The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 1)

Annie is a lot craftier than I give her credit for. I took her to the garage to show her how to get the Ford’s engine to turn over. Liam won’t let us take a pack vehicle to the market because the males would smell us in the cab, so we have to take an old junker. The Ford’s the best of a bad bunch.

When we rounded the building and Killian’s wolf bounded up, the keys were in my hand. There’s no explicit rule against us driving, but females aren’t allowed to leave pack land, and we aren’t taught to drive like the males. Except for my girls—who I taught—none of the females except Abertha knows how.

She’s the one who taught me on the trails by the old quarry. I don’t know where she got her rusty hippie van, nor do I know how she kept it running as long as she did, but I miss that old girl. Liam tore it up for parts a few years ago.

Anyway, the keys would lead to questions I don’t want to answer. I figured I’d bend my neck and make a quick escape, but then Killian’s wolf got friendly. He wanted to play. I swear, he was just like Fallon when I used to live with the Campbells, all paws and slobber.

Killian’s wolf is a beautiful animal. Like snow cast with moon shadows. And soft. So soft. It’s clear as soon as you look into his golden eyes that he’s nothing like Killian.

My wolf and I are similar. Not identical. I’m more cynical and world weary and cautious—for obvious reasons. She still has a pup’s enthusiasm. Maybe because she hasn’t been able to run free yet. At the end of the day, though, we’re the same. She’s the inside, I’m the outside, but we share a soul.

Killian and his wolf are completely different. His wolf is canny. His playfulness was a ploy. He wanted close to my wolf, and since he couldn’t force me to shift, he figured he needed to make friends. Killian doesn’t know how to do anything but bark orders. His wolf, though—he’s slick. Observant.

Until the other night at dinner, I don’t think Killian’s ever really looked at me, but his wolf is completely tuned into everything. I was panicking at first. The keys were in my fist, and my palms were sweating like crazy. The wolf was nudging my other hand. I pet him to distract him. Luckily, that’s what he was going for—pets.

I smile, remembering. That gargantuan killer beast wanted rubs.

Annie was terrified. At one point, I scented piss in the air, but she pulled it together and wriggled up to me. I dropped the keys in the grass, and she crawled right on top of them. I don’t know how she picked them up, but when I finally peeked down, they were gone, and she was hanging out with Liam by the truck.

She might actually be able to pull off the mushroom run.

Maybe things are turning around. I lay low for a while, and my new buddy Killian’s wolf convinces him to ignore me like he used to. This could all be a bad dream, and I can get back to business as usual.

I’m actually feeling pretty good as Annie and I turn onto the path that leads up to our cabin, but then I catch a scent on the breeze. Male sweat and Bengay. My wolf’s hackles rise, and a nervous whine erupts from Annie’s chest.

Striding towards us down the path are Eamon and Lochlan Byrne. Annie shuffles closer to my side.

It’s weird to see them here. No one uses our path but us. There’s nothing except our place and the groundskeeper’s shed at the top. Maybe they’re cutting through after patrol.

I don’t like Lochlan, but I hate Eamon. Once, when I was younger and staying with the Campbells, they had him over for dinner. He was a big deal then. Declan Kelly’s beta. He leered at me all night, and then he said to Dan Campbell, “It’s a pity about her legs, but I guess they’ll spread just fine.”

Eileen hustled me off to the kitchen to help her with the dishes.

The past decade hasn’t been kind to him. His knuckles are gnarled, and the hair on his head has receded, although his mutton chops are as bushy as ever.

Lochlan is his nephew. Eamon raised him. They’re two of a kind. They walk the same, hunched but swaggering, arms swinging. Like wiry, foul-tempered chimpanzees.

As they plow forward, I get no sense that they’re going to make way. Annie dodges into the tall grass, but I’m not that nimble. I’m still in the middle of the path when they come to a stop, inches from me.

My wolf growls, baring her teeth, and my heart thunders. I shrink back. She’s going to get us killed. We’re alone.

I make to step aside, but Eamon grabs my upper arm, digging his fingers into the muscles. His sneer is echoed on Lochlan’s face. Both their noses flare. They must smell Killian.

“Not so fast.” Eamon rakes his eyes down my front, pausing at the white and silver hairs I didn’t manage to brush off. I jerk my arm, but he squeezes tighter, the tips of his claws snicking, ripping my sleeve.

Instinctively, I reach for the place the bond was, but there’s nothing there.

My wolf wants to fight. She’s riding some kind of high from taming Killian’s beast. I tamp down hard. That’s not reality. We’re outranked and outnumbered, and I can taste the malice wafting off these two.

In my periphery, I see Annie skulking away. Both males are focused on me. She’s going to bolt.

Go, girl. I need to distract them.

“What do you want?” I force the words out of my tight throat.

A rumble sounds in Eamon’s chest. “What was I just telling you, Lochlan? When I was beta, bitches didn’t speak unless you asked ‘em a question. Shit’s gotten way too lax around here.”

Lochlan nods in full agreement. From the corner of my eye, I see Annie inching farther up the path.

“If you have a problem, take it up with the alpha.” I brace for a cuff to the side of the head. I’ve seen Eamon deliver those blows to his mate for as long as I can remember. I can hardly breathe; my chest is so tight.

“And if a bitch didn’t learn when to keep her mouth shut, well—” Eamon grins at Lochlan. “Hard to talk with no teeth.”

Lochlan nods again. “Some bottom feeders have gotten real comfortable around here. Attacking their betters.”

He’s talking about Haisley.

“No matter what Killian Kelly does, you can’t change the reality of rank in a wolf pack,” Eamon says.

He extends his claws just enough to prick my skin. Annie has disappeared over the crest of the hill, and I’m sweating bullets, but I can breathe a little better now that she’s safe.

Eamon leans down to whisper in my ear. His sideburns scratch my cheek. “Strength rules. It always has. It always will. And you and your band of rejects aren’t very strong, now, are you?”

He straightens, retracting his claws and dropping my arm, and gazes up at the blue sky. Then he steps off the path and waves me forward. “Enjoy this while you can, female. Change is coming. Something tells me you and the other sluts up the hill aren’t gonna like it very much.”

He slams his shoulder into mine as he passes, knocking me back, and by the time I steady myself, they’re gone. My blood is thundering in my veins, and my crazy little wolf is leaping, snapping her teeth, straining to attack. It’s all I can do to hold her in.

And then Annie, Mari, and Kennedy’s massive beast of a black wolf come racing down the path.

My heart stutters with relief, and then gladness. When he comes to a halt beside me, I plunge my fingers into Kennedy’s thick, silky pelt. He stares toward camp with his unearthly silver eyes, lips peeled back from inch long incisors. It’s clear he wants to go after them, but that he won’t leave us to do it.

“You came to my rescue,” I murmur. This is such a risk for her. The wolf growls low in the back of his throat, and then he licks my hand.

“What did they want?” Mari asks. “Were they messing with you ‘cause you attacked Haisley?”

“Kind of?” Haisley is a Byrne—Lochlan’s cousin and Eamon’s niece. They’ve never seemed to give a crap about her before though. “Eamon was, like, doing a whole villain monologue.”

Mari shudders. “His sideburns are creepy as shit.”

“Agreed.”

“A-are you going to tell Killian?” Annie asks.

I wrap an arm around her waist as we turn to walk home. She’s shaking like a leaf. “Why would I?”

“So he can tell them to leave you alone.”

I shake my head. I’m not opening any can of worms with Killian Kelly. That was bad and scary, but it’s just words. We’ve all heard it before, and we will again. In Declan Kelly’s day, blah blah blah. You females better watch out because blah, blah, blah.

I don’t want to say that, though. It might be true, but I don’t want to ever tell my girls we just have to ‘suck it up, buttercup.’ So I say, “Killian’s not my mate.”

“But he is your alpha,” Mari pipes in.

I’m not sure why the point makes me grumpy, but I get quiet, and when we get back to the cabin, I turn down a beer and excuse myself to take a shower before kitchen duty.

I’ve got wolf drool and hairs all over me, and my clothes reek of Killian’s wolf. That’s probably why the Byrnes decided to hassle me. I walk the blouse and skirt to the hamper while I run the water, and because I’m weird, I hold them to my nose and sniff.

All the lingering disquiet from the encounter with the Byrnes dissipates, and my wolf’s tail wags, excitement thrumming in my middle.

Killian’s scent is awesome. Like the one night each summer growing up when the elders let us pups go to the fireman’s carnival in town—humid haze, velvet darkness, candy apples, the tantalizing trace of plentiful prey, and happy howls.

The scent drags me back in time, uncoiling the anxious knot in my belly and winding me up at the same time. It’s dark magic. Tempting. Familiar.

Intriguing.

I dangle the clothes over the hamper lid, but I don’t let go.

I should soak them in the sink so the place doesn’t reek of male. Laundry day isn’t until Friday. The other girls don’t want to catch a whiff of alpha every time they use the bathroom. Talk about harshing your mellow.

I should do that, but instead, I walk them back to my bedroom, fold them neatly. and hang them over the chair by my bed where I put the clothes that I figure I can get another wear out of before washing.

It’s dumb and embarrassing, something a girl would do right before her first heat, the kind of nesting mimicry that girls always got teased for in high school. It’s a ridiculous thing to do, but my wolf approves wholeheartedly. It gives her ideas.

I head back to the shower, and while I scrub briskly from head to toe, rinsing off the fear scent with scalding hot water, she bounces around—the Byrnes forgotten—spitballing. We should go for a run with Killian’s wolf. Sleep huddled up next to him. Wear the skirt to dinner so the other females know he’s ours.

I put the kibosh on that. Not ours. Don’t want.

She growls, but her heart’s not in it, the silly, giddy, ball of sunshine.

Not ours. Leave him alone. No fighting.

I flex, force her to recognize that I’m serious. She whines, and then she tucks herself in a corner, grumbling.

She’s not actually going to act on her ideas. She’s chastened. Haisley’s wolf tore her up. She’s painfully aware of her limits now, and besides, I don’t think she can take me by surprise again. I know the sensation of an oncoming shift now. I’ll be able to stop her if she tries to take our skin.

I’m sorry that she’s disappointed, but she’ll get over it. We both will.

I hustle back to my room, wrapped in my towel, after listening to make sure Kennedy’s playing her video games out front. Mari, Annie, and I don’t mind a little nudity—or in Mari’s case, a lot—but Kennedy is bashful.

I sit at the vintage school desk I use as a vanity and take my time brushing and braiding my hair. Old Noreen never really needs us until it’s time to serve. She says we get under foot.

My oval mirror hangs on a nail from the wall. I scavenged it from the white elephant table at the farmer’s market. My seat is a step ladder that I found in the outbuilding across the path. Mari’s terrified of the place, but it’s just an old groundskeeper’s shed. There’s not much in there except cans of dried-up paint and glass jars filled with cobwebs and nails.

Sometimes I wonder what the other female’s rooms look like, the ones who mated at first heat, or the ones with fathers or uncles to live with. The “protected” females. Do they have nice, matching furniture? Framed pictures and padded satin hangers for the clothes they buy from town?

I watch HGTV. Do they have an accent wall? A window seat filled with pillows?

I’m not jealous. Not much. In a way, it’s my worst nightmare. I don’t want to be accountable to a male for where I go and what I do. But I do wonder. What’s it like knowing there’s a powerful male looking out for you?

A memory flashes. Killian’s wolf laying sprawled on my lap, his sharp eyes taking in everything—me, the garage, Liam and Annie, the birds overhead, the distant forest hoots and cracks and snaps. I wasn’t alone. No one would have dared approach us. Touch my arm. Prick my skin with their claws.

I rub my biceps. The nicks are already healed.

My wolf yips and waggles and rolls. She likes remembering. She wants me to rush down to the lodge. Find him. Lick his face. Tickle underneath his chin with our fur.

Down girl.

I purposefully picture the other night. Haisley’s wolf leaping for my wolf’s throat. Killian watching. Not moving a muscle.

She whimpers and slows her roll. It’s tough love, but she’s going to have to learn. He’s a dead-end street.

I take my time picking out my outfit, settling on a periwinkle blue maxi dress with long sleeves and sandals. It’s a synthetic fiber, but I like how it flows when I walk. Silky and soft. I don’t have a lot of sensation around some of my worst scars, so I like soft fabrics that whisper over the skin I can feel.

I wash a cereal bowl Kennedy left full of milk in the sink, and I fold a quilt Mari dropped on the floor, laying it on the back of our secondhand sofa. I shut the windows. There’s a hint of an approaching thunderstorm in the air. Then, finally, when I can’t think of anything else to do, I stop putzing around and head for dinner.

The evening is cooler than it has been. There’s that undernote of rain, but the sky overhead is cloudless and almost purple as the sun sets.

I can’t imagine living anywhere else. The ridge, the ravine, the river, the caves, and the foothills. The seesawing mountain breezes and valley breezes. It’s my territory. It runs through me like veins, connecting all my parts to the earth.

But I also wish I was a million miles away.

With each step, my dread grows. The pack is going to stare. Talk shit. Laugh. I lost a challenge, and that’s how a pack works. It teaches you your place.

And the Byrnes will be there, smug that they’ve put me in my place.

I’d happily skip dinner, but Annie, Mari, and Kennedy expect me. They went ahead, always anxious about being late. God forbid a male wants a beer and has to get it himself.

I shouldn’t be so critical. I was just like them when I was their age. Being a lone female messes with your mind. You’re consigned to the kitchen, the furthest cabin from the commons, the jobs where you don’t have unsupervised interactions with unmated males—in other words, the sucky ones. You’re pack, but not. You’re a satellite.

Easy to pick off.

Humans like to talk about “alone time” as if it’s a good thing. That’s how far they are from their herd origins. “Alone time” means you’ve been left behind. It means you’re on your own, and no one has your back. And there are predators out there. Still.

An old memory of gnashing fangs and screams surges from my subconscious. I slam it back down and walk a little quicker the rest of the way to the lodge. The evening has shadows now, and strange sounds. A shiver zips up my spine.

When I slip through the screen door, Old Noreen is piling serving dishes on trays. Annie and Mari are shoveling food into their mouths while standing at a counter, and Kennedy’s squatting on an overturned bucket in a back corner, absorbed by her phone.

“Took your time, eh?” Old Noreen swipes her forehead with a dish towel. “Come on then. This isn’t that movie with the hot beast in highwater pants. The dishes aren’t gonna dance themselves out.”

Kennedy snorts from her corner. Mari wrinkles her button nose and says, “I don’t get it.”

I grab a tray. There’s a knot in my stomach.

This is it. The last time the pack saw me, I was naked and covered in my own blood. This is step one in painting over that picture. It needs to be done, so therefore, I can do it. That’s my mantra.

My face burns. It feels like forever ago, but it was only three nights. Pack memory goes much, much longer. They’ll be reminiscing about the time my wolf went suicidal for years to come.

I can’t hide from it. All I need to do is push open the door and walk through. Piece of cake. Done it a hundred times. The sooner I get to it, the sooner I can trade places with Kennedy and go back to researching mushroom cultivation. The pack can be awful, but if I fall back in line and tuck my tail, they’ll go back to ignoring me.

“Do you want a kick in the ass to get you moving?” Kennedy pipes up from her corner.

“Kicking it myself,” I mutter.

I square my shoulders as much as I can carrying a huge round tray, and then I knock the swinging door open with my hip and hold it for Mari and Annie.

A hundred heads swivel. Voices hush except for a nasty laugh here and there.

Against my will, my gaze flies to Killian. He’s in his place on the dais, his bulk overwhelming the metal folding chair, legs cockily sprawled as he lounges on his throne.

He has two modes when he’s up there—the pissy lord of all he surveys or the arrogant emperor willing to be entertained. Based on his posture, I’d say tonight we’re in for the latter. That’s good. Usually that means less blood to mop off the floor at the end of the night.

Ivo is crouched beside him, bending his ear. I venture out into the great room, and Killian glances at me for a split second. Then he casually—and very deliberately—looks away, replying to Ivo, dismissing me from his notice.

My heart drops.

Cool. That’s cool.

The pack takes it as a cue. Conversations resume. I’m no big deal again. There’s some pointed snickering, but the mood in the room mellows, the focus returning to food. I lower my eyes to the floor and keep moving.

Killian’s giant silver wolf is only a vague presence in the background tonight. Killian the man is in full control, and he obviously has no interest in me.

Good.

That’s what I wanted.

I swallow past the lump in my throat and make my way to the front of the room. Serving the lieutenants and the other fighters is my job. Mari takes the elders and pups. Annie and Kennedy trade off on the others.

Serving the lieutenants isn’t an honor or anything. The unmated males hit on everyone but me and Old Noreen, and it makes Annie and Mari anxious—and skeeves Kennedy out to no end—so I take one for the team.

The unmated fighters sit at two tables by the dais—A-roster and B-roster. A-roster is closest. The lieutenants and a few other favored fighters are always seated there. They make room for Jaime if he’s on a winning streak and Alfie if he hasn’t pissed off anyone lately. And then there are the high-ranking females. Ivo’s sister Rowan. Killian’s cousin Ashlynn. Haisley.

Haisley’s mother Cheryl is the alpha female. She eats with her mate at the high-ranking elder table and then floats around the great room, ostensibly “supervising.” Mostly she makes us fetch things until she gets drunk and forgets about us.

The B-roster table buffers A-roster from the elders so the lieutenants don’t have to listen to their stories. B-roster is generally younger. Dominant, but not oozing aggression like A-roster. There are no females at B-roster’s table—they don’t rank high enough to draw female interest—and yet, overall, they’re a lot better behaved.

Tonight, I serve B-roster first. Finn and Alfie shoot me dirty looks, and I smirk on the inside. I take my time going back to refill my tray. Packmates whisper as I pass, but if I don’t focus, I can’t make out what they’re saying. I keep my eyes straight ahead and think about mushrooms.

Besides the product I have ready to sell now, I have maybe six or seven pounds drying in the shack behind Abertha’s. They’ll be ready for market in a month. If the deal with ShroomForager3000 works out, I might have a steady buyer. That’s another four or five hundred dollars. The girls and I could upgrade our phone plan to unlimited data. Or we could reinvest the profits.

The morels were a lucky find, but they’re going to run out. I want to cultivate them. You have to capture the spores in a slurry—which sounds foul and probably smells rancid—and then after you seed the right area, it takes a couple years for the mycelium to form, but then you’re golden. A cash crop with minimal upkeep. What else am I doing with my life? Beats the hell out of bees. The competition with honey is getting too fierce.

Suddenly, there’s a tan work boot in my path.

I dash left, quickly skirting the leg. While I was passing, Alfie stretched into the aisle with no warning. Inconsiderate dick. It was a close call.

What was I thinking about?

Mushrooms.

With the whole farm-to-table, slow food, locavore movements, there’s a growing market. I wish I could brand them as Quarry Pack morels. Shifters still have a mystique, even if it’s faded since the packs came out in the 50s. We get the occasional fanatic trying to sneak onto our territory, and Chapel Bell, the nearest town, has made a cottage industry out of wolf tchotchkes and New Age “moon power” crap—crystals and dream catchers and essential oils and tarot cards.

Why shouldn’t we cash in, too?

The elders go on and on about the dignity of the beast and pack pride and the mandate of destiny, but at the end of the day, the pack pays its bills by charging humans and rich shifters to watch our males maul each other and bet on the outcome. Dignity my ass.

The uptight elders don’t want females making our own money because then we’d have options, and they’d have less control. It’s about status. At the end of the day, everything in pack life is about status.

There are plenty of elders who see things differently, though. Nuala trades me berries from her garden for chocolate and liqueur from town—and I know she turns around and trades them to her friends for twice as much.

I’m feeling kind of cranky, so when I get back to the kitchen, I take a bathroom and phone break before I go back out with A-roster’s dinner. The great room is ringing with talk and laughter, and it feels normal. Everyone is shoveling food into their mouths except A-roster. As I pick my way to the front of the room, I’m very careful not to smirk.

When I approach the table, Haisley stands and glares at me with her arms folded. I figured she’d say something.

My wolf instinctively shrinks, but she doesn’t show her neck. That’s weird. I’d prepared myself for that. We did get owned. By all rights, my wolf should be sniffing Haisley’s butt, but she’s managed to hold onto a few scraps of pride. Good girl.

As for Haisley, I ignore her. I expect her to give me shit. That’s part and parcel of losing a challenge. You get to eat dirt until there’s a new loser.

As I start passing out dishes, she lifts her chin and gives me her back. That’s cool. Better than I expected, actually. I figured she’d run her mouth—take a few pot shots at my leg or how small my wolf is—but I guess I’m supposed to feel bad because I’m not even worth hassling.

Sweet.

I set the vegetables in front of Finn, and then I limp down to the other end of the table to unload the meat as far from him as possible. Haisley saunters past me, pats my shoulder, and struts over to the dais.

She pauses, smirking at me, making damn sure she has my attention, and then she licks her glossy lips. My wolf alerts, rigid from tail to ears, teeth bared. She’s indignant, but for some reason, she’s not trying to take our skin. I reach out to test the edges of my control, and they’re solid.

The place where the mate bond used to be is raw—like the pink flesh after the scab falls off a skinned knee—but it doesn’t throb or hurt or react at all.

Haisley props a high-heeled black leather boot on the single shallow step leading to Killian. She makes the pose work. Her apple bottom gets a lift, and so do her perky boobs. She tosses her loose blonde curls. It’s like a 90s music video to the soundtrack of shifters snarfing down brisket and talking with their mouths full.

I set the last dish on the table, intent on heading back to the kitchen, but my wolf can’t tear her eyes away. And I guess I can’t either. There’s a sinking sensation in my stomach. My wolf whimpers. There’s nothing we can do but watch.

Haisley says something to Killian. He’s still in a tête-à-tête with Ivo, but he doesn’t wave her away. She approaches him. He glances up and offers her his usual tight smile, not much more than a softening of the lips.

No. Our mate.

I ignore my wolf. She’s growing more and more agitated, but she’s not making a move to shift. I’m good. Nauseous, but good.

Whatever’s going on up on the dais has nothing to do with me.

Haisley and Killian hook up. Everyone with a nose knows, as they say. Killian’s also been with Rowan and Tierney and Finley and Iona. He’s alpha. Alphas take what they want and females are happy to give it.

Nothing is different now than it was last week or last month or last year. I’m not going to puke. Or cry. I’m gonna march my ass back to the kitchen and play on my phone until it’s time to clear the tables. Like every other night.

But instead, I stand in the aisle with the tray dangling at my side while Haisley straddles Killian’s lap. She arches her back, rising up on her pointed toes. Putting on a show. He frowns, probably because she’s distracting him from his conversation. Ivo wraps it up, clapping him on the shoulder and striding away.

Killian’s eyes find mine. They’re pure, dusky blue.

His wolf isn’t there. It’s all him. His face is inscrutable. No emotion.

Haisley winds her arms around his neck. He lets her, watching me. There’s a challenge in his eyes. Why?

I swallow down the puke creeping up my throat.

Is this a test of my wolf? To see if she’s feral enough to attack again? Or if I’m strong enough to hold her back?

Or is it a message? He’s not mine. We’re not mates. Know my place.

Alfie elbows me in the side. I glance down. He jerks his chin toward the elder’s table. Cheryl’s there, waving at me, her thin, painted eyebrows arched to her hairline.

I give myself a shake and head over, scurrying to avoid Finn’s chair as he takes the exact moment I pass to push back from the table. He doesn’t even notice me. He’s still recounting some story over his shoulder as he makes for the bathroom.

I’m somewhat out of breath by the time I make it to Cheryl. She points at a bowl of potato salad. “Heat that up,” she says, not bothering to look at me. “It’s gone cold.”

“It’s a cold salad.” I watched Old Noreen take it out of the fridge and dump it out of the plastic tub myself.

“I didn’t ask for your culinary expertise. Go stick it in the microwave for a few minutes. Dermot wants it hot.”

Right. Shit flows downhill. I forgot for a second. I grab the bowl.

“And bring more brisket when you come back,” she calls after me.

“And a pitcher of beer,” Dermot adds.

“Make it two,” another elder tacks on.

At least I have something to do. Haisley’s still grinding up on Killian, but that’s not my business. My wolf is prowling back and forth as if my body’s a cage, whining in distress, but I’m solid. Test passed. Challenge accepted.

He does what he wants. I do what I want. Thanks to Abertha, we’re not mates.

I wouldn’t want him. He has no sense of humor, and he’s boring. His interests, as far as I can tell, are the shifter circuit, boxing, MMA, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, cardio, strength training, and “bulking.” He’s the prototypical Quarry Pack male. Even if he weren’t a massive dick, I wouldn’t be into him. He’s not my type.

My wolf disagrees, but she’s judging on different criteria—mostly smell.

She won’t let me check my phone when we get back to the kitchen. After I stick the potato salad in the oven—Old Noreen won’t hear of microwaving it—my wolf drives me to stand at the kitchen door and peek out the square window.

Haisley’s turned herself around, so now she’s sitting on Killian’s lap facing the open floor. They’re watching Gael and Conor spar. Killian’s barking at Gael. “Fists up. Step into him. Quit dancing.”

His arm is loosely wound around Haisley’s waist. She’s draped back against him. His fingers rest an inch above her hip bone on the bare strip of skin below her belly shirt.

I don’t care if he’s touching her stomach. If it feels like a horse kicked my gut, that’s because my brain hasn’t gotten the message yet that the bond is gone.

I have to think about something else.

Killian’s nails are bitten to the quick and his cuticles are raw and red.

How can I see his nails from back here? It’s like I’ve got wolf vision. I try to focus on something farther away—the taxidermied falcon on the mantle above the fire. I can’t make out where his talon meets his toe. Weird. Do I only have binocular vision when it comes to Killian? That’s crappy.

I don’t want to see what he does super clearly. I don’t really care, though. This doesn’t hurt. It’s just phantom limb syndrome. Biology on the fritz.

Now Haisley’s whispering in his ear. Her lips graze his cheek. My wolf lunges, slams into her limits, and crumples. My hands twitch. My stomach aches.

He’s not my mate.

And that’s good. It’s so good.

Remember the thicket?

It was agony. I was torn and beaten and aching, and if I’d had the strength, I would have dragged myself on my belly to Killian’s door and begged him to mount me. I was alone and bleeding in a briar patch, and where was he?

He’s not my mate. He can touch whoever he wants. He can bend Haisley Byrne over up there on the dais, and I might puke, but I won’t care.

Not. My. Mate.

Kennedy taps my shoulder, and I nearly jump out of my skin. “Potato salad’s ready.”

“Shit. I need two pitchers of beer, too. I’ll get it.” I make for the keg, but Kennedy grabs my wrist to halt me.

“You just keep growling at those assholes. I’ll pour.”

“I’m growling?”

“Sure are.” She gives me a small sympathetic smile. “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

I love Kennedy. Sometimes we hang out, late at night, out on the porch after Mari and Annie have gone to bed. We talk about life. Leaving. And why we stay.

Pack life is easy in a way. Rules, taboos, status, rank. It’s all laid out for you from the day you’re born. You know where you belong, minute to minute. You don’t have to make hard choices.

But what if your heat and your wolf never come?

What if you’re female but your wolf isn’t? What are you then? Are you pack? Are you only pack if you follow the rules? If you don’t draw attention to the part of you that doesn’t fit?

Or can everyone see that you don’t really belong, and it’s only a matter of time before exile? Wouldn’t it be smarter to get the hell out of town before that happens?

No one has been exiled since Killian’s father’s time, but that wasn’t so long ago.

And we need a pack. Pack isn’t just Cheryl and Killian and Haisley and the assholes at the A-roster table. It’s also Abertha and Mari and Annie and Old Noreen and Liam and Fallon. It’s the Malones and Butlers and Campbells. It’s the pups. It’s the elders who remember my Ma and Da and will tell me new stories about them I’ve never heard before, even now after they’ve been gone so long.

I rest my forehead on the cool door. It’s an equation Kennedy and I do over and over again. The packmates we love minus the packmates we hate. The rules that crush our spirits minus the fact that we belong even less in the human world, and their ways are even more intolerable.

“Here you go, fighter.” Kennedy prods me with a filled tray. “Go get ‘em.”

I give her the finger before I take it from her.

Back in the dining rooms, packmates are howling and cheering. Conor has Gael on the ground. Killian’s riveted, oblivious to Haisley and me. She’s smiling, smug as hell, watching the fight with her arms over her head, draped around Killian’s neck.

My stomach sours. I hate this. I need to think about mushrooms, but I can’t. My wolf’s given up. She’s done with this bullshit. She’s huddled in a corner, back to the world. I want to join her.

I trudge toward the elder’s table. The leg, again, comes out of nowhere. This time, I can’t avoid it. I trip. The tray goes sailing through the air. I can’t help but put my full weight on my bad leg, and it gives in. I fall, my shoulder slamming into the floor.

“Watch that last step.” Lochlan Byrne smirks as he stares down at me. “It’s a doozy.”

I push up on my elbows. My tailbone aches. There’s beer down my dress. Potato salad on the floor. The bowl broke, and there are shards everywhere.

“Una, what on earth are you doing?” Cheryl peers down at me, hands on her hips.

My leg throbs. I wrenched it as I fell, and I landed on my bad side. I have to get up, but I can’t. I need a second. I’m in between B-roster and a pup table, but we’re close to the edge of the open floor. Everyone has a great view. There’s laughter. Murmured disapproval.

Lochlan Byrne’s lounging in his chair, smirking down at me. Finn slaps his back. I don’t look up at the dais. I don’t want to know.

I’m not even embarrassed or mad. I’ve switched to automatic pilot. I just want to get up off the floor.

I flick a chunk of potato off my calf and push up until I’m sitting upright. The aisle’s narrow, and the table top is too high to use for leverage. There’s not enough room to do my usual sitting to standing routine. It’s gonna be awkward as hell getting back on my feet. Good thing my feelings are switched to off.

I’ll feel the humiliation later.

Maybe I can grab a chair leg?

“Lochlan, what the fuck? She’s got a bad leg, asshole.” Gael abandons the fight and trots over. He elbows past a gawking Cheryl and bends over, grabbing me under the arms and hoisting me up with zero finesse.

For a second, I feel a flash of gratitude. And then Killian howls so loud that the plates rattle on the tables. He leaps from his chair, transforming into the wolf mid-air, and Haisley goes flying, landing on her butt a few feet away.

I don’t have time to do more than tense before Killian’s silver wolf bowls into Gael. Everyone scrambles for distance.

Gael flings me out of the way as Killian’s wolf smashes him into the B-roster table. Laminate cracks. People scream and scatter. Half of B-roster, including Conor, shifts. The other half freezes, cowers, and shows their necks.

The past and present collide. Snarls, cries, shouts, and blood. I freeze, too.

And then Ashlynn Kelly—who I hadn’t even noticed tonight—seizes my forearm and uses her whole weight to drag me across the floor, out of the way.

Gael somehow manages to shift. His wolf is big, but he’s nowhere near Killian’s weight class. Gael is so out-matched, he might as well be another species. A cat fighting a lion. Blood spurts, fur flies. Screams and howls fill the lodge.

“He’s gonna kill him,” Ashlynn pants.

We’re huddled behind an overturned table, stuck between a wall and the fight. Packmates in human form have clustered along the far wall. The lieutenants have all shifted. They’re circling, darting forward, trying to distract Killian’s wolf from Gael’s flagging body, but they’re uncertain, and the wolf pays them no mind.

Killian is mauling the smaller male. Gael’s wolf is limp, head bent to show his neck, his flanks rising and falling rapidly as blood pools around him. The fight was over before it began, but Killian’s wolf is unsatisfied. He growls ferociously, shaking the rafters, and then he paces, taking lazy swipes at Gael’s prone carcass.

“Do something,” Ashlynn hisses at me. Like what? Like a rodeo clown or those guys who distract the bull from a matador?

Killian’s wolf plants a paw on Gael’s bloody haunch and howls. It’s a warning. Everyone bends the neck.

He bares his fangs, and I can see clear as day what he’s going to do next. He’s going to rip out Gael’s throat.

Gael helped me.

Out. My wolf paws at her walls.

This is wrong. This is bad.

“I can’t watch.” Ashlynn buries her face in my shoulder.

Let me out.

I don’t know what else to do, so I let my wolf come, bracing myself. She’s so small. There’s nothing she can do against a giant.

My bones crack, my muscles tear, and there’s the strange pulsation as my heightened senses come online. The shift is over more quickly this time, and it hurts less.

At first, my wolf does nothing. She’s totally calm. She sniffs the air a few times, and then she trots out from behind the overturned table as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.

She’s trembling inside. We’re trembling. But she isn’t afraid. Not of him. She’s terrified of what he’ll do. She’s also kind of—irritated with him.

She stands at the edge of the open floor, careful not to get blood splatter on her paws. She’s panting. Despite it all, she’s happy to be out. She’s happy to see him.

Mate.

Inside, I steel myself. My breath stills.

Killian’s wolf falls silent. He glares at her, every inch bristling with righteous indignation, and then he surveys the pack through narrowed, golden slits, reveling in his dominion over all of us. He raises his muzzle to the ceiling and howls, a ferocious bellow of power and command.

Submit.

Every packmate bends lower. The reek of piss and terror assails my nose.

My wolf kind of checks out what’s going on behind her, and then she sits, careful of her bad back leg. She doesn’t cower or run. The happy idiot plops down on her rump and begins to lick herself.

I like her. We’re gonna die, but she does not care. She’s not gonna let Killian’s wolf see her sweat.

Killian’s wolf howls again, louder, the command now an imperative.

Submit.

She blinks up at him and lets out a snippy little yip, the kind of bark a dam gives her pup when he’s testing her nerves.

Killian’s wolf growls in the back of his throat, and then he bounds off Gael’s prostrate form and stalks toward us, fur bristling, the tips tinted red.

My wolf better know what she’s doing. She’s not as cool as she’s acting. Our heart’s racing, and butterflies are zooming in our belly. Butterflies is a weird reaction to imminent death. I hold my breath.

Killian’s wolf butts our shoulder with his muzzle. Mine snaps her teeth, barely missing him on purpose. Oh, my sweet Fate. He could kill us with a swipe of his paw. He could literally bite our head off, and my wolf is nipping at him. She is moon mad.

Behind us, Ivo and Tye dart forward and drag Gael’s wolf away. Gael is young, and his shifter healing is at its peak. His injuries aren’t fatal, but it looks horrible. A few feet away, Gael shifts, shrugging the other males off so he can walk away under his own steam.

Killian’s wolf butts me again. I can’t understand what he wants. My wolf licks herself and ignores him, although she’s—we’re—amped up almost past our endurance.

I don’t know what to do.

Killian’s wolf butts us a third time, harder. My wolf huffs and grazes his side with her teeth. It’s a brief nip. Perfunctory. Irritated and indulgent.

And the air changes. The big wolf’s golden eyes fade to dusky blue. There’s a crack of bones, and Killian’s movements are masked by the weird fast-forwarding effect as he flip-shifts. In a split second, he’s looming above my wolf, buck naked, fists balled, every muscle tight and cast in sharp relief.

His teeth are bared. He’s furious.

He doesn’t waste a second. He scoops my wolf up in his arms like a naughty pup and strides toward the doors.

“Shift!” Killian commands.

My wolf instantly abandons our body. I barely stifle a scream as our spine breaks and reforms. It’s over in less than a minute this time, and the hardest adjustment is the return of color vision and the dulling of my sense of smell. I have to blink and sneeze a few times before the world comes back into focus.

I’m in a darkened alcove by the lodge’s front entrance, buck naked and shivering, and Killian’s looming, blocking me into the corner, so much wider and taller than me, furious. Seething. I’m almost more scared of the man than the wolf.

I hug an arm around my bare breasts and press my knees together, bending a little to hide whatever I can. I hate this. My wolf hates it. She has no hang ups about nudity, but she hates the feeling of being exposed and defenseless. She wants her fur.

I’m not showing my neck, but I am staring at Killian’s bare feet. He’s not fazed by his lack of clothes in the least.

“What’s wrong with you?” he booms.

My gaze flies up. He’s glaring.

“Lochlan tripped me. You attacked Gael.” I don’t know what the answer’s supposed to be.

He snarls. “Not that.” His chest rumbles. “Stop. Shaking,” he grits from clenched teeth.

“I can’t.” The adrenaline has ebbed, and I’m a ball of raw nerves. Every inch that I’m not holding onto for modesty is trembling.

He growls again. “Don’t move.”

And then he stalks off, back into the lodge, taut ass flexing, shoulders thrust back, arrogance personified.

I should run now while I have the chance, but my wolf is frozen in place. There was enough alpha command in Killian’s tone that I don’t think she’ll let me bolt. I’m impervious to Killian’s orders, but she’s in his thrall. To a degree. She did act like a rodeo clown for him just now.

The moon is full and high, and everything high is illuminated—the tops of the trees, the roofs of the cabins—and everything low is cast in shadow. The commons look ethereal, like the village in a Van Gogh painting. The storm never materialized, but there’s a stiff breeze whipping down from the foothills. I huddle in my corner and wait.

No one comes out the lodge’s front entrance until Killian, a few minutes later. He throws an orange cardigan at me.

“Put that on.”

I’m already buttoning it. It smells like Nuala, an elder who trades me for Bailey’s Irish Cream. It’s tight, but it covers my ass cheeks. Just barely, but it does.

Killian got himself a pair of athletic shorts, but he didn’t bother with a top. He’s got his arms crossed, glaring again, his pecs and abs and the V dipping into his shorts all carved with precision. There’s a fine dusting of fair hair down the valley of his six pack, disappearing into his waistband. It looks soft. The muscles look rock hard.

My fingers twitch. I quickly cross my arms, tucking my hands tight against my chest.

“We’re not mates,” he spits, finally breaking the silence. It sounds like an accusation.

It cuts, but no worse than a splinter or a bee sting.

“I know,” I say.

His jaw tenses into a sharp line. His expression is now beyond forbidding—it’s menacing. “This is the second time you’ve been the cause of disruption in the pack.”

How’s that?

I don’t actually reply. Pack protocol is so ingrained.

“I could have killed Gael.”

He’s putting that on me? No way.

He’s gearing himself up for something, pacing short steps, left and right, glowering at me in contempt.

Shit. Is he going to exile me?

“I will not tolerate this, this—disorder. You cannot—”

I panic. “Bullshit.” It flies from my lips.

He freezes mid-step, eyebrows slowly raising. I interrupted him. Oh, crap. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I hug my arms tighter. “You can’t blame me because you can’t control your wolf.”

“I can’t control my wolf?”

“Or your males.” If I’m getting exiled, I’m laying it all out. “Lochlan tripped me on purpose. Are you okay with that? ‘Cause I remember having to sit through a bunch of lectures about how only pussies hit females and pups.”

It was early on, when Killian had just secured alpha rank, fending off three challenges in a row, including Eamon. Declan Kelly had passed a few months earlier. The power vacuum had made bad wolves worse, and all the males were posturing and jockeying for status. A lot of females and young were taking beatings from mates asserting dominance.

Killian was nineteen or twenty, and not anywhere near as articulate as he’s become, and he mostly grunts and curses now. Someone would slip back to the old ways, and he’d call everyone out to the grassy lawn in the middle of the commons, and spend an hour or two ripping the pack up for being a bunch of “limp dick bitches who can’t fight someone their own size.”

Then, he’d tell the females to go home and get back to work, and run the males along the pack land perimeter until they were too exhausted to mess with anyone.

At the time, I thought maybe things would change. Killian would be a new type of alpha. He stopped the beatings and got the males focused on the circuit, but that was it. Females still had to stay home and ask a male for anything they wanted. I was disappointed, but I was younger then, too. Naïve. I thought a wolf could rise above his nature.

Eamon’s right about one thing. In a pack, at the end of the day, strength rules.

I’m so lost in my head, that it takes a second for me to realize that Killian has closed the space between us. The scent of blood and fury fill my nose.

Instinctive fear saps my strength. I let the wall hold me up, and I fight the terror. I don’t want to be afraid. I’m mad. Pissed, actually. I’m not the one in the wrong this time.

Killian’s lips peel back. His fangs have descended, but he shows no other signs of becoming the wolf. Flip-shifter weirdness.

“I control my males,” he hisses, threat lacing each word.

I need to shut up. Nod. Make this be over. But now my mouth has its own mind, too. “Was it your idea for them to trip the female with the bad leg, then?”

He snarls. “I’ll deal with it.”

“Gael dealt with it. You were busy with your dinner and a show.” I know when you’re in a hole, you’re supposed to stop digging, but I can’t stop myself from adding, “Playing Haisley Byrne’s chair.”

He slams a palm into the wall beside my head. There’s no give. The lodge is made of solid pine logs. Still, I’m thrown, but not by the display of aggression. From the heat emanating off his body and his breath on my cheek.

He smells even more like toffee. Hot toffee. Drizzling, thick, delicious toffee.

“Be careful, female. I don’t think that little wolf of yours can back up that big mouth.”

He sneers. My “little wolf” perks up. Her ears prick, and she has prancing feet. Whatever this is, she’s here for it.

I don’t know what possesses me. I swear I don’t have a death wish. Maybe Abertha took my filter when she yanked out the mate bond.

“I don’t need my little wolf,” I say. “I have your big one.”

He growls.

“Your wolf likes me.” I lick my dry lips, and plunge ahead, right over the cliff. “He saw someone touch me, and he did something about it. You’re mad because you were asleep at the wheel, and he went after the wrong guy. I own going after Haisley the other night. That was on me. But this was you.”

“You’re gonna tell me how to lead my pack?” He gets right in my face, his gaze skewering me, challenging me, daring me.

I’ve seen him do this with his males a hundred times. He forces them to look him in the eye, and then he eye-fucks them until they can’t help but lower their heads. It’s a dominance move.

I should be squirming, itching to bend my neck. But way back, I sense his wolf, calm now, attentive, and pleased as shit that I claimed him.

Killian narrows his eyes, and for all that he’s a massive dick, they’re the softest faded blue and the rings around his pupils shine like liquid gold. Someone so awful shouldn’t have such pretty eyes.

I have no urge to drop my gaze. None. The opposite. I want to keep looking.

My stomach flutters.

What did he ask me? Oh, it was meant as a rhetorical question. About telling him how to lead his pack.

But yeah, I have thoughts.

“Somebody should. You need to reign in the assholes. Unless you want to be the alpha of a pack so pathetic the males have to trip a female with a bad leg to make sure she knows her place. ‘Cause I’m such a threat to the natural order. With my killer wolf and all.”

I tense—you don’t talk to a higher-ranking wolf like this, never—but at some point, Killian’s expression has lost the aggression. He’s still pinning me with his gaze, but it’s more measuring. Considering.

He edges forward, pressing his broad chest to my folded arms. There’s nowhere to go. My back is to the wall.

But I’m not panicking. I’m—curious? My wolf is very interested. She’s right up against the border between us. Peering through the fence slats.

There’s a prod at my belly. What is that?

Oh, shit.

I know what that is. It’s his cock. He’s hard. I’m making him hard.

What’s happening?

I don’t look down. My face would literally burst into flames. I’m not—unfamiliar—with dicks. I’m not a virgin. There was a human male who used to sell glass pipes at the farmer’s market. He was friendly, and he lived in an RV. He invited me to check out his personal collection. Afterwards, I went to the lake to wash off his scent, and it was a wonderful afternoon—alone and alive and self-determined and free.

He’s in the Pacific northwest now. He has kids and a job with computers. We’re friends on social media.

And there was a visiting male from North Border who stayed with us for training. I thought I’d miss him, but I didn’t. Turns out, it was the sneaking off to the woods that was exciting, not him.

So, anyway, I know about cocks. But not cocks this size. Alpha cocks.

I gulp. My cheeks burn.

Thankfully, he shifts back a hair so I can’t feel it anymore.

“You’re wrong,” he finally says, low and intent. “You’re a threat.”

I shake my head.

“You’ve got an alpha wolf enthralled. How the fuck did you do it?” His Adam’s apple bobs as he speaks. He’s so chiseled, even his neck exudes strength, the cords, the vein running the length. My mouth waters. I want to sink my teeth into it.

I’m losing my mind.

I know this is an important conversation, but my attention keeps slip-sliding away. His body is fascinating. The deep ridge where his shoulders meet his pecs. The trail of darker, crinklier hair that starts just below his belly button—

He gently tilts my chin up.

“Eyes up here.” His voice is bemused. “What’s going on, Una Hayes?”

I swallow. “You’re reaming me out.”

“Kind of feels like the opposite.”

“Well, if I were alpha, I wouldn’t let assholes like Lochlan Byrne kick people when they’re down. And you’re lucky you didn’t kill Gael—’

“I wasn’t trying to kill him. I was making a point.”

“Which was?”

He frowns. “I ask the questions.”

“How’s that workin’ out for you?”

Did I just say that? Am I cruisin’ for a bruisin’, like my Da used to say?

He reaches for my face. I flinch. He hesitates for the slightest second, and then he brushes my cheek with his fingertips, grazing my temple. Shivers follow in the wake of his touch. Then his eyes harden, and he reaches behind my head, grabbing my braid by the base.

He drags me into his chest, winding my braid around his fist, forcing my back to arch, my hips to press into his.

I can feel him again. His length. His hardness.

My scalp stings. I whimper, searching his pupils for the gold of his wolf. It’s nowhere. My own wolf has lowered her head, almost purring she’s so pleased with his display.

“Let me go,” I whisper. I could sass him when there was air between us, but now that I’m plastered to his heat, my wolf’s instincts are rising. Submit. Present.

“No.” He tugs my braid, tilting my head further back, forcing me to show my neck. It should be humiliating, but it’s not. Some primal part of me wants this. Craves it.

I swallow again and babble, desperately reaching for a handhold on reality. “Trip the girls. Pull their hair. What, are we back in school?”

“I never pulled your braid, Una Hayes. You hid up by the teacher.” He bends and nestles his nose in the crook of my neck, inhaling. Tingles zip down my spine. “Why don’t you smell like arousal?”

I don’t? Good, good. That would be too humiliating. But I feel something. New and powerful and terrifying.

But no, I don’t want to have sex with him. He’s Killian Kelly. I just got publicly humiliated. Again. And we’re out in the open. Anyone could walk past. There’s a bug zapper hanging a few feet away. I’m wearing an old lady’s sweater, and it smells like mints.

And yeah. He’s Killian Kelly. My mate who rejected me. I’m not turned on.

I try to pull my neck away from his nose, but his grip on my hair is too tight.

“I don’t like you,” I say. It’s such a stupid argument.

He nips at my shoulder. “You don’t have to. Do you think half the females in this pack like me? I’m the alpha.”

“I think it’s bigger.” My voice is breathless. Wobbly.

He stops messing with my neck and rises to his full height to gaze down at my upturned face. His forehead wrinkles. “What?”

“The number. It’s definitely more than half.”

Why am I baiting him? Is this how moon madness starts? With bad jokes and me getting my head ripped off by the braid, buck naked except for a borrowed cardigan?

He doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t snap my neck like a twig, either. He kind of cocks his head. “Why don’t you like me?”

“Well—” I don’t know where to start, but I do know that saying pretty much anything honest would be a huge freakin’ mistake. “I mean, for one, you’re pulling my hair. It hurts.”

He stares at me for a long second, and then he smooths my braid so it hangs over my left shoulder. He tugs off the elastic, and with one hand, he undoes the sections, careful not to yank.

He combs his fingers through the loose strands. Slowly. Gently. His fingertips glance down the slope of my breast. It’s too light and fleeting to be full-on copping a feel, but I don’t think it’s accidental, either. Goosebumps break out down my arms and bare legs. No one touches me like this. Ever.

Nobody ever really touches me.

“I could make you hot,” he says. “Your wolf’s panting for it.”

She is—at this point, she’s presenting—and it’s beyond awkward. I’m not paying her any attention. If I did, my face would spontaneously combust.

“We’ve agreed to disagree on this one,” I mumble.

“There’s no division between the man and the wolf. That’s a heresy.” Killian says it like he learned the words by rote. I bet he did. It’s what the elders preach. The man and the wolf are two sides of the same coin.

Abertha teaches us differently. She says everyone’s connection to their wolf is unique, a creation of their own making. When people are fucked up, it’s because of an imbalance in the relationship. She says that’s what’s wrong with a lot of folks in this pack. Their heads are up their wolf’s ass.

But I don’t say that. I hedge a little. “I don’t see it that way.”

“And you know better than your elders?”

“There’s a division between you and your wolf.” It’s as clear as the color of his irises. And the fact that his wolf actually likes me.

“Is that so? And how do you know?”

Because he’s a cocky asshole, and his wolf is a giant, homicidal snuggle bunny.

“Because your wolf is in my thrall.” I almost gasp when I say it. It’s way more truth than I intended. I brace myself. That was a challenge. He can’t possibly take it any other way.

His already angular jaw clenches, throwing those neck muscles into even sharper relief.

Why did I say that? What is possessing me? This whole conversation is bonkers. I should apologize for whatever I did or didn’t do, according to him, and go on to live another day.

But the moon is casting the world in blue, and everything feels hyper real. Heat radiates off Killian, and I’ve never had an alpha this close to me before. I’m not “aroused” as he put it, but I’m—interested.

It’s like my inhibitions—some of them, the filter on my mouth, for one—are fading. I forget to defer. That should be impossible. Submission to rank is hardwired into our DNA.

At least that’s what the elders believe.

I wait for Killian’s response, a knot coiling in my belly, fear and—anticipation.

He slides a finger along my temple, tucking my hair behind my ear. Then he traces the shell. I shiver. His mouth softens into something almost like a grin.

He leans close, and when he whispers, his lips brush my earlobe.

“And what are you going to do with him, little wolf?”

A husky whine escapes from deep in my chest, a demanding, impatient sound dripping with raw lust. I press my palm to my mouth, cheeks flaming, and Killian laughs, backing off.

Somehow, the spell is broken. A mask I didn’t even realize had been lifted returns, making Killian’s face cold and hard again. And almost—worried.

He jerks his chin toward the lodge’s front doors. “Come on.”

He doesn’t wait for a response. He heads inside, fully expecting me to follow, the elastic from my braid around his corded wrist.

I wait a full three seconds before I scurry after him.

Nuala’s sweater is a really lovely pumpkin color, but I feel like a neon orange emergency cone when I trail Killian back into the great room. People are back at their seats, finishing dinner, but as soon as I walk in, there’s a massive clatter of forks and the hushed chatter dies.

Killian points to a spot by the elder’s table. “Stay there.”

He doesn’t bother to look back at me when he gives the order. He’s striding toward the A-roster table with a purpose.

I clutch the hem of the cardigan, stretching it as low as it can go.

People are staring at my messed-up leg. Thomas Fane’s fang marks should be old news to everyone, but packmates still ogle the scars, and I still squirm inside.

Besides Killian, I’m the only one standing. I catch sight of Annie, Kennedy, and Old Noreen at the window in the kitchen door. I bet Mari’s in the back, hiding her eyes.

Is he going to exile me now?

But he’s not focused on me. He stalks right up to Lochlan Byrne, whacks the back of his head, and grunts, “You. Me. Now.”

Then he goes to stand in the middle of the open floor.

Lochlan shrugs and smirks across the table at his buddy Finn as he pushes back his chair, feigning unconcern.

Of all the males, Lochlan is built most like a human fighter—wiry, slightly bow-legged. He has a quick walk and a buzz cut. Between the two of them, Annie and Mari have crushes on all the lieutenants, but neither of them like Lochlan. Kennedy says he smells like entitlement and drug store body spray.

However, Eamon is his uncle, so he comes from beta stock. He’s won titles on the circuit. He’s in the same weight class as Killian. And the fight with Tye was closer than it should have been. He’s a contender.

The entire pack holds its breath.

Is this an alpha challenge?

It feels like it as they face off, steely-eyed, expressions unreadable. They don’t tap fists. One moment, they’re staring at each other, the next, Lochlan swings.

It’s an obvious shot, not really meant to connect, just to start the action. It’s not surprising when Killian sidesteps the blow. I expect a counterpunch. I don’t know a whole lot about fighting—I’m not interested in the slightest—but you don’t grow up in Quarry Pack without developing a sense for how these things go.

Killian keeps his fists up, protecting his face. He bounces on the balls of his feet.

Lochlan swings again, this time launching into a combination. Killian ducks and sweeps Lochlan with his leg at the exact moment Lochlan throws a right cross. Lochlan wobbles, almost staggers, but he’s too good. He recovers instantly.

Killian bobs and weaves, fists in guard position. Lochlan lands a series of jabs to Killian’s torso and a right hook to his face.

Both males are sweating now, their chests vibrating with the growls and snarls of their pent-up wolves. Blood trickles from the edge of Killian’s eyebrow. Lochlan smirks. You can see the confidence swelling in him. He thinks he has a chance.

He doesn’t, does he?

My muscles are so tight they ache. My good leg is taking all my weight, and my thigh is so tired, it’s a knot. At least no one is looking at me anymore. Everyone is riveted by the show on the floor. The alpha is getting his ass handed to him, and he doesn’t seem the least bit fazed.

Lochlan lets an uppercut fly. Killian ducks, sweeps his leg again, this time driving an elbow into the side of Lochlan’s knee at the same time. There’s a crack. Lochlan stumbles. Weaves.

He’s not smirking anymore.

But Killian—Killian’s grinning now. His eyes are bright gold with pale blue rims.

“Get off on tripping lone females with bad legs, eh?” he pants.

Lochlan’s a good fighter. He ignores the taunt and goes after Killian with a vengeance, throwing combination after combination, driving him to the edge of the open floor. Killian takes blow after blow to the face, the ribs. He’s jerking back and forth like a rag doll, but he never loses his balance, not for a second.

He spits blood on the linoleum. “Rules don’t apply to you, eh?”

Lochlan raises his fist, and Killian sweeps his leg again, this time with so much power, Lochlan collapses and rolls. He jumps back to his feet, showing no pain, swiping his nose with his thumb.

He doesn’t launch immediately into another attack. Lochlan studies Killian, the wheels turning. Killian’s stance hasn’t changed. He’s still bouncing lightly, fists in guard position, cool and collected despite the blood and sweat streaming down his face.

My wolf is riveted. The twisted little monster is into this. She wants popcorn.

Lochlan glances behind him at the A-roster table. Finn and Alfie are grinning at him, barely containing their glee. They still think Lochlan’s winning.

Behind me at the elder table, there’s a hushed murmuring. They know better.

Lochlan lunges. Killian kicks, driving his foot into the side of Lochlan’s knee. There’s a crack. Lochlan slams into the floor.

Panting, Lochlan slowly raises himself. He has to do it like me—awkward and step-by-step. When he’s upright, Killian lets him land a few more shots.

Now Lochlan understands what’s happening. His face is twisted with frustration, and he starts fighting dirty, aiming for the throat, the groin. Killian flip-shifts for split seconds at a time, easily avoiding the below the belt blows.

The murmurs become a whisper. “That youngster better watch himself. Alpha will kill him.”

“He shouldn’t have tripped the female. Alpha won’t stand for that.”

My wolf strains forward in anticipation.

Lochlan throws a haymaker. Killian snaps a kick, slamming his bare foot into Lochlan’s other knee. It crunches. Lochlan topples to his side, and this time, he stays down, teeth grit, neck bared.

“Get up,” Killian snarls.

Lochlan bares his neck further.

“Get up!” It’s a command. Lochlan has no choice.

He slowly rolls to the knee that isn’t bent at an unnatural angle, his neck still exposed, face blanched and sweat dripping onto his white shirt. Unlike Killian, there’s no blood splatter on his chest. It’s his jeans that are soaked red.

Lochlan stands there, broken but unrepentant, waiting. Cheryl, his aunt and the alpha female, sidles up behind Killian. She reaches out to touch his arm. He snarls over his shoulder, the message so powerful and clear that even I trip back a step.

“We do not harm females,” Killian says, voice meant to carry through the lodge.

“Yes, Alpha,” Lochlan mutters resentfully.

“Or the young.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Or the defective.”

I can hear the pack’s heads turning to stare at me. Oh, ouch. He’s talking about me.

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Gael?”

“Yes, Alpha.” Everyone searches for the voice. I’d have thought he’d be in the infirmary, but he’s in his usual seat at B-roster table, though considerably worse for wear. His face is black and blue and swollen past all recognition. He’s upright, but he’s cradling his right arm to his chest.

“There’s a seat open in A-roster.” Killian points to the metal folding chair across from Finn where Lochlan always sits.

The pack mutters. For a moment, nothing happens. Then Gael’s seat screeches back, and he drags himself the few feet to resettle at the table of honor. Tye claps him on the back. He winces, but he smiles. He’s missing a tooth.

I figure that’s the end. It has to be. But then Killian raises his arms to his side like the statue of Jesus on top of that mountain in Brazil.

“Well? You wanted your shot, Lochlan. Take it.”

Lochlan’s gaze shifts. Finn. Alfie. Eamon. His aunt. You can see his mind racing, getting nowhere. He’s backed into a corner. He either falls to his shattered knee, or he swings.

Quarry Pack are fighters. If he doesn’t want to sink lower than me in rank, he doesn’t have a choice. He has to swing.

He draws in a ragged breath and throws a left hook. Killian flickers, the flip-shift so quick it’s almost invisible to the eye. Lochlan’s fist meets nothing but air as Killian casually extends his leg and drives his foot into Lochlan’s good knee. A bloodcurdling scream echoes from the rafters, and bone tears through flesh, a rain of red spurting through the air.

My stomach heaves. My wolf howls in delight.

Behind me, an elder, maybe Nuala, says, “He should’ve taken a knee. At least then he’d still have a working one.”

“You don’t mess with defectives,” an old male opines. “That’s just plain wrong. Everyone knows that.”

My wolf falls quiet, her glee deflating like a punctured tire.

That’s me they’re talking about again. Us.

Fuck this shit.

Suddenly, a weight descends on my shoulders. I didn’t ask for this.

Am I supposed to be impressed? Vindicated?

‘Here, Una, stand right here all alone by the elderly, and I’ll remind everyone not to pick on weak folks like you.’

Thanks, Alpha.

My leg aches. Given, not as bad as Lochlan’s must right now, but I’ve had enough. I’m going home.

Killian’s talking to Tye, gesturing as if he’s dissecting the match, while Lochlan’s friends get the stretcher down from its hook on the wall.

No one seems to be paying attention to me, so I shuffle toward the door. I have no pants on, my hair is wild, and I’m so damn tired.

I’m focusing on my balance—at this point, my bad leg is close to giving out—so I’m at the entryway before I glance back and notice Killian. He’s standing on his dais, arms folded, face severe and unperturbed, Ivo and Tye at his sides. The males are talking to him, but he’s staring straight at me.

My belly flutters.

I force my spine to straighten, hike my chin, and give him my back as I leave the lodge.

If I sway my hips—and I never sway my hips on purpose—but if I do, it’s my wolf. She’s smug as hell.

She’s not the least bit humiliated.

Good mate. Avenge. Protect.

The little idiot. She’s got it all wrong.