by Anna Craig
A growl was her first answer before Aliana replied. “No. But we have long planned how to topple Trevor from his mighty perch.” Venom shot through her voice. “As for you, little wolf, I knew eventually you would walk into one of our traps.”
One of? Cassie tightened her body even more. This wolf was dangerous not only because she was, well, dangerous, but because of how long and how carefully she had plotted. Cassie readied herself for the inevitable final battle to come.
“I couldn't get close enough to you at the estate.” Aliana's tail lashed once, hard, as she admitted that truth. “It's too well guarded. But if Thayne and I laid low, eventually the alpha”—her voice spat more bitterness at that word—“would lose his vigilance. I simply followed you every time you left the property. I always was the best, stealthiest tracker in the pack.” Harsh pride circled her words. “When I saw him taking you up here, I knew it would be too easy. I admit you being turned was a surprise. But you still think like a human.” A low warning growl shook her words. “You have nothing on your side but that alpha up there, and he cannot save you now. Nor could he save the last one.”
The last one? The last one what?
Aliana went on before Cassie could ask. “I certainly hope you've said your good-byes to that foolish wolf.”
She huffed in a nasty delight, raising Cassie's hackles at both her tone and her insolence toward Trevor. Fuck her.
“And after you kill me,” Cassie said, “how are you planning on getting off this ledge yourself? Are you a magical winged werewolf? Going to fly yourself away?” She let her voice sing-song a bit. In her wolf voice, it sounded like a snippy bark.
Really, being a wolf was going to be a lot of fun.
Aliana snarled back in cold laughter. “You like to amuse yourself, don't you? Of course I cannot fly. There's a small chimney up the cliff over there.” She tipped her head slightly to the right, never taking her gaze from Cassie.
“Chimney?”
“A large crack in the cliff that goes all the way up. It can be climbed up by those who are strong. Which I am.” She narrowed her eyes. “Definitely stronger than you. A newly turned wolf? Who used to be a pathetic little dishrag of a human? You're nothing. You would do nothing but weaken this pack.”
“I am the alpha's mate,” Cassie said. Her voice was a sharp snap. Hearing herself converse as a wolf should be strange, but it simply felt—right. “I am stronger than you think. Much stronger.”
Aliana pressed herself against the ground, mere feet from Cassie. Everything began to pinpoint to this moment. “Really?” Her voice practically purred. “We shall see about that.”
A strange humming filled Cassie's ears as the predator in her stared, unblinking, at the threat before her. Despite the darkness beginning to shroud the ledge, Cassie could still see extraordinarily well. That sure was a nice perk. Enhanced eyesight, and a body that easily could leap, run, and kill.
Kill. A light shiver jagged its way through her.
The really interesting thing was, it was a shiver of anticipation.
The voice she almost wasn't sure belonged to her spoke again. Deep, dark, and certain, she said, “I told you to come and get me, Aliana. Let's see if you're made of more than just hot air.”
Quicker than a heartbeat, Aliana leapt toward Cassie while screeching out a hair-raising howl, deadly intent in her eyes.
Chapter 3
Trevor's hide furrowed with a cold chill as he watched the interplay below him. Dusk was blunting the scene, although of course he could still see quite clearly. He couldn't hear a word either wolf spoke, but their body language told him enough. Cassandra, his lovely, surprising Cassandra, seemed to be stringing Aliana along. Asking questions, listening, while she assessed the situation. While she took stock of the reality.
Not once had she looked up toward him, even when he roared his anguished fury. He would have been more upset if she had. Yes, his Cassandra was an alpha female through and through, despite the veneer of scared human she'd presented at first. She knew better than to take her eyes off an adversary as treacherous and conniving as Aliana.
Frustrated beyond belief he could not reach them, he paced along the top of the cliff. Taking care to keep back from the closest part of the crumbling edge, he glared downward. Aliana had been clever. Too clever. She would not have risked her life so foolishly if she did not intend to live through this. She was behaving like a crazed wolf, one closer to madness than not, but she still had quite a quick, analytical mind.
She was also patient. Far more patient than he'd ever given her credit. As soon as Trevor had realized she and Thayne—the tip of his tail slapped the air at the thought of his banished brother—had long planned to eventually overthrow Trevor's alpha status in the pack, he'd also understood the depth of their patience. While Thayne had never kept his animosity toward Trevor a secret, he generally had deferred to him as alpha.
Of course, Trevor thought as he prowled along the edge of the cliff, Thayne had had no choice. The will of the alpha was almost impossible to defy. Yes, an alpha was advised by a council. There had to be, with more than three hundred wolves in a pack. Order had to be maintained, and one wolf alone could not provide complete order, safety, and regulation to an entire large pack.
But more than that, the alpha's purpose in a pack was unerring leadership. He was an extension of the pack's needs.
The alpha was the pack.
And the alpha's mate, being essential to the alpha's well-being, was just as essential to the pack. Symbolically, she was mate to not only the alpha, but to the entire pack.
Trevor growled his storm-dark rage as he looked down at the traitorous wolf poised again to attack the mate of the Wicked Mountain Wolf Pack. The traitorous female wolf who surely had been goaded on by his own brother.
For years, Thayne had niggled at him. Challenging him at every turn, in small ways meant to slowly erode. Provoking. And, it turned out, actually planning a treasonous act. Challenging the alpha was one thing. It was accepted and expected. But planning to destroy an alpha by nefarious ways—planning to destroy an alpha's mate—that was treachery of the first order.
Trevor felt his claws extend in anger, scratching at the ground as he walked. Despite his own animosity toward Thayne, he'd allowed their blood tie to soften his usual wariness. Never would he truly have thought his own brother would descend to such deception as this.
“Fool,” Trevor muttered at himself. His voice came out as a harsh growl, edged with rising desperation as he searched for a way down. There had to be one.
A perverse part of him was pleased that Thayne knew Trevor's strength was such that he could not be thrown from his alpha status without an opponent resorting to the direst methods possible. Such as killing the alpha's mate.
More snarls dropped from his curled lips. He planned to do more to Thayne than merely banish him if that cowardly excuse for a wolf ever showed himself again. And this. Letting a woman do his work for him, then hiding during the worst of it.
Hiding. Or, perhaps, silently stalking.
Trevor's eyes narrowed as he abruptly focused on more than his imperiled mate below. His agitation at her danger had also dulled his usually keen senses to everything around him. Snapping his head around, he took a long sniff of the air as he sent a searching glance into the darkening woods behind him.
If Aliana were here, Thayne must be nearby as well.
“Show yourself. Brother.” Trevor snarled the word in contempt as he scanned the woods.
A derisive half-howl greeted him from the woods. Every hackle Trevor had raised itself. He lowered his head, glaring at the shadowy trees. In seconds, one shadow distinguished itself and moved toward him with deadly grace. Thayne's scent, peppery and overlaid with an odor Trevor only now recognized as longtime bitterness, stretched to him over the air currents. Trevor peeled back his lips even harder.
Twenty feet away, Thayne stopped, facing off with the alpha. His own hackles raised along his back, he le
t sharp canines gleam through the twilight at Trevor. “Surely you didn't think we would simply flee at your command?”
Trevor cocked an ear at the sheer ugliness in Thayne's voice. That was new. Then again, Thayne had never before been free to be explicitly clear in his antipathy toward the pack's alpha. As a banished wolf, he now had no compunctions about being so openly scornful toward his former alpha.
“Actually, I did not think of you at all after I had you banished from the pack.” Trevor let his voice drag in careless disregard. He knew Thayne would take the easy bait. Thayne never could let things go, which was why he was never meant to be an alpha.
An alpha always had to be in control. Always. Even during the worst moments in his life, an alpha could not lower his defenses. As he almost had right now, worrying about his mate.
A painful memory from the past tickled at him. Jaw clenching, he thrust it aside.
As expected, Thayne's scent changed with an even more sour note at Trevor's tone. But before he could form an equally acerbic reply, howls from a mile off carried toward them. Thayne tensed while Trevor felt a rush of renewed power.
Tamsin was coming, and she was bringing the pack with her.
The alpha of said pack looked hard at its banished wolf as he barked out a laugh. “Fight the entire pack, will you now? I think not.”
Suddenly, the raging screams of fighting wolves echoed out from far below.
Instinctively, Trevor snapped his head around at the sound of his mate's furious cry.
In that split second of inattention, Thayne jumped him.
~~~
For the third freaking time in mere minutes, Cassie's breath whumped out of her from the impact of a wolf smacking against her.
Seriously? This was getting tiresome. The dark, powerful something deep within her, that something she knew with certainty was her, rose to the surface with infallible precision and force. It overtook her every motion, her every thought. It worked through her because it was her.
She was a wolf. She was the alpha's mate. And this moment was the one in which she must prove her worth. She would not fail.
Deliberately, Cassie let herself be knocked down. She then immediately rolled and struck from beneath, sending ripping claws slicing through Aliana's vulnerable exposed belly. A shriek of pain rent the air, followed by an echoing cry from far up the cliff above.
Thayne. Cassie recognized his wolf's voice. Even as that knowledge filtered into her mind, like quicksilver she was back on her feet, out from under Aliana. Whirling fast, she took the advantage of surprise and barreled into the other wolf.
Aliana went sprawling, sending another scatter of pebbles tumbling over the edge into the yawning abyss. Cassie inhaled dirt and fur before she locked her teeth on the other wolf's shoulder, eliciting another yowled shriek. Aliana fought with a deadly skill Cassie knew came from years of training. Years of being a wolf.
It didn't matter that Cassie lacked the same training. As the alpha's mate, she would not back down. Not this time.
Not ever again.
Aliana shook her off with a massive ripple of muscles. Despite the fact it was nearly full dark now, Cassie could see clearly. Everything was grey and black but perfectly outlined. Her night vision was astounding. Her aim was deadly accurate. Her goal was undeniable.
Snarling a furious “Oh, no, you don't,” Cassie lunged again. She feinted beneath Aliana's swipe and aimed for a front leg. Locking her powerful jaws around it, she crunched down with no mercy
Aliana's horrific scream ripped past Cassie's ears as her teeth smashed tendons, sinew, bones. An answering roar from Thayne drifted down to them, snapped off almost immediately by another triumphant howl.
Trevor's voice. By the sound of it, victorious. The knowledge spurred Cassie on. Although he was separated from her by well over a hundred feet and fathomless yards of open air, oddly enough she and her mate fought side by side.
Nothing could stop her now. She let go of Aliana's leg and threw herself against the other wolf. Shoving her toward the void she'd shoved Cassie over. Pushing with all her might, claws trying to gain purchase on the slippery, pebble-tumbled surface of the ledge, Cassie threw all her new power behind it.
With a last burst of desperate adrenaline, the other wolf managed to shove back, enough that Cassie tumbled backward. She smacked into the high wall of the cliff behind her. Immediately bouncing up again, she made to lunge forward again. Something in Aliana's bloody, battered stance halted her.
“Well now.” The other wolf's voice came out soaked with pain, although that vicious streak still underscored it. “Whatever happened to the frightened, fat little human surrender who showed up here, determined to come into this pack and behave in a way no surrender ever has before?”
In spite of the nasty words, Cassie sensed the ebbing strength behind them. The cool knowledge of that, along with her new reality, steadied her own response and kept her tone cool. “That human is still in here. Frightened? Yes, I was. Fat?” Cassie huffed in disgust. “You need to stop using that as an insult. Really. It's getting old, it's obnoxious, and it Just. Doesn't. Fucking. Matter.” She punctuated each word with a growl and a step closer, until she was nose to nose with Aliana.
The other wolf huffed out her own breath, keeping her dark amber eyes fixed on Cassie's. To her faint surprise, Cassie could smell blood on Aliana's breath. Blood from inside her. Cassie must have slammed into her hard enough to cause some internal bleeding.
To her even fainter surprise, she felt no horror at that realization. No shock. No judgment at herself.
This was simply what wolves did when fighting to the death.
The human within her kept her thoughts clicking with accuracy and sense. The wolf within her kept her instincts sharp and true.
Together, both sides made her say, “As the alpha's mate, Aliana, I grant you the choice of mercy, should you desire it.”
Aliana sneered with a disdainful lip curl at that. “Little human,” she said dismissively. Yet the strain of her injuries was evident in the slow pant behind her voice. “A true wolf never shows mercy. Never.”
Cassie smiled back in what she sensed was a hair-raising grimace of teeth. “You misunderstand me.”
Aliana stared at her in some confusion, still snarling.
“My offer of mercy,” Cassie said, “is that you may choose between falling to your death, or having me rip out your throat.”
Not even the words startled her. They were nothing like Cassie, the human girl from Wicked Mountain Town, would ever in her life have said.
But they were exactly what Cassandra Wakefield, alpha female mate to the alpha leader of the Wicked Mountain Wolf Pack, would say.
Shock and something very close to respect whipped over Aliana's face for a second. Then her eyes narrowed. “All true wolves choose to fight. Always,” she snapped despite her ragged breathing.
Then she flung herself one final time at Cassie.
It was horrifically yet beautifully easy for Cassie to meet that leap.
To almost cradle Aliana in her paws.
To push her down on the ledge.
To close her jaws around Aliana's neck and rip and tear.
To feel the hot burst of blood shoot out, showering her and the ledge and the darkness with the last ebbing pulses of life.
Taking another's life to save her own, as any wolf finding herself in an unexpected, shocking fight to the death would do.
When it was over, Cassie backed up a step. Then another, although she was careful to stay on the ledge. Throwing back her powerful golden head, reveling in the caress of the night breeze against her fur, her strong body, she sang her howl to the world, announcing herself and her place in it.
A lone howl from far above answered. Trevor's voice rang out, his bass tone bouncing off the cliff walls, carrying the message far and wide. Then another joined him. And another. And another. Howling wolves, chorusing their witness to the bizarre yet real existence of their alpha's mate.
Their badass alpha's wolf mate.
Cassandra Wakefield was most definitely, most certainly, a badass wicked wolf herself now. And it was kind of totally fucking awesome.
Chapter 4
Trevor walked in silence and a forced containment of the riot of—something—swelling within him. His head nearly exploded with everything that had happened in what was less than a half hour's time. Years of training, however, kept his carriage stiff, his eyes ruthless, and his true feelings hidden. His mate at his side, still in her wolf form, was as quiet as he as they led the pack back to the estate.
Despite her silence, Cassandra's power was unmistakable to every wolf near. The savage look on her face when they'd finally gotten her up over the cliff, using a system of ropes dropped down a chimney crack she'd pointed them toward, had quelled any comments from the watching pack members. Sleek, strong, so fierce—and with blood on her face and mouth. The blood of her enemy. The enemy she had never wanted, undoubtedly had no genuine interest in battling to the death, but who had forced her hand. In true wolf fashion, Cassandra had risen to the challenge, and won.
There would have been no better way to prove her worthiness of being the alpha's mate.
Not to mention the indisputable fact she was now a wolf. She had been turned by the alpha of the pack. They had no choice but to accept her.
“Why did it happen now?” had been Cassandra's only question, after she had reached the top, already somewhat eerily calm in what he thought might be shock finally settling in.
“I suspect because the wolf in you recognized your mortal danger,” he had replied. “Humans react differently to the bite.” From what little he knew about the process, that is. He carefully did not say that part in front of the rest of the pack. “You shifted when you did because that was the only way in which you would live. Wolf shifters have a very strong instinct to survive. And your wolf clearly is extremely strong.”
“Ah. That makes sense,” had been her only response.
She said nothing more as they walked back. He forced himself to ignore the strange sensation in the pit of his stomach at her silence.
