by Rae Foxx
“Last chance to run,” Pater said, inches from me now, staring down at me like I was a bug he was ready to crush.
Dude could suck my lady dick. He wanted a fucking challenge; he was about to get one.
“Nah, but you can. I seem to remember a threat you made to me once that I’d like to repay.” A brief glimpse of fear passed across his face. His eyes narrowed. His toes dug into the dirt.
I didn’t dare move, and I wasn’t about to show my bluff.
I had no interest in fucking the guy to death, because gross. But I still had plans for some ball kicking.
“Well, let’s see what you can do.” Pater shucked his shirt, showing off his biceps and abs that went on for days, his wolf's teeth already snapping into place.
Fucking cool.
Freaky as shit.
But cool.
‘Oh, I wanna do that. Can we all do that?’ I asked Howl.
‘Focus, Ivy. This is not the time to think about partial shifting. Though I’m sure you can do that with practice.’
‘Practice and training never end, huh?’
“Let us begin,” Pater announced in his resonating voice, guiding us to the clearing before turning with a grin. He jutted a bucket of oil at Howl, the two staring daggers at each other as he took the stuff from his dad.
His dad.
God, I think it actually sank in what I had been challenged to, what I was about to do.
And who I was supposed to kill.
‘Don’t worry about it, Ivy,’ Howl said as he turned to me, bucket of oil in hand. ‘He’s been dead to me for a while.’
There was more there, but now was not the time to dig into his daddy issues. I nodded and stripped, trying to ignore that Pater had begun doing the same, but instead of his mate oiling him down, it was three big gorillas in some weird erotic dance.
Eww.
Look away….
I thought for sure Howl was going to dump the whole bucket of oil over my head like the last time, but instead, he dipped his hand in it, cupping a small amount and drizzling it over my shoulders and collarbone. I shivered, but not from chill. The stuff was near burning.
I hadn’t expected that.
‘This is it, Ivy. You’ve practiced well. You are a strong, capable warrior. You will win this fight. Control your magic and use it when you can. You win this fight by whatever means necessary. Remember he will be doing the same.’
His oiled hand lifted to smear it against my face, over my brow, my cheeks, down my neck. The touch was slow, controlled, gentle in a way he had never touched me before.
It was only after he passed over the lines of my nose a third time that I realized what he was doing. Committing me to memory.
This time there was no watching the pre-battle orgy around me; though, by the noises and the scent of sex and pheromones, it was certainly happening around us.
No, this time I watched my mate as he prepared me for battle.
As his touch lingered. Good luck. Farewell. Love. It was all tied up in each touch of his oil-slicked hands down my arms, over my hips, my stomach, up to my chest...
“Howl…” I tried to say, but the word choked in my throat. What would I say after that anyway?
Howl gave me one slim smile as he bent to cover my legs, stepping around me before I felt the dollops of oil trickle down my spine and rivulet down to my ass, igniting every skin cell while inflaming my core.
God above, no wonder these people had an orgy beforehand. If their mates were anything like my Howl, they couldn’t help themselves. The pulsing fire that was radiating between us was near electric. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would be if it wasn’t a life or death situation.
‘Leave nothing in that circle, Ivy. Teach this fucker a lesson. Show these assholes who you are--what you are capable of--what we are together. There is no one here that is stronger and more powerful than you. Take him down and take him down quick. The quicker you gut him, the quicker I have you back.’
I smiled at him. ‘You’d miss me—mostly my body.’
He frowned, his hand running over my body as I faced him, his jaw hard. He clearly knew what I was doing. No amount of humor would make this situation okay.
‘No, Ivy. I’d miss you if you were gone. I’d miss this face and this body, yes. Mostly, I love who you are, Ivy. You’re a fucking badass. The world should bow before you.’
He assessed me from head to toe.
‘It’s time. Make them fucking bow before their true Alpha.’
True Alpha.
Holy shit nuggets. What had I gotten myself into?
‘Do it for us, Ivy. For all of us.’
For the first time since Howl started the oil smearing, I looked up, ignoring the tears bubbling in my eyes at Howl’s admittance.
The fucker loved me.
And so did my other men.
I had to fight for them.
But mostly, I had to fight for me.
“Let the circle be made,” Pater shouted, the crowd creating a circle around Pater and me. I kissed the hell out of Howl once before taking my place, the shifters around me hissing and jeering as I passed.
They could all kiss my large, lovely, oiled ass.
“Ivy Potter,” Anatoly bellowed from right beside Pater and the crowd went silent. “You have been challenged by the Alpha of this clan, Pater Wulfson, for the position of Alpha. The fight is to the death.”
I glanced at Howl who had come to the front of the crowd, his face gaunt.
I’d known this fight was going to be legit, but hearing it like that was turning every bone into an ice pick of anxiety. I wanted to scream and run for the hills.
Too bad my wolf had dug her heels in. No going back now.
“Do you accept the challenge?”
Now this fucker was asking for consent? I laughed in his face, even though my gut had officially turned to worms.
“Let’s do this.”
Pater scowled at me, but really, did they expect some Shakespeare formal response?
I didn’t have time for that. I was ready for some ball busting.
“Shift, both of you,” Anatoly commanded as he backed his ass out of the ring.
Bring. It. On.
In the fastest shift of my life, my wolf emerged before Pater’s paws hit the ground. His wolf was lean and muscular like Howl, but the spattering of gray whiskers and hair around his snout gave him away.
Okay, old man, let’s see what you’ve got.
‘Bleed him dry, Ivy.’
Puffs of hot air came from my wolf’s nose, mixing with the dirt that I was pawing into a cloud. Not that I thought I could hide with a wolf as dark as mine, but if I used my magic I was going to need a mask. This was as good as any. Anatoly looked from me to Pater and back again. We each nodded, signaling we were ready.
After all this practice and training, I sure as shit hoped I was ready for this.
Pater padded toward me, but his son had taught me well. His left paw entered the space between us first. I didn’t flinch.
Left was his faking foot.
Pater’s wolf cocked his head sideways as though he had fully expected me to flinch or step back or something. I growled and took advantage of his shock. Paw stretched and claws extended, I swiped at his neck, falling short and creating three large gashes in the side of his face.
Take that, whiny bastard.
He growled at me and instantly countered, lunging, swiping, and biting all at once. I dodged the swipe, saw the teeth and fell to the ground in a cloud of dirt. It was an ungraceful mess, but he hadn’t made contact. He wasn’t going to let me take turns though. He was snarling and biting again--down this time, onto my exposed belly.
I snarled and kicked at his face, sending him tumbling back with the force of the kick. It was enough time for me to jump up. Barely.
This guy was not playing. Clearly I had already underestimated him.
‘Take turns’? What was I thinking?
This wasn’t the fi
ght where whoever drew blood won--this was the one where one of us no longer had breath in our bodies.
Okay, I needed to be more offensive.
Again with the left paw, he rushed me. I stepped aside with a raw and gravelly growl ripping from my throat. I took my own bite, my own swipe, but all missed their target, leaving us circling each other for a minute.
‘Quickly.’ Howl spoke in my mind and I lunged forward, teeth bared, intending to bite at his leg and failed when Pater bit down hard on the top of my neck. My howl turned into a snarl as I snapped at the air, feet shuffling as I attempted to get him off. He held on tight, the crowd going wild. Well, all but Howl, Scarlet and the twins, who were screaming for other reasons.
No, I couldn't let it end like this.
I dropped my weight, rolling onto my back and over again, thankfully dislodging him from my neck and the gashes that were left there--the gashes that were making everything spin.
Blood dripped onto the dirt below me, the beat slow, steady, like his paws against the dirt.
‘You have to keep going, Ivy,’ Howls voice was broken, but I didn’t turn. I kept matching Pater’s motions step for step, looking for an opening.
Feigning a collapse, I staggered, crouched and then jumped, my four-man cheerleading squad erupting.
I landed on his back like a spider monkey-wolf hybrid, and in a game of making things fair, bit down hard on the exact part of his neck where he had bitten me.
He screamed, the crowd gasped. The guy made to do the same move I had, but I countered, pulling him backward and ripping his neck open before pulling away.
Blood coated his silver fur. The thick, metallic ooze filled my mouth, dripping from my teeth as I snarled at him. Part of me desperately hoped that the guy would give up.
Judging by his aggressive pacing, that wasn’t going to happen. He seemed to be waiting for his vision to clear. Been there, done that buddy. You know, when you punched my face in.
The thought fueled my rage. I attacked again, sinking my teeth into the fleshy part of his thigh and didn’t let go, even when he jolted and writhed at the pain. Only when the points of my teeth hit bone did I relent, only to snap down on his rib cage where the crush of bones made the human part of me cringe.
We had covered the whole fighting methodology, not the killing one. In my mind, the more injuries you had the quicker the death. So that was my game plan.
My small victory was short-lived. Pater forced my bite to let go with a quick, deep bite to my gullet, making me gasp and struggle for the tiniest breath of air. My body collapsed in a panic and I convulsed with his fangs still in my throat.
This was it. I’d lost.
‘No, Ivy! You can still fight. Get him down. You know how to get him down.’ He didn’t have to say more. I knew what he was talking about. Now if I could figure out how to use it without everyone noticing.
Focusing on Pater’s teeth still inside me, I tried to wrangle free, something that was proving extraordinarily hard with the amount of blood loss I was experiencing, with the way the world was spinning.
I shook my head as though I was shaking him off, forcing all of the magical warmth toward his jaws, the jaws that were going to unclamp and send him soaring away. I shook harder, focused my thoughts and with a yelp his teeth left my throat, his old wolf body hurtling through the air away from me.
More than a few gasps broke from the shifters around us.
Too bad fuckers. You underestimated me.
Or my magic, I didn’t care enough to argue.
I would have danced or partied or something, but staying upright was getting increasingly difficult. I was losing blood--and fast. Time to end this once and for all.
Before the Alpha could recover, I pinned him to the ground, my paws bearing down on his chest, my magic fueling the weight further, while I zeroed in on his neck—the most vulnerable place where I would strike the hardest.
The shock shone in his eyes along with anger, but I didn’t let him up. My vision was fading in and out, I assumed because of the blood loss, so I focused again on his throat.
My teeth were poised above the pulse in his neck and spittle tinged with red dripped from my fangs. My wolf hungered for the vengeance that belonged only to me. I wanted to see this would-be rapist six-feet under.
There were pack members calling out his name and a few were even sobbing. All of the background noise faded to a hum. As I opened my mouth as wide as I could and lurched forward, my tongue feeling fur before I took a chunk of meat from his throat and spit it to the side.
That’s when hands grabbed me from behind, the Gorillas having stepped out of the crowd and, in a speed I didn’t think possible scooped up the Alpha. I struggled against the unknown forces holding me back, the taste of Pater’s blood urging my wolf to finish what she'd started.
But in a flurry of screams and howls and dirt...they were gone.
Pater, the Gorillas, Jackson and his pack—even Nicky. A little more than the pack that I was supposed to inherit when I won this thing. They were all gone, racing through the trees like the trailer park folks when the cops showed up, but without the lingering aroma of pot.
Only Selene remained, even then only for long enough to shoot me a middle finger.
What the fuck was happening? He’s not dead. I can still hear his weak fucking heart beating.
‘He’s gone. I knew they wouldn’t see this through. Those fuckers took him. You are the Alpha, mate. This pack is yours.’
Chapter 9
Pater hadn’t been killed. Mo-fo ran away like the spineless twit I had planned to be when I was about to lose.
But he had actually done it, proving that he was the yellow-bellied twat I knew he was. I served him his fate on an oil-smeared platter, so let him run and lick his wounds. And me? I was Alpha.
Mother fucking Alpha, Al-pha. God, it was like a dirty word in my head. I needed to wash my mouth out with soap, which I did while I was showering off the blood and guts of the battle.
Pater wasn’t the only lame-o who ran. Most of the pack did too. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Standing in this massive house, looking at my fortune, it was damn clear he was leaving me here to play house.
Once he licked his wounds, he would be back. And he wouldn’t be alone.
Who knew if pack wars were a thing, but I’d seen enough vampire-werewolf romance movies to know that they certainly were a possibility.
Everyone’s fate now lay with me and whoever had decided to stay.
And our ability to kick ass, but I wasn’t interested in thinking that part through yet.
I wanted to eat my damn pie and not freak out about when Santa came back to rip the children’s heads off.
Or whatever he does when you aren’t a poor kid with a strung-out mom. Although, he might do that to the rich kids too. Parents will lie about everything.
“How many are left?” I asked as Howl came up behind me. It hadn’t taken him long to find me in the library. Well the smaller of the two libraries, because rich wolves clearly needed to look super intelligent. Maybe it balanced out how big of pussies they all were. For a house with monster libraries, it sure didn’t have a ton of bathrooms. It hadn’t taken me nearly as long to use them all as I expected. I had made sure to use them all—because I could.
Although, the culmination of my threat didn’t have the same satisfaction now that the house was mine.
Howl’s fingers tip-toed over my waist as he pulled me into him careful of my still healing gashes, his hand warm against the scar on my hip as he held me, the muscles in his forearms pulsing. He was clearly agitated.
“Enough. They are waiting outside.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath. “What do I even say to them?”
He smiled and held me tighter. I could feel his pride ooze off him. It stuck against my skin and grit underneath my fingers--like the last of Pater’s blood.
I shivered.
“You are Alpha now…”
“Don’t say that--” I snapped, stepping away from him and planting my fists on my hips. I was really starting to resent that word.
“But that’s what you are.”
“No, an Alpha is clearly a term for a guy with nothing better to do than swing his cock around and run away from girls. I don’t have a cock and I sure as hell ain’t running.”
“So you’re a…” Howl was clearly struggling to find the word, his face had screwed up like he was in physical pain. “A female alpha.”
Really? All that ‘I’m about to poop out a cow’ concentration and that’s what he’s got? Female alpha.
‘I heard that.’ He was scowling. I smiled and trailed my finger along the stubble on his chin, something that had been growing over the last few days of training and I already hoped would never leave.
“No,” I shook my head, dropping my hand. “I’m much cooler than that. I’m like a mo-fo alpha. Mofalfa!”
Howl gave me the most adorable confused smirk before he burst out laughing. “Mofalfa? You sound like a foodie. Or a superhero. You need a cape.”
“How about a superhero that likes food, sans cape.” He wasn’t buying that. “Aw, come on it was either that or Shelpha and that sounded like some kind of rash you get from under boob sweat.”
“That’s a thing?!” He had clearly never heard of it. Now it was my turn to laugh.
“Be glad you aren’t a girl, Howl. Next, you’ll be asking me if velociraptor days are real things.”
“Velociraptor days?” I couldn’t blame him for not knowing. I had made that one up all on my own.
“Yep, those dreaded days when once a month a velociraptor sneaks into my uterus and says ‘Hell no baby-making factory! Take that!’ and rips it to shreds.” I grinned at him, one hand still fisted on my hip.
He blinked at me. “You mean periods.”
I nodded.
“Well, do me a favor and don’t start your Melofifa speech with that.”
“Mofalfa,” I corrected him, “and don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on it. That speech is all for you, and possibly Saxon.”
