“You lose,” Ginger said gaily as she shoved her brother aside to take his place at the starting line. “Gimme the tree!”
Despite my friend’s enthusiasm, though, I couldn’t help descending back into the brown study Ginger had so recently pulled me out of. The trouble was, I had a sinking suspicion we’d made the wrong decision in claiming the entirety of Arborville and the surrounding countryside as our proposed territory on the application form.
What if rather than winning the safety we all hankered after, our optimistic reach instead prompted other alphas to come sniffing around in such a manner they noticed our rule-breaking ways? What if Hunter’s powerful ex-mentor decided to wreak his vengeance by following the letter of the law and putting packless one-bodies aware of shifter existence—one-bodies like Ginger’s girlfriend and my mother—to death?
Still, I couldn’t mull over possible future disaster scenarios for long. Because a shirtless Hunter was hefting the discarded trunk onto one broad shoulder and approaching Ginger at a lope, making the dead weight of the eight-foot-long pole appear negligible. He nearly vibrated with virility, so I wasn’t surprised to notice that every nearby female, including those in lupine form, focused their complete attention upon his rippling abdominal muscles and narrow waist.
Hunter, however, ignored the larger audience. Instead, his gaze flew directly to mine...then he winked.
For a moment, the knot in my belly eased. And I smiled as Ginger bit her lip and blew on her hands in preparation for following in her brother’s footsteps. The other team had no idea what was about to hit them.
Four bloodlings closed ranks around my teammate, ensuring that no wily opponent could sneak past and throw Ginger off her game. Meanwhile, outside their circle, the larger pack was divided—half hoping Ginger would win the prize on their behalf while the other contingent was betting against the young female’s skill and strength. For my part, I just hoped no one got brained in the process.
So I held my breath as my friend slowly eased the caber upward and watched as she proved that anything she lacked in brawn she easily made up for in fortitude. Soon, the pole towered above all of our heads like a flagpole. Then, seemingly effortlessly, the trouble twin broke into a smooth lope.
Before my friend made her throw, though, Hunter’s chilled hands were pulling me back against his warm body. My mate’s breath teased through my mussed hair, then his broad palms began pushing circles of looseness into knotted muscles. Formerly cold flesh warmed by the minute as the uber-alpha’s inner furnace forced me to forget my worries and relax into his embrace.
“We’ll win,” Hunter whispered, his words barely audible above the cacophony of the crowd. “We always do.”
As if the uber-alpha was speaking directly to her, Ginger slid to a halt at the chalked line and tossed the log deftly forward. As the entire clan looked on with riveted attention, the heavy end of the tulip-tree trunk dipped down at the last moment so the caber struck the ground, sprang upwards, then finally thudded back earthward in the perfect orientation to win her team another twenty points.
And even though our pack was ostensibly divided into two warring factions, the howls of triumph and celebration that rose toward the clear blue sky were now universal. Wolf-form bloodlings frolicked with joy while two-leggers pumped triumphant fists into the air.
“You’re right,” I admitted, no longer certain whether I was speaking to my mate or just to myself. Because Hunter’s point was well made. Our clan was united, so how could we lose? “Together, we’ll find a way to protect our pack.”
Chapter 3
“UH UH,” LUPE DISAGREED a few hours later as two of the bloodlings grabbed hold of her sweater sleeves. The duo attempted to drag the newly arrived teenager back out the door she’d so recently walked in through, hoping for a two-legged addition to their game of tag. And despite Lupe’s planted feet and surly disposition, they likely would have gotten their way had their playmate’s book bag not slid down along one arm to wind around Rain’s tan neck.
The pale-furred wolf considered the entanglement to be yet more fun and games, but Lupe yanked the strap off her companion’s body so forcefully that the animal’s teeth rattled together within her jaw. “Why can’t you leave me the hell alone?” my protégée hissed.
And the wet blanket has arrived. As disloyal as the sentiment seemed, I couldn’t help thinking that our celebration would have been much more fun had our off-site pack member stayed with her human family where she thought she belonged. But I didn’t let any of my indecision show in my voice when I took her to task. “Lupe,” I warned.
Now that the teenager had arrived and my mother had left on a date, the entirety of our lupine pack was gathered in the open-floor-plan community house, waiting for the display of sunset colors that would signal the beginning of our celebratory hunt. To the merriment of all involved, Ginger was busy mimicking bloodlings’ voices on the other side of the room, while Hunter wrestled with Cinnamon on a patch of cleared floor.
I, on the other hand, was hanging back on the outskirts like a coward, glad no one had noticed my distance in the excitement. The decision definitely failed the What Would Wolfie Do test, but it was the best option I’d come up with for minimizing confusion among the sensitive bloodling contingent.
In stark contrast, Hunter had no problem monitoring the entirety of the room without losing hold of his inner wolf...or of the real, live wolf he was gently trouncing. He caught my gaze from the opposite corner of the L-shaped room and raised one eyebrow questioningly in the face of Lupe’s ill humor. Want me to smack her into line? he asked with a quirked lip, meaning a verbal alpha compulsion rather than a physical human rebuff.
I wish, I responded silently. We’d become so attuned to each other’s expressions over the last few months that I actually wasn’t entirely certain whether Hunter was using our mate bond to communicate versus just staring pointedly in my general direction and figuring I’d understand what he intended to say. Either way, though, I shook my head glumly to reinforce my reply. No, Lupe was the one shifter present who considered me her sole authority figure rather than looking upon Hunter as an equal pack leader. So I’d have to rely on halfie heckling to get my way.
“I just don’t see why I have to keep coming here every weekend,” the bloodling in question muttered barely loudly enough to be heard...and at the same time quietly enough so she could say she’d been talking to herself if I called her on the insubordination. Yes, we’d played this game many times before.
“I can handle my shifts,” she continued. “I’ve got a place to stay. And I have friends out there in the real world. So maybe you should all just forget I exist and let me live my own life.”
Having disentangled herself from two sets of friendly lupine fangs, the party pooper now sank down into an armchair and buried her nose into a smartphone. Conversation over. Was it really possible that this stereotypical American teenager had lived entirely in lupine form until less than six months earlier?
Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t quite ready to let Lupe wiggle out of our discussion. On the other hand, I also wasn’t willing to deal with her grumpiness head-on since that tactic often provoked a screaming match bound to squash the pack’s celebratory mood. So, instead, I changed the subject. “How are Mrs. Sawyer and the twins?”
“You can call her Nina,” Lupe countered. “She’s not my teacher anymore.” But, despite herself, the young woman glanced up from her device and allowed me to see the joyous wolf wiggling with pleasure beneath her furless skin. Lupe’s human nature might be feigning disinterest about the matter, but her inner animal was thrilled to act as foster sibling to a pair of newborn human cubs.
The excitement of hunt preparation continued to build elsewhere in the building. But for an instant, Lupe and I became locked in silent communion not so different from the conversation I’d recently shared with my mate. Okay, so there was no overt show of affection between the two of us. But I could still see the young woman’s
thoughts almost as clearly as if they were my own.
Yes, Lupe was handling herself ably in the human world where she spent the majority of her days. But her inner wolf’s enthusiasm for the newest additions to her human household suggested a certain loneliness that couldn’t be wiped away by two-legged acquaintances. Instead, while Lupe might think she was too good to be a member of a shifter clan, I clearly saw that deep down inside she still possessed the inevitable werewolf yearning to call herself part of a pack.
Make me run with the pack, the teenager’s eyes begged as I cocked my head to one side and focused on her inner wolf. So I shrugged and laid down the law.
“You’re here to train your wolf and you aren’t going to train anything while staring at that cell phone all day.” Swiping the device in question out of her hand, I finished. “I can’t make you enjoy yourself, but you are running with the pack.”
Whether or not she’d wanted me to force the issue, Lupe clearly hadn’t been prepared to lose her cherished possession in the process. And while a one-body might have sprung to her feet and initiated a game of keep-away to reclaim her technological safety blanket, Lupe was a bloodling. In other words, she was more wolf than human at her core.
So, between one breath and the next, she embraced the typical bloodling solution. Her spine shortened, her legs bent, and fur broke out along her lupine neck. Finally, ignoring the tailored fabric that still clung to her altered form, she lunged in my direction preparing to bite.
THERE WAS NO POINT in following the bloodling’s lead. After all, in fur form, the teenager’s wolf could send my animal half rolling head over heels with a single glance. Even two-legged, my wolf was currently active enough to force me to stumble backwards in the face of a stronger power, my feet tripping over Lupe’s discarded backpack as I windmilled my arms in an effort to remain erect.
The attempt to recover my center of balance didn’t work though. Instead, I landed on my butt with a thud, those fancy ceramic tiles I’d been so impressed by when we updated the kitchen earlier in the season bruising my tailbone even as my head cracked against the corner of a nearby counter.
Ouch!
But the resulting physical pain was nothing compared to the agony I experienced as twenty young wolves flung themselves at Lupe en masse. It wasn’t so much that I thought they were going to kill her...although the snarls and growls emanating from the heap would have prompted a one-body to assume our furry pack mates had entirely lost their minds. No, the problem lay much deeper than mere threat to life and limb.
I’d failed as an alpha.
Four months earlier, I’d thought I could hold my own with the single bloodling charge I’d combined with Hunter’s more numerous tagalongs to create a new clan. Our cobbled-together pack was strong and seemed able to encompass both sets of youngsters with ease.
Sure, Sinsa and her compatriots had been leery of Lupe from the very beginning, sensing the young woman’s divided loyalties and unwillingness to fully attach herself to our clan. But with both me and my mate pressing the point, the wolf-form bloodlings eventually decided to play nice. Soon they were including the slightly older girl in their antics whenever she deigned to play along.
Now, though, Lupe had done the unthinkable. She’d attacked an alpha and overtly removed herself from the established shifter pecking order in the process. As a result, the other bloodlings no longer saw any reason to treat her as one of their own.
In fact, as the scent of blood filled the air, I abruptly realized that I might have mistaken the bloodlings’ ability to manage their own aggressions. Was Lupe already injured? Bones broken? Spine snapped?
“No!” I ordered, trying and failing to push alpha compulsion into my words even as I drew myself up onto my knees in preparation for diving into the melee.
But before I could move more than a few inches, a stabbing pain in my right temple sent me sagging back toward the floor. Meanwhile, my wolf whimpered out a jumbled confusion of pleas and complaints. No, here, go, stay.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, then immediately regretted the action. The warm rectangle of light streaming in through the west-facing windows dimmed as my vision tunneled down to one small circle. “Leave Lupe alone,” I croaked out, the short sentence all I could manage before lowering my cheek back down to rest against the cool floor tiles.
Then a flash of fur sprang across the room almost too quickly to identify. I knew who it was, though. I’d recognize Hunter’s graceful stride anywhere.
The uber-alpha waded into the battle in ominous silence. Perhaps he wanted to give the bloodlings a more physical reminder of their place in the pack, or perhaps he was simply too annoyed to growl. Either way, he didn’t resort to alpha compulsion in order to stop the attackers in their tracks. Instead, grabbing wolves by the scruffs of their necks one after another, he flung them away in every direction as he dug down toward his target.
My barely verbalized command had been easy to ignore, but Hunter’s more obvious admonition did the trick. Because not a single reprimanded bloodling rose back to his or her feet. All simply lay panting and shamefaced in the wings, taking their lumps like wolves.
And then, after what seemed like eons, Lupe emerged from the bottom of the stack looking significantly better than I felt. By this point in time, I’d leveraged myself back onto my feet with the help of the same kitchen counter that had done such a number on my skull. Still, my stomach was coiled up in distress, my stabbing headache threatened to send me back to my knees, and sudden shivers wracked my shoulders. Nonetheless, ignoring my own ills, I carefully released the wooden support and found I was able to brave the few short steps that separated me from the bloodling face-off.
Hunter shifted back into human form as I advanced, the better to berate a young woman who had previously avoided him at all costs. Because despite my best attempts at bringing them together in the past, Lupe had always adamantly refused to accept my mate as her alpha...which was ironic since the wolf-form bloodlings had no problem bowing down beneath my own meek orders. Meanwhile, my mate had been willing to give the traumatized youngster time to find her equilibrium rather than forcing the issue before she was ready to acknowledge his place in the pack.
Now, though, Hunter had had enough. “You will never attack my mate,” he growled, lifting the fur-form teenager off the ground by her ruff and shaking her so vigorously that it was easy to forget she weighed nearly as much in lupine form as she did when two-legged. “You will never disobey her orders. And you will act like a member of this pack.”
And, at long last, Lupe quailed in the face of the uber-alpha’s displeasure. Wagging her tail submissively, she turned her head to lick at the hand holding her aloft. You’re right and I’m wrong, her posture broadcast. Don’t eat me...please?
The subdued behavior should have been heartening. After all, the youngster was finally embracing her place in the clan, right? Perhaps now she might also let down her guard and fully accept us as the friends we were trying to become.
Unfortunately, I had a sinking suspicion that the independent-minded youngster would only consider this episode yet another instance of being forced to do another’s bidding against her will. And sure enough, when I sniffed the air, the emotions rolling off my charge still seethed with tension rather than mirroring her body’s mellow posture.
Yep, the conclusion was clear. The battle I’d been trying to avoid had ripped away whatever tenuous illusion of safety Lupe had been able to drape around her wounded soul. And Hunter’s show of force had cleaved my own shared bond with the girl asunder.
Chapter 4
BEFORE I COULD DO ANYTHING to mitigate the situation, though, my already precarious hold on reality weakened as pinpricks of light spun in front of my eyes. Starlight, rainbows, sunshine, muttered my wolf inanely. In response, I gulped down bile and attempted to recover my stability before I fell flat on my face.
Instantly, Lupe was forgotten as Hunter’s gaze zeroed in on my face. “Are you okay
?” he demanded.
I fingered the back of my head, certain there’d be blood trickling out of my scalp and creating a matted mess of tangled hair. But, no, my skull was just the way I’d left it. Clearly I was overreacting to what had really only been a very minor trauma.
“I’m fine,” I lied. Then, with more enthusiasm: “And, look, the sun is setting.”
Fifteen minutes earlier, the observation would have set off howls of joy from the antsy bloodlings who’d been waiting for this moment all day long. But now the young wolves continued to lie passively around the room, eyes intent upon Hunter’s every move as they waited for a sign of their alpha’s further displeasure.
The joyful shifters who had competed at Hunter’s games earlier in the afternoon had fled without a trace and I found myself clenching my fists in frustration. This wasn’t the way I’d intended to inaugurate our new era as a semi-official shifter pack. This wasn’t the memory I wanted any of us to hold of what I hoped would be a very important day that would change the course of our lives forever.
So I straightened my bowed shoulders, forcing myself not to wince as a sharp spasm attempted to wrench my back in two different directions at once. My vision dimmed yet further as an ominous ringing took up residence in my ears, sending my wolf whimpering into a hidden fold of my small intestine. Whatever was going on with me wasn’t limited to my human half, and neither one of us appreciated the unexpected infirmity one bit.
Hunter’s nostrils flared as he assessed my quivering body and squinty eyes. Even without slipping down the tether that connected us via the mate bond, he could tell that I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t even pretty good.
But my mate was also far more of an alpha than I could ever hope to become. So he accepted the fact that we weren’t just a pair of footloose and fancy-free wolves any longer. Instead, we’d donned the mantle of pack leaders for a score of young and needy wolves.
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