The Alpha's Mate (8 Sexy, Powerful Shifters and Their Fated Mates)

by Lynn Red

  "Cover yourself, my little bitch," he said, grinning. "Show some respect for your mate."

  Seething with anger, Julia gathered the blanket around her shoulders tightly. The flicker of headlights shone for a brief second in the distance, bouncing as the car moved closer. The engine's noise grew louder and then stopped behind the hill.

  They waited.

  Julia looked up and saw the shadows walking over the crest of the hill. And, in the middle—

  "Granny Dee?"

  Trax stepped forward, his hands curling into fists at his side as the interlopers stopped just thirty feet away from the bonfire.

  "Dejara," he growled. "What a pleasant surprise."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Damien

  Damien braced himself as Jordan swung the car into the woods and down the dirt road. The scent of wolves was strong, and they knew they had found the right place.

  "They'll scent us," he said. "Probably already have."

  "Then let's hope they don't run," Jordan said. He rolled down the window. "Smells like three of them there."

  "And the pack leader," Dee said. "If he's in human form, you won't scent him."

  "We can't identify any purebred shifters," Jordan said, his voice starting to panic. "There could be dozens. How many were in your pack?"

  "Not that many," Dee said. She didn't seem too concerned. "Once we get closer, I'll be able to sense if he and Julia are there. Same with any others."

  They reached a steep hill and Dee told Jordan to stop the car.

  "They're just over that hill," Dee said. "There's a small cabin."

  "Not like it would have made it up that hill, anyway," Jordan breathed.

  "Are they there?" Damien asked. Dee understood what he meant.

  "Yes," she said. "Both Julia and Trax."

  "Trax?"

  "The pack leader."

  "That makes four of them," Jordan said, worried. "Their four for our two. It won't be a fair fight."

  "Only three," Dee said, opening the car door. "Don't you smell the scent of death?"

  "Three, then," Jordan said. He and Damien walked alongside Dee as she started up the hill. "It's still three on two."

  "Three on three," Dee said.

  Damien inhaled sharply. He didn't want anyone to die for his mistakes. "You don't need to fight. She's my mate."

  "She's my granddaughter," Dee said stubbornly. "Apart from that, you'll need me. There's no way you'll be able to take the leader down on your own."

  "But—" Damien began.

  "I may look old," Dee said, "but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. And senses get more acute as you age. You know that."

  "Senses versus strength isn't a great match."

  "Says the blind man," Dee cracked grimly. "Save your breath. You'll need it during the fight."

  Damien focused on each step in front of him. He could feel Julia's anger already over the hill, anger and fear coming in clouded pulses so strong it made his blood boil. If this leader, this Trax, had hurt her...

  They crested the hill and Damien sensed Julia right in front of him. The moment she saw him, a beam of hope pierced through her fear. It gave him courage, but it also gave him pause. That she could place such faith in him unnerved him.

  "Three shifters, two men and one woman," Dee said under her breath. "The woman is strong. The leader is much, much stronger than either of them."

  "I can sense it," Damien said. There was heat, too. A fire.

  "I'll take the leader," Jordan said.

  "No," Dee said, with a quiet certainty born of experience. As she spoke, both men knew that she was prepared for the fight ahead. "He is mine."

  "We can't fail her," Damien said softly. "I would not be able to live with myself."

  "Don't be so optimistic," Dee said, heading down the hill. "If we fail her, we'll all be dead anyway."

  The other shifters waited for them at the bottom. Julia's surprise hit Damien hard as she recognized her grandmother. His heart began to beat fast and he breathed deeply to calm himself. Tension led to mistakes. To acting too quickly, on impulse. The last time he'd done that—

  In his thoughts flashed the fight of two years ago, in the darkness as he was now. Lukas's legs had risen up and slashed down through the air, with powerful muscles behind them. Damien remembered falling onto his back, helpless to protect himself. The last thing he'd seen was the moon, and then he'd lost his sight forever.

  He felt a twinge of pain along the scars that ran over his eyes. The razor-sharp claws had sliced them through, and all of Jordan's work hadn't been able to restore his vision. The flesh had grown back, and a golden haze had come over the surface of his irises, but he'd never be able to see the moon again.

  The leader stepped forward, and Damien's fingers curled at his sides.

  "Dejara." He addressed Dee as though they were old friends, and perhaps they were.

  "Give me back my granddaughter, Trax," Dee said. "Then we'll go in peace."

  Trax laughed. Julia's fear rippled through Damien's body, and he willed her to be calm. If her fear struck him at the wrong moment during the fight, he would be done for. She seemed to realize this, for she was struggling to hold herself together.

  "Do you think I'm afraid to fight you?" Trax bellowed. "A weakling, a blind man, and an woman as old as the moon herself. You might as well cut each other's throats now and be done with it."

  Damien sensed the wolves next to Trax beginning to shift, their scent growing stronger. Immediately he followed suit, as did Jordan. Only Dee and Trax remained human.

  "May the fight be fair," Dee said, Damien knew she was raising her hands to the sky in prayer. "May the gods take those who fall."

  Damien howled first, and the rest of the wolves joined him, their calls spiraling upward to the sky in a terrible harmony that flooded the clearing and bounced back off of the trees. Damien could almost envision the stance of each wolf by the reflected sounds among them. Then the pack leader began to shift, and he knew the fight was about to begin.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Julia

  Julia gasped as Granny Dee stepped forward. The world went silent in her ears as she watched the pack leader talk to her grandmother. She was sure that any moment he would reach out and smash Dee with one hand, crumple her into bits. But he did not move close enough for that. He wasn't even confused by Dee showing up. And she realized as they spoke that his shoulders were raised tensely. He wasn't confused at all.

  He was scared.

  Damien and Jordan shifted along with the other pack's wolves, and although Julia had seen it twice before it was still a shock to behold. The horrific cracking of bone and tendon as the skeletal structures of the men shifted into that of wolves. Damien's face, his beautiful face, changing into the snout of an animal. And then fur covered them and they were all wolves, all of them except for the two standing in the middle.

  Granny Dee raised her arms to the sky.

  "May the fight be fair. May the gods take those who fall."

  During all of this, Julia had not accepted what she knew in her heart must be true. Even as her grandmother prayed to strange gods, she wished that it would all go away, that she would wake up from the nightmare and go back to work at the library. She would shelve a hundred thousand books now if it meant the safety of her grandmother.

  But then Granny Dee lowered her arms and stared forward into the face of Trax, and Julia knew before she shifted that she was not entirely human.

  The leader changed first, his limbs bending and growing claws. Dark red hair sprouted and covered his torso. His body was nearly twice the size of Damien's, thick with knotted muscle. Julia did not pay attention to him, though, once she saw what her grandmother was becoming.

  Dee's arms bent at the elbow and she fell forward into a crouch. Her clothes ripped as white fur emerged from her skin, her face growing thinner and longer. Julia gasped as Dee's lips drew back to reveal gleaming white teeth, and with a shake of the head the last of
her clothing fell away from her. She stood in front proudly, a sleek white wolf with eyes that twinkled and told Julia that yes, this was the same person, this was her grandmother.

  "Granny Dee," she whispered. The blanket around her shoulders slipped down slightly as her fingers went weak. She knew what this meant.

  If Dee was a wolf, then so was Julia.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Damien

  Damien stood in front of the male wolf, every sense of his at the ready. He could smell the scent coming off of the wolf's pelt, a mixture of sweat, fear, and fight. He could hear the leaves crackling as the wolf shifted his weight on the ground from one foot to the other. He was ready.

  The first strike came to the side of him, and the noise almost made him jump before he could think. The female wolf had lunged at Jordan, and Damien could tell that the wolf in front of him had shifted to see the fight. Off balance for just a moment, it was the right time to make a move. Damien leapt forward and knocked into the wolf, rolling back before the jaws could snap at him. He yipped to keep track of the wolf's position.

  The scuffling of paws told him Jordan and the female had broken apart. Dee and Trax had not yet started to fight, still circling each other in the middle. Neither seemed to want to make the first move. The initial seconds of the fight were crucial, once someone had gotten hold with a bite. Damien worried about Dee. She was so small compared to the leader, and although she seemed to have confidence in her ability, he could not help but be anxious about her survival. One blow from Trax's huge paws and she would be dead.

  The wolf in front of him dug his claws into the earth. It was hard to keep the sounds separated now that there was so much going on, but Damien narrowed his attention to the space in front of him. A few feet were all that separated him from the other wolf. They circled, and Damien moved so that he would stand in between Julia and the wolf. The flames of the bonfire were hotter here, and he could feel Julia at his back, just behind him. He growled at the male wolf just as he lunged, and threw himself to one side.

  It was not fast enough. The wolf snapped his jaws on Damien's scruff and got ahold of him by the neck. Then they were rolling and kicking, Damien letting himself go loose at just the right time to avoid his neck being snapped. The whole clearing erupted in howls and yelps as each of the pairs of wolves began to battle.

  The leader had begun to fight Dee. Damien could hear the high-pitched yips and the light patter of her paws dancing across the earth. He could hear everything. Time slowed to a crawl and then he kicked out. A lucky strike. He felt his claws take hold and tear into the wolf's side, all the way down his leg. The wolf tried to stand but collapsed in front of Damien. He whimpered, his scent overwhelmingly that of fear. Damien knew that he was scared to die. Completely crippled, though, he was no danger to Julia or to himself, and Damien needed to help the others.

  He turned back to the leader. Jordan and the female seemed equally matched on the other side of the clearing. They were both being cautious; a good thing. It was good for the fight to take more time, now that their group outnumbered the other pack. Damien did not want to see Jordan hurt.

  The leader backed up, his haunches to the bonfire. Dee and Damien circled around on opposite sides, closing in on him in the middle. Damien knew that attacking from two sides was always more than twice as effective, and Dee seemed to have the same idea. But with the fire so close, they could not get near him without the risk of being thrown in if he were to shove them aside. Jordan and the female clashed again, rolling toward the trees, and Damien knew that they must act soon to finish the fight. Dee tensed, and Damien moved in just a microsecond after she did. Trax spun to face Damien just as he moved in for a blow.

  Suddenly, the heat of the bonfire dropped to almost nothing.

  Damien was already in the middle of the motion and did not stop. He jumped forward and tore into Trax's hind leg with his teeth. The leader kicked out with his leg and shook Damien off, but the damage was done. Damien could hear his leg dragging as he spun toward Dee. He heard another snarl as Dee moved in and tried to snap at Trax's throat, darting back out after missing. She was too far away, entirely too far to do any damage. Was something wrong with her senses?

  Then he realized that the bonfire had been covered with something to block out the light. It was his chance. He jumped forward again and landed on top of the leader. Quickly, he bit down on the scruff of Trax's neck. He tore at the wolf's back with his hind claws, slicing into his muscle. Trax reared back and howled. Dee lunged forward and bit at his underbelly. With one leg, Trax lashed out and caught her with his claws. Damien heard the flesh rip but held on with his teeth for dear life.

  The scent of blood was overpowering, and Damien did not even smell the other wolves coming until they had already emerged from the trees. He heard Julia gasp, and the scent hit his nostrils all at once.

  Kyle and Katherine.

  Just at that moment, the leader whipped his body sideways, flinging Damien away. He flew across the clearing and hit a tree trunk. He slid to the ground, gasping for air. The breath was gone from his body. For a moment, when sound and air left the world, he thought that he was dead. How would he know? He might already be dead. Then the scents of blood and wolves came rushing into his nose, and he drew a ragged breath. He struggled to his feet, leaning against the trunk of the tree.

  Damien shook his head but could not get his bearings. There were yelps echoing off of the cabin and the trees around him. His balance was thrown off by the ringing in his ears.

  He gasped and breathed in the night air but there was not enough oxygen in it. He took a step forward, shaking on his leg. Under his paw he could not even feel the ground. The air grew warmer and Damien's ears began to separate out the sounds. He was turned around.

  Turning back, he heard the leader's growl, the agonized squeal of Dee in pain. He lurched towards the sound. If he could only get one bite in, he would hold on for dear life. He would tear Trax's throat out. He would save Dee.

  Then Kyle and Katherine's snarls sounded loudly in his ears. He stumbled, the tendon in his leg torn. He let out a yelp as he struggled to get up, but he could not walk.

  "Take me," he whispered, but his words were lost in the sounds of the howling fight. "Take me instead."

  His muscles gave, and he fell forward in surrender.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Julia

  Julia watched in horror as the two people she loved most battled against the other wolves. Trax and his pack members seemed so strong, so much bigger, but as she watched, Damien won his struggle against the other wolf. Her heart leapt with hope as he turned to join Dee in the fight. The other wolf that he had injured lay bloody, his breaths shallow, just near Julia.

  But she—she was a wolf too. She could shift. With a start, Julia realized that she would be able to fight if she’d just...

  Just what? How do you change into wolf form? She focused her attention on her body and willed with all her might to shift. She imagined herself as a wolf, her hands growing claws.

  Nothing. She couldn’t do it.

  With every lunge as Damien and Dee fought the leader, Julia's breath was held. Trax's teeth gleamed razor sharp, and he snapped his jaws so closely to Dee that she could not believe her grandmother was able to retreat at every try. Damien pushed forward, but every one of his attack was parried with a swipe of the leader's claws. With his strength and size, Trax had just enough of an advantage to keep them at bay. Jordan and the female wolf were rolling in combat, and Julia felt herself torn with the desire to help. She had to do something to help Dee. To help Damien.

  Julia looked at the bonfire, and before the idea was even fully formed in her mind, she was rising and letting the blanket fall from her shoulders. She whipped it around as she took the few steps toward the bonfire. It was searingly hot but she didn't care. She flung the blanket across the flames and immediately the clearing was thrust into darkness.

  Julia backed away to the cabin, listening
to the growls and bites, the snaps, scared to be caught in the middle of the fray. Jordan and the woman slammed into the wall of the cabin next to her and she shied away from them. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness and saw Damien coming in for a jump, landing on top of Trax.

  Only a few seconds passed before the blanket caught fire and then there was light again, brighter than before. The leader tore Damien off of his back. Julia screamed as she saw her grandmother's neck torn by Trax's claw. Then his body twisted and he tossed Damien as easily as if he were a puppy, across the clearing and into a tree. Julia felt her heart stop as she heard the loud crack of his body against the trunk of the tree. She stepped forward to go to him but then her grandmother struggled up again and Julia froze, unable to tear her eyes away from Dee.

  Blood gushed over her white pelt, turning it scarlet. The blood spilled over her shoulders like a red shawl. Trax was hurt, but she was hurt too, and her agility was gone whereas his strength was still there. She backed up and then two other wolves were at her back from out of nowhere.

  Julia gasped. Kyle and Katherine. Dee looked at them, then turned back to Trax. Tears ran down Julia's face. She couldn't look away. She knew what would happen, but her eyes were glued to Dee.

  Then Kyle and Katherine sprang forward over Dee and at the leader. Katherine snapped at his haunches, catching his leg, and he howled in pain. Then Kyle bit down on his neck, and the howl turned into a gurgle. Blood rushed from his neck, pooling on the ground. By the light of the bonfire it looked almost black.

  Dee limped toward the cabin. Julia ran over to her and bent down. Dee nuzzled her snout against Julia's nose.

  It was the same gesture that Granny Dee made as a human: "Everything is alright."

  Jordan was still fighting the female wolf, and Kyle and Katherine turned to her. She kicked away from Jordan, limping. She whimpered and backed up against the edge of the clearing, the three other wolves closing in on her.