Captured by Two Alphas [The Alpha Legend 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Alpha Legend 1

  Captured by Two Alphas

  Leopard shifter Saffron Estampado flees her village to escape an unwanted mating with two brothers who are involved in the same evil society as her uncle, and is captured in the woods by cougar shifters Landon Sterling and Nevada Ruiz when they believe she was sent to kill them.

  But the same people chasing her are after rare black cougars like Landon and Nevada, and she works hard to convince them of that. As the men realize they are both in as much danger as Saffron, they also realize they are each falling for her.

  Saffron recognizes Landon and Nevada as her mates, but when the brothers to whom she was being forced to mate frame her for her uncle’s murder, her budding romance with both men is put on hold while all three enlist the help of jaguars to fight the threatening evil and clear Saffron’s name.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter

  Length: 72,390 words

  CAPTURED BY TWO ALPHAS

  The Alpha Legend 1

  Tara Rose

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  CAPTURED BY TWO ALPHAS

  Copyright © 2013 by Tara Rose

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-814-1

  First E-book Publication: October 2013

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Captured by Two Alphas by Tara Rose from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Tara Rose’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Rose’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  For Cheryl M. Thank you for encouraging me to write shape-shifters. J

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  CAPTURED BY TWO ALPHAS

  The Alpha Legend 1

  TARA ROSE

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  Saffron Estampado didn’t like to shift into her rare black leopard form any more than absolutely necessary. For one thing, the urge to chase down a rabbit or fox for dinner became overwhelming, and she didn’t like the feeling that she was so powerful she could easily do it. The guilt that came with hunting innocent prey wasn’t fun once she shifted back to human form, so she tried to stay human as much as possible.

  But being on the run from her village on the eastern edge of Sleepy Cat Peak in northwest Colorado had necessitated her shifting. If she’d stayed, her uncle would have forced her to choose Marc and Jake Rosen, two leopard brothers from her village as her mates. But Saffron wanted no part of them, so she’d fled her home. She could cover more ground in leopard form, and her uncle Dennis would have a tougher time tracking her since he could only shift now when the moon was full.

  That was what happened when you locked egos with men more powerful than you over inconsequential matters. You got cursed. It served him right, but try telling Uncle Dennis that. Saffron hadn’t been able to tell Uncle Dennis anything once she’d reached puberty and her true nature began to reveal itself.

  According to what her grandmother had told her, he’d been in league with dark forces and people he shouldn’t have been tangling with for most of his life, and now it had finally caught up with him. Unfortunately for Saffron, he’d involved her in this mess as well, and the only way out of it was to run.

  She had two weeks until the Hunter’s Moon on the eighteenth. Two weeks to find a place as far away from her uncle and his plans as possible. Was there such a place? And even if there was, could she hide there for the rest of her life without revealing who and what she was? She’d been able to shift for twelve years, and she still didn’t understand all the nuances involved in that altered state. If her uncle was to be believed, her only role was to mate and keep the rare bloodline going. But Saffron didn’t want to believe she’d been born solely for such a limited future.

  And even if she did decide one day to mate and bear children, shouldn’t she be allowed to choose the leopard, or even a human if that’s what she wanted? Maybe there was a damn good reason why the bloodline was so rare. Perhaps some things were meant to die out. She hadn’t met too many of her own kind who
were compassionate or altruistic beings. Greed and corruption ran deep in her village.

  She’d learned of her uncles plans for her life years ago. It didn’t help that the DNA she’d inherited from her parents was so rare some believed it was cursed. She was twenty-five years old, and it was quite the scandal in their village that she was still unmated. Wasn’t she supposed to know her mate when she saw him?

  That’s what all the legends said, and it’s what she’d been told by Topaz, her maternal grandmother, before that woman’s untimely death three months earlier. And if the legends were true, couldn’t the others see that Saffron had no interest in either Rosen brother, or that their perceived interest in her had nothing to do with them being her true mates?

  Saffron knew there had to be something more for her out there. She’d believed that for a long time, even before the first stirrings of her true nature had begun. But how was she to find it and stay hidden at the same time? Or at least, hidden from her uncle and his associates? Where should she go?

  Saffron stopped running and sought comfort in a pile of cool loam at the base of a blue spruce as memories of her maternal grandmother washed over her. Topaz—the stone that is said to be so powerful that it can protect the faithful against harm. Her grandmother had been aptly named. All the women in her mother’s family had been named that way. Saffron’s mother, Celadon, had fought to have her daughter named the same way, and Saffron was grateful that she’d won out over her father’s wish to call her something more traditional. Saffron loved her name because it was so unusual.

  Her grandmother had never allowed Saffron to call her by any other name than “Topaz” even when other adults were around. She could still smell her slightly flowery scent and hear her gravelly voice whispered on the wind. Saffron didn’t remember her parents. They had both died when she was only five, killed by jaguars in a fight that was now legend in her village. Since Uncle Dennis was her father’s brother, he’d taken her in. But Topaz had insisted on coming to live with him as well, and now Saffron understood why.

  Up until three months ago, it had been Topaz’s influence that had kept Saffron out of becoming too involved in all the things her uncle had his paws in. But now that she was gone, Saffron had no one left to protect her. And she couldn’t protect herself. Not in that village, where every male was either in league with her uncle or afraid of him. Saffron had to do this on her own.

  She rose and stretched, wishing again that she could shift back into human form. But she couldn’t yet. She wasn’t far enough away. She had to find a place to hide and figure out a plan. There were other villages in these foothills. She wasn’t exactly sure where they were, but the dawn was breaking now and there was no scent of rain on the wind. She had the entire day ahead of her to put distance between herself and Uncle Dennis.

  She’d left before he was awake and had already waded twice through water, which meant the chances were lessened that he or others, even in leopard form, would be able to follow her. And Saffron was certain that he would seek help in finding her. It would be men who could take their animal form at any time, so she had no choice right now but to keep going. But she was hungry, and Saffron didn’t want to eat an animal. She wanted the food she’d brought along, and to eat that she needed opposable thumbs, not paws.

  She glanced around and sniffed the wind again. Nothing. She was alone here. The only sounds were birds and the gentle buffeting of a wind turbine to the south. They sat in clearings not too far from here, in a line that snaked northeast into Wyoming and southwest further into Colorado. The village she’d come from used one for power, which meant there might be other villages near here doing the same thing. Or perhaps not. If humans were that close, in this form she’d be able to smell them.

  Saffron shifted back to human form and took clothes out of the pack she carried on her back. That was the one disadvantage of shifting back and forth in the wild. If she didn’t dress and undress, anything she wore while shifting would simply tear and be ruined. And when she shifted back to a human female, she’d be nude.

  But now, dressed and walking once again on human feet clad in hiking boots, she ate a couple of the strips of dried fruit she’d packed and followed the sound of the wind turbine. Maybe if she made her way to a clearing, she could see past the trees far enough to figure out where she was, or even find a place to hide for the day. Her grand plan suddenly seemed haphazard and disjointed, but it’s not like she knew anyone whom she’d been able to contact and ask for help. She’d simply run, without a clear idea of where she was heading.

  The trees were thick up here, but the coolness of their fronds didn’t bother Saffron. It helped keep her from becoming too fatigued as she walked on, and the crisp air filled her mind with renewed hope and a sense of purpose. This would work. It had to. There was nothing left for her back home.

  Gradually, voices and unfamiliar smells reached her consciousness, and she began to walk slower, following both. As the sounds of everyday life pricked her ears, she dropped to the ground and began to crawl toward them rather than walk upright. It would be easier to hide among the trees that way if need be. Saffron scooted underneath a couple of pines that had grown so close together they at first appeared to be one tree. When she tried to peer out from underneath them, the base of a wind turbine blocked her vision, so she moved to her left a bit.

  She’d come upon a village in a clearing. She heard running water, children’s voices, and the clank of pots and pans. Who were they? Where they shape-shifters, like her? Did they know her uncle or any of the people he associated with? How far had she traveled already this morning? Saffron had no idea. She’d simply slipped out of the house with her backpack, undressed in the shadow of the house, shifted into her leopard form, and began running.

  As an animal, she could cover approximately thirty miles an hour at a steady pace, and this morning the rush of adrenaline had allowed her to run for what she estimated had been at least two hours. She knew she’d headed southwest, because the wind turbines had been to her left at an almost constant pace. They traced a line in that direction for miles in this part of the country. That meant, if her crude calculations were correct, she had covered at least sixty miles already, and was now currently somewhere north of Passion Peak, Colorado.

  But who were these people? The town didn’t stretch this far north. She crawled closer and took out a pair of binoculars from her pack, trying to get a closer look at their faces. She’d listened to stories of other villages hidden in the foothills. Some were shifters, but others were said to be Native Americans who worked in the nearby towns and simply preferred to live away from the crowds of the cities. If these people were the latter, perhaps they wouldn’t feel threatened by her and would at least let her stay long enough to figure out—

  Her thoughts were cut short by the sound of twigs snapping behind her. Saffron whirled around and nearly shifted back to her leopard form as a pair of legs clad in jeans came into view. The man wearing them was also wearing work boots, and he was whistling, though not for other animals. It was some song that Saffron had never heard. She let out the breath she was holding and tried to move from underneath the fronds a bit so that she could see the rest of him.

  At his waist he wore a tool belt and on his head was a hardhat. His plaid shirt couldn’t hide impressive back and arm muscles, but he wasn’t a leopard shifter. She was certain of it. She knew her own kind and they knew her. Although, she didn’t know if a shifter who wasn’t a leopard would be able to tell what she was, and she wasn’t certain if she’d recognize a different type of shape-shifter. That’s why she had to be careful not to be spotted by anyone until she knew with absolute certainty that the person was human.

  As the man continued into the clearing she’d just been watching, she followed his progress from the safety of the trees. The people who were out and about in the village obviously knew him. Several waved to him as he made his way toward the wind turbine, and it was then that Saffron realized he was a line tech
nician for Notus, the company that owned and operated these wind turbines and others around the country. She recognized the symbol of a winged man on his tool belt.

  Saffron had always found it ironic that a multibillion-dollar company had chosen for their name a god that represented the South Wind, the friend of thieves because he brought fog and hindered visibility. Did the people who worked for them also embody those qualities?

  “Come to work on our turbine, Landon?”

  The line tech turned sideways to face the woman who had addressed him, and Saffron’s pussy contracted at the handsome profile of this human man. He had a strong jawline, almost like a cat’s, and eyes the color of a clear summer sky. Saffron’s nipples tingled at the sight of all his thick, dark hair as he took off his helmet and tipped it in greeting toward the woman. What would it feel like to run her fingers through that hair and gaze up into those beautiful blue eyes?

  “Morning, Mancie. Glad to see you’re back in town. It’s just routine maintenance on this entire line of turbines. Nothing to worry about.”

  His voice washed over her like warm rain, bringing with it images of naked, sweaty bodies intertwined in a dance of passion that Saffron had only read about in books. She hadn’t known the carnal pleasures of her human flesh yet. That was supposed to be saved for her mates.

  She shuddered at the thought of having sex with the Rosen brothers. Neither of them were her mates, and nothing her uncle said would have ever convinced her that they were. Then again, Uncle Dennis’s motivation for pushing Saffron together with two of the Rosen brothers had nothing to do with soul mates. Her uncle was pushing his own agenda.