Denying the Alpha

by Sam Crescent

  Aniya hit her knees beside them as her own tears fell. “What,” she said, choking on her words, her hands trembling as she reached for her father’s. “What happened?” Her father’s hands were colder than she’d ever felt them. Caked in blood.

  He wheezed, as if trying to speak, and for the first time Aniya caught a whiff of the silver. Silver…? The poachers … had brought silver weapons? But that would mean they’d known…

  “Shh, Regis,” Florence whispered brokenly, running her fingers through his thinning hair. Again she lifted her eyes to Aniya. “Humans came. Poachers.” She swallowed. “They shot a deer a little ways off, and one of ours went to claim it.”

  Aniya’s stomach hit the floor. The gunshot. The gunshot she’d heard while she’d been on the street with Maddox.

  “He came back wounded,” her mother said, oblivious to Aniya’s realization. “He said he’d chased the men away. Not to worry.” She drew a sharp, unsteady breath as Regis coughed. Both women’s hands found somewhere to rub gentle, soothing circles over him. Florence continued. “In the early morning, your father startled awake. Said he thought he’d sensed a scuffle, some sort of problem.” She pressed her lips to his head. “By the time we made it to the doorway, even I could hear the commotion. I begged him not to open the door. But in the end, it didn’t matter, because one of those poachers … he let himself in.”

  And her father had done what any male would do to protect his mate. It didn’t need to be said.

  “How?” Aniya asked around the lump in her throat as she gave her father’s hand another squeeze. “How did they get away?” Obviously her father had been terribly wounded, but the clan—the clan should have been there. Except she’d seen no bodies, smelled no mass of human blood.

  “I don’t know,” her mother said with a renewed sob. “I wasn’t honestly paying that much attention after your father threw him out of the house.” She pulled Regis closer, resting her forehead against his.

  Aniya had to look away. Her heart hurt far too much, seeing her parents like this. Knowing her father’s wound was too serious to heal in time. Knowing there was nothing she could do other than be there with them.

  “A-Aniya,” her father said with a cough, giving her hand a weak squeeze.

  She lifted her gaze obligingly, both glad and pained to see him finally looking at her.

  “The clan,” he said, “needs … a leader … now.”

  No. “No, Dad,” Aniya said, shaking her head, more tears escaping. “I can’t—they wouldn’t listen to me even if I tried.” This couldn’t really be what he wanted to say to her now, could it? “Dad, please,” she said, hoping to change the subject. Or put his mind at ease. “I’ll ask the twins to come home. I’ll figure something out. Just … just don’t worry.” But what could she say? What could possibly put the mind of a dying Alpha at ease?

  “They have their own clans, honey,” Florence said, her voice strained. “Your father hasn’t wanted to say anything, but, he’s been worried. He was hoping—we were hoping—you’d find a mate, and produce an Alpha for us.”

  But it’s too late.

  Aniya heard the words hanging between them like a gong in her ears.

  For the life of her, the moment her mother said mate, an image of Maddox came to her in her mind and Aniya knew. She knew she’d never take a traditional mate. Which meant she’d never have cubs—or at least, not purebred cubs. Alphas were always purebred. But she couldn’t say any of that to her parents now—or ever.

  “F-find—” Regis cut himself off with a rasping cough. “Find … a way,” he said finally. When he met her eyes again, she saw tears looking back at her. “They’re our responsibility…”

  “R-Regis?” Florence whispered, desperation in her draining voice.

  Aniya’s eyes widened as her father’s chest fell on an exhale and his hand went slack in hers.

  ****

  Maddox stopped when he realized he’d crossed a fresher path of the poachers’ scent than the one he was already following. He’d begun to pick up lingering, sporadic scents of cougar in the area, meaning they sometimes used this part of the forest as a hunting ground. A sign he severely disliked. But the new trail veered away from the one leading him toward the felines, for which he was grateful. Even if he used the largely legitimate excuse of tracking poachers, he’d have a hard time explaining incidentally ending up at the cougars’ border.

  So he altered course and renewed his chase. He’d closed a lot of distance. He would intercept them soon.

  Several minutes later, the wind shifted direction and brought their scents more directly Maddox’s way. On the breeze, he caught the smell of something that sent ice through his veins.

  Cougar blood. Mixed with silver.

  The blood wasn’t Aniya’s, he knew that instantly. It was no longer fresh, either, though not by much. All the same, they had wielded a silver weapon against one of Aniya’s people. That had to be why she’d been summoned home. She could easily have run across these monsters in her flight, and what then? The pocketknife the first one had pulled on her before most definitely wasn’t silver. She wouldn’t have been expecting it.

  Maddox’s blood began to boil and he pressed forward, close enough now he could almost hear their voices. He needed to catch them. Needed to rip them apart. For reasons that extended beyond his responsibilities as Alpha—though those responsibilities were coming in to play the deeper the poachers walked as well. While at first, their direction could easily have been a random choice, it was beginning to seem like these poachers were headed toward his pack. As if he didn’t already want to kill them badly enough.

  Only it didn’t make sense. How would they know where to find even one shifter den? Let alone both of the dens in the area? On some level, this hunt had to be purposeful. He’d never known humans to make a habit of hunting with silver weapons. It simply wasn’t practical from an uneducated man’s perspective.

  Regardless, the poachers were nearly past the neutral hunting grounds the shifter species shared. Maddox could no longer afford to merely follow and see where they led him.

  Lifting his nose to the wind in order to scent the area ahead, he took solace in noting none of his pack were nearby. At least not yet. It was also midday, which meant that could change anytime. Holding firm to his concern for his pack, driven by the scent of the drying cougar blood, Maddox broke into a run once more.

  He burst past the final bit of shrubbery hiding him from his targets, who had stopped for some reason beneath a large tree, and let his angry growl slip free as he tackled the familiar one head-on. It was that man, the poacher he’d encountered in the city the previous day, who smelled of cougar blood.

  The other poacher cried out in shock, leaping backward and out of the way.

  Maddox and the first one crashed to the ground, but Maddox maintained control of his own descent and easily leaped over the man’s flailing arm. He landed on his feet in front of the bastard’s face, teeth bared, making damn sure the man knew what was coming.

  “Phil!” the other poacher called as he scuffled around. He wasn’t fleeing, but that didn’t surprise Maddox.

  “Fuck! Get this fucking thing away from me!” the one named Phil exclaimed, trying awkwardly to shove himself backward.

  Phil’s hand landed in the dirt as he braced himself and Maddox dove for his arm. It was the same arm that had struck Aniya. The arm he should’ve just ripped off right there in the street. Phil jerked back, but Maddox still managed to sink his teeth into the man’s flesh. Just not exactly where he’d wanted. Phil cursed vehemently and brought his other fist down on Maddox’s head. It wasn’t the most comfortable of hits, but Maddox held on, jerking and growling for good measure.

  The bastard was going to pay for whatever hurt he’d put Aniya’s people through.

  For whatever blood he’d planned to shed in Maddox’s pack.

  He and his friend would pay with their lives.

  Maddox was so intent on ripping pieces of
f Phil he nearly missed the single warning sound he wasn’t meant to hear. He cocked his ears as he caught the telltale whiff of gunpowder in the air. With a sharp jerk of his head, he released Phil’s arm, earning another pained outcry from him, and spun to dodge even as the forest echoed with the explosion of a gunshot.

  Chapter Eight

  No one had agreed with Aniya’s decision to pursue the poachers, but in the aftermath of her parents’ deaths, she’d learned she had no choice.

  Unable to stay in the house another moment, Aniya had run outside, her vision blurred with fresh tears and scarred by the sight of father’s and mother’s lifeless bodies. She’d never thought her father would be murdered. She’d never expected to watch her mother die, as mates do, just moments later. It was too much.

  In need of some kind of distraction, and recognizing her grief didn’t override the looming danger of the poachers, Aniya had asked around until she found a clan member who’d seen them. He was wounded too, she realized. But his wound wasn’t fatal. A fact that had brought her some relief until she’d learned how he’d gotten away—how he’d gotten them away.

  Her own clan member had sold out the wolves.

  He said he’d lied and told the poachers the wolves were weak. “I told them if they took the wolf leader out too, and didn’t come back here, we’d let it go. We wouldn’t come for them.”

  Even now, shifted back into feline form and running through the forest, Aniya felt the sting on her flesh from how hard she’d slapped him. She wanted to exile him for what he’d done. On principle, as a shifter, and also as a woman who wanted nothing more at that moment than to burrow into Maddox’s arms and cry for days. But she had no authority to exile anyone—she wasn’t an Alpha. And not only was Maddox not immediately available, but thanks to one of her own, he might be in imminent danger.

  So she ran.

  Her heart thrummed in her ears with each smack of her paws in the dirt. She ran as fast as she could, as hard as she dared.

  She was still running, following the trail of the poachers as it led ever closer to the wolf den when a gunshot shattered the natural tranquility of the forest.

  Aniya’s heart nearly stopped. A vision of Maddox, bleeding and naked, on the forest floor, blinded her line of sight. No!

  Not him. She couldn’t lose him too.

  ****

  Maddox cursed himself, his uncontrollable yelp of pain still hanging in the air, as he regrouped from the bullet that had nearly embedded itself in his hind end. If he’d been a few seconds slower, he’d be crippled. Instead, it hurt like hell, but the bullet had only sliced over the top of him. It would heal, but he’d need to shift to accelerate the process, and since the damned thing had been silver, even that would hurt like a mother.

  “You fucking missed, Larry!” Phil snapped, having found his feet and now holding a dirty cloth to his bleeding arm.

  “Give me a break! I was trying to avoid you!” The second poacher, Larry, lifted his gun again and Maddox charged. As he’d hoped, Larry panicked and shot wide.

  “Jesus!” Phil exclaimed, throwing himself out of the way as Maddox aimed for Larry next. “He’s a fucking beast!”

  Maddox got his jaw on Larry’s dominant hand, simultaneously knocking the gun askew, and tossed his head until he heard the cracking of fragile bones. Larry shouted, writhing, and rolled in toward his newly-injured hand as soon as Maddox moved away.

  “Pull yourself together, goddammit!” Phil cried. When Maddox returned his attention to the larger poacher, he found Phil had managed to tie the cloth around his arm, for what little good it was doing. Phil extracted his knife—the very same knife, Maddox saw, that he’d used on the cougar he’d stabbed. It still had flakes of blood on its silver blade. “Fucking monster,” he said. “I’ll gut you. Just like I did that old cat.”

  Old? Had he gone for the Alpha? Maddox had never met the cougar Alpha, but he knew the cat was supposed to be a little older than his own father would have been. And this poacher had attacked him? He took pride in that?

  Maddox growled again with renewed anger. Maybe he’d gotten the drop on an elderly Alpha, but he was about to learn what an Alpha in his prime could do.

  “Phil, man, I think you just pissed him off,” Larry said, his voice still burdened with pain.

  “Good.” Phil tightened his hold on the knife and lunged forward, swiping, forcing Maddox to rear back or lose an eye. “That’s right, beast! I’m the big guy on cam—”

  Without warning, Ty burst from the bushes in Maddox’s peripheral vision, snarling viciously, and tackled Phil to the ground. The silver blade went flying and more blood splattered into the air. Phil had managed to block with his injured arm, but Ty got a good bite in all the same.

  “Fuck!” Larry cried, jumping aside and scrambling for his gun. “Another one!” He pointed his gun at Ty and Maddox snapped sharply, quickly earning his attention even as Maddox moved forward again. Larry pulled the trigger, but his aim with his opposite hand was poor and Maddox easily evaded the shot.

  Ty slammed sideways into Larry, having been kicked off by Phil, and another gunshot rang out.

  “Ty!”

  Ty yelped, scrambled off the fumbling poacher, and moved quickly to Maddox’s side. He didn’t appear to be injured. “My ears! Alpha, I may never be able to hear again!”

  Well, if he could still make jokes, he was all right.

  “For the love of fucking God, Larry,” Phil cursed, “shoot the fuckers! I need a hospital!”

  “You take Larry,” Maddox told Ty. “Don’t get shot.”

  Together, they bared their teeth as Larry attempted to square his shot. His heartbeat was far too erratic, his arm was shaking, and his angle was lousy. Maddox was confident they could rip the bastards apart without further injury to themselves.

  He wasn’t counting on the ominous cry of an angry cougar as she pounced from the tree overhead.

  Neither was anyone else.

  She landed on Larry, her momentum knocking them both into Phil, and all three of them tumbled to the ground. The men fell in a tangle of limbs, curses, cries of pain, and fresh blood. Aniya dragged her claws down Larry’s shoulder, narrowly missing when she went to sink her teeth into his bicep. Her jaw clamped on empty air, just centimeters away from Phil’s face.

  “Is … is she…?” The confusion in Ty’s voice was blatant.

  Maddox ignored it. “Now!” He charged forward before either poacher could get their feet beneath them. His hip still hurt from the clip he’d taken minutes ago. He wasn’t going to let them do worse to Aniya.

  The difference in their species prevented him from communicating with her in his animal form, but she seemed to read his intent perfectly. Using Larry as a springboard, she arched into the air and around until she landed on her paws, facing Phil and growling. Maddox was honestly surprised by the intensity of her growl. But he didn’t have time to be as he caught Larry by the sleeve—and a bit of his upper arm—and yanked him away, in the opposite direction of Aniya.

  Larry went stumbling and rolling unceremoniously as Ty quickly moved to put himself beside Maddox, but eyeing the scene with Aniya and Phil.

  Maddox wanted to tell Ty to trust her. More specifically, not to attack her, but there wasn’t time. For the moment, he was going to have to place his own trust in his Beta and hope the other wolf would understand that, at least in this, the cougars were their allies. Maddox returned his focus to Larry, who was coughing up dirt, but then Phil spoke again and his words caught Maddox completely off guard.

  “N-No,” Phil stuttered. “You—or that other one—said if we got them, you’d leave us alone!”

  “What?” Ty’s stunned question echoed Maddox’s sentiment perfectly.

  Maddox looked back in time to see Aniya’s fur ripple as she shifted. He wanted to shout for her to stay in her feline form, where her strength and agility were strongest, but to do that he would have had to shift as well and then the point would be moot.

 
Phil took half a step back when Aniya straightened, fully naked, and leveled an expression full of hatred and heartbreak directly at him. The pain in her eyes gutted Maddox.

  “He doesn’t speak for me,” she said with a growl. Her hands curled into fists and she took a step forward. “My father spoke for me. Before you murdered him.” A tear stole down her cheek.

  “Ty. Take this one.” He didn’t mean to make it an order. The pain on her face, the pain in her expression, the pain in her scent, it was too much. Maddox couldn’t focus on Larry and save her at the same time.

  Then Phil lifted the knife he’d managed to retrieve at some point and, with a derogatory curse, swung out to slice her open.

  Maddox moved on instinct. He shifted mid-lunge, caught hold of Phil’s swinging shoulder, hauled him back into a chokehold, and snapped his neck. Phil’s corpse hit the dirt with a dull thud.

  “Ph-Phil!” Larry screamed. He moved to scurry forward, but Ty, additionally compelled by Maddox’s inadvertent order, cut him off. In two quick movements, Ty managed to rip the other poacher’s throat out, ending the fight. And the threat.

  Maddox returned his attention to Aniya and scowled at the sight of several more tears running down her cheeks. He gave no thought to stepping up to her and wiping them away with his thumbs. “Aniya,” he said gently. When she lifted her gaze to his, he forced the next question past his lips, even though he was fairly sure he’d pieced the answer together already. “What happened?”

  Chapter Nine

  “No,” one of the patrol guards hissed for the hundredth time.

  Aniya defiantly crossed her arms over her chest. She hadn’t expected any of the clan to like this idea. Hell, when Maddox had made the offer—and after the shock had worn off—she’d rejected it. Initially. Until he’d wrapped his arms around her and explained all the reasons why it made the most sense for their situation. Both personally and as a clan—a pack. Okay, the terminology will still be tricky.