Pack Princess
Wolf Rampant Book 2
by Aimee Easterling
Copyright © 2014 by Aimee Easterling.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Read more about my books at www.wetknee.com.
Author's note
If you'd like to refresh your memory about who's who at the time when Shiftless ended, please flip to the back of this book for an interview with the main characters of Pack Princess. I've placed the table of contents at the back as well to make it easier for you to dive right into the story. So what are you waiting for? Turn the page and start reading!
Chapter 1
When I set off for my afternoon run, the whole forest smelled like my mate. Pine needles and leaf mold and that tinge of something extra that said "powerful male werewolf." Which is why I was smiling in a tongue-lolling canine fashion...right up until the moment when a huge wolf came barreling out from behind a bush and sent me spinning head over heels to land with a thud against the trunk of a tulip poplar.
Werewolves are pretty rough-and-ready, so it wasn't the crack on my skull that had me shaking my head in a daze as I scrambled back to my feet. Nope, it was just plain surprise. From the moment when I'd first stepped into my father's metaphorical shoes, I expected to have to face down power-hungry uncles and cousins in order to maintain my place as alpha of our current pack. But as days stretched into months without a challenge in sight, I'd slowly relaxed my guard. As a result, I now realized that it had been weeks since I'd bothered to peer at the inner wolf of each shifter around me, attempting to seek out insurrections before they had time to spark into flame. And I certainly wasn't expecting to be attacked here, deep in the heart of pack territory, where there were unlikely to be werewolves from other clans trying to slip past our defenses. So what the heck was going on?
Even as these bewildered thoughts tumbled through my mind, I was spinning on my heel, ruff raised to make me appear larger as I curled my upper lip back into a lupine snarl. But then I paused, even more confused, as I recognized my father's grizzled muzzle.
Chief Wilder had been the bane of my existence growing up, and he was also the primary reason I'd fled Haven in the first place to eke out a lonely existence in the human world. Yet, since then, my father had manipulated me back into our shared pack, and he'd recently seemed quite willing to let his sole surviving daughter take over leadership of clan Wilder. So what was with this out-of-the-blue attack? Could Crazy Wilder's nickname have become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps my father wasn't simply stuck in wolf form. Maybe now, he was truly cracked.
In the past, I'd always backed down when faced with the sight of my father's fangs, but as pack leader, I currently had shifters to think about other than myself. So even though it seemed a bit unfair to fight a werewolf who was probably at least partially out of his mind, I took a slow step toward the Chief and allowed a deep vibration to turn into a growl at the base of my chest. I hadn't realized my own power when I was a child, but now I understood that a simple stare from an alpha like me should be enough to squash any opposition from a weaker wolf. Why fight when intimidation would suffice?
But, unlike the other werewolves whom I'd spent time with recently, my father didn't back down in the face of my challenge. In fact, Chief Wilder didn't even bother to respond to my posturing. Instead, the huge wolf sprang again, his massive form suddenly looking nearly twice the size of my own, and I knew that I'd be crushed beneath the Chief's tremendous paws if I stayed put.
So much for plan A. Luckily, what I lacked in size (and, apparently, in ability to intimidate), I more than made up for in agility. Darting aside at the last moment, I snapped at the folds of flesh beneath my father's neck as he soared past, hoping to latch onto this piece of prime real estate. A wolf's under-belly was the ultimate prize in a shifter fight, but the neck wasn't far behind, and I knew that if I could just arrange my teeth on either side of my opponent's jugular, I'd be able to end this struggle before it truly began.
But unfortunately for me, the Chief was a wily old wolf, and no simple feint could elude his guard. Instead, he turned in midair, teeth snapping menacingly as his shoulder struck mine with a crack, and we both went down together in a pile of fur and claws.
Rolling across the leaves as part of an eight-legged jumble, I managed at last to latch onto the other wolf's shoulder with trap-strong lupine jaws. But I knew from experience that the Chief could barely feel the bite through his tough hide, and he certainly showed no signs of being vanquished. So I scrabbled with my hind legs, pushing against my father's belly in an attempt to reach a more delicate zone—the neck or belly would be perfect, but even the skin beneath my father's forelegs would suffice in a pinch.
And as I twisted, I felt the Chief's body shaking beneath mine, making me think that the deposed alpha might finally be struggling to hold his ground against a younger wolf. However, as I continued to bite and claw to no real effect, I soon realized that I was wrong—my father was simply laughing. In fact, the Chief was so confident of his own success that he was willing to give his daughter the opportunity to seek out a winning hold, waiting until I was forced to admit my own failure before ending the fight.
Then, just as I finally understood how severely I had been outclassed, the older wolf shook himself, pulling loose from my jaws with ease, and his own fangs sank deep into the tender valley of soft flesh beneath my chin. I yelped at the jolt of pain that rushed through my body, but that didn't prevent me from struggling against my father's grasp. Instead of freedom, though, I felt my hide tearing as a warm trickle of blood started to soak into my fur. Stilling at last, I knew that I was beaten.
If I'd needed proof that my father had allowed Wolfie and me to pull the rug out from under him six weeks prior rather than being truly vanquished, this farce of a battle was it. How could I have thought that I—a twenty-five-year-old female werewolf—was a match for the legendary Chief Wilder? Even half-crazed and unable to ally with his inner wolf, my father could have beaten me with one arm tied behind his back.
And as the Chief shifted seamlessly into human form, tossing me to the side and exposing my unprotected underbelly with one swipe of a muscular arm, I realized that my assumption that the wolf had completely taken over my father's mind was equally unfounded. Chief Wilder was as powerful as he'd ever been...and I was entirely at his mercy.
So, feeling like the cowed teenager I'd been a decade before, I instantly returned to my childhood demeanor. Pulling myself up to stand on four trembling feet, I cowered beneath my father's menacing form. And, with tail tucked between my legs, I whimpered my defeat.
***
As I waited for my father to decide whether to tear out the rest of my throat, I couldn't help thinking back to how accomplished I'd felt when I first set out for my solitary run. Separated from my mate and forced to manage a pack of grumpy, traditional relatives, the last couple of months had been a challenge. But I'd been surprised to find that I was able to extinguish both literal and metaphorical fires (darn those yahoos!), and to keep my inherited pack on a relatively even keel.
Okay, yes, when the loaned teenage and twenty-something werewolves from Wolfie's pack—the yahoos—ran Aunt Bev's panties up the flagpole, hindering the inter-pack merger that I was trying to ease the Wilder clan into, it took all of m
y self-control not to rip out any mischievous young throats. And it was true that the absence of my mate was made more difficult than it should have been since the Wilder village lacked all modern conveniences, even so much as a simple land line. Rather than broaching the topic of entering the twenty-first century, though, I'd chosen to keep my focus firmly on community priorities...all the while channeling my inner truant and phoning Wolfie on the sly. To that end, I'd stashed a mobile phone inside a tupperware container deep in the woods, and when I couldn't bear spending another instant without hearing my mate's voice, I'd slipped out of my clothes, dropped down to four paws, and run.
"Disgusting." The word that pulled me out of my reverie was gravelly as the Chief's human vocal cords protested weeks of disuse, but the old shifter's tone remained as cold as ever, proving that, despite my supposed successes, my ability to disappoint the pack's previous alpha was never-ending. Attempting to ignore my father's disdain, I crouched lower to the ground and fought the urge to turn tail and run, instead calming my wolf enough to let my human mind rise to the forefront. Hopefully the two sides of our character working together would be strong enough to get us out of our current situation unscathed. Or, if strength of character wasn't enough to finagle an escape, perhaps we could still ease out of this mess with just a little bit of luck....
"You'd think that somewhere beneath those breasts and curls, my own offspring would be a bit more like me," the Chief continued, his words proving that my wished-for luck wasn't going to materialize anytime soon. In fact, my father was so discontented with my lack of reaction to his words that he kicked out with one bare foot, and the hard bone in his heel was sufficient to drag a yelp out of my throat. "If I possessed even half of a son," he gritted out, ignoring my cry, "then I wouldn't be forced to turn a useless daughter into the leader that this pack so sorely craves.
"But that's neither here nor there," the Chief continued, picking up a broad stick and using it to sift through the leaves at his feet. I only realized as the wood clanked against something hard that my father was searching for my cell phone, meaning that he must have watched as I hid the device a few days earlier. Replaying the honeyed words that Wolfie and I had exchanged at that time, a small lupine whimper crept out of my muzzle, replacing the blood that would have rushed to my cheeks had I been in human form. Then I quickly cringed aside, knowing that my father detested any show of weakness from his offspring and hoping to escape another punishing blow.
But the alpha's attention was still focused on the tupperware container currently protecting the one link I had to the outside world, so I was spared another kick to the ribs. "I'm assuming that you still don't have the guts to fight for this clan the way I would have?" my father continued instead, his tone companionable, but with steel underlying the simple words. Without waiting for a reply, the Chief pried off my cached container's lid and I caught a tiny whiff of Wolfie's scent, the aroma enough to make me wish that my mate would appear and solve all of my problems with his typical blend of ingenuity combined with the subtlest threat of violence.
But my mate wasn't here, I was feeling decidedly unclever, and my father was watching me now with the hawk-like stare of a predator assessing his prey. "Well?" the Chief asked again, and his nostrils flared as he barely managed to hold his impatience in check. "This is your wake-up call, girl. Are you or aren't you willing to face down the other pack leaders in wolf form, to tear them apart if and when it becomes necessary, and to stand up as a true Wilder chief?"
In lieu of an answer, I cowered closer to the ground, and my father simply nodded as if my posture was reply enough. Turning away, the Chief set my cell phone atop a rock and brought down the end of his stick in a punishing blow, sending bits of plastic and metal spinning off in every direction. One fragment gashed open a small cut across my father's shin, but the Chief didn't flinch as blood welled up beneath the surface and then trickled down his leg. Instead, the shifter knelt to take my lupine cheeks in two strong hands, then he forced my nose into the pile of debris the way a cat owner might punish a feline for shitting in the house. "This will end," my father continued, his voice calm but cold.
If I'd been able to, I would have rolled over onto my back then and exposed my belly in an immediate show of submission. There was no other acceptable response to the alpha's command, and I was too frightened to even whimper, so I simply trembled and allowed the painful alpha energy to wash over me. My father was right—whatever the Chief wanted to come to an end would end. Immediately.
"I had hoped you might have grown a bit of spine by now," Chief Wilder continued, letting my fur loose at last and leaning back onto his haunches, as relaxed as if we were simply friends drinking beer around a campfire. In contrast to my father, though, I was far from relaxed. And as the Chief's gaze drifted away from mine for a split second, I scuttled away to place a few inches between us, then struggled to slow my frantic breathing.
"But you seem to think that being an alpha means being an administrator," the Chief continued, oblivious to my retreat. His last word was spat out as if the older shifter had meant to say "sewage-plant manager"...or, knowing him, probably something considerably more lewd and colorful. I tried to cheer myself up by imagining other possible job descriptions that my father would find equally unpalatable, but I wasn't able to focus on anything except my own terror...not when the Chief was clearly within a hair's breadth of ripping his own daughter to shreds so he could place someone more accomplished in charge of the Wilder clan.
And yet, a satisfied smirk widened my father's mouth as he paused to consider my reaction before speaking again. "You can't hide behind your boyfriend forever," the Chief said at last. "All-Pack is coming up, and I won't have my clan taken over by an unrelated alpha just because my daughter is too lily-livered to face down the inevitable contenders. So, since you can't seem to find your ass with both hands tied behind your back, I've come up with a solution."
And as I emerged from my fright long enough to consider my father's words, I was ashamed to admit that my thoughts had been so fully occupied with keeping my uncles and cousins in line over the last few weeks that I hadn't spared a single thought for All-Pack. The regional gathering of alphas met on every winter solstice to hash out rule changes and to smooth over disagreements, and while intra-clan succession wasn't usually an issue at All-Pack, my role as the first female alpha in living memory would definitely raise eyebrows. In fact, if I showed up without a plan, chances were good that I would go down beneath a pile of wolves on the first night, each alpha intent on becoming the new chief of clan Wilder.
Unfortunately, my father's troubled history with the other alphas definitely wouldn't help matters. The Chief had held the greatest authority in our regional gathering for as long as I could remember, which should have given his daughter some credibility now that I stood in his place. But while most alphas built alliances based on marriage and on favors, my father instead opted to utilize trickery and intimidation to gain the upper hand. I could only imagine how thrilled those same alphas would be to take the manipulative bastard's offspring down now that they had the chance.
"Listen carefully," my father said, nudging my furry chest with his toe and returning my attention to the more immediate danger. Yes, I'd likely be torn apart at All-Pack...but that was three weeks in the future, and my father looked inclined to save the other pack leaders the trouble of ripping out my jugular. So I obeyed my father's command, and I listened.
"You will cut off all ties with Wolf Young," my father gritted out, "and you will play those stupid young alphas against each other until each one thinks that he'll marry into my place. Then, if you do your job capably enough, maybe I won't be forced to take control of this clan away from you."
As he finished speaking, the Chief's face abruptly contorted and I could see his wolf clawing back up through his human skin, a strangled howl breaking out of my father's hairless lips. And I shivered, knowing that while the Chief might find it easy to vanquish me, the evidence of
my own eyes proved that the once-great Chief Wilder was no longer able to defeat his own wolf.
Which might feel like a relief right now, while my father was stumbling away into the woods, his gait drunken as he fought against his lupine half...and lost. But the Chief's weakness also meant that during the upcoming All-Pack, the weight of protecting our familial clan would fall squarely onto my back alone. And my thin female shoulders hardly felt up to the challenge.
Chapter 2
When I'd shifted to wolf form an hour earlier, I left my clothes in the pool house as a nod toward my stepmother Cricket's sense of propriety. But now I regretted that action as I neared the door on two bare human feet and smelled a strange alpha's scent lingering along the stepping stones.
I shouldn't have been surprised to pick up signs of a visiting alpha as I pattered up the walkway. After all, the outbuilding in question had always been my father's unofficial headquarters, the spot where other alphas came to plead their cases and to make deals with the all-powerful Chief Wilder. In fact, as a child, I'd spent hours hiding behind the curtains, listening to males posture and bargain while they played a competitive game of pool.
So I wasn't entirely surprised by the current alpha's presence, but I was chagrined. Was this really how I would commence taking over the inter-pack-relations portion of my new job? Completely naked, with goosebumps covering my skin more from my father's verbal smack-down than from the cold? I didn't feel able to keep so much as a five-year-old under control at the moment, and I definitely didn't want to spend the rest of this afternoon tiptoeing down the difficult path of striking deals with a visiting alpha. Instead, the mere notion of trying to be intimidating and coy all at once made my shoulders hunch and my steps falter.
Pack Princess: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 2) Page 1
