “We don’t have time for this. His life isn’t important. Not by comparison.”
    Low voice grabbed Mel’s arms and pulled her away from me. “Not yet. Not yet. He’s bleeding too fast.”
    I could hear her crying and struggling. Then I heard doors slamming and the van’s engine roar. I struggled to get up so I could get to the car, and then everything went black.

Silas

    Either there was absolutely no traffic on Lambert Road or I had only been unconscious for a few minutes. I sat up in a pool of my own blood and looked around. The silver van was gone and Mel with it. Some fingertips and the bottom half of a pair of legs were on the road behind me; those body parts were all that was left of the two terrorists that had attacked me. In front of me was Mel’s car. The engine was still running, and it was sideways across the road. The passenger side was bashed in and the passenger window was shattered.
    “Mel.” My heart lurched inside, doing a painful twist as I thought about what would happen to her.  
    “I said I would protect you. Look at me now.” I felt the wound in my shoulder. It was oozing blood, and it felt like the bullet was still inside. The hole in my side was bleeding freely, and a trail of red wound across the asphalt toward the edge of the road.
    I pushed myself off the ground and stood, swaying like a tree in a windstorm. The darkness was broken by the silver light of the moon through the clouds. The sky swirled around me as I moved my feet further apart and lifted my arms for balance. I knew I had to get to the cabin and patch myself up if I had any chance of finding Mel in time.
    I lurched forward a step at a time until I reached the driver’s side of the red Neon. The door was still open. I bent down and pulled myself into the car, using the steering wheel to steady myself. The gas gauge was on low, but it looked like there would be enough fuel to reach the cabin.
    “Fuck, Mel. I’m sorry. I blew it.”
    I put the car in gear and turned right, heading in the direction we had been going when we got cut off by the Daelius hit men. My vision was fuzzy, and my mouth was dry. I wondered how much blood I had lost. If Mel hadn’t tried to heal me, I would have died right there. I owed her my life…twice.
    I spotted the dirt road after ten miles. It looked overgrown and unused since the last time I had been there. Images shot through my mind. Two years ago. Suzi had been with me. It was before her diagnosis. Before everything went to hell. I gripped the wheel tighter and banished the memories. Then I slowed down and turned right, onto the driveway.
    The cabin was intact. No windows were broken, and it hadn’t been vandalized. I parked and got out of the car; then I got the duffle bag out of the trunk. I limped to the front of the cabin, favoring my right side, where pain was shooting up and down my leg from the bullet wound just above my waist. I reached up above the door and felt around for the key, groaning in pain from the stretch. The key was still there. I slid it out of the gap between boards and used it to unlock the door.
    The door opened with a creak, and I walked into the dusty main room. It was an old cabin with a few small windows on the back and a large window facing Big Lake. I sneezed, and thick dust flew into the air and swirled around me. I kicked the door shut behind me and set the duffle bag down on the kitchen table. Then I