"Of course we can catch you," the fourteen-year-old promised. Her voice was steady, but I could hear her fluttering heartbeat speed up as she faced down the meanest pack leader our region had to offer. "Or perhaps you want to disqualify our team because you're scared we'll win?"
The other shifters—most wolf, a few human—had been rustling and whispering restlessly up until this point. But now every inhabitant of the field fell silent. Even the breeze that had been whipping up fallen leaves from beneath nearby trees stilled as Fen spoke.
I tensed my muscles, ready to spring to the girl's defense. Chief Wilder was a volatile and arrogant shifter and my pack mate just might have gone too far this time.
Not that I wouldn't have said the exact same thing had I been two-legged. Good job, Fen.
Wilder glared hard at the halfie, clearly expecting her knees to tremble beneath her. But the girl continued to stand straight and tall, not backing down an inch.
This was the half-breed's secret weapon—her wolf was the weakest on the field. The characteristic doesn't sound like a good deal, does it? But in the hands of someone possessing pure grit, a powerless wolf could be worked to her advantage. In fact, Fen had recently learned to stifle her beast long enough to be untouched by alpha dominance when in human form, a trick that made her appear more powerful than even our region's strongest alpha werewolf.
"Hnnh." The snort could have been laughter or anger—it was hard to tell the difference with Crazy Wilder. But then he whistled shrilly, the high-pitched sound grating against my lupine ears.
Once again, the field descended into restlessness as we waited to see what would happen next. It was hard to get two alphas from different packs moving in the same direction at the best of times. And now we were all hyped up on adrenaline, itching for the hunt to begin. Eight alphas plus Crazy Wilder—the combination was akin to a keg of dynamite standing on a hilltop during a thunderstorm.
But still we waited, shuffling feet and murmuring questions. Wilder hadn't said the word either way, so the jury was still out on my team's participation in the game. And no alpha could initiate the hunt until our prey shifted and took the lead anyway.
So fifty shifters watched impatiently as a newcomer appeared, running flat out over the hill that separated our encampment from the main Wilder village. I could smell her scent before she came fully into view. Bitter at first, then almost unbearably sweet. Like biting into an unripe persimmon, but in reverse. First your mouth puckers, then the rich orange flesh explodes into a fruity delicacy.
I shook my head, trying to clear away the cobwebs that seemed to have formed out of nowhere as soon as the aroma entered my nose.
Then the female was before me, her warm brown eyes meeting mine and holding. My chest seemed to swell with an emotion I'd never felt before as I dove into the dark depths of her soul.
Is this what they mean by love at first sight?
Beside me, Wade whined and leaned forward. Fen responded by grabbing the older teenager's ruff, pulling him back onto his haunches.
But I took in my pack mates' actions only through changes in air currents, not because I flicked my eyes to the side to check on my companions. Instead, my gaze remained riveted on the newcomer.
"Alexis will join Wolf Young's pack to even the odds," Wilder intoned, his voice beginning to deepen as his body settled into the shift. "May the hunt begin!"
Chapter 2
We'd left the other packs behind hours ago. Alexis knew the terrain much better than the rest of us did—no surprise there since I assumed she'd lived on this mountain her entire life. So I allowed the female to lead us up hillsides and down deep draws, running flat out until our hot breath steamed in the cold air.
As my paws pounded across wet earth, a tiny voice at the back of my mind told me that I should be bothered by the fact that the Chief's scent had disappeared nearly at once. Plus, the occasional howls from other crews now seemed to be emanating from an entirely different part of the property than the one we were currently combing through.
But I trusted Alexis to give us the home-court advantage. She likely knew all the Wilder hidey holes and was taking our team on a grand tour of possible locations where the Chief might choose to go to ground.
The strategy made perfect sense. If I were Chief Wilder, I'd definitely hole up somewhere isolated and difficult to access, then laugh up my sleeve while the region's top shifters stumbled over each other trying to find my lair.
Smart wolf, I thought, glancing toward Alexis with approval. Her white fur glowed like a star in the near pitch darkness. Then she glanced over her shoulder, and I once again fell into those dark, alluring eyes.
An image of an entirely different pack princess drifted through my mind. Terra. There and gone in an instant. I hadn't hunted down Crazy Wilder's younger daughter a third time, but I still thought of her often. She was the one who got away. The one I mooned over in human form when my wolf brain wasn't quite as fully engaged, when I forgot that the only shifters who mattered were those within my pack.
Now, though, I couldn't seem to make Terra's image stick on the insides of my retinas. Instead, when I closed my eyelids, all I saw was Alexis's molten brown irises. And the flavor of persimmons rose up to coat the inside of my mouth until I had to swallow the spittle that appeared out of nowhere to digest the feast.
"Fuck! This is stupid!"
It took longer than it should have for me to realize the screech came from my usually calm and collected pack mate. Fen had turned human and planted her feet, but none of the rest of us noticed her absence until we'd loped another fifty feet up the trail.
We'll never catch him if we don't keep running. With that thought, I turned away from the girl and back into Alexis's rich presence, gathering myself to bound onward. Fen could take care of herself. If she was sick and tired of our hunt, then she could straggle back to camp and we'd meet her there later when we came home victorious.
"Boss." Now it was Wade's human form that seemed planted to the earth. He'd materialized out of nowhere, making my nose bump painfully against his bare leg and forcibly halting my forward progress. "Didn't you hear Fen?" the seventeen-year-old asked, crouching down to grab my furred cheeks in both hands. "Shift, dude. She wants to talk."
My head felt foggy as my gaze met his, and I could sense Alexis drifting closer. Her shoulder bumped mine, and I had a sudden urge to bowl my pack mate over and run off into the night with this beautiful female, consequences be damned.
Then the underlying bitterness of the pack princess's scent reemerged, and I used the astringency to yank myself up onto two legs. I knew I owed it to Fen to listen to what she had to say. Still, my tone was much more curt than usual when I turned back around to face the teenager.
"What?" I barked.
The girl narrowed her eyes at me, an expression I'd seen her use on Wade dozens of times. It drove Fen crazy that her friend was always bigger, stronger, and faster than her, his three additional years giving the other teenager a boundless advantage. But she usually eyed me with an almost embarrassing level of hero worship rather than with this annoyed astuteness that made me want to shift back into lupine form and hide behind Wade's legs.
"You really have no clue, do you?" the kid asked now. She stepped forward until her nose was mere inches away from my sternum. Then, poking a finger into my bare chest, she knocked me back half a step. "You can't see that this stool pigeon is leading us in the entirely wrong direction?"
"Come on, Fen." Wade's calm voice said what my frozen lips were unable to communicate. "Sure, she's part of Chief Wilder's pack. But the Winter Hunt is just a game, and she's part of our team. Right, Alexis?"
I held my breath, hoping I'd hear the pack princess's voice. Would her words be as honeyed as her gaze? Would her human form be as earth-shatteringly enticing as her lupine one?
I angled my body toward our crew's fourth member in anticipation of the sight. But Alexis merely trotted forward on lupine paws and sank into a sit at my feet.
Her burnt sienna eyes met mine and her ears turned backwards in a puppyish plea to run further, run faster. Hurry, hurry, her body language seemed to say.
"Do we really have to discuss this now?" I ground out, my words aimed at Fen even though I couldn't quite make myself turn away from the pack princess in order to meet the former's eyes. "The other teams are gaining on the prize while we're piddling around. This win is important to the pack, Fen."
I could feel the girl's agitation eddying in the air currents all around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the motion as she lurched backwards as if struck. So despite the attraction of the pack princess at my feet, I turned back toward my young pack mate. Sorry....
The word hadn't made it all the way to my lips, though, when Alexis whined. The thinnest thread of sound, like a wounded pup lost down a deep, dark hole. Forgetting Fen, I knelt beside the female shifter, stroking my palm across her silky fur. "Shh," I calmed her. "It's going to be alright."
To my delight, Alexis's muzzle drifted upwards. Then she was licking beneath my chin in the universal sign of submissive bonding. "I know, I know," I whispered. "We won't spend much longer here."
"Wade, at least you can see it, right?" Fen persisted. "That wolf is some kind of parasite. She looks at you and you go all gooey eyed and brain dead. Pay attention."
Alexis rose from her position before me and trotted over to the other male shifter. I followed her with my eyes, unable to tear my attention away from the female's undulating form long enough to stand back onto my feet.
I felt the loss, though, as her gaze left mine and latched onto my pack mate's. And I heard the sigh of satisfaction as Wade nearly fell in his haste to join her in wolf form.
Hurry, hurry, Alexis seemed to say again, glancing at me one more time. Then she bounded away from us up the trail. Gathering my fur to me, I followed.
Chapter 3
The wolves fell upon us from the top of a rocky cliff, nearly taking me to the ground in the process. I hadn't heard or smelled their approach, perhaps because this warm December night had opened up into a drizzle that dampened sound and snuffed scents. Or perhaps my attention was too firmly focused on the glimmering white pack princess who led us all on this midnight hunt.
Doesn't matter. I'll protect my pack and Alexis will lead us to our prize.
One glance over my shoulder proved that Wade had backed our females up against the rock face, putting his teeth and claws in front of their more delicate bodies. I nodded my approval, making it clear that I expected the teenager to continue playing defense to my offense.
In response, Fen glared, reminding me that she could hold her own in a one-on-one fight. But if I let the fourteen-year-old come home with so much as a hair missing from her head, our pack mother would have my hide. I wasn't scared of the five arrogant males arrayed before us, but just the thought of Tia's disapproval had me quaking in my metaphorical boots. So I simply widened my eyes at the girl, and she rolled her own back. Still, she obeyed.
Five to one weren't great odds, but the Griffins appeared to be in a playful mood. Well, as playful as werewolves get when two alphas face off against each other. Gavin and I traded glares for a long moment, our gazes locking and sending surges of adrenaline through my body. But then my opponent motioned for his cohorts to step back and form a ring around the two of us, leveling the playing field.
How sportsmanlike. I wouldn't be caught dead making such a newbie mistake.
I assessed the other alpha with a calculating eye. Gavin was close to Fen's age and not yet the Griffin's official leader, although he'd been attending All-Pack for a while now. Since he wasn't a bloodling, the teenager was still growing into both his human and lupine skins and didn't have much muscle to speak of. In an arm-wrestling competition, he wouldn't have stood a chance.
Despite his physical deficiencies, as I circled around the other male I decided that Gavin's greatest weakness lay in his sense of honor and fair play. Most alphas had learned the hard way that if they didn't play dirty, they inevitably lost. But Crazy Wilder was this kid's distant relative, and the stronger alpha seemed willing to extend his protection to the Griffins as long as Gavin made no waves in improper directions. The upshot of which was that the teenager had previously been able to get away with using human ethics around wild werewolves.
But Crazy Wilder isn't here to protect you tonight, now is he? I opened my mouth in a lupine grin as I imagined my wolf teeth closing over human flesh and making short work of this little altercation.
I was about to lunge forward and end the battle before it truly began when Gavin spoke. "I hear you're aiming for a territory this year."
I tried to push the teenager's words away with a shake of my head. But despite my best efforts they stuck and grew.
How had he guessed? I'd kept my intentions a secret even from my own clan, and it gave me pause to think that this baby alpha knew more about my objectives than even my closest pack mates did.
In fact, this very hunt was part of a long-range plan that had been percolating through my brain for a while now. My clan had purchased the territory that encapsulated Chief Wilder's estranged grandson over a year ago, the tactic being the first step toward wiggling out from under the debt the older alpha had saddled me with. And I'd hoped that winning the Winter Hunt would garner enough street cred that the other alphas would be moved to make that territory official the following afternoon.
What I hadn't realized was that my scheming was so transparent to all and sundry.
Still, human words and plots were the last thing on my mind at the moment. Despite my seeming advantage, I knew Gavin's cohorts would leap into the fray if—no, when—their leader appeared to be floundering. So I needed to end this fast rather than being drawn into the other alpha's patter.
"Chief Wilder plans to support you, you know," the boy droned on. Despite myself, I pulled up short once again. I'd been about to barrel into his legs, figuring the fastest way to finish this farce was to knock the kid down and go for the throat.
Not that I'd break the skin. The action seemed, well, dishonorable when the teenager was so much weaker than me.
I huffed out a laugh at my own hypocrisy. And here I thought excessive honor was Gavin's weakness, not my own.
"The Chief told me this morning that he just needs an excuse to stand as your ally," Gavin continued, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that he was standing naked in human form while my sharp teeth and claws were inching closer by the second. "He can't appear to give you preferential treatment for no reason, of course," the kid went on. "But he has faith you'll win the Hunt. And that's all the explanation he'll need to make sure your clan has official sanction to claim the territory you're squatting on."
"Squatting, eh?" Despite my best intentions to maintain the advantage of wolf reflexes, I shifted upwards at the mild insult. It wasn't that he'd gotten my goat—human taunts rolled off my back like the current December drizzle was shed by my thick fur. But I was starting to wonder whether the young alpha had really intended to challenge me, or whether I'd simply read him wrong from the get-go.
Usually, I could smell out subtleties best in lupine form, but Alexis's rich persimmon odor clogged my nostrils. So I figured I might as well peruse Gavin's human facial expressions with two-legger eyes. After all, I didn't want to attack if the kid wasn't looking for a fight. And it wasn't a big deal anyway—I could take him down just as easily on two legs as on four.
I wiped one hand across my forehead, flicking away water droplets. And in the moment that my eyes were covered, the forest exploded into action.
"Now!" Gavin ordered.
I whipped my head around, gaze landing on the one clothed shifter who must have spent the entire evening two-legged. The lackey was already settling back into immobility, but Gavin lunged in his direction as a wicked-looking blade spun end over end through the air between the two shifters.
Starlight reflected off the weapon that promised to even the odds between Gavin and myself.
Once it finished plummeting through the night sky, that is. The blade's presence needn't change the course of the battle, though. My superior reflexes meant that I could have easily grabbed the knife out of the air before it reached its intended recipient.
But in that critical moment of action, the pack princess behind me whined and I spun to ensure she wasn't being harmed.
Thunk. I could hear the knife's hilt settling into Gavin's hand, but it was all I could do to force myself to turn away from Alexis's intoxicating gaze. As a result, the other alpha had closed the distance between us before I managed to face him again.
I threw up both hands to grab his right wrist, trying to force the weapon out of his grasp. Unfortunately, what Gavin lacked in muscles, he made up in agility. Now he twisted like a fish on a line, forcing my fingers to slip away from his arm. And in that instant of separation, my opponent brought the blade down to cut a long red stripe across my ribs.
I flared my nostrils, smelling my own blood. My heart was racing too quickly for me to feel pain, but I knew the ache would set in soon. Time to take off the kid gloves before our battle got out of hand.
Using Gavin's own momentum against him, I knocked his right arm away and forced his elbow to bend in the wrong direction until he grunted with pain. Then, kicking up with my knee, I sent the knife plummeting into the night.
Gavin was face down in the dirt, my foot on his neck, before his companions could take another step forward.
"I wouldn't," I warned with a growl.
Chapter 4
In the end, I let the kid go unharmed. He was just doing what shifters did best—lobbying for power in the only way he knew how. And he'd given me an intriguing tidbit of information in the process. Crazy Wilder planned to back my territorial bid if I won the Winter Hunt.
Good thing our crew had Alexis as a lucky charm to speed us on our way.
The Complete Bloodling Serial: Episodes 1-5 Page 10