by Alexis Wilde
Natalie’s breath felt like desert air in her throat, but somehow, she managed to inhale. To shake her head. “No.”
The other wolves he’d brought finally caught up, fanning behind Victor in a semi-circle that mirrored Nico and his group. The crackling energy caught between both felt as if she’d been locked in an air tunnel, battered from both sides by forces too violent to simply let go.
Only the strong stayed in a pack, but established packs often forgot that strays that didn’t die in the wild got stronger for it.
Victor seemed to realize this much—or maybe he thought his claim trumped strays’, because he didn’t reach for her again. He simply took one step closer. A step that put him almost shoulder to shoulder with Nico.
But his fierce stare, his aggression, was all for Natalie.
A slight. An insult. Whatever else Victor thought, he didn’t consider Nico worth acknowledging.
Something the wolves flanking him noticed, too. Natalie watched Nicholas and Cameron—two strong enforcers who’d tried mating with her before—exchange a glance.
Behind her, Damien’s low growl throttled off on a sharp sound when Nico raised a calming hand behind him.
Her knees trembled as she fixed her eyes on Victor’s chest. It expanded, strained his T-shirt as he took a deep breath through his nose. The smell on her, the obvious fragrance of semen she’d wiped off but hadn’t washed, caused his features to blacken. His mouth twisted. “So you let them fuck you.”
She shuddered. Her fists strained by her sides. “I chose them.”
“You aren’t mated.”
Her chin came up, and her gaze lifted to his eyes. “I’m not mated to you, either.” She could have slapped him and surprised him less; his eyes narrowed, thin slits of furious amber as his muscles locked in rigid violence.
He wanted to backhand her. It wouldn’t be the first time. Victor didn’t tolerate disrespect.
Natalie had a whole lot of it to serve him.
But he didn’t pin his anger on her—not yet. He’d save it for when she wasn’t flanked by werewolves who all looked like they’d give his boys a run for their money. Natalie opened her mouth to demand what she wanted—to force him and his men to go—but Victor didn’t let her.
He never did.
His body turned, his anger pinned on Nico and unfolded with all the power and force that allowed him to run a strong pack like the Yellow Canyon wolves. The air turned bloody and hot, the sensation of it on her skin caused the fine hairs on her neck to prickle.
Every instinct demanded she cower.
“You,” Victor snarled. “You stole what is rightfully mine.”
Nico’s head tilted faintly. Natalie knew what it was to feel his wolf, to sense it on the wind—she’d watched him corral his own ornery wolves with it, but she’d never realized how different it really was until his eyes flared, crackled with the slow roll of dominance beneath his skin.
The air around Natalie cooled, but it didn’t ease. It grew too thick, too full, as if too many things fought for control of the space.
She sucked in a ragged breath.
This time, it was Jackson’s hand that slipped to the small of her back. Large and warm, firm and steady. Another hooked at her hip—Alek’s again. Tight but not painful. Secure.
Nico didn’t have to touch her. His strength, his protection, enfolded her—enfolded all of them—in the utter surety of his position.
Strays, maybe, but Victor wasn’t stupid. When Nico neither looked away nor stepped back, the first flash of doubt creased the skin above the Yellow Canyon alpha’s aquiline nose.
“We stole nothing,” Nico said, every word clipped to a cool, calm quick. It carried across the clearing with easy authority—made sure every last one of Victor’s wolves heard him. “You had Natalie locked up in a crate like some kind of animal. Is that how the Yellow Canyon Pack treats its females?”
Cameron and Nicholas exchanged another glance. Then they both looked at her. Natalie couldn’t read either man’s expression—Cameron was Victor’s second, always much harder to read under a mask of projected indolence, while Nicholas was so serious, he’d give Alek a run for his money.
Natalie hadn’t minded either of them in small doses. They’d been kinder than some.
When she met their eyes, they didn’t snarl or posture. Cameron’s mouth slipped into a half-smile, but if it was supposed to be encouraging or some kind of other message, she just couldn’t tell. His spring green eyes, pale like jade, had never really warmed to her.
Victor bit back a snarl. “So she spread her legs for you and now you’ll do anything for her, is that right?”
Jackson’s low, muted growl shuddered through the hand at Natalie’s back.
She locked her teeth before she said something awful.
This was Nico’s part. Only he could meet the alpha head-on. That was law, and even Natalie knew the Lost River strays barely qualified as pack enough to establish it.
Nico took half a step forward. There wasn’t much room between them, but he didn’t need much. He stood toe to toe with the much larger Victor, head tilted back to meet the other alpha’s gaze head on. If he felt at all disadvantaged in his bare feet and shorter, leaner build, there was nothing in his demeanor that suggested it. “I suggest,” he said softly, “you watch your tone when you speak about one of mine.”
Victor turned his head and spat. “I’ll talk about what is mine however I please.”
“I’m not,” Natalie cut in, her whole body shaking with the effort to remain standing. To remain here, and not tear off across the forest, run with fur and fang until she could leave behind this clearing—these men.
This pack she didn’t want.
But that would abandon the pack she did.
She set her jaw, forced herself to stare at Victor as his head jerked in her direction. And oh, he hated it. Loathed the fact that she met his gaze with such impunity.
She could all but smell his hunger to bleed her on the wind.
Behind him, Cameron shifted. A subtle shake of his head could have been a warning, or simply awe.
She’d always been meeker. At least then.
But that wasn’t her. She wasn’t her when she was with the Yellow Canyon Pack.
Natalie wanted to be herself. Whatever, whoever, that was, she wanted it more than anything else—and the Lost River wolves wanted her, too. Wanted to love her.
To be loved by her.
She reached behind her and threaded her fingers with Jackson’s. Skin to skin, palm to palm, his warmth bled into her hand. Eased some of the ice clawing its way up her spine.
With him, with all of them, she could stand up. She could face Victor.
“I’m not going back,” she said again, and this time her voice rang clearly. “As a free, unmated wolf, I belong to no one. I am no pack’s prisoner, and no alpha’s possession.”
When she took a step forward, Nico shifted aside. Just enough that his position—his support—was clear.
God, she loved him. She loved all of them, these strays who banded around her.
Whose support bolstered her now.
The wind pulled through her hair, whipped it into a streaming banner as she reached out and twined her other hand with Nico’s.
The men behind Victor glanced at each other. Then at their alpha. Waiting.
Watching.
“You heard the lady,” Nico said, still in tones that carried. And for all their volume, his voice didn’t bite. It didn’t lash. It simply rumbled with an alpha’s certainty. “Pack law states you are under no obligation to treat us as a pack, but know that we have in our midst a female who bonds us. The choice is yours.”
A muscle twitched furiously in Victor’s face as his gaze flicked from Nico to Natalie to the wolves around them both.
When it landed on Jackson, it lingered.
And darkened.
His lips peeled back from his teeth.
Cameron stirred. “Victor.”
The alpha jerked his chin. It took him a moment to swallow whatever instinct gripped him, but when he did, he squared his shoulders. Unbowed, undefeated. “We aren’t so many that we can afford to tear apart the strong.” It was as if every word was wrenched from Victor’s mouth. Like it pained him to even vocalize what he’d see as a compliment rather than a statement of truth.
Cameron reached behind Victor and nudged another man’s shoulder. The dark-skinned werewolf was named Devon. She’d never had the opportunity to try to mate with him, but the sheer disgust on his face made her glad for that.
She didn’t know if Devon hated her or the situation, but his near-black eyes touched everything with barely throttled annoyance. Even his own alpha.
Devon brushed Cameron’s hand off and turned around. When he strode back the way they’d come, Nicholas followed.
Victor took one step back. Just one. The vein in his forehead pounded. “I challenge you.”
Natalie’s eyes widened.
Wait. That wasn’t exactly what she expected. A challenge to a stray? One on one? That wasn’t what she’d thought. It wasn’t supposed to come to bloodshed. She’d seen what Victor did to those foolish enough to challenge him. Smelled the blood on him, the stench of death. For all his talk, for whatever he said now, it had never stopped him from tearing out the throat of those who moved against him.
He didn’t challenge to submission.
Fear clamped around her heart. “Wait—”
Nico’s hand tightened in hers. “I meet your challenge.”
At her right, Jackson shifted, his fingers equally as tight around her right hand. “Nico—”
“So be it,” Victor barked, cutting Jackson off entirely. “My second’ll meet with yours. Let’s fucking get this over with.”
The sound in Jackson’s chest barely qualified as human, but she could feel how much effort it took him to lock it down.
Victor was already turning and following his retinue back across the clearing. He didn’t bother looking back at Natalie, or even at the second he’d referenced.
She tried to take a step forward, to force Victor to look at her, but Nico tugged her hard against him, forced her to fall into his chest. He caught her face in both hands, held her gaze still when she tried wildly to look back at the retreating pack. “Stop,” Nico said, low and soft. “Natalie, look at me.”
Fear threatened to swallow her—swamp her whole world. “You can’t,” she gasped. “Nico, please, you can’t fight him, I’ve seen—”
His thumbs pressed over her mouth, sealing her protests.
At her back, Jackson’s hand curved over her nape. Held her still for Nico to hold.
She shook violently. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t… She couldn’t lose them. Not now. Not to this.
Not for her.
Nico pressed his lips to her forehead. “Enough.” A gentle order. “I stand for pack, Natalie. That means you.”
“That means all of us,” Damien added. He crouched on the other side of Ben, watching the other pack vanish back the way they’d come. “It’s what our alpha does.”
“It’s what we need him to do,” Alek added in quieter certainty.
Jackson and Ben said nothing, but she was very much aware of them in silent support. This was pack business.
This was what it was to be werewolves.
Everything rested on a single challenge.
If she cried, if she protested too much, it would be the same as telling Nico she didn’t think he could hack it.
She had to believe.
But one wrong move, one bad call, one mistake, and it would cost her—cost them—everything.
Chapter Twelve
“You know by rights I should be out there,” Jackson snarled, punching his palm with savage fury. The wind wailed around the cabin, flapping Jackson’s shirt and pushing Nico’s hair back into wild tangles.
Both wolves ignored it, and the others flanking them. Nico caught a fist full of the fabric at Jackson’s shoulder and hauled him firmly upright. “Calm down,” he ordered flatly. Gone was the soft spoken man, and in its place, an alpha laid down an order Jackson couldn’t ignore.
Jackson’s wolf all but seethed in his skin. He locked his jaw, fists tight at his sides as Nico stared into his eyes with icy calm.
Once he was sure Jackson wouldn’t lash out again, once Jackson locked the beast—his anger—down, Nico’s grip loosened. “You’re the closest to mating her, but you’re not mated yet. I’ll answer the challenge for all of us.”
“But—”
“Jackson,” Ben rumbled.
Nico shot him a quelling look before turning his grip into a bolstering clap on Jackson’s shoulder. “I’ll be damned,” he said simply, “if I leave her in any hands but yours.”
It meant more than Jackson knew was being said. So much more than trust.
“She would want to see this, though,” Damien volunteered.
“Maybe.” Nico squeezed Jackson’s shoulder, then turned to gesture at the others. “But that doesn’t mean she should.”
Alek nodded at this, his expression twisted into a half-frown.
As Ben passed, his big hand covered Jackson’s other shoulder in brief sympathy. “We’ll stand with him. You stand with her.”
As if any of them would have it any other way.
Jackson watched them fade into the forest edge with a knot the size of a boulder in his gut. It offended him on every level, tore at his every instinct to let his pack go without him. This was a challenge for blood—for rights, for pack. For Natalie.
By all rights, she should be there.
But Ben had cautioned against it.
They all sensed it. Trust wasn’t something they could afford to give. If they brought Natalie to the scene of the challenge, there was no telling what would wait for them. For her.
If Nico lost…
No. Jackson shook his head hard, scraping a callused hand over his hair as the wind rifled through it with frigid fingers. He wouldn’t think like that.
Nico was strong. Much stronger than any of them.
The life of an alpha was always fraught with risk.
He turned and made his way back inside, ignoring the itch on his skin that demanded he turn and follow his pack. He hated that he’d have to wait, but whatever he felt—whatever anger and uncertainty—he knew Natalie felt that and more.
She wasn’t in the kitchen when he stepped inside. Wasn’t in the large living room that still smelled like all of them. The wide window let the sunlight pour in, warming the ambient air—thickening the tangled fragrance until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
The smell of it, the richness, helped settle the knot in his nerves. This was what pack smelled like. Distinct but together. Interchangeable, interwoven. A palette of colors.
But as he crossed the room, one scent in particular stood out to his senses. Brighter. Warmer. It called sweetly to his wolf.
He followed it back down the hall.
Jackson found her in the study, huddled into herself by one of the large windows. She stared out over the sun-dappled woods with her lip caught between her teeth, worry clear in every sexy, lush line of her body.
The sunlight gilded her silhouette with an angelic halo. Warmed her hair and caressed her features with a sweetness he almost couldn’t bear looking at.
Natalie Baker was too good for any of them.
And maybe that’s why her wolf wouldn’t settle. Maybe that was why she stood by that window and tried so hard not to crumple under the weight of the burdens she thought she had to carry.
His heart ached in his chest, thudding slowly in a tangled mess of lust and possession and something more savage, something more feral, than even he knew how to handle.
“Natalie.”
She didn’t stir at his voice. She’d probably heard him, smelled him. Her shoulder moved a fraction—a kind of shrug but distracted. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
His
eyebrows knotted. “No.” He crossed the study, rounding the sofa, and caught her around the hips before she could say anything else. She stiffened briefly, but then melted into his arms as if she couldn’t fight how well they fit.
Like she knew it, too.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her, his nose buried in her sun-warmed hair. “This isn’t your fault,” he murmured.
“But it is.” Her voice hovered on the edge of ragged. Her pulse hammered under his hands, her fingers sank into his arms as she held him tight around her. “If only I could mate. If only I knew what my wolf wanted, this could— Nico wouldn’t…”
“Shhh.” It took everything Jackson had to soften the visceral wrench her sorrow, her doubt, caused him. “No, sweetheart. You don’t need to settle. Whatever you want, whatever your instinct is searching for, it’s right.”
She trembled faintly. It hurt him to think that she blamed herself. Doubted herself.
That reassuring her meant denying himself.
But he was man enough to understand the rules. The reality. What she wanted, he wanted to give her. Full stop.
“What if,” she began, her nails biting into his bare arm. “What if I never find a mate?”
“You will.”
She turned her head, craning her neck to meet his eyes, even as her fingers clamped around his forearms. “How do you know?” she asked. “All I want is you, and I— and I can’t…” The fear he heard in her voice—the grief already blooming in her beautiful eyes—undid him.
He slipped one hand over the curve of her cheek, cradled her jaw. “You will,” he repeated firmly. “I want to be your mate, Natalie. I want to be that alpha for you, but if it’s not me—”
She took a trembling breath.
His thumb eased over her lower lip. “If it’s not me,” he said again, gentler, “I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re happy. Even if that means I have to step aside.”
A tear spilled over her lashes. He wiped it away, bent to press his lips to her cheek. Again at the corner of her mouth.
Her skin was warm, her breath hot as it fluttered out between trembling lips.
He was strong, but he wasn’t made of stone.