Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter, page 25
part #2 of Midnight Liaisons Series
Maynard circled around my flanks and I turned slightly, baring my teeth in the anticipation of another nip. His leg moved over mine. Confused, I sidestepped only to have him nip my flank again, and then push at my hips again, trying to get over me.
He was trying to mount me!
I tried to scream, but nothing came out of my throat but a whine. He pushed against me again, and when I tried to scuttle away, Wyatt’s wolf form was suddenly there, trapping me in.
Run with us. Mate with us.
I was suddenly furious. I snarled and bit at Maynard when he tried to mount me again. He growled low and pushed at me, and this time his nip wasn’t quite so gentle. It was a warning instead.
I attacked him, flinging myself at him in fury, jaws snapping. I bit at his face, and he yelped in surprise.
A large, heavy form slammed into me, and it was my turn to yelp. Suddenly the forest was alive with fighting wolves, and we swarmed over one another, biting, kicking, and snarling. I tore at throats and felt teeth claw at mine. Something bit my hind leg and I yelped in pain, then another attacked me and I flew backward.
A hand grasped me by the scruff, and I snarled, snapping at the hand. “Change back, girl.” Levi stared down at me.
I snapped at his hand.
His fist plowed into my muzzle. I yelped, and when he flung me to the ground, I stayed there. My muscles shivered and then I began to change back, the transformation grating but swift.
A few moments later, I crouched on my hind legs. I had a massive bite on my thigh and wiped blood from my mouth, now swollen and throbbing from Levi’s hit. Around me the others were changing, and I noticed that Maynard and Tony were both changing back with erections.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Levi said, striding over to me and grabbing me by my hair.
I lashed my arms out at him, striking. “I will run with you, but I’m not going to let your wolves mount me.”
He bared his teeth, the human version of a wolf snarl. “If my boys want to mate with you, you’re gonna sit there and smile while they do it, you dumb little bitch.”
My fist slammed into his mouth.
The clearing grew quiet, the only sound my own harsh breathing. Levi dropped me and I clutched at my throbbing scalp, waiting for him to do something.
He touched the corner of his mouth. “Did you . . . did you just challenge me, baby doll?”
I trembled with fear and outrage, but I held my ground. “I’m not your fucking baby doll. I’m not your plaything, and I’m not the mate of your sons. I may be wolf, but that doesn’t mean I belong to you.”
He stared at me, amazed. “That is a challenge, isn’t it?”
I said nothing.
He sprang at me, knocking me to the ground. The earth slammed against my back and the wind flew from my lungs. I gasped, trying to suck in breath, but his fist plowed into my face again. Stars exploded behind my eyes.
“No girl challenges the alpha, you stupid little bitch,” he snarled, grabbing me by my hair again. “I’m gonna teach you a lesson about wolf packs. First rule is that when the alpha tells you to do something, you do it, and you show your throat while you do it.”
I shoved my hands at his face, clawing.
“Daddy,” Gracie said off to the side, uncertainly. “She’s just new. Cut her a little slack—”
“You telling me what to do, girl?” He turned feral yellow eyes on her.
Gracie shrank back, giving me a worried look. I felt a surge of gratitude at the help, even if she hadn’t been strong enough to stand up to her father.
He flung me down to the ground and I felt my ribs creak in protest, the air slamming out of me a second time. I crawled backward as he began to stalk toward me, the wolves milling nervously behind him.
“Let me teach you another lesson about wolf packs, baby doll,” he sneered. “You always submit to the alpha.”
With that, he grabbed my legs. I kicked at him, but his strong hands grasped one of my ankles and yanked it apart from the other. He knelt between my legs.
My scrambling hands clasped a rock, and I slammed it into his jaw.
The crack of it echoed through the clearing. It would have been enough to fell a regular man. The supe over me blinked, and swayed.
Crack! I slammed it into his jaw again.
He toppled, falling backward onto the forest floor. I scrambled to my feet, panting hard, and shoved my foot against his throat. He wasn’t quite out cold—but he was dazed, his jaw bloody.
With my foot, I pushed all of my weight down on his throat. “Show your throat to your new alpha,” I hissed. “Bitch.”
Chapter Nineteen
There was a long, long moment of silence.
Then Maynard began to snarl. Tony began to snarl. Wyatt began to snarl. My skin prickled as they stared at me standing over their fallen alpha.
They were snarls of anger . . . and snarls of challenge. The others hovered nearby, uncertain. Connor’s eyes were shining, but his expression was blank. Gracie looked dismayed.
My heart thudded in my throat. I’d taken Levi by the skin of my teeth, but there was no way I’d be able to beat the others if they all lined up to challenge me.
“I don’t want to lead,” I panted, throwing down the rock. “I just want Ramsey.”
“You challenged. You won,” Maynard snarled, stepping forward. “Now you gotta keep it . . . until one of us takes it from you.”
“No,” I breathed, taking a step backward.
Before Maynard could pounce at me, Connor shoved him aside and crouched low, his yellow eyes focused on me. “I challenge her first.”
I blinked at him in surprise. I had thought Connor was on my side.
He gave me a meaningful look, then bared his teeth in a snarl and sprang on me.
I barely had time to suck in a breath before he’d pounced on me, and we rolled to the dirt, clawing at each other. He was all hard muscle and sinewy strength, and I shoved my hands at his face as he twisted a hand around my waist, trying to grasp me and flip me to the ground. His arm snaked around my throat and he locked me against him. I struggled hard.
“Make it look good,” he whispered against my ear. “Don’t give in too easy.”
Then he bit me, sinking his teeth into my ear. I screeched in outrage, digging my fingers into his gut, and I was pleased at his grunt of pain. We tumbled to the ground again, clawing and fighting, and when my gaze met his again, he widened his eyes a little to let me know that he was pulling his punches. I openhanded slapped him across the face. I was going to make this look good, all right.
We rolled again, his nails gouging a long scratch across my face. “Sorry,” he hissed even as we rolled again and I desperately tried to get the upper hand.
My weight was no match for him, though. His foot connected with my belly, and he kicked me off of him with such force that I flew through the air, slammed into a nearby tree with a crack, and then fell to the ground, unconscious.
I awoke in a blur of pain a short time later. I sat up, shaking my head, focusing my gaze on the clearing. Maynard nursed a black eye and a swollen jaw against a nearby tree, his body covered in dirt and scratches. Tony squatted next to him in the same condition. Ditto Wyatt. In the center of the clearing, Connor pounded his fist into Levi’s face—Levi had apparently awoken and decided to challenge for leadership once more.
It was clear that young, strong Connor was holding the alpha position quite firmly. I glanced over at the other watchers, who didn’t seem like they were going to challenge.
As I stood up on wobbly, aching legs, Levi raised a hand and bared his throat, yielding to Connor. The older man’s jaw was set with anger, but his hand trembled. The beating he’d taken was enough. Breathing hard, Connor hauled himself to his feet and looked around the clearing, baring his teeth. “Anyone else?”
Silence.
“Anyone?” he demanded, the sound almost feral. I felt the overwhelming urge to drop to my knees and whine for mercy, so the alpha thing must have been kicking in.
He gave a firm nod and straightened, wiping away the blood on his lip. He glanced over at me, then at Levi. “Uncle, you’re going to give Sara the key to Ramsey’s manacles.”
“And the poison,” I said quickly, thinking of Ramsey. “I want the antidote.”
“We’ll get it for you.” Connor turned his angry gaze back on the pack. “She gets to leave with him, and no one’s going to fuck with them.” He turned to Maynard and Tony. “Especially not you two. Find your own goddamn mates. You don’t have to steal someone else’s.”
“Like you found that little cougar,” Maynard sneered, then flinched when Connor turned the force of his gaze on him.
“If that cougar will have me, yes,” Connor said. “I don’t care if she’s a cat or a rat or a goddamn snake. If I want her to be my mate and she wants to be my mate, there’s not a damn thing you or anyone else will do about it. Understand me?”
No one said a thing.
“And we’re going to join that goddamn Alliance and we’re going to act like fucking humans, not like animals just because we don’t agree with someone. Our days of terrorizing others are over. I’m tired of wolves being synonymous with bullies. We’re better than that, and we all know it.”
He looked over at me. “If you want to run with this pack, Sara, you are always welcome here. You and your mate.”
It would take a lot of trust and time before I could believe that, but I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Now let’s get you back to him,” he said. “We haven’t got much time.”
When we got back to the house, I dashed up to Ramsey’s room. He was pale and sweating, and his heart thrummed even more rapidly than before. Tears brimmed in my eyes. “Where’s that antidote?”
Gracie showed up with the keys a minute later and gave me an awkward smile. “I’m sorry, Sara. You know how it is with the pack. We have to obey our elders.”
I said nothing. Until Gracie showed a real heart and not just whatever the pack told her, we’d never be friends.
She unlocked his manacles and said, “I’ll get Connor.”
When Ramsey awoke I was by his bedside, holding his hand. I stroked the sweaty locks of hair from his forehead tenderly, my heart unknotting a little at the sight of his eyes opening.
“Hey,” I said softly.
He looked over at me, and his mouth firmed into a hard frown. “You’re hurt.”
My jaw was sore and bruised, but it was nothing that wouldn’t heal. “I’m all right. How are you feeling?”
He struggled to sit up.
“Take it easy,” I said. “You’re probably a little woozy.” From what Connor had told me, the cure was almost as bad as the poison.
A low growl started in his throat. Alarmed, I placed a hand on his chest. He surged past me, and with a snarl, he lunged for Connor. I hadn’t realized he’d been standing in the doorway.
“You . . . threatened my mate . . .” His big hands closed around Connor’s neck. To my surprise, Connor didn’t fight back at all. He gave me a helpless look, as if pleading with me that he didn’t want to answer Ramsey’s challenge.
“Ramsey, love,” I said, putting my hands over his and prying at them. “It’s okay.”
“Fucking . . . bastards. Going to kill them all for hurting you.”
“Ramsey, it’s okay. Levi and Maynard were behind everything. Connor defended me. He’s taken over the pack.”
It took a moment for my words to sink in. He slowly unwrapped his fingers from Connor’s neck and then turned to me, listing heavily. He reached for my cheek, and I could have wept at the look on his face. “You’re . . .”
“I’m all right,” I said softly. “The pack isn’t going to bother us anymore.”
“I don’t believe you,” he rasped, his throat dry.
“I don’t blame you,” Connor said, his voice harsh. “That’s twice now that my kind has attacked and injured your kind. We can’t make it right in a day, but we can make a start.” He looked over at me. “And we’re going to start with meeting with the Alliance.”
Well, technically, we started with getting Ramsey home. He was exhausted and weak, and every time he saw one of the other wolves, he’d start snarling, anger burning through him. It took a while for Connor and me to half drag, half carry his big body through the woods, but we made it to Connor’s car, and he drove us back to where Ramsey’s truck had been abandoned.
“I’ll meet you tomorrow morning,” Connor said. “Alliance and pack meeting. There, we’ll decide what to do with Maynard and Levi. As long as they’re here, they’re going to keep breaking the rules we’ve established. I can’t have that if we’re to bring the pack to any sort of order.” He said the words heavily, suddenly looking much older.
“What did you have in mind?” Ramsey said wearily.
“Ritual execution?” I said cheerfully.
“I don’t know if that’d be such a good idea,” Connor said.
“I do,” I muttered. “And you know as well as I do that the Russells aren’t going to be happy with a slap on the hand and a warning. Neither am I. They attacked my mate.”
And that, I wouldn’t forgive.
When we got into Ramsey’s car, he stripped off his T-shirt. To my surprise, he tugged me close and pulled it over my head.
I’d forgotten I was naked.
“Where are your clothes?” he asked me.
“Probably back at the gas station.” A hysterical laugh bubbled out of me, a mixture of relief and absurdity.
He hugged me against him, plastering my body to his. The steering wheel bit into my back, but I didn’t care—I breathed in his scent, sweaty and faintly medicinal from the antidote. He smelled so familiar and wonderful that I wanted to suddenly weep. The laughter died in my throat, and I snuggled in as he tucked me close against his arm and wrapped his arms around me.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked quietly. “Tell me the truth. If they hurt one hair on your head, I’ll go in there and break every single one of their necks.”
“They tried,” I admitted softly. “I fought back, and I think that Maynard and Levi didn’t know how to handle that.”
The rumble in his chest was low and approving. “So I only need to snap two necks.”
“No,” I said softly. “You just need to hold me for a bit longer. We’ll let someone else take care of the details.”
His grip on me tightened and he pressed a fierce kiss to my shoulder. “You were all I could think about,” he said roughly. “When they attacked me, when they drugged me, I fought. I kept fighting because all I could think about was how I was leaving you unprotected. It drove me insane. I thought I would die if anything happened to you. I would never leave you—ever. You know that, right?”
My hand moved down his chest, and I pressed against his heart. I could feel the slow, steady beat of it, his muscles tensing with emotion even as he cradled me close, and knew he was moments away from turning right back around, going into that house, and making the others sorry they were ever born. So I stroked my hands over his body to soothe him and pressed a kiss to his neck.
“I’m free of them, Ramsey. I fought back when they tried to cow me and make me step into place. I fought back and I won. They can’t try and force me to obey anymore. Connor’s in charge now, and things will be different.”
“Until the next alpha comes along and tries to think you’re his,” he said darkly.
“I don’t think so,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s hard to explain, but . . . I’m not scared anymore. Not of the wolves or what they can do to me. When I was frightened, I was frightened for you and what they’d do to you. And I realized that I didn’t have to be afraid anymore. There’s a strong core inside me that I’ve found and they can’t take away.” I knew now that if shit hit the fan, I could take care of myself, and I would. I was no longer the scared rabbit but the wolf.
I was my own alpha. It was a feeling I liked.
I smiled, then leaned in and kissed his neck again. I’d never get used to the wonderful taste of him. I wanted to lick him all over and eat him up. I wanted to crawl inside his skin and never come out again. He captured my mouth in a searing kiss.
“I love you,” I breathed against his mouth when we pulled apart.
“I love you, Sara.” His fingers brushed over the bruise on my cheek. “But if we don’t drive away soon, I might have to go back in there and crush some skulls.”
I slid out of his lap and onto the passenger seat. “Then take me home.”
Ramsey went instead to Midnight Liaisons, where Beau and my sister were armed with shotguns, and Russells were preparing to send a posse out to the Andersons. We quickly explained what had happened and arranged the meet-up with the wolf pack in the morning.
My sister hugged me and demanded that I sit and let my wounds be taken care of, and an extra set of clothing (I always kept a spare at the office) was dragged out for me. I didn’t mind my sister’s fussing—I knew it was her way of coping with stress—but as soon as I was dressed and covered in Band-Aids, I returned to Ramsey’s side.
When he saw me, he extended his hand, inviting me to return to him.
I always, always would.
After a long, tense morning meeting, the wolf pack and Alliance came to an agreement: Maynard and Levi would be exiled.
“This is a joke,” Maynard sneered. “Exile?”
“Exile,” Connor said firmly.
“What for? For following pack law?” Levi looked belligerent, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Pack law has nothing to do with this,” Beau said, looming menacingly over both seated men. “You’re also part human, and human law condemns kidnapping, attempted rape, and assault. You’re lucky you’re getting away with just exile.”
