"You can't." My voice was flat and utterly devoid of emotion. I spoke as if I had no feelings about the matter at hand and lifted my eyes to lock gazes with him. I wanted him to understand the full weight of what I had to say, in no uncertain terms. "You could bring in the coyote shifter who killed my father and slit his throat right before my eyes, and it still would not make me reconsider combining our packs."
I had absolutely no doubt that Maddox was the one who had killed my father, but he didn’t need to know that I knew. He didn’t need to know that I wasn’t fooled by him.
Charlie and Brandon, who had both been quiet for the entirety of the meeting, simultaneously sucked in gasps, and Maddox's mouth fell open with abject shock. There was an unspoken current that zipped around the room in the wake of my statement. I watched Brandon and Charlie exchange looks. I could almost hear the thoughts that must be racing through their minds. Did she just...? Oh, no she didn't. Yeah, she did, she actually did say that. I can't believe she just did that.
Maddox recovered his composure, save for a giveaway muscle in his jaw ticking furiously as he ground his teeth. His nostrils flared, and I momentarily basked in the fact that I'd gotten to him the way he'd been trying to get to me for the entire meeting. He pushed back from the table and stood, a haughty glare furrowing his brow.
"You haven't even submitted to the ceremony yet," he sneered. "So, technically speaking, you're not the Alpha of this pack. I tried to do you the courtesy of treating you like one. I tried to make this happen peacefully. Remember that," he growled.
What was that supposed to mean? I didn’t like that he thought he could come into my home and threaten me. Because that was clearly what his words were—a threat. But I refused to be intimidated by him.
"And?" I challenged. I cocked an eyebrow at him, projecting a relaxed, cool arrogance I didn't actually feel. Still, I could ride the fake-it-'til-you-make-it train if it meant putting that little shit in his place.
His eyes were cold and emotionless, the anger suddenly gone. Which was much more worrying than if he had continued to rage. "You're going to regret your decision, I can promise you that much."
"Is that a threat?" Charlie growled, coming to his feet to face the coyote Alpha.
"No," Maddox shook his head. "It's just what I said it is—a promise."
I crossed my arms and stared at him as if his words meant nothing. I remained motionless, not saying anything, not reacting in any way. I didn’t even blink until he turned and stormed down the hallway, slamming the front door behind him as he left.
Chapter 10
“Now who’s pulling punches?” Brandon tried to joke, but it fell flat in the wake of the funeral and the disastrous meeting with Maddox afterward. His half-ass, trying-to-be encouraging grin made my stomach hurt.
"Yeah," I grunted. "I know. Sorry."
Desperate to get some breathing room, I turned away and strode to the back porch to grab my insulated travel mug full of ice water. I took a long swig and wiped sweat off my face with the back of my hand.
“Come on,” Brandon coaxed. He took the water out of my hand and set it back down on the porch. “Now’s not the time to slack off, Lucy. The ceremony’s tonight, so you need to get in all the training you can between now and then.”
I glared down at the bottle then back up at his too-earnest face, grinding my teeth for a long moment. Something about the way he was trying so hard to act like things were still the way they always had been between us made me livid. Like this was a normal training session and nothing had changed. He was trying so hard. Trying too hard.
I knew he was just trying to help, but I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t affected by what had happened. Yet, I still had to keep moving forward. The pack needed me, and I didn’t want to let them down. Didn’t want to let my father down. I dug my fingernails into the the palms of my hands and took a deep breath in through my nose. I blew it out slowly as I followed Brandon back out into the center of the back yard I'd inherited from Dad.
All he wanted was to be his same old comforting self. I could practically feel it rolling off him in waves, and it made my stomach boil with disgust.
"You're right, of course," I spat as I moved to square off with him.
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. I just needed to focus and push through this sparring session. Then the ceremony. And everything that would come after.
As long as I kept moving, maybe I could stay ahead of my grief. It wouldn’t help me right now. I couldn’t allow emotion to distract me. Not with Maddox’s threat hanging over me and the pack. I didn’t know what he was plotting, but whatever it was, I had to be ready.
Brandon rushed me and I side-stepped with a harsh kick to the back of his knee, which sent him sprawling. He instantly pushed back up with an approving nod.
"There you go, that's the kind of focus I've been looking for. Take that and run with it."
It took Herculean effort for me not to bite his head off. His positivity grated against my skin like sandpaper. Maybe now wasn’t the best time for me to be training with Brandon. Maybe my soul was still too wounded by loss for me to be spending my time out here training with the shifter equivalent of an overly excitable puppy. He had no concept of when he was being relentlessly irritating.
I've never been the puppy-kicking type, but Brandon seemed to be bringing out the worst in me since my father's death. Probably because I was still blaming him for not protecting Dad.
He rushed me again and I crouched and sprang forward, hitting him just enough above his center of gravity to take him down with a satisfying thump. Channelling my anger at him into this sparring session did seem to be working to my advantage. Apparently, I just needed to be mad enough at my opponent to not allow my own doubts to get the best of me. So what if he was bigger and stronger than me? That didn’t mean that I would have no chance against him.
As I had just proved.
I loved the sound of the air rushing out of his lungs as I knocked the wind out of him. I knew I was being spiteful, but I couldn't seem to stop myself.
"You're doing great with deflecting the attacks," Brandon assured me with an affirming nod as he climbed back to his feet. "Now you just need to find some follow-through."
"Find some follow-through?" I growled through gritted teeth. "What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?" I snapped as I dropped into another defensive stance.
Apparently, I should have kicked him when he was down. If he didn’t stop annoying me, I might just forget that this wasn’t supposed to be a real fight.
"Take it easy, Lucy. It's constructive criticism, not an insult."
"Then I guess you won't mind explaining it to me in further detail?" I challenged as he scrubbed a frustrated hand over his pretty-boy face.
My inner wolf was begging to get out, and I was struggling to keep her under control. She wanted vengeance, even against the man who'd been my best friend for almost as long as I could remember. I wasn't sure, but I didn't think we had the same agenda.
"You're doing an excellent job of deflecting my attacks, there's no question about that. You're just not following through with a counter-attack. You've had me on the ground several times. It's not like I haven't been vulnerable, but you haven't taken a single one of those chances to truly take the upper hand here."
My inner wolf boiled just beneath my skin, begging me to let her out. I could hear the promise of a follow-through he wouldn't soon forget in the deep rumble of her growl.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep, trying so hard to keep her under control.
Maybe training with Brandon isn't the best idea anymore. Maybe I need to find someone my inner wolf doesn't want to kill.
Suddenly, Charlie's face crossed my mind, and my breath hitched in my throat at the thought of going against him again. I remembered what had happened the last time. And follow-through had been an issue then, too. It seemed so long ago, with all that had happened since. But it had only been a few days sinc
e I’d allowed him to beat me. I’m not saying he wouldn’t have come out on top if I hadn’t let him. Only that I’d made it all too easy for him to defeat me. Did I really want to risk being humiliated like that again? My inner wolf liked the idea of going another round with him a whole lot more than I did, that's for sure.
But if I intended to be Alpha of this pack, I’d have to fight Charlie again. And win. Somehow.
Unfortunately, Brandon took my distraction as an opening to illustrate his point and knocked me on my ass.
As he moved to pin me, I jerked my knees up to my chest and kicked out with all the force I could muster. Brandon saw what I was doing, but he was too late—and too slow—to try to deflect it. Both feet hit him solidly in the center of his chest and he careened backward. He hit the ground with a hard thump, and I stopped trying to fight my inner wolf.
She felt like Brandon needed to re-learn his place in our pack, and maybe I agreed with her. I certainly wasn't going to try to stop her this time. I followed through, straddling his chest as I wrapped both hands around his throat and started squeezing. Part of me wanted to squeeze the life out of his sorry ass. But he wasn’t the one who really deserved to be the target of my rage.
He did the triple-tap signal on my left forearm to let me know I'd won this round. I ignored his tapout and kept squeezing, leaning my full body-weight into my hands around his throat.
"How's this for follow-through?" I growled in a voice that wasn't quite my own. Still, maybe it was more me than I had ever dared to be before in my life.
Finally, Brandon got tired of trying to signal me the polite way and he crashed his fist against the inside of one of my elbows. It threw off my balance just enough that he was able to roll me off him.
He sprang to his feet, coughing and rubbing his throat. “Seriously, Lucy?”
I stared at the bright red marks where my hands had been and finally made a concerted effort to get my wolf back under control. “Sorry,” I muttered. “But in a real fight I wouldn’t have let up.”
I almost lost my damn mind when a determinedly cheerful smile tugged the corners of his mouth up. The affirming nod only succeeded in making things worse.
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my inner wolf down. I breathed deep, in through my nose and out through my mouth several times before I opened my eyes again. I was trying so hard to keep her under control, but I wasn't sure how long it would last.
He reached down to help me up so we could re-set to keep going. I considered slapping his hand away, but finally took it and brushed myself off to get ready for another round.
Brandon stared at me and shook his head.
"What?" I snapped.
"I just...what's with you today?" He crossed his arms and glared at me like he was trying his damndest to read my mind. "First you were half-assing everything, now you're basically trying to kill me even though I'm not the enemy here. I'm just a little confused, not to mention concerned. All I'm trying to do is help you and you're reacting like a stone cold psycho. Could you maybe just find some middle ground so we can get you ready for the ceremony?"
"Excuse me?" I hissed.
He threw his hands up in frustration and took a couple of paces away from me. "Like...I know some shit has gone down recently and you have every reason to be upset and emotional right now, but you need to get your head on straight, Lucy."
"Gee, you think?" I snarled, launching myself at him without giving him time to get set properly. I'll show you what me having my head on straight looks like, asshole.
I slammed my knee into his ribs, which sent him scuttling backwards in a half-bent-over state, clutching at the side where I'd just landed the attack.
I was losing to my inner wolf again, and she wanted justice. Not just wanted. She demanded justice, and it didn't look like she was going to settle for less than a pound of flesh from the man who was partly to blame for the fact that our Alpha—my father—was dead.
I didn't give him a real chance to recover. Instead, I advanced again, determined to make my point and make it well.
I landed a hard punch to his solar plexus. I kept swinging, looking for vulnerable spots, pushing him back further and harder as my fury mounted. Brandon tried his best to deflect the attack. I just kept coming at him, unable to stop myself, unable to stop my wolf.
I realized too late that I was really, genuinely trying to hurt him, but I also couldn't seem to make myself stop in spite of the fact that I knew it was wrong.
If not for him, my dad would still be alive, a voice inside me challenged.
That thought fueled my rage and I attacked again, barely able to keep myself from shifting as my emotions overrode my good sense.
Finally, Brandon seemed to snap out of the fog of being caught off guard by my absolute and unbridled fury. He dug his heels in and body-slammed me as I started my next flurry of attacks against him.
He pinned me to the ground by sitting on my chest and grabbed my hands as I continued to swing at him. He squeezed, not hard enough to really hurt, but definitely hard enough to get my attention.
“What the hell, Lucy?” he bellowed, his face red with exertion.
“You wanted me to follow through, Brandon, so I’m following through,” I screamed back, flailing like a wild animal caught in a steel bear trap.
“No, you’re out of control,” he barked, slamming my hands against the ground for emphasis as I continued to struggle with him. “You need to cool it, and I mean now!”
“No,” I snapped. “What I need is for you to let me up and stay the fuck away from me for a while.”
“What did I even do?” Brandon continued to hold me down, not willing to risk me hitting him again if he released me. “Why are you mad at me?”
It made me even angrier that he didn’t have a clue.
“I’m sick of your bullshit!” I screamed. “Get the fuck off me right now!”
“Fine!” Brandon rolled off me.
I stood up, starting to stomp away from him.
He grabbed me by the arm and spun me around. “I don’t know where you think you’re going. You still owe me an explanation for whatever the hell just went down here.”
“I don’t owe you jack shit,” I hissed, snatching my arm free from his grip and glaring at him. “I’m sick of you trying to pretend everything’s fine when you’re half the reason my dad is dead.” The words spilled out of my mouth like acid, scorching years of friendship as they came.
“I’m sorry, Lucy, really. I was just trying to protect you,” Brandon moaned, dropping his face into his hands.
“You should have been more concerned about your Alpha than you were about me,” I growled. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d put a shotgun up to his chest and pulled the trigger. I shook my head, too disgusted to keep trying to train with him today...maybe ever again.
“I can’t do this with you right now,” I snapped.
Rather than giving him a chance to respond, I sprinted toward Dad’s house. No, correction...it was my house now. I needed the quiet sanctuary of my bedroom, and more than that, I needed to be the hell away from Brandon.
I slammed my bedroom door shut behind me as tears poured down my face. I pressed my back against the door and slid down to the floor as ragged sobs tore from my throat. A picture of my late father stared at me from the nightstand, and I dropped my face in my hands, knowing he’d be so disappointed in me for losing control.
Dragging in a shuddering breath, I pushed to my feet. I climbed onto my bed and stared at his picture through tear-blurred eyes.
“I think Charlie was right, Daddy,” I whispered. The words came out like shards of glass, jagged, broken, and cutting me to pieces. “I’m a shitty leader, and I’m not up to the job of keeping the whole Blackburn pack safe. I couldn’t even protect you, could I? And now I’m fighting with Brandon instead of focusing on the person who’s really to blame for taking you from me. I don’t know if I can do this without you.”
I hadn’t allo
wed myself to cry before this, and everything suddenly seemed to be hitting me all at once. All my failures piling up on top of me, burying me, so that I could hardly breathe.
I sobbed into my pillow, struggling to muffle my weakness. I cried until there wasn’t a dry spot on the pillowcase. I cried until I couldn’t physically produce any more tears. Still, I laid on the bed, wracked by dry sobs for god only knew how long. I took a bleary-eyed look at my bedside clock. I didn’t have much time left before the ceremony.
I forced myself up from the bed and stripped out of my sweaty sparring clothes, shuffling into my bathroom. I turned the water as hot as it would go. If I couldn’t work off my rage earlier, I thought maybe I could burn it out with a scalding-hot shower. It didn’t work, though.
When I finally got out, I looked a bit like a lobster from the hot water, and my skin felt raw. My roiling emotions continued to seethe inside me like a volcano ready to erupt. Focusing on the physical pain was easier than focusing on the pain in my soul, however.
I took a long look at my bed and shook my head. I was too exhausted to try to take a nap. Even though I hadn’t slept since before my father was killed. The bone-deep ache of weariness propelled me out my bedroom door and down the stairs. I grabbed my hoodie off the coat rack and shrugged into it as I tugged open the front door. It was so warm I instantly regretted the hoodie choice, but I wasn’t about to turn around.
I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, down the porch steps and along the concrete front walk. Past the spot where my father had bled out.
Rust-colored streaks stained the blades of grass. I quickly turned my eyes away from the sight.
The gravel driveway crunched beneath my feet. I focused on the rhythmic sound. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. I tuned out everything but the noise. It meant nothing and everything. I let the noise consume me as I trudged up the long, gravel driveway leading to the road.
I was so lost in the sound that I had to stifle a scream when I slammed into a solid wall of hard muscle. I would have ended up sprawled on the ground if Charlie hadn’t reacted quickly. Something that felt like a lightning strike arced between us as he gripped me tight to keep me upright and I clutched his arms in reaction.
Possessing the Alpha: A Wolf Shifter Romance (Southern Shifters Saga Book 1) Page 6