by K. Panikian
“Rest assured, I know who you are. This is your last warning. Cease those efforts, or you will be excised.”
With a roar the big, red haired man stood. “I challenge the alpha!”
I wondered if that was Tom.
The people on either side of him cheered and I saw August’s shoulders drop minutely before he straightened again.
This was it. My last chance to walk away.
Without hesitation, I pushed open the door and strode onto the stage. The betas with their backs to me didn’t move, so I assumed Maren had alerted them to her plan. August though, spun in surprise, his eyes beginning to glow.
When he saw me, he froze, and then a slow, secret smile moved across his face. I took a long look in return, knowing my eyes blazed, too, before stepping to his side, facing the shifter crowd.
Most of them stared back at me with wide, startled eyes. The ones in the front row though, stood up—all of them ranged in a row on either side of the big man. I grinned at them.
“Alpha challenges must first go through the beta ranks. So if you want to take on August, you have to get through me.”
“Who are you?” the thin woman demanded. “You’re not a beta. You’re not a member of this pack.”
Maren called out, “She’s a park shifter. She’s been offered a beta spot.”
I turned my head to squint at Maren. She smirked at me.
“Another exile,” the woman sneered.
I sneered back at her and as the big man started to step forward, I jumped off the stage, focusing my fiery glare on the challenger. I shifted my arms into their hybrid shape with a powerful churning movement and claws as long as daggers erupted from my fingertips.
Frightened snarls erupted from the people who could see me and I saw a few shapes stand abruptly, heading for the door at the back of the room.
I waited for a long moment, giving the big man a chance to change his mind. He lowered his head and charged me.
I tore into him with two quick, brutal slashes, my claws leaving bloody, oozing furrows across his stomach and legs before he staggered and fell and I followed him down. I felt my Beast’s urge to bite into his neck and finish him, but I pulled back. As I knelt on top of his whimpering form, digging my claws slightly into his chest and wriggling them, I hissed into his ear.
“Since it’s my first day on the job, you get your one and only warning, big guy. Tell your friends. You’re not alpha material and if you try to steal it, I will rip your pretty red hair out by the roots and strangle you to death with it.”
He whimpered and I grinned.
I stood, a circle of blood spatter growing underneath my dripping claws and looked sidelong at the shifters on either side of the gasping, moaning challenger. My pulse pounded as I noted their faces. I inhaled, pulling in their scents. I knew I would remember every one of them. Glassy eyes met mine before lowering quickly. Even the sneering woman backed away.
As they shrank from me, I growled, “My name is Sienna Wilder, and I’m done hiding.”
No one else stepped forward to challenge the alpha.
I felt August’s hand against my back and shifted my arms and hands to human again. After shaking them out, I wiped the blood on my jeans.
August called out “Meeting’s adjourned,” and everyone scattered.
I listened to the chairs scraping against the floor as the pack filed out, hissing whispers of excitement and fear reaching me.
In the front row, the thin, angry woman, now pale and trembling, pulled the bloody challenger to his feet and led him out of the room. He stumbled a few times but no one stepped forward to help them.
I stepped away from August’s hand as the room emptied, my body shivering now with an adrenaline release. Looking at the blood smeared on the floor, I tried to decide how I felt about what I’d just done. I’d been brutal, but not inhumanely so, I didn’t think. I’d kept control of my rage and my bloodthirstiness.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have clawed him?” I asked softly, knowing August still stood behind me. “Should I have just punched him?”
“In challenge fights, the bloodier the better,” August answered, just as softly. “Why did you come?”
I shrugged, glancing around the empty room, everywhere but at the man still standing behind me. “You helped me. I wanted to help you.”
“What about your secret?”
“It’s not worth your life.”
August tugged at my waist, turning me, and brushed his lips across my forehead. “Thank you.”
We stood still for a long moment and I held my breath before reaching up to stroke my hand down his chest. We inhaled together and then I was in his arms, his lips almost bruising me with the intensity of his kiss. His calloused fingertips scraped along my neck as he bent my head back, devouring my mouth. My heart thundered in my chest as I kissed him, grabbing his firm shoulders to yank him even closer.
August flinched and I let go quickly, stepping back. “Did I hurt you?” I panted, trying to breathe past the hunger pushing me toward him again.
“Just an old scrape,” August said, reaching for me but I moved away, panicking.
“From last night? From me?”
August eyed me warily as I moved another step. “Yes,” he said slowly.
I flushed. “I’m so sorry.” I felt a band constrict my chest. I’d used him and I’d hurt him.
“I’m not.” August rasped, holding out his hand. “Come here so we can do it again.”
I shook my head and put my hands behind my back. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I came to help you, like you helped me, but that’s it. I have to leave. I can’t—” I shook my head again, feeling my hands tremble as my heart raced out of control.
I sucked in a deep, steadying breath and tried again. “Thank you for bringing me out of the rage last night. I’m sorry for hurting you.” My voice broke.
August took two quick, prowling steps to my side. “Are you under the impression that I didn’t participate wholeheartedly?”
I flushed again. “You didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course I did.”
I blinked.
“In fact, I’m pretty sure that my first offer was for you to beat on me until you spent your rage. So, I think, all in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how it worked out.” He reached forward slowly and tucked my hair behind my ear. I watched him, my breath quickening again. “I saved the girl, and I got lucky.”
“Jerk,” I whispered.
His lips bending into a cocky grin, he leaned his forehead against mine. “You love it.”
I sighed. I did love it.
August stroked his hands down my arms and stepped back as I swayed. “I get it,” he said. “Extenuating circumstances. But this,” he pointed his finger back and forth between us, “is not over by a long shot. So no more running.”
I nodded slowly. “We should talk. Not about us,” I clarified, “but the rest of it. Your pack, the other stuff last night.”
August sighed and dropped into a chair. I slid onto another just a few feet away. We stared at each other in the silence and I traced my gaze over his smoldering, amber eyes and his sweet, crooked smile.
“Is Blake really going to let it go, the death of a beta?”
August nodded. “Soren was in my territory. I had every right to kill him. Every shifter knows that. There may be repercussions in the future, but for now, he won’t retaliate in any way that can be tied back to his pack.”
“What about the other lionesses, Stacy and Yvette?”
“Gone.”
“Gone like Blair was supposed to be gone or really gone?”
August shook his head. “Gone gone. They’re scared to death of you. They won’t be back to make any trouble.”
I smiled, pleased. August watched me smile and the skin of his eyelids crinkled as he grinned back.
“So I’ve got an open beta spot to fill. Know anyone that needs a pack?”
I started to shake my head when he stretched
out his hand to me. I stared at his long fingers, his muscled forearm, for a long moment before slipping my hand into his and raising my eyes.
“I know you’re a park shifter and it’s all you’ve ever wanted. But you’re allowed to change your dreams, to reach for more. And if word gets out about you, I want to be able to help.”
Considering his words, I tried them out. I’m allowed to change my dreams. I’d found the place I belonged, in Yellowstone, but was it enough? Could I have more? My Beast nudged me, reminding me that she wanted more—she wanted a pack.
“I don’t know anything about how to be in a pack, and what I have heard, hasn’t sounded that great. And I don’t know if my control is strong enough yet.”
August nodded. “Give me a chance to show you the good side. Give yourself a chance to try.”
I swallowed, suddenly terrified again. My brain whirled in circles. August’s hand tightened around mine and I remembered that hand on my skin as his powerful body moved in mine. I didn’t know what to do.
“Can I be with you and not be a part of your pack?” I tried.
August shook his head, his eyes glowing faintly as his tiger peered at me. “I’m the alpha. If you want me, you have to take all of me.”
I hesitated again and he dropped my hand to run it through his hair in frustration. Staring at my empty fingers, I felt bereft.
Maybe it was time to stop playing it safe, to stop hiding from the feelings that challenged me, to take a chance on an alpha. Not just an alpha, I reminded myself, a man. A man that saved me when he didn’t have to; a man that didn’t ask for my help when he needed it because he didn’t want to hurt me; a man that wanted to protect my secrets. It didn’t seem like such a bad decision, to trust a man like that.
My silence went on too long and August asked, “Is this the part where you back away again?” He straightened his shoulders as if bracing himself.
I watched and the band around my chest cracked a little. I wanted to try. I wanted to reach for more. I stretched my hand back out to August and whispered, “I don’t want to back away.”
August’s smile brightened like the sun and my heart stopped. He grabbed my fingers again and kissed them as I flushed.
“Good. That’s good enough for now.” He stood. “We should go. Until I finish taking out the trash, this isn’t a great place to linger after a meeting.”
Nodding, I rose, too, and followed him into the night.
Epilogue
I run through the woods of my territory, the lodgepole pines of Yellowstone Park tall and slim in the moonlight. My puma eyes track my quarry. That jackrabbit is mine.
As I pounce, the rabbit slips from under my claws and darts into the underbrush. I stop and watch the fluffy tail vanish from sight, panting and laughing at myself. I flop onto my side and stretch, the fur of my forelegs rippling with my muscled movement.
The pine scents of the forest fill my nose along with a new scent, a hint of frost and things to come.
In the end, I didn’t have to fight anyone else in August’s pack that night. The parking lot was empty when we finally stepped outside.
August and I still need to talk, both about what happened the night in the campground and what it means for us going forward. My trust is so fragile—part of me is still waiting for him to pull back, to flinch at my Beast, or to betray me. I know it’s not fair, not after the way he saved me, but I am the sum of my life experiences and I can’t apologize for that.
He’s being patient with me and I’ve moved my collection of tiger’s eye stones so that I can see them as I fall asleep at night.
I’ll have to deal with the question of my membership in August’s pack at some point too. I keep telling myself I don’t want the beta spot. I don’t want to be responsible for other people. But I know it’s self-delusion. My Beast is an alpha and she’s reaching for a pack to call her own. And if the pack is the price of being with August, I think I’m ready to pay it.
My secret is out in the shifter world, though Darcy thinks that most of the packs that hear of me will dismiss me as a rumor. No one saw my Primal form. No one’s seen a Primal for a century. I’m a myth.
But Blake knows, and Logan knows, and now some people in August’s pack know. The coming exposure is inevitable. We’ll see soon enough if the price of reaching for more is too high for me to pay.
For now, I’m back at work in the park, my home. Winter is coming fast and I can’t wait to roam through the snow.
About The Author
K. Panikian
K. Panikian lives in Massachusetts with her partner and three children. Aside from reading and writing, she enjoys golf and snowboarding.
Check out her website at
www.kpanikian.com
Books In This Series
A Yellowstone Shifters Novel
Yellowstone Shifters is an urban fantasy series.
The world is divided into territories and every shifter, from the elk to the wolves and big cats, belongs to a pack, subject to the dominance hierarchy and the whims of its alpha. But pack life isn’t for everyone—there are some shifters who just don’t belong. In the neutral national parks, the exiles make their home.
Wild Rising
“My name is Sienna Wilder and up until about age 12, I thought I was human.”
From a young age, Sienna learned to control the savage creature that raged in her heart. Swearing never to unleash the puma again, she kept her head down, her emotions level, and she survived.
Inside though, she yearned to find a place where she could roam free. Landing her dream job as a park ranger at Yellowstone, Sienna thinks she’s finally found it, only to discover that she’s not the only one with a secret beast. Now, women are disappearing and no one is paying attention. Sienna must discover the truth or she may be next.
Can she learn to trust her wild side in time to save herself and the others?
Wild Refuge
When she discovers she isn’t human, Sienna Wilder conceals her gifts from the packs and the alphas who lead them. But she’s not a scared kid anymore. Is it time to stop hiding and fight for what she wants?
After learning to control her puma shifting abilities, Sienna, a Yellowstone Park Ranger, finds peace for the first time in her life. Only someone from her past is back under suspicious circumstances, and the competing packs that surround her home are threatening open war.
When the fires start, Sienna knows that she must intervene, even if it risks exposure of her rare power. If she doesn’t figure out the hidden connections, she may lose everything. But is the truth worth her freedom?
Bear to Be Wild
My wild heart was broken once by my family’s betrayal. The people I most expected to protect me, failed me, and I’ll never forgive them. I’m an exile shifter and that's what I’ll always be.
Starting fresh as a ranger at Denali National Park is just what Darcy needs to get some space to clear her head. The Yellowstone shifters are starting to act like a pack under Sienna’s leadership, and Darcy knows she’ll never trust an alpha again, even if the alpha is one of her closest friends.
In Alaska, however, Darcy finds herself in the middle of a territory battle, a wilderness rescue operation, and a confrontation with her past. As she navigates the challenges of being an exile bear shifter in a wild and savage environment, Darcy must learn to trust, or she’ll be lost to the enemies that haunt her steps.
Books By This Author
Verena's Whistle
The meteor brought more than space dust.
Verena is a grad student living in Alaska when she receives a phone call that changes her life. Her family has been keeping secrets about their origins and their purpose. Soon, she’s on a mission to save the world from Chernobog’s demonic beasts. Will she master her new magic in time? Will Owen, a man with his own demons, help her in her quest, or will he break her heart?
As she crosses the world to the snowy Ural Mountains, Verena must decide if she’s ready to lead
or if the price is too high.
Verena’s Whistle is a stay-up-all-night fantastical adventure, an entertaining story of finding yourself and following your destiny.
Astrid's Wings
And the Moon God said, “Find the dragon.”
Astrid is adapting to her new life in Alaska when her magical past calls her back to duty – the enemy is marching. She must find the portal; find the dragon. Will Julian, the man she loved and lost, help her or will he leave her behind again?
Astrid and Julian must solve the mystery of the haunted lake and then cross the steppe to the dragon mountain. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for the Varangians in the citadel.
As she passes between the worlds, following her destiny, Astrid must find her strength, or the demon lord will conquer all.
Astrid’s Wings is a story of trust – trusting love, trusting your partner, and trusting your power.
The Alkonost's Egg
On a parallel world, war rages. The demon horde marches on the citadel with a secret weapon that will finally eradicate the humans.
Working together, Callie, a sailboat captain, and Bard, a soldier with a mysterious past, must find the source of the Bermuda Triangle’s mystical surges. Without harnessing that power, they won’t have the ability to build a portal back to Bard’s home world; the citadel will fall and demons will walk the Earth again.
In a race against time, Callie and Bard travel across the ocean in search of the power they need to save the Earth. Will Bard yield to the fate he doesn’t want? Will Callie transform her own dreams to see if she and Bard can forge a destiny together?
