I Am The Alpha (20 page)

Damn it!

“STOP IT!” Markus bellowed and everyone froze. Silence fell over the clearing. Rom pushed himself to his feet and spat a mouthful of blood to the side before he straightened up and glared at me.

“You’re going to get yourself into more trouble than you can deal with one of these days, Little Cub,” he sneered at me. “You don’t deserve to be the Alpha!” With that he turned and stalked away into the night outside the reach of the firelight.

The positive vibe that I had been getting from the crowd vanished rather quickly. And the smug grin that Remus gave me didn’t make me feel any better about the situation.

“Something’s not right here,” I muttered to no one in particular ten minutes later. The meeting was beginning to break up, people starting to gather their belongings to leave.

“What is it, Son?” Markus asked.

“Rom left too easy, and Remus is still here, he looks smug too.”

“So?” Markus glanced over at Remus standing a few yards away with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. “What’s that matter?”

“Have you ever seen the one of the twins without the other being nearby?” I asked. “Ever?”

Markus frowned as he considered that. “Rom is still around here somewhere. But why?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. He already did enough damage pointing out that I brought a hunter’s daughter– NO!” I had turned as I spoke, unconsciously looking for Chloe in the crowd and when I spotted her the entire purpose behind Remus and Romulus’ lingering presence fell into place for me.

Off to my right, about twenty feet away Remus stood, watching me, an openly curious look on his face. Forty feet away, directly across the clearing from me stood Chloe next to Nora. The two were talking amiably enough and behind them, running silently on four feet came Rom in his wolf form. Not his Hybrid. I rushed forward but there was no way I would make it in time.

He leaped into the air and a low, thunderous growl echoed across the clearing. He body checked Nora in midair, sending her flying before he planted all four paws into Chloe’s back and knocked her onto her stomach, his teeth flashed once, gleaming in the torchlight.

“Romulus no!” Remus shouted and Chloe screamed my name, panicked.

“William!”
Rom’s head darted forward and then reared back, his teeth stained with a splash of crimson.

The agonized scream that tore its way out of Chloe’s throat reached in through my ears, past the human portion of my brain, grabbed my wolf and
pulled,
hard
. I barely remember what happened next. A red film of pure rage coated my vision and the next clear memory I have was of lying in the dirt with my arms held and a heavy weight across my back.

“No, Kid, you can’t do anything right now,” Markus was shouting insistently in my ear. Someone was screaming over and over, a masculine counterpoint to Chloe’s high shrieks and cries of pain. Took me a moment to realize it was me.

“Calm down Pup, you don’t want to do this right now,” Remus said. He was on my right, my arm held in a complicated hold that I couldn’t pull free of. He sounded almost as stunned as the rest of the wolves standing around openmouthed.

“I’m going to kill you both, you motherfucker!” I roared in his face. He didn’t even blink, taking my anger calmly.

“And you probably have every right to, but you’re not going to do anything. Not right now.”

Rom stood across from us, back in human form. He’d acquired a pair of pants from somewhere, thankfully. At his feet Chloe lay in a crumpled heap, sobbing, screaming from the pain. The initial bite hurt like a motherfucker. Like your blood had been replaced with acid from the sight of the wound, spreading throughout your whole body. Not everyone survived a bite to become wolf-kind…

“Chloe!” I screamed while the Pack stood around us, some of them muttered quietly, angrily, but I couldn’t tell with who, Romulus or me.

Blood had already begun to pool beneath her from the deep lacerations in the shoulder opposite my bite mark. She bit down on her cries and whimpered, tears streamed down her face as her blue eyes met mine across the pine and leaf litter. The pain in those eyes, that had just hours before sparkled with her smile, fuck, it tore at me.

“Chloe!” I screamed again and struggled anew against the hold they had on me. I just managed to shake Markus loose enough that I got my arm free, twisted and punched Remus as hard as I could throwing him back and away from me. I heaved off whoever had been on my back and lurched to my feet, sprinting across the grass toward the vertical dead man I had my eyes set on. Rom simply grinned as a weight slammed into me and I was driven face first into the dirt again. Chloe screamed, her voice high and tight with fear and enough to make everyone wince at the sound.

“Shut up!” Rom yelled. He spun and one foot lashed out catching Chloe squarely in the face and sending her sprawling in the dirt, almost close enough for me to reach her.

A hand came down into my view, grabbing Chloe’s sweatshirt and ripping it the rest of the way off her body, exposing the healed scar on her shoulder.

“So! Baby Brother chooses a mate,” Rom said mockingly, with a heavy sneer. “And not only that, but he chooses a Hunter’s bitch, I mean, bad enough to be human but one of
theirs
?
” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously as the muttering spread through the crowd even louder and faster.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” I swore and he looked down at me, disdain clear on his face.

“You can’t touch her right now. I’ve bitten her. She’s Moon Forged, and by Pack law, my progeny. She’s
mine
now.” He picked her unconscious body up and threw her casually over his shoulder as I started fighting against my new captors.

“I’ll kill you!” I screamed.

Without a word he turned and walked away, Remus joining him with one last backward look at me, the expression on his face dispassionate but also, spooked somehow.

“Do you hear me, Romulus?” I screamed my throat raw. “Do you hear me? I’m going to fucking kill you, you motherfucker!”

***

A couple of hours later Markus was shaking his head at me as we stood in my shop.

“It’s not good, Boy,” he uttered. I could have guessed that but I grunted quietly to tell Markus I was listening.

“I’m serious!”

“I get it. Start talking and give me something I can work with. Give me some fucking options, Man, because I’ll tell you, I’m really not in the fucking mood, Markus.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away from the tree sculpture.

“A little under three hours ago you were beaten by Romulus.”

“And thank you for twisting the knife,” I snapped and threw down the rag in my hand.

“I’m not twisting the knife, Boy! I’m trying to explain the lay of the political land to you. Jesus! So instead of sulking like the goddamned Cub Rom is forever calling you, you might want to get your head out of your ass and try listening to me.

“Now Romulus beat you. Not physically, he outsmarted you this time around. The Pack doesn’t feel very secure with the idea of you as our Alpha if you couldn’t even protect your mate from your own damn brother. You should have known better than anyone what he’s capable of.”

I lowered my head and he stood there, pushing me up against the side of the tree.

“Look at me,” he snapped. “The Pack has already decided that Rom should be the new Alpha, it’s over, unless you exercise your singular right in this situation. It’s your last option and it might be your only chance to get your woman back so I suggest you take it! Even if I think it’s a damned fool idea.” He shook his head, “I ain’t blind, William. I saw the way you looked at her before you called me in a panic, you were already mated. Didn’t need no bite to seal the deal.”

I said nothing and after a minute he sighed and let me go. I took up the rag I had dropped and turned back to the tree, wiping away the dust that had accumulated on the surface where I needed to attach another branch for the canopy support. When I said nothing, Markus sighed again and turned away.

“Markus?” I said when he reached the door and pulled it open.

“What is it, Son?”

“I need to tell the Arbiter something.”

He hesitated for a second. “Well, I
am
the Arbiter.”

“I know.”

“What did you need to say then?”

“I need the Arbiter to tell Romulus that I, William Reese, am issuing a formal challenge of combat for the position of Alpha of the Pacific North West Pack which holds the Washington Territory.”

There was a heavy silence for a moment, and when he spoke again I could almost hear the pride in his voice through the fear.

“The challenge will commence on the next full moon, as dictated by tradition,” he uttered.

“Conditions of the challenge?” I asked, to be clear.

“Winner of the challenge will become the new Alpha, barring another challenge from someone else.”

“And the loser?” I just needed to hear him say it.

“The loser won’t have much to worry about. You know as well as I do that to wolf-kind you haven’t won a challenge if your opponent is still breathing.”

Chapter 14

Chloe

I winced, and raised my hand to my face which itched. Something flaked, under my nose, over my mouth and I squeezed my eyes shut, opening them onto an unfamiliar bedroom done in grays and blacks. I pulled my hand away from my face and winced at the flakes of dried blood there.

I felt hot. Like feverish, and I was scared. I couldn’t remember… oh. Oh, no!

I closed my eyes and hot tears gathered beneath my eyelids, seeping from between my lashes. I could hear
everything
and it was unnerving as hell. I could hear the water in the pipes, the thrum of electricity along the wires in the walls… I could hear the twins arguing out in the main room but when I tried to focus on what they were saying it was too late.

“Shh! She’s awake,” one of them said and I bolted into action. I pulled myself across the bed to the opposite side, away from the door and wedged myself into the corner between the nightstand and wall on that side.

I wasn’t any kind of match for the two of them, but if they wanted to get fresh, then fuck, I would make them work for it! The door opened. I couldn’t tell them apart but if I had to guess, I would place Rem as the one through the door first. His expression dour. Romulus followed, a nasty grin on his face. Rem put his back to the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, scowling at his brother who crouched down in front of me, arms resting on his knees.

“Looks like you made it, Little Pup,” he smiled and it wasn’t nice. He reached out to touch me and I snarled, snapping at him. I clapped a hand over my mouth at the inhuman sound and fresh tears leaked. I felt such an incredible amount of anger, coiled in my chest, swirling… no
,
circling
. I could almost visualize it now. A wolf, padding in circles in my mind’s eye. Wary, cornered, she looked at me with sympathy in her white-blue eyes, her coat a lovely cream, frosted reddish at the tips.

“Oh my God,” I moaned from behind my hands and Romulus
laughed
.
He fucking
laughed
like it was the funniest goddamned thing on Earth and that anger surged again, but I had started out human and I wasn’t willing to let that humanity go just yet and so what I did next was a very human thing to do.

I spit in his face. I spit in his face and I had to smirk because I got him good! He didn’t like that, he didn’t like it at all because I heard Remus shout at his brother, “No Rom, don’t!” just before Romulus’ fist crashed into my face. Bone crunched, pain shot through me at a phenomenal rate and my head snapped back into the wall behind me and everything went dark again.

***

The
second
time I woke in the bedroom, I was back on the bed and I was worse off than I’d started the first time. The first time I’d woken up, I had been in my own clothes. The ones I had left William’s house in, even if they had been pretty crusted with dirt and my blood. This time I wore nothing but a slinky black satin nightgown that left little to the imagination.

I sat up sharply, movement off my right side startling me. A growl escaped me and I bit my lips together and waited for my pounding heart rate to slow. It was a mirror. Just a mirror. I blinked at my reflection, hardly recognizing myself. I mean, I looked like me but it was like I had been nearly blind my whole life and now the veil had been lifted off my eyes. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stared into the mirrored, closet doors.

The thin, spaghetti straps of the nightgown left my upper chest and body bare, the sweetheart neckline plunging low. I swallowed hard. The material clung to my body, accentuating what curves I did have, tumbling so long it hid the tops of my feet. I guess I could be grateful for that. I brushed fingertips over my shoulder where Romulus had bitten me.

Oh God, I had never been through anything like it before. The bite had burned like acid but it hadn’t stopped at just the site of the wound, no, that acid had spilled through my blood, traveled through every vein and vessel, burning me hollow from the inside out. I couldn’t stop my screaming, I’d wanted to, I knew it was probably hurting William to hear it but I couldn’t. No matter how hard I had tried. I couldn’t keep myself from making a sound.