Mated To The Alpha: A Standalone Wolf Shifter Romance

by JM Klaire

  Ziva's voice rang out, answering her instead.

  "I called you the devil's spawn, and then I hit you over the head, Emma. Are you really so stupid that you couldn't figure that out for yourself?"

  "But why, Ziva? What is the point of all this? What do you want from me?"

  "Why, your death, silly."

  Kate's shout overpowered Emma's response.

  "You liar! You said you just wanted to talk to her. When we saw her heading toward the hot springs, you said I should go ahead and join her, and you'd be along soon because you wanted to talk to her. Then you charged up out of nowhere, swinging a tree limb."

  "Now Kate," Ziva said with a tired, put out sigh. "Would you have distracted her for me if I had told you I wanted to kill her? Is your generation slow as a whole, or is it just the two of you?"

  Emma could feel the adrenaline flowing through her, and was starting to feel better by the second, but she still wanted to know why Ziva hated her so much that she wanted her dead.

  "Ziva. What did I do, what did my mother do, that makes you hate us so much?"

  "Your mother!" Ziva spat out the words, so full of hatred and viciousness that Emma had to bite her tongue, fighting to bite back a verbal defense before Ziva'd even finished her sentence.

  "Your mother was never supposed to be Alpha. Thomas was supposed to be everything. He was supposed to save me from my fate, after Elam was born. Thomas didn't know, you see. He didn't know that Elam was really mine. No one here did. I'd walked away from that life, that curse. Thomas was my new start. We mated, and I got to start over, clean. He was supposed to become Alpha, give me a real son, and make me whole again. And then Reine won."

  She spoke that last sentence, "And then Reine won," like the words filled her mouth with acid, and the thought alone was an abomination.

  But Emma focused on the part she'd said almost in passing, like it was unimportant.

  "Whoa, what are you talking about? Elam wasn't even born then. He was found in the woods a year or two later, his parents killed. He wasn't yours."

  "Reine won, don't you see?" Ziva was focused, her mind and her words still intent on Reine.

  "It had to be that devil's doing. I knew it immediately. Reine won, throwing everything out of whack, and then seconds later an injured wolf from my old pack bursts in, with news of my old pack's demise? I knew then that he was behind everything."

  "Your pack's demise? He who? Ziva, are you insane? What devil? What are you talking about?"

  Emma tried to keep up, but Ziva's words were too confusing.

  "The one who raped me and left me carrying his seed. Elam was that seed. And you must be, too! He must have gotten to your mother as well, spawning you both! I knew it! I even asked her if it was so!"

  Emma looked to Kate, confused.

  Kate just looked back, wide eyed and terrified herself. There were no answers there, so Emma addressed Ziva again.

  "Tell me, Ziva. Please. Tell me everything. If it is true, and I am what you say, it's my right to know."

  "You have no rights!"

  Ziva came at Emma then, spittle flying as she spoke.

  "No one believed I was raped. They thought I was lying! They thought that because I was their slave that I was nothing! I can't kill Elam, he is too strong. I should have killed him when I killed his fake parents, but I couldn't find him, and then Thomas showed up with him, wanting to take the bastard in, of all the crazy things."

  Emma had a quick thought about that being the least of the crazy before Ziva grabbed a hold of Emma's hair, yanking her head back so she could yell right into her face.

  "But I can kill you! You're a half breed demon child who can't even shift! I bet even your devil father is disappointed in you. I guess all of his magical shape shifter spunk poured into me, making Elam, and none was left for you! Stupid half-breed human. But, that means I can kill you. And killing you will kill Elam, since that idiot claimed you. Two birds with one stone. I'd be doing the world a favor anyway- if two of that devil's children breed together, who knows what hell will be unleashed then!"

  Emma heard the words flying at her, but she didn't understand them. She was surprised to realize that Ziva didn't know that she could shift now. But that was the least of the surprises Ziva'd thrown at her.

  When Ziva touched her, yanking her hair, she got quick flashes of what was running inside Ziva's head.

  Her visions weren't clear, like when her mate Elam touched her, but she could 'see' some.

  She 'saw' Ziva as a young, carefree child, before she was traded to the wolves. She 'saw' flashes of Ziva growing up as the den's slave. She wasn't mistreated, but she wasn't respected either. She was 'nothing'd.'

  They barely acknowledged Ziva's existence, really. Unless they needed her for something.

  Then Emma 'saw' a man come out of nowhere. He materialized like a mist in front of a probably twenty-year-old Ziva when she was alone in the woods.

  He startled her, and then attacked her. He never spoke, and Emma could see the fear and the fight in Ziva, but she didn't stand a chance against the stranger. He took her, there, roughly on the forest floor, and then disappeared the same way he’d arrived.

  When Ziva realized it was over, that the mist-man was gone, she got up and ran back to her den, crying and screaming, and Emma sensed that she'd lost an important piece of her sanity on that forest floor.

  When she made it back to her den, and tried to tell the wolves what had happened, they didn't believe her. Worst of all, they didn't care.

  And later, when Ziva realized that the mist-man's seed had taken root, she dealt with the whole thing by turning inside herself so deeply that she was almost able to pretend it hadn't happened. That she wasn't really pregnant.

  Until the birth pains.

  After the boy-child was born, Ziva wouldn't have anything to do with him. She wouldn't nurse, or even hold him. She spent a lot of time inside herself, unreachable.

  The wolves eventually gave the child to a wet nurse and Ziva carried on as she had before, as the pack's slave.

  Only changed. Unhinged.

  When Thomas's wolf saw her at that joint pack meeting, and then later claimed her, she came out of her shell some, recognizing and responding to something in him.

  Her pack let her go without even a goodbye, glad that a mating-crazed Alpha's son was so crazy for her that he didn't even notice she'd recently given birth.

  Then suddenly the vision fast-forwarded to the challenge.

  Ziva'd been convinced that Thomas would become Alpha, and as an Alpha's mate, she would be made whole again. He would give her a true son, and she would be saved.

  The logic seemed kind of iffy to Emma, but as Emma 'watched,' she was also able to feel some of how Ziva felt, and she realized that Ziva was just barely holding on to her sanity, so the logic made perfect sense in her mind.

  When Thomas lost to Reine, and then moments later a wounded wolf burst in, calling her new pack to action to go help her old pack, Ziva felt like the timing couldn't possibly be an accident.

  Emma 'watched' as the strange wolf told everyone in Ziva's new pack that her old pack was being attacked by humans.

  The entire pack ran off to help, but when they arrived at Ziva's old den it was obvious that no one had survived.

  Ziva was happy though, because she'd never cared for them, and it seemed like her bastard son and his wet nurse must have also died in the attack.

  She was thrilled that he was no more, but felt that she was still somehow cursed because Thomas lost to Reine.

  Reine had somehow stolen her dream, her rightful life, and Ziva's unstable mind fixated on her.

  Emma was concentrating, trying to 'see' more and more, to help her understand, but when Ziva let go of her hair and backed away, the connection was broken.

  Emma tried to sort and settle all of the darkness and fear and rage she'd seen swirling in Ziva's mind as the visions spilled forth, but her attention was sharpened to a razor point when she h
eard Ziva calmly turn to Kate and say, "You are to take over for me, as Alpha's mate, so I need you to prove your loyalty to Galen, and to me. Kill her, Kate."

  21

  "What? No!"

  "You have to, don't you see? You're the Alpha's mate now. The responsibility of protecting this pack falls on you as much as it falls on Galen."

  "Until the pack splits, Elam is Alpha. Emma is Alpha's mate. And besides, this doesn't even make sense. Why would I kill Emma? She's my friend."

  "We won't have to split at all if you fix this, you idiot. Emma's death will kill Elam, and the entire pack can stay here, with Galen ruling, as it should be. Galen wants to go to the adjoining lands? Where I was a slave, and raped? To bow down to Elam and leave? Never! Don't you see? Killing her fixes everything."

  Kate rushed over, putting herself between Emma and Ziva.

  "I won't do it! If I had known what you were planning, I never would have helped you. You said you wanted to talk to her. I thought you wanted to apologize for how you acted when Elam became Alpha, and make up. I thought we were going to go to the pack meeting all together, as a united front, to help Elam and Galen split the pack on good terms."

  Emma had forgotten about the pack meeting. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious. Had the meeting started yet? Did the men realize they were missing?

  She looked up toward the cracks in the cave's ceiling. Judging by the darkening of the cave and the color of the light she could see, it would be dark soon.

  When the three didn't show up for the pack meeting, everyone would know something had happened.

  She closed her eyes and tried to 'throw' visions at Elam. She knew Kate and Galen spoke in words in their heads, but so far she and Elam had only spoken like that in pictures. Even then, the images only went one way. She had no reason to think Elam would 'see' her here, but she tried anyway.

  "Kate. Do that thing where you talk to Galen. They will come for us."

  Kate didn't seem to hear her, she was too busy facing off against Ziva.

  The pair stood toe to toe, Ziva yelling things at Kate, trying to get Kate to kill Emma.

  "I didn't do everything I've done for it to fall apart now!"

  "Are you kidding?" Kate yelled back at Ziva, right up in her face. "You did everything you've done because you're fucking insane!"

  Ziva slapped Kate so fast Emma heard the sound ricochet off the cave walls before she ever saw Ziva's hand raise.

  "Don't you dare call me that!"

  "It's true! You haven't been normal for a very long time, I'd guess. Maybe Thomas still being alive helped you some. Maybe no one ever looked that close, but it shines in your eyes, Ziva. The lights may be on, but there is definitely no one home."

  That pushed Ziva over whatever edge she still clung to.

  Ziva leapt at Kate, pushing her down on the cave floor.

  Emma tried to pull out of her leather ties, but she was bound well. She could get to her knees, but with her ankles also bound, she could only scoot toward the pair and try to club Ziva with her fists, and pull Ziva's clothes and hair with her hands.

  Kate rolled out from under Ziva, trying to get to her feet and run for the cave's entrance, but the desperate insanity driving Ziva made her quick as hell.

  Ziva beat Kate to the entrance, but instead of leaving she bent down, grabbing the tree limb Emma had brought into the cave when she'd explored it the first time.

  Ziva turned back toward the two women, holding the limb like a baseball bat.

  She eyed both Kate and Emma warily for a few heartbeats, while she caught her breath. A stony, detached calm suddenly replaced the anger and venom in Ziva's face.

  She addressed Kate first.

  "Fine. Obviously you aren't Alpha mate material, and you certainly aren't good enough for my Galen. I guess I'll just have to kill both of you."

  It was the sudden switch to calm and calculating that really scared Emma.

  When Ziva stepped toward Kate, starting to swing the branch with a deadly precision aimed at Kate's head, Emma channeled all her fear and rage into protecting Kate.

  The leather ties binding her human wrists and ankles were suddenly no match for a shifter growing and expanding into a wolf.

  Emma put her new and still not quite totally controlled wolf between Kate and Ziva, growling, snarling and showing her teeth.

  Ziva's eyes narrowed at Emma.

  "You can shift. I thought maybe you could, but I wasn't sure. I came prepared for it though."

  Ziva tossed the branch aside, and reached behind her back, pulling out a small pistol and aiming it at Emma.

  Kate tried to grab the abandoned branch, but the movement drew Ziva's eyes and the barrel of the gun swung with her gaze. Ziva's finger pulled the trigger and Emma leapt.

  Emma felt a heavy thud hit her shoulder as she jumped in front of Kate. With Kate behind her now, safe, she turned, aimed and leapt again, this time for Ziva's throat.

  She felt another thud crash into her underbelly as she opened her jaws wide, finding and sinking her teeth into the tender flesh of Ziva's neck. She tugged and jerked, instinct and the drive to protect Kate driving any rational thoughts from her wolf brain.

  She fought a now lifeless Ziva still, thrashing her like she'd seen dogs do when they were playing tug-of-war with their pull toys.

  She didn't hear Kate's screams right beside her, and paid no attention to the yanks of fur and punches from Kate's tiny little fists as she tried to get Emma to stop.

  No, Emma heard nothing but the pounding of her own blood in her ears, until the hostile growls of two newly arriving wolves broke though her reality.

  She dropped her prey and turned toward the new growls. She recognized both Elam and Galen's wolves as they faced her, growling, and slowly approaching her step by step.

  Kate's yells broke through to Emma's ears, and she suddenly realized how this must look. Risking the fact that she wouldn't be able to defend herself against two wolves, she shifted back into her human form, to explain.

  As soon as any trace of her wolf form left her, and she stood there naked and human, she felt the pain ripping through her body.

  She opened her mouth to explain, raising her hands palms out to speak, but her one arm wouldn't obey.

  She looked down at herself, confused, and saw herself covered in blood. She'd been shot, not once but twice.

  She raised her face to ask the wolves what would happen to her now, but collapsed in a dead faint at their paws instead.

  22

  Emma's body tossed and moaned as her mind was once again connected to her mother's. As Emma's body recovered from being shot, her mind got to re-live Reine's memories with her, as if she was really there.

  As her mother's memories pulled her deeper into the past, a still rational part of Emma's mind was grateful that it was her mother she 'saw' through instead of Ziva.

  Ziva's mind had been a dark and scary place, so she was glad that if anyone had to be there, her mother was somehow in her brain instead.

  Reine hadn't planned on winning the Alpha Challenge, in fact she was as surprised as anyone when she came out on top. Going into the challenge she fully planned to give it all she had, but she was also prepared to acknowledge Thomas as Alpha when it was over. But now, in the deep middle of it, she really didn't want to lose.

  Her rarely seen competitive streak came out once she had taken care of the wolf attacking Thomas, and it was only she and Thomas in the thick of things, as she enjoyed sparring with her brother immensely.

  She had just taken Thomas down with an extra little twist as she had the back of his neck in her grip, and had backed off to let him get up so they could go at it some more when she realized from all the cheers and yells from the coliseum that she had won.

  She didn't even have a full moment to process what that meant before a wounded and bleeding wolf from the adjoining pack burst on scene, shifted, and called for help for his pack.

  The entire pack took off, aiming for
the adjoining lands, but it became very obvious as they neared the other pack's den that they were too late.

  Humans and wolves alike lay dead everywhere. They were scattered at first, and then more and more bodies were seen as they reached the center of the other pack's den.

  The wolves had defended themselves well in the places that it seemed were fair fights, but in the center of it all the human's scents and footprints were very heavy, along with the sharp tangs of gun powder.

  The humans had come prepared, well-armed and with many of their women along to boost their numbers. The wolves took out great numbers of their attackers, even as they were shot themselves. Human bodies outnumbered wolves by an average of two to one. The villagers had obviously meant business.

  Once it was determined that the entire pack was wiped out, and no wolves were found alive, the pack headed to the village for vengeance.

  Vengeance was not to be, though, for the only people still in the village were women, children and teenagers that had been left behind during the attack.

  Yes, the humans had managed to take out an entire pack, all but the one wolf who had run for help, but they had also lost all of their men, and a very large percentage of their own women in the attack as well.

  Reine could feel the rage and indignation rolling off of the younger wolves in her pack. They wanted to finish the job, to take out those who had hunted their kind, but Reine, in her very first duty as Alpha, wouldn't have it.

  She shifted into human form to be able to speak with the huddled and scared villagers that were still alive. Thomas and a few of the other wolves stayed close to her, for protection in her human form, as Reine shouted for whoever was now in charge of this village.

  The women looked around at each other, most of them huddled with small children, until the oldest woman still among them reluctantly stepped forward.

  "Why have you done this? That pack protected your village." Reine's tone demanded an answer.