Warrior Wolf: Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (Protection, Inc. Book 4)

by Zoe Chant

  So Mom and Dad packed up and moved to Santa Martina. That was how much he loved her: he left his pack for her. And she was an orphan, so she didn’t have anyone else. But they had each other, and pretty soon they had me, and then the three of us made a pack. I could shift almost as soon as I was born, so Mom home-schooled me until I was old enough to know not to turn into a wolf pup in public. Dad worked all day in a steel mill.

  We didn’t have much money, but we were happy. On weekends we used to drive out of town and go camping. Me and Dad would turn into wolves and run around, and Mom would chase us. I remember one time it was snowing, and Dad shook snow all over Mom, and she nailed him with a snowball. I turned back into a boy so I could throw snowballs too, only I forgot that I wouldn’t have any clothes on. Next thing I knew, I was naked in snow up to my thighs. I couldn’t shift back fast enough. Mom laughed so hard, she fell into a snowdrift. And then all three of us were covered in snow...

  Anyway, we were a family and we were a pack, and we had nobody but each other. All three of us would have done anything for each other.

  When I was fifteen, Mom got sick. At first she was just a little tired and under the weather, but it didn’t go away. It didn’t seem serious, so it was a while before she got around to seeing a doctor. Actually, Dad dragged her to one. They ran some tests, then asked her to come back in person to get the results. I was so young, I didn’t realize what that meant. But when they came back home, I knew just from seeing their faces, even before they sat me down and told me she’d been given four months to live.

  I couldn’t believe it. I said there had to be some way to save her.

  It turned out that there was. Mom and Dad went from doctor to doctor, until they found one who knew about a treatment that maybe could cure her. It wasn’t guaranteed, but at least it would give her a chance. But it was experimental and ridiculously fucking expensive, and insurance wouldn’t cover it. There was no way we could even begin to pay for it.

  But the CEO of the steel mill was a billionaire. He could’ve saved Mom out of his pocket change. So Dad swallowed his pride, went to that asshole’s office, and asked him if he’d give him a loan as an advance on future wages.

  That fucker listened to his whole story, asking questions and pretending like he cared, and then he said, “Seems like you’re going to be missing a lot of work, with a sick wife and a young son to care for. I’m not a charity, and I didn’t get to be where I am by keeping on dead weight.”

  And then he fired Dad.

  You think I have a temper — Dad had one too. He told me later it was all he could do to stop himself from turning into a wolf and ripping out that fucking rich asshole’s throat, right there in the office. The only thing that stopped him was that he’d have gone to jail, and that would’ve left Mom and me alone.

  So unless Dad could raise the money for her treatment himself, Mom was going to die. By then she was way too sick to do anything herself, and her friends didn’t have any more money than we did. Dad had been exiled from his pack, and they sure as hell weren’t going to help him save the woman who was the reason they’d thrown him out.

  But there were other packs. There was one right in Santa Martina, but Dad had always kept away from it because it was a gang, and he was an honest working man. But he was desperate. So he went to the alpha and asked for help in the name of shifters’ honor.

  The alpha was a guy named Price. He was a mean bastard and he told Dad to fuck off.

  That was Price’s mistake. Like I said, I got my temper from my father.

  Packs have laws about who gets to be alpha, but different packs have different ones. In Dad’s old pack, they thought the person with the most life experience would make the best leader. So the alpha was the oldest wolf who was still strong. When that alpha died or got too frail, the next-oldest wolf who qualified took their place. There wasn’t any fighting.

  But Price’s pack was a bunch of gangsters, with the strongest wolf as alpha. Their law was that anyone could challenge the alpha. Then the alpha had a choice. They could accept the challenge and fight, but it had to be to the death. Or they could step down without a duel and give up their position to the challenger.

  Dad challenged Price. And then, so Price could see exactly what he’d be fighting, Dad shifted in front of him.

  Price was a vicious fighter, but what he was best at was pickpocketing. He could steal the bullets out of your gun, then reload it and shoot you with it before you even realized he was there. A bit like a cut-rate Shane, though Shane takes not being noticed to a whole new level.

  Dad’s wolf was fucking huge. Strong, too. He’d never been in a real fight before, but he was furious and he scared Price — scared him so much that he stepped down instead of risking Dad tearing out his throat.

  Next thing Dad knew, he was the alpha of a pack of gangster wolves. Price included. Dad could’ve kicked him out, but he didn’t seem all that much worse than the rest of that crowd, and Dad knew what it felt like to be exiled from your pack. So Price stayed.

  And that was Dad’s mistake.

  Dad sat down with the gang and worked out a plan to rob the CEO. It was pretty complicated and took a while to plan, then set up, then carry out. But they did it. Got away clean with a nice chunk of his money. Dad gave half of it to the pack and the other half to Mom’s doctors. He’d gotten what he wanted, so he was planning on staying alpha just long enough to make sure he could pay for Mom’s treatments. Once that was over, he meant to step down.

  But it was too late. While Dad was going to the CEO, then to Price, then planning a heist, Mom was getting sicker and sicker. She got the treatment. But about a month into it, she died.

  Her doctor said if they’d started earlier, like if that fucking CEO had given Dad that loan when he’d asked, maybe she would have made it.

  The day after Mom died, the CEO was found in an alley. The news said he’d been mauled to death by an animal, maybe a runaway pit bull.

  I asked Dad flat out if he’d done it. I told him I hoped he had and I was only sorry he hadn’t told me, so I could’ve helped.

  I’ll never forget his expression. It was how he’d looked when we got the news about Mom. Like his whole world had collapsed under his feet. I wished I hadn’t said a word, but I couldn’t take it back.

  Dad said, “It didn’t bring your mother back. Don’t ever kill anyone, Nick. You control your wolf. Your wolf shouldn’t control you.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant about my wolf, and I still thought he’d done the right thing. But he looked so sad that I told him I got it.

  So Dad was left with no mate, no job, a gang he’d never wanted, and me. Like I said, wolves need a pack. Two is too small, and Mom was gone. The gangsters were all we had. Looking back, I think he kind of snapped after Mom died. I think we both did. We were halfway out of our minds with grief. So Dad stayed on as alpha, and I dropped out of school and joined the pack.

  The pack got a lot less violent with Dad in charge. But it was still a gang. It just switched from mugging anyone they caught alone and beating them up if they didn’t cooperate to stealing from rich people without hurting them physically.

  Dad tried to keep me out of trouble and not let me help out with any crimes, but I wasn’t that easy to control, I was around all the time, and I wanted to be in on the action. I liked hanging out with the other wolves and learning what they knew, like how to fight and hotwire cars and break into buildings. Eventually Dad started letting me do little things like carry messages, and from then on, it was a slippery slope. By the time I was seventeen, I was a full member of the gang.

  Price looked like he’d eaten a lemon every time Dad gave him an order, but there was nothing he could do about it. Once I caught him trying to talk other wolves in the pack into challenging Dad. But no one was willing to do it.

  I told Dad, but he just said, “Price can go if he wants. No one’s keeping him here. Of course, if he leaves, he’ll have to abide by his own pack laws.”<
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  Like I said, every pack has its laws. Whoever starts the pack makes them, and then they’re kept forever, long after the pack founder dies, as long as the pack itself survives. A new alpha can’t make new laws for the same pack.

  It’s a wolf thing, like the way dragons are all obsessed with gold and jewels. Wolves have to have packs, and they have to obey the laws of their pack. Maybe it’s because wolves are wild at heart, and they need something to keep them in line, or they’d go totally out of control.

  Dad’s old pack allowed anyone to leave if the alpha gave them permission. The gang had a different law. It was that anyone could leave, but they had to run the gauntlet. The entire gang shifted into wolves, and stood in two lines. The person who wanted to leave had to walk between the lines in human form, and every wolf he passed bit him. Each wolf got to decide where and how hard. The bites couldn’t be to places that would kill instantly or that would make it physically impossible to walk. Like, no biting through the Achilles tendon. But other than that, anything went. If you were still on your feet by the end, you could go. If you fell and couldn’t get up, the pack tore you to shreds.

  You have a fucked-up macho gangster pack, you get fucked-up macho gangster laws.

  Nobody left while Dad was alpha, but some of the wolves had seen gauntlets. One was an old guy who wanted to retire and be with his family, so they just nipped him and let him through. The other was a guy Price didn’t like. Price and his buddies bit him so badly that he passed out from blood loss two steps from the end, and that was it for him.

  Price had made a lot of enemies as an alpha, so there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive a gauntlet. And he didn’t have the nerve to challenge Dad. So he stayed. He seethed every time Dad gave him an order, but he obeyed.

  Dad ran the gang for a couple years. Then when I was eighteen, a new wolf came to town. I never did hear his story — whether he’d lost his pack or been run out of it or what. He just showed up one day and challenged Dad.

  I don’t know what Dad was thinking, either — maybe he figured he could beat that guy, maybe he was afraid he couldn’t protect me if he wasn’t the alpha, maybe he didn’t care if he lived or died now that his mate was gone, maybe a little of everything.

  He took the challenge. And the other wolf killed him.

  I couldn’t do anything but watch. Pack laws — no one can interfere in an alpha challenge. Those laws go down to our blood and bones. I don’t know if it would’ve even been possible for me to jump in. But I just assumed Dad would beat him. It never even occurred to me that he might die.

  It happened so fast. I never got to say good-bye. One second they were rolling around on the ground, and the next second Dad was dead and that guy was standing over his body.

  He shifted and told us all, “I’m your alpha now.”

  I didn’t think. I just said, “Not for long, you fucking aren’t. I challenge you.”

  He laughed. That fucker laughed at me.

  He said, “I’m not stepping down for you, kid. Take it back and beg for mercy, or come at me and die with your daddy.”

  I was barely eighteen. My wolf wasn’t full-grown, either. There was no way I could win a fight with a big, strong, experienced, adult alpha. But I was so heartbroken and furious, I didn’t care if he killed me, so long as I died with my teeth in his throat.

  My wolf took over. I don’t remember the fight. To this day, I don’t even remember his name. All I remember is a red haze.

  Then I was standing in that alley with blood in my mouth and two wolves dead at my feet. Dad was gone. And I was the alpha.

  I buried Dad and had that fucker’s body tossed into the town dump. And then I ran the gang pretty much like my father had, but not quite so non-violently. If a rich mark was a real asshole, I might rough him up a bit. Uh, or a lot, depending on how bad he was. Like, if he was the kind of person who’d fire a man for trying to save his mate’s life. No murder, though. And no harming innocent working people.

  I’m not saying I was Robin Hood. I was a fucking gangster. Okay, so sometimes I shoved an envelope of money under some single mom’s door, but it was money I got from breaking and entering on the other side of town. I don’t want you to think I was better than I was. I didn’t hurt anyone who couldn’t fight back and I didn’t steal from the poor, and that was as good as it got.

  I ran the gang for about five years. I got two challenges early on, both from outsiders who figured a teenage alpha was easy pickings. It was kill or be killed, and I killed them.

  After that, word got around, and that was it for challenges for a couple years. Sometimes wolves came round who’d lost or been kicked out of their pack, and asked to join mine. If they seemed okay, I’d let them in. If they were an asshole, I told them to take off. One of the assholes challenged me, and, well, here I am.

  A couple of the guys I let in couldn’t hack it and ended up asking to leave. Thing was, they weren’t criminals. They just needed a pack. If they kept looking long enough, they’d find one that suited them better. So I stood first in the gauntlet, which was the alpha’s prerogative, and gave them a little nip, just enough to draw blood. The rest of the gang followed my lead, and both those guys walked away.

  But Price stayed. He didn’t like me any better then he liked my father, but he knew he couldn’t beat me in a fair fight. And no matter how a wolf left that pack, whether the alpha throws them out or they go of their own accord, they still have to run the gauntlet. I kept hoping Price would choose to leave, but the alpha doesn’t control the gauntlet. I could suggest how it goes, but every wolf gets to decide for himself. He knew and I knew that he wouldn’t make it to the end of the line.

  We fucking hated each other but I felt like I had enough blood on my hands. I didn’t want his too. So he stayed.

  And that was my mistake. My very fucking big mistake.

  Then two things happened that changed everything.

  The first was that Protection, Inc. moved their headquarters into this building. Before that, they’d been in another part of town. Hal didn’t want a gang in his neighborhood, making people scared to come there and do business with him, so he arranged a meeting with me. He told me to go straight or move out. He said if we kept on committing crimes and weren’t willing to go peacefully, he and his team would run us out.

  I knew they were shifters, but that was all I knew. I had no idea what I was dealing with. I thought he was a condescending jackass and I told him to fuck off. I said if he and his buddies gave me any trouble, me and my pack would run them out.

  At that point, Protection, Inc. was just Hal, Rafa, Fiona, and Destiny. I couldn’t beat a grizzly bear or a lion myself, but I had a whole pack. I didn’t think they’d be a problem.

  Obviously, I’d way underestimated them. From then on, they were on my ass like white on rice. Every time we did fucking anything, either they tipped off the cops or one of them showed up to stop us in person. They were fucking hardcore. I think I fought every single one of them something like three times over. It always ended with both of us roughed up, but my pack or his team would always break it up before anyone could get seriously hurt. But they’d be back the next day. And, of course, so would we.

  I had my hands full just holding my ground against them. So I missed something really fucking important going down inside my pack.

  This kid Manuel joined right before Protection, Inc. moved in. He was just seventeen, and he came to us because his parents had been his pack, and they’d been killed in a car crash. He reminded me of myself at that age: pissed off at the world and ready to fight every last person in it. I’d meant to show him the ropes, but then Protection, Inc. showed up and I didn’t get the chance.

  I did notice that Price seemed to get along with him, but all I ever saw him do was chat and teach Manuel how to pick pockets. If I hadn’t been so distracted, I’d have kept more of an eye on them.

  What I found out later was that Price had taken that kid under his wing and treated him l
ike a son. And Manuel was looking for a father. That asshole told Manuel that he had all the qualities of a true alpha, and the whole pack had just been waiting for someone like him to show up and save them from me. Everyone knew I’d become alpha when I was about Manuel’s age, but Price spun that to convince him that he could challenge me and win. Every time I showed up beat to hell from some fight with Hal or Rafa — a wolf going head to head with a grizzly bear or a lion, and giving as good as he got — Price used that as proof that I was weak and not fit to run the pack.

  Manuel was too young and inexperienced to know he was being used. And Price was fucking sneaky. I think a couple wolves knew what he was up to, but they were old buddies of Price from his alpha days. The wolves who were friends with me had no idea, or they would have tipped me off.

  One night when we were all gathered to talk about what to do about fucking Protection, Inc, Manuel stood up. Out of the blue, he said, “Nick Mackenzie, I challenge you.”

  I couldn’t believe it. That pup wouldn’t last five seconds against me. Then I caught sight of Price. He wiped that fucking smirk off his face as quick as he could. But once I’d seen it, I knew what must have happened.

  I said, “Manuel, Price is using you. He thinks I won’t want to fight you —”

  “Because you know you’ll lose,” Manuel said.

  I lost my temper and snarled, “No, you fucking idiot! Because I know I’ll win, and you’re just a dumb fucking kid. He’s hoping I’ll step down so I don’t have to kill you. But if I do, he’ll challenge you. He’s not strong enough to beat me, but he’s plenty strong enough to beat you. So either you’ll step down or he’ll kill you. Either way, he gets to be alpha again.”

  Manuel had a temper too. Like I said, he was a lot like me at that age: more balls than brains. He said, “You’re lying! Price is like a father to me. And I can beat you!”