Forbidden Alliance: A Werewolf's Tale (Forbidden Alliance Trilogy) (50 page)

“Oh,” she said quietly then licked her lips.
“
Tanis,
I
don’t want you buying me things
.
If I need it, I will get it myself.
You have enough people
to support.”

I pinched her lips
together.
“Stop.
I will do what I like when I like.
It is mw
brass
to do what I want with. Duckie, y
ou are
me
only concern at this point.
Me siblings can make their own
brass
if they
only got off of their lazy arses
.
Both are amazingly talented in the arts.
Steffen and
Abby
have their
own money; she is nearly seven
-
hundred
years old.
Steffen is an amazing carpenter and can easily make a million with only a dozen pieces of furniture or so.
Toran works as well, in fact, he has been out of town nearly all week away on business.
It is not
a big deal, Duckie.
I will buy you what I want
,
when I want.
Agreed?”

She shook her head.

“
Believe it or not, I
a
m
nearly as stubborn as you are
,” I informed her in case she had forgotten.

She rolled her eyes but smiled
.
“I
wouldn’t be so sure about that
,” she mumbled so I released her lips.

Just then,
Romeo and Jarvis came running over with three very
narked
men behind them.

“Oops,” Jarvis
said with a giggle and ducked
behind his sister.
“I did something naughty,” he
whispered
while Romeo laughed hysterically.

An irate woman pushed he
r way through the snarling men
.
“This is unacceptable.
You will pay for this you little piece of shit!
I challenge you, Jay Dee Lightfoot, for your brother and his little friend’s
bullshit
!”

“
Damn it
,” Jay Dee and I said under our breaths.

“Damn it, Jarvis, what did you do?” I whispered.

“Er,” he
started to say but ended up laughing so I punched him in the arm.
“Okay, I forgot that she was a total lesbian.
Dude, I’v
e been out of town for a while
and she could have started switch hitting or switched teams all together.”

Tanis laughed
so I smacked him in the chest
.
“Sorry, Duckie,” he
said,
then
coughed, trying to clear his throat.

Meadow glared at me
.
“Either you will accept my challenge, or I will challenge the alpha.”

Her warning had no merit
.

“You know y
ou can’t do that
,” I said. “
One, you’re not an elder.
Two, you aren’t of this pack.
And three, my mom would rip your throat out before you finished phasing.”

“I
’ll
kill you,” she snarled.

And
before
I could stop her, Cain smashed into
Meadow
, sending both of them sliding across the dance floor.
Cain’s long black and pink hair
made
he
r look like a punk shag carpet
, but her long, white fangs were nothing to laugh at—Cain had over two dozen blood trophies in only four decades of life
.

“Cain, relax
,
” I
said
.

Cain snarled at Meadow, trying to antagonize her.

“This was what I was afraid of,” I whispered to Tanis and he nodded his understanding.
“I accept your challenge,
Meadow,
” I finally conceded to keep the peace.

“You can’t d
o that,” Tanis
snarled, stepping in front of me
.

“Afraid I can’t take care of myself?” I
countered, cocking an eyebrow
.
“Get off of her, Cain.”

The pink and black wolf snapped a
t
Meadow
before strolling to my side.
Even as a wolf, her walk was overly sultry; hips swaying, tail slowly sweeping from left to right
and back again
in an innocent yet strangely seductive manner, large bright blue eyes
which contrasted
against her black and pink fur.

“I challenge you-” Meadow started but I cut her off.

“This is not your land.
You are in our home, so you will play by our rules.
The one challenged picks the event, and there is no way in hell I am going to ruin my outfit.
The black jeep is yours, correct?”
I asked.

She glared at me
but
nodded.

“Is that rifle in the back window just for show, so everyone thinks you’re that redneck backwoods country girl you envision yourself to be?”

“Unlike you, I know
what I am
,” Meadow snarled.

“I know
exactly what I am
,” I
said before smirking.
“
I’m a
broke ass reservation girl with a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollar BMW.”

Tanis laughed, as did Jarvis.

It
wasn’t
often that I brag...
in fact, I
had never
bragged about anything in my life, so
that
was unsettling but felt
really
good.

“I’m sure you don’t even want to know how much my damn underwear cost, but that didn’t answer
my question, you damn Gretchen
Wilson
wannabe
,
white
trash
,
trailer
park
princess that
ain’t even
a half-blood. C
an you shoot or what?”

No
w
everyone in the pack was watching and roaring with laughter; the white people didn’t get it.

Yes,” she eventually snarled.

“Jarvis
,” I said.

“Yeah,
S
is?”

“Since you caused this,” I
said and
glared at him
.
“William Tell.”

He rolled his eyes
and made a face.
“How much have you had to drink?”

I looked down at my nearly full
bottle of
beer.
“A thimbleful,” I assured him.

Jarvis kis
sed me quickly on the forehead
.
“Works for me.
As long as it’s less than a keg, I’m game.
I’ll grab Sir William,” he
said then
took off running.

“Who is Sir William?” Tanis whispered.

“You’ll see,” I
said
and waved him towards the beach.

Everyone followed
,
eager to watch the show.
Even my parents and Tanis’ joined us to watch the challenge.
Yahto and a few others set some empty beer bottles
up on a makeshift
stand
halfway down the
beach
and cleared everyone from behind it.

“To answe
r your question,” I whispered
, leaning into Tanis
, “when I was eight or nine,
D
ad won a rifle in a poker game.
It was broken and needed some tender loving care.
Since I liked to ta
ke shit apart, even back then,
D
ad gave it to me.
It only took me a week to fix it and get it
in nearly new condition, so
D
ad and
U
ncle
Joe
taught me to shoot.
From there it just kind of grew.”

“I
do not
understand,” he admitted.
“
You are
going to shoot beer bottles
as if this is
old west?” he
asked skeptically, yet it came out overly smug and
conveyed that he was
slightly disgusted at the thought
.

“Something like that,” I
said with a shrug.

Jarvis returned with Sir William
slung over
his shoulder
and
apple in hand.
“What’d I miss?” he asked between bites.

“Nothing, she’s still lining up her shot,” I
said and made a face
.

From eighty yards away, five shots broke through
three
bottles.

“I’m impressed,” I called out.
“By the looks of you, I wouldn’t have thought you could hit the broad side of a barn.”

Meadow flipped me off. “
Beat that
, bitch
.”

“Oh, I plan on it and then some.
And when I do,
you will shut the hell up and
take your flannel-wearing ass back to your singlewide
and never step foot on our land again
.” I smiled wide.
“Wait here,” I
whispered and
winked at Tanis
before taking
Sir William from Jarvis.

“Don’t shoot me in the head,”
Jarvis
teased, kissing me on the forehead.

“I’ll try not to,” I
assured him then headed
in the opposite direction.

In passing,
Jarvis took one of the lit tiki
-
torches
that was lighting up
the beach and strolled at a leisurely pace, taking large bites of the apple as he went.
When we were three hundred yards apart, give or take, Jarvis put the apple core upright on the top of his head and waited with the torch in the sand next to him to give me a point of light to focus on.

“I told you to stay,” I told the darkness.

“That you did,
however
,
I was curious
,”
Tanis said from the edge of the woods.
“What are you two doing exactly?”

“You know William Tell?”
I asked.