Unwilling: a shifter romance

by Hannah L. Corrie

Of course, a wolf could always switch packs if he didn't like the way they treated him, but a rogue was a smudge of dirt on a lily-white pack coat, no matter where he went. Only the bigger packs even considered taking rogues in, since they were tight knit enough to enforce their position and hold sway against any attempt on their pack lands, but since they didn't depend on one member more or less, they also tended to treat them worse.

  The Banes pack was the last pack in northern U.S. Rayne hadn't joined and left yet, so now he was utterly and truly stuck.

  With nowhere else to go, Rayne had tried his hardest to keep his Alpha and his fellow dominants happy, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

  As Rayne watched the prisoner get dragged down the stairs to the cellar, he quietly asked himself why he even considered risking everything for such a sorry sod. Sooner rather than later, Carl would find out that they already had the Alpha, right there in their own cellar, right beneath their feet, and somehow he'd know that Rayne had known the whole time and kept quiet. Rayne had met many Alphas in his wandering years, but none as good at smelling a lie as Carl. So why the heck had he lied?

  Turning away from the cellar door he walked into the meeting room, one hand furiously clawing through his short hair, eyes lowered to the ground as he mentally cursed himself.

  He nearly ran face first into the fistfight erupting right in the middle of the room.

  Jerking his head out of the way of a flying fist, he stumbled backwards and put up his hands for cover. He needn't have worried. Greta and Dennis, both dominant pack members, were too intent on caving each others faces in to bother trying to involve him again.

  The scenery was unreal.

  Rayne stood there, frozen, hands ready to block a blow or grab a fist, as Greta, a typically rather guarded and noncommittal fitness trainer, took out her rage on the wiry and thin, definitely untrained, tax accountant that was Dennis. While Rayne understood Greta's melt-down, after all, she had been one of the group to catch the Alpha— not the most challenging of all hunts, but definitely up there with the most frustrating moments ever—, he couldn't understand how that alone could have provoked Dennis to engage in this all out Fight-Club-style slapfest with her. It simply boggled the mind.

  Worse than this display of aggression was the effect it had on everyone in the room. Seven other dominants watched those two with fixated, intent, heated glares. Nobody made moves to join in yet, but the longer this went on, the more dangerous the situation became.

  The worst thing however was that Rayne felt it too. The stinging tug on his veins, the increase of his heartbeat, the mind-numbing pins and needles triggered by the thick stink of testosterone, it all beckoned him to join the tussle, taste blood, rip flesh with his claws, hear a heart beat its last sluggish pulse before quieting forever.

  Rayne's fingertips started to itch.

  With a deafening roar, he jumped forward, slamming into Greta and Dennis and using his momentum to thrust them into different directions, effectively breaking them apart.

  Greta tumbled into another young dominant and Rayne actually saw the girl twitch with the instinct to pounce on her, then settle again.

  "Have you both gone insane?!" Rayne bellowed when Dennis managed to get back up, eyes still fixated on Greta, who had a harder time extricating herself from the girl and the love seat.

  "Not another goddamn step, Dennis, or I swear I'll throw you into the cellar with the others!"

  Yelling helped. The air was still sizzling with the potential for violence, but at least it didn't escalate again. Nine pairs of unhappy eyes locked on to Rayne's face, and for a moment he felt like the proverbial rabbit in front of the pack. One wrong move and they'd use him as their outlet. Not a pretty thought.

  Licking his lips, Rayne looked from Dennis to Greta and back again. In a quieter voice he asked, "so, what's gotten into you?", hoping that question alone wouldn't re-heat the skirmish.

  "He challenged me."

  Greta spoke up first, back on her feet, chin held high.

  "I walked in here and he challenged me because of a god damned seat!"

  Dennis took an angry step forward, but Rayne gave a sharp whistle to bring his eyes back to himself and away from Greta.

  "She stomped in here like the Queen of England, tried to snarl me out of my spot and then she grabbed me. She grabbed me and tried to pull me out of her way like a damn cushion!", he hissed, knuckles white under the tension of his balled fists. An artery throbbed on the top of his bald patch.

  "Greta, this is not the time or the place to be led by anger over something else. Get yourself a damn chair out of the kitchen and sit down before you lose control and change."

  Rayne felt Dennis’ smirk without needing to look over.

  "And Dennis, do I look like a parent to you? I'm half your age, at the most! How come you're standing there and looking all proud of yourself when I just had to yell at you like an unruly teenager? Sit your ass back down and keep it together, then you can grin like that." For a moment, the anger threatened to take over again, so he balled his fists until his fingernails bit into his hands. The pain kept him a bit more anchored.

  "Am I the only sane person here?!"

  Greta was a nice woman, ash-blond hair, just turned thirty, and she was used to command hunky guys around when at work in the gym, so no mystery there as to why she itched for a fight. But Dennis was a tax accountant with a wiry body in his mid-forties, shorter than Rayne and usually calm and soft-spoken.

  This should not have happened, wouldn't have happened with submissives present. But they were all gone now and Rayne had lurked around on the social outskirts long enough to feel entitled to find out why nobody did anything against that.

  "You know this isn't you, people, so stop this madness. Let's use all that pent up anger in a productive way and find out where we can recruit some submissives, before you kill each other for good." It wasn't much, but the thought of having submissive pack members to calm the waves would at least lower the level of aggression, Rayne hoped.

  This time the angry murmurs stopped completely. Everybody was back to watching Rayne intently, but the young girl Greta had fallen onto took the initiative this time.

  "We aren't supposed to", she said. Her pretty gray eyes had the serious expression of a teenager reciting house rules to a grown-up guest.

  "Shh. You'll get yelled at again, Carmen." This from Greta.

  Carmen turned her gaze to Greta, frowning. "I'm just explaining what the rules are, how's that a reason to get yelled at?" Again that serious expression.

  "Well", another male voice chimed in from next to the windows, "because Rayne is new and we don't know if Carl trusts him yet." Rayne's eyes followed the voice and found Graham’s face. He was a car mechanic, twenty-something, but Rayne had never had any direct contact with him before. It was unusual to see him here.

  'If Carl trusts him yet', Graham had said. It was such a peculiar way to word it that Rayne frowned instantly. He hadn't said ‘we’, he had explicitly talked about Carl's level of trust. It at least helped Rayne start to puzzle together a picture.

  Carmen didn't seem fazed by the reprimand. She brushed back her ink-black hair with one of a teenagey hand flip, then put up a bored facade. "Well, he's here, isn't he? And he caught two of the guys Carl wants, so I'd say he's got his trust alright."

  That broke the dam and suddenly everyone was talking at the same time, a cacophony of voices that grew louder and louder until Rayne feared his head would explode.

  "Shut up!"

  Even yelling at the top of his lungs didn't silence them instantly, but at least they stopped arguing one after another and looked his way once more.

  "What aren't you telling me? Why won't we go look for submissives?" Rayne asked more bluntly. His hair stood on end with an inchoate feeling of dread.

  All the eyes focused on a point behind Rayne.

  "Because I told them not to."

  Carl stepped into the room, smiling charmingly.

>   Rayne stumbled back with a surprised expression on his face. The rest of the dominants fell silent and the calm Rayne had tried to re-establish suddenly came all by itself. It was the presence Carl exuded, he simply commanded respect.

  It wouldn't hold forever, though.

  "So, what's all that ruckus about?" Carl said, casually strolling over to the couch. He stared at the cushions for a few seconds, then he turned around and looked at Rayne.

  "Just a little disagreement, it's all good", he answered, lips automatically forming a small smile.

  A small nod from Carl, then he sat down next to Dennis and looked around as if to check if anything had been broken in the skirmish.

  "Seems you've got it under control now. Just as I said you would." Carl smiled at the pack members like a proud father.

  There were a few nods and affirmative grunts from the crowd and everyone looked relieved and pleased, except for Rayne.

  "I don't get it."

  Carl's eyes snapped back to Rayne, who still stood next to the entrance and didn't really know what to do next, or what to make of this strange situation.

  "Well, I brought you into this and here tonight so I can explain 'it' to you. I want you to join our cause, after all." Another hello-well-met-smile fluttered into Rayne's direction.

  The other dominants shuffled slightly. Rayne took a short moment to examine their faces. Most of them were looking at Carl or Rayne, but two or three stared somewhere else, their faces guarded and unhappy. Whatever this 'cause' was, not everyone was as convinced as Carl. And not the whole pack was present.

  The Alpha scooted back and forth a bit, finding a comfortable sitting position, and leaned back in what amounted to a relaxed pose. Then he began to explain, his voice calm but forceful, demanding attention.

  "The year my wife died, I found out a few hard truths about us and about myself. One of those truths is the fact that our pack is stained by submissives, who weaken and sully us until we'd rather fight against our own than against outside forces. We would kill for the safety of a submissive, but we are the ones who bleed and fight and lose family and friends, while they do nothing at all in the best of times. —Don't say anything yet!" Carl interrupted, holding up a hand when Rayne started to object, and he closed his lips again.

  After a short pause, Carl went on. "We would do anything for them. We give them our hearts on a silver platter, but they just... stomp all over us. The only thing they give is calmness and peace, but it's not real. They are like a Venus Flytrap, lulling us into believing we need them so they can slowly digest our souls and bodies. They make us believe that we could never ever exist without them, that we would rather kill each other without them than control ourselves, that we would ultimately cease to exist, like raving beasts with no sense of self."

  The mask of calmness started to slip with every sentence and by now Carl's fists were balled tightly and his voice dripped acid and anger.

  To Rayne's surprise, it was Graham who interrupted the rant.

  "I know your wife was like that and I'm sorry, Carl. But she was an exception to the rule, not a standard. I still think we would self-destruct without submissives and today was the best example. Had Rayne not intervened, Greta and Dennis would have really hurt or, worse, killed each other, and we were this close from joining in." He showed a small gap between his thumb and forefinger to visualize his words. "A pack can't exist without submissives, it's a fact. We just have to be more careful which ones to let in."

  "This is where you're wrong." Carl sounded smug, which was astonishing. Rayne had expected an explosion, but there the Alpha sat, smiling triumphantly.

  "I know for a fact that there's a pack in Canada consisting only of dominant werewolves, and it has existed that way for many, many decades."

  A sequence of short gasps and sounds of disbelief followed, but even Graham shifted and sat more upright.

  "Not only have they existed like that for decades, but they're thriving. Do you remember the Chinkope Hills Pack? Their Alpha, the one who killed those hunters and saved the pack from extinction, she's originally from that pack. Can you imagine the power that Canadian pack must have accumulated if they send away such powerful Alphas? And they did it without submissives. We can get there without submissives."

  The excitement was now thick in the air, like a cloud of tension pushing against Rayne. It made his skin tingle again, but it wasn't excitement on his part. It was fear.

  He knew the pack Carl talked about. He also knew why it wouldn't work anywhere else.

  And he knew he would be killed rather than listened to if he said anything, because they were too intent on believing the story Carl had concocted. And the truth was even more unbelievable than a pack without submissives.

  Rayne tried to clear his face of emotion as the voices around him got louder once more. This was another one of those hair-thin paths he would have to navigate, not to stay in the Banes pack but to survive leaving it.

  "I've heard of that pack too. I'm in", he said, trying for grim and earnest because he couldn't fake the excitement everyone else exhibited. He needed to buy time, to plan.

  Carl nodded approvingly, smiled at him and clapped a hand on his thigh. His ability to sense lies didn't seem to cover moments where he wanted to hear one thing and one thing only— Rayne counted on it.

  "Perfect. Now we just have to rid ourselves of the last submissives. Giselle and her husband have already decided to move as soon as she's out of the hospital, but Darwin won't ever leave his father behind. It doesn't matter if he's dominant or submissive anymore, he's got to go. I wish George had listened to me when I told him to put the kid down, but be that as it may, we've got the chance to finish him now."

  Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Rayne settled against the wall next to the door, crossing his arms and trying for 'attentive but quiet', a facade he was all to familiar with.

  "Somehow Darwin has found a new Alpha who's now intruding on our grounds. I'm sure we'll persuade that one to leave if we show him what's what, and we've got his pack members to make our point. If he agrees to leave, we don't have to kill them and that'll make it easier to avoid calling attention to ourselves. I don't think Darwin will leave, though, and he's broken the rules when he switched sides to the intruder, so we'll probably have to exercise pack rights on him."

  Rayne sensed the unease in some of the listening dominants. Especially Greta and Graham looked unhappy when they realized they would actually have to kill someone, but Carl made a good point. An untrue one, but the way he explained it, everyone could see the reasoning.

  For a moment, Rayne bared his teeth in anxiety. Carl was a dangerous man, more so now that Rayne bore witness to his brilliance. The Alpha seemed to sense the uncertainty in the crowd too, so he sat up and leaned forward, his voice getting more insistent and sympathetic.

  "We will all try to make this whole thing as easy and peaceful as possible, there has been enough unfortunate violence and loss in this pack. All the accidents and the robberies are a sign, though. We need to become stronger, and soon! We need to catch Darwin, bring him here or get rid of him on the spot and then find the Alpha. He'll get to choose if he wants to keep his heap of crap pack and leave instantly, or if he wants to fight and ultimately die after we kill his people. Those are the two ways and I'm praying that he'll choose the first one."

  This time, Rayne had the uncanny impression that Carl was lying his ass off instead of the other way around. No-one would survive if they caught Darwin and Carl would make sure that it looked like their choice, not his.

  "I need you to find Darwin and I need to know where his Alpha is. Head out, people, we've got a lot of work to do!"

  With those words Carl stood and with him the other dominants. They headed out in a single, chattering file, picking up their jackets and boots and rifles, ready for a hunt that didn't look like the prey had any chance to survive.

  Rayne didn't follow them and nobody seemed to notice. As the door cl
osed behind the last one, he pushed off the wall and slowly went to the cellar door.

  Prey

  Jared

  He tumbled into the cellar like a sack of potatoes. Harry tried to dampen his fall with his own body, but Jared managed to dodge his crouching form and also not face-plant the floor. The door fell shut behind him, his captors moving up the stairs again.

  "Jar—" Harry began, but Jared shushed him viciously. Only when the second door on the upper end of the stairs fell shut did he look at Harry and smiled with relief.

  "You're alive, thank god," he said and sat down hard with a huff. His legs burned and pulsed from the bumps and bruises he had gotten through all that dragging, but the pain was dulling already. The distant sounds of a brawl came from upstairs, replaced by shouting, and both recognized the voice instantly.

  "That asshole." Jared bared his teeth at the memory of 'Mr. Sultry', but Harry's cheeks reddened.

  "He's not that bad," he replied and tried to suppress a smile. The small upturn of his lips vanished when Harry realized that Jared must have been with Darwin when they caught him.

  "Where's Darwin? Is he alright? Is he alive?"

  A pang of jealousy ran through Jared's body once more, but he swallowed it. They had bigger fish to gut and Harry and Darwin would always be this close so he'd better get used to it.

  "I think he's alright. I threw myself at them to give him time to flee, but he's still injured. I'm more concerned about what he's doing right now, though." Jared gave Harry a hard stare, punctuating his next words. "He turned and followed the car as a wolf."

  By the way Harry blanched, he knew about Darwin's wolf, maybe even in more detail than Jared.

  "Oh... that's bad. That's really, really bad," he wheezed, and looked around once more. "We need to get of out here and find him before someone kills him!"

  Another wave of irritation rushed through Jared. You don't say.

  The commotion upstairs had stopped, but a trace of murmur was still in the air, many voices talking at a distance. "Have you found an escape route yet?" Jared asked.