The Alpha Killer
Training Day

Talia’s POV

Three Years Ago

“You sure you want to do this, T?”

The instructor put the headgear on me over my blonde hair and buckled it under my chin. “I need the challenge, Matt.” I put my mouth guard in, and he checked my gloves and equipment one last time. “None of the women here can take me.”

He moved back, letting me stand up in the corner of the Octagon at the New Orleans MMA Academy. It was the Friday Night Fights, and we were the main event. The crowd had swollen to several hundred for our event. “I don’t want you getting hurt, the Turk has a hundred pounds on you and five pro fights.”

“He also runs his mouth about how women shouldn’t be in the ring unless they are in a bikini holding up a round card. He needs to get his mind right.” The Turk walked around like he was the shit, and it was time to teach him a lesson in humility. His friends were just as bad, so it wasn’t hard to goad him into a three-round match with a significant side bets. I’d given a thousand dollars to my girls to put into play, giving them a third of the action if I won. My odds of winning had gotten to twenty-five to one with the help of the other girls in training. “Just referee the fight, I’ll be fine.”

He turned and went over to the Turk before we met in the middle. “Three-minute rounds, I want a clean fight, break if I tell you. Fight goes three rounds unless there is a submission or knockout. Shake hands and wait for the bell.” The crowd had gathered, and betting was fast and furious. I could hear the people talking, there was a lot of betting on first-round knockouts, and I heard my girl put a twenty bucks on me for that at fifty-to-one odds. This was going to be fun.

The bell rang, and he moved towards me as I danced around, my gloved fists near my face as I kept my elbows over my ribs. I danced around him, moving out of the way of his jabs and sidestepping his rushes. It didn’t take long to figure out his strategy; he wanted to get me against the ropes or on the mat where he could use his size and strength against me. He made glancing contact with my head a few times; his style was heavy on boxing, while I was more rounded in my style.

I waited for my spot, and it quickly came when he overextended his jab. I ducked and spun, slamming my left foot into the side of his stomach. It stunned him, and I could see him get mad. I kept up the attack, using my longer legs to counter his reach advantage. “ONE MINUTE,” I heard someone say.

He tried a roundhouse kick, but it was to me like slow motion. Instead of dodging the leg, I bent my knees and brought my hands up to grab his calf. I pushed up hard, lifting it until he was bent backwards and fell heavily to the mat on his back. I moved forward, stomping on his stomach then dancing away before he could react.

“That all you got,” I taunted. He got to his feet and bull-rushed me. I ducked under his arm, grabbing on to it I swung my body up until my legs wrapped around his neck. I let go, my upper body swinging behind him and pulling him to the mat again.

I hooked my right leg around his neck, the knee in front and my ankle behind my left knee. Leaning back, I squeezed my leg as his hands tried to get me off. My legs had him in a chokehold, and I was cutting off his oxygen as well as the blood flow to his brain. He lashed out with his glove towards my chest, but I easily caught his glove and held on. He struggled in vain, and I could see his strength fading as his friends begged him to break the hold.

He tapped out.

The bell rang as I let go of his arm and extended my legs, letting him breathe again. The crowd was going nuts as I stood up and went to the corner; the girls were screaming and happy, while the men who bet against me were still in shock. The medic was still checking Turk out as Betty ‘The Blonde Bombshell’ White took my headgear off. “That was AMAZING,” she said. “We cleaned up on the betting tonight.”

“Collect it and meet me in the locker room, we’re going to have some fun tonight,” I said. I showered and changed into jean shorts, ankle boots and a sleeveless black top, which showed off the muscles and low bodyfat of the body I’d developed in the past year of hard training.

The training program Jarrod put me on was grueling; in addition to hours of running, yoga and weight training, I was learning multiple fighting disciplines from the human masters. They sent me first to Gunsite in Arizona, where I spent two months learning how to use a rifle and pistol until I could hold my own with the best of the military and police shooters. When I returned, I was enrolled in all the human fighting training I could fit into a week. I spent eight hours a day in dojos or gyms, then I’d go back to the Coven and practice against vampires. In subsequent months, I had learned boxing, Brazilian JuJitsu, Krav Maga, Karate and now Mixed Martial Arts. All this was in addition to keeping my shooting skills up. Training to be a killer was my full-time job.

I had become one dangerous bitch, at least to humans. My strength and speed had to be tempered when training against them, but I learned the skills quickly. Vampires were far more difficult to beat, although Eduardo was ‘young’ enough that it was a close fight. The others had centuries of experience and seemed to relish in leaving me bloody on the mat in the basement. I hadn’t faced other werewolves yet.

Betty handed me a thick wad of cash, my original thousand plus my share of the winnings. “Not a bad night for you,” she said. “When are you going pro? You’re wasted here.”

“I can’t,” I said. “My parents would never allow it if they found out. They’ve already picked out a man for me to marry and have kids with.”

“Holy shit,” she said. “Really?”

“Yeah. They sent me to a finishing school to become a proper young lady. I decided I liked street fighting more than dinner parties, and I can make enough to live without their allowance,” I said. “The private investigator they hired is getting closer, so I’m moving on to Miami. I’ve got some fights set up there already.”

“You have time to party before you leave?” I just raised my eyebrow, of course I did. How could you be in New Orleans and not have a fake ID to get into bars? “Good, we’re heading to the French Quarter to get drunk and maybe replace a hot guy to fuck us good and proper tonight.” She gave me the name of a bar and I told her I’d be there, but I wasn’t planning to show. It was time to cut my friends out of my life.

Putting my gear in a backpack along with the cash, I walked out of the strip-mall gym complex and down the street towards my motorcycle. I stopped when I was still thirty yards away, something was wrong. I smelled four humans, the unmistakable mix of sweat, aggression and lust on them. Sure enough, they stepped out from the shadows and moved to surround me. “You think you’re tough or something, don’t you bitch,” Turk said as he moved close to me. “I want my money back.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I said as I kept track of the other three. They were blocking any escape, and no one was around to stop what they wanted to do. “Go home, this won’t end well for you.”

“I’m going to enjoy fucking that smart mouth of yours while Bob takes your ass. Grab her and pull her into the alley, boys, it’s time this bitch learned the only thing a woman is good for.”

Marcy had taught me knife fighting and throwing. She told me I should always have two knives on me, and tonight I was carrying four.

There wasn’t time for anything else, and I was in no mood to get raped tonight. I reached to the back of my jeans, where two short knives were sitting in leather sheathes at the small of my back. I pulled one out with each hand, then did the last thing they expected me to do.

I attacked.

When in a fight, you always go after the leader first, because if he goes down, the rest might run. His eyes picked up the glint of steel, but it was too late. My left hand plunged the blade into his stomach, then the right sliced across his neck just below the ear. Blood sprayed out five feet as I turned to meet the second guy between me and my motorcycle.

Bob was a musclebound former wrestler, and he wrapped his arms around my chest from behind and lifted me off my feet. I snapped my head back, breaking his nose, and when his grip loosened I plunged the three-inch blades into his thighs. He screamed in pain and I was able to break free. I sliced a blade across his throat before meeting the third guy with a knife to the chest.

I tried to pull it out, but it was stuck in bone. The fourth guy had a pistol, and he pointed it at me as I followed guy number three to the ground. I had to hope he wouldn’t fire with his guy next to me. “You don’t have to die,” I said as I let go of the stuck knife and let my hand drop to my boot.

“You fucking KILLED THEM,” he yelled as the gun shook in his hand.

“They needed killing,” I said. I removed the throwing knife in my boot and threw it in the same motion from my knees; the blade flew true, puncturing his left eye and penetrating his brain to the hilt. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I turned to the man in my arms, he was struggling to breathe as his lung was punctured. My inner beast surged forward, the scent of blood and the thrill of the fight was too much to hold her back. My fangs descended, and he tried to scream as I bit deeply into the artery on his neck and started to feed.

I had struggled with my vampire nature this past year, especially the compulsion to drink human blood. This was the first time I fed outside the protection of the Coven; until now I had used willing familiars or blood bags to sate the thirst that came every few weeks. My vampire purred in satisfaction as I felt his life essence be sucked into my mouth and down my throat.

I let him go when his heart fluttered to a stop.

I looked around, letting my senses out. There was no one else around, and the other men had bled out. I was covered with blood and shaking. Standing up, I took a deep breath and pushed my beast back. I pulled the knives free, setting them on the ground, then pulled off my shirt. I used the back to wipe off as much as I could, then wrapped the bloody knives in them.

“You forgot something,” Marcy said.

“Shit you scared me,” I said as I saw her walking out of the shadows. “How long were you there?”

“The whole time. You did well, but you can’t leave him like that for the cops. Come here.” I walked over to where she stood by the man I’d fed from. “These puncture wounds can’t be left for an autopsy. Plunge the knife into each hole, then stab it a few more times to make it look random.” I stabbed some more, there was almost no blood now. “Leave him by this puddle of blood, they won’t test to see how much came from each guy.”

I grabbed his arm and belt, lifting the man easily and dropping him so his neck was in the pool of blood from where Turk had bled out. “Anything else?”

She handed me a pair of latex gloves and I put them on. “Take their wallets, remove the cash and toss the rest. Make it look like a mugging.”

There wasn’t much left in their wallets since I had most of their money, but I took the rest. She was parked nearby, she came back with a change of clothes and a plastic bag. I pulled off my bloody clothes in the alley and used a big water bottle to rinse the rest from my hair, arms and legs. I wiped off with a towel and dressed. Marcy took the bag and tossed it in her trunk. “You need an alibi.”

“The girls were going to meet up for drinks.”

“Go, have fun, make sure you’re seen. I’ll take care of the rest.” I went back to my Harley, firing it up and heading for the French Quarter.

We talked about it when we got home. I’d already told everyone I was going to Miami, so I wasn’t missed at the gym or the dojos I’d been working out at. Two of the four men had rap sheets and gang connections, and none were missed. No one ever looked at it closely, thinking it was a gang fight that they lost.

“I think we’ve gone as far as we can with humans training you,” Jarrod said as we finished the conversation. “It’s time to see how you do against a werewolf.”