Filed to story: The Tyrant Alphas Rejected Mate
Her animal is a scrawny mutt, gray with no markings and pointed, tucked ears. She lost that fight before Haisley even shifted.
Una’s probably going feral. Lone females lose their minds sooner or later. Something about having no men in their lives-no mate, no father, no uncles or brothers-unbalances them. They start talking to ghosts. Refuse to shave their legs and shit. As far as I know, she’s never gotten dick from any of the pack males-
“Son of a bitch!” Gael shouts as he sails backward through the air, landing on his ass. The bag swings so high it nearly comes off the S-hook. Damn. I put a lot more power behind that one than I intended.
“Should’ve moved with the bag instead of bracing,” I point out.
He flips me off from the mat.
“Well, come on,” I say. “Hop up.”
If he takes this long to get up during a match, I’m putting him back on the maintenance crew.
After playing it up and plucking my nerves, Gael finally springs to his feet, showing off, and resumes his position. I fall back into a pattern. Jab, hook, cross punch. Watch Gael flinch. Kick.
What was I thinking about?
Oh, yeah. Una Hayes has gone nuts. I better pay a visit to Abertha. See if there’s an herb or a spell or something.
Una may be unhinged, and not much more than a mouth to feed, but she’s pack. I’m not gonna exile her to the foothills to die like my dad would’ve done. I don’t know what we’re gonna do with a crazy female, though. This pack doesn’t lock up females anymore. For any reason.
The bag flies again, and this time, Gael soars a good six feet and crashes into a metal beam. My chest rumbles.
“What the hell, man?” Gael touches the back of his head. His fingers come away dripping blood.
This time I go help him up. “My bad. Must be the wolf.”
I know some people talk to their wolves, give ’em personalities and shit, but mine is simple. He’s an animal. He wants meat and blood. He sees it; he wants it; he goes for it. He’s never let me down, so I give him free reign. Never had a complaint. We don’t need to commune. Feel each other’s feelings. We just-are. As it should be.
But he can get rambunctious.
I twist Gael’s head, check out the cut. I can’t see skull. He’s fine. I punch his shoulder. “Let’s go bench.”
I’m trying to get him up to middleweight by the North Border fight. He could be competitive. Or he could get mauled and thanked for it by a Canuck if he doesn’t stop flopping like a soccer player every time he gets whacked by a punching bag.
“Can I spot first?” He staggers a little on the way to the equipment.
“Nope.” And he’s doing double reps for asking.
While we’re doing sets, Tye and Alfie come back from patrol. Ivo and Finn must have relieved them early. Definitely Ivo who made that call. Finn’s a lazy shit. Thinks ’cause he kisses Lochlan’s ass, he’s special.
He’s special ’cause he’s currently top ranked in the circuit for cruiserweight. When his laziness inevitably costs him the title, he’s back to mopping the ring and stacking towels with the rest of B-roster.
I slap Gael’s ass. “Good work. Hit the showers.” Gael’s relief is visible. Dude needs to work on his game face. “Fallon. You’re up.”
I rack my weights and wave the pup over to the ring. He comes. Reluctantly. Scared as a rabbit as my grandad used to say. Kid needs to work on his game face, too. He’s eighteen now. By his age, my father had been entering me in the New Moon fights for years.
I start today’s lesson with an uppercut to the jaw. It’ll be harder for the others to tell he’s a pussy if his face is swollen.
Fallon’s got potential, natural talent for days, but no strategy. He goes for the duck every time. I wait for his head to go down and nail him with a hook around each time he does it, and he still can’t figure out what he’s doing wrong.
It’d be entertaining if it wasn’t gonna get him mauled in the ring.
At least Una Hayes has the excuse of inexperience. She sprinted right into Haisley’s open mouth. Fuckin’ delivery service. I had to fight my wolf hard not to intervene. He must’ve thought a pup was being attacked.
The whole thing still doesn’t sit entirely right with me, but if you’re big enough to go after a packmate, you’re big enough to take your beating. I wasn’t gonna let Haisley kill her or anything. For a second there, I almost tagged in, it was so hard to watch. I would’ve never lived it down, intervening in a female fight.
I have to talk to Abertha. If Una’s not all there in the head, exceptions need to be made for her. We don’t hurt females, young, or the defective anymore. I ended that shit.
Not everyone likes the new world order, but everyone is free to challenge me if they want to go back to the old ways. I only had to put a few males in the ground before the rest decided they could acclimate to change. Fear is a powerful motivator.
Speaking of-Fallon’s getting too complacent. He’s clinching so much, he should’ve bought me dinner beforehand. I throw a flurry into his gut, alternating with some pity pat shots to his thick head, and when he gets nice and disoriented, I drive an uppercut into his ribs and smile at the nice, clean crack.
He groans piteously as he taps my shoulder. “Enough, Alpha.”
I follow up with a sharp jab for good measure. I say when it’s enough. It’ll be enough when he learns he’s not safe in the ring and hugging is for the bitch he’s banging.
“Stop clinching.” I jab him again, right in the broken rib, and he yelps. “Stop ducking.”
I meant for it to be a quick lesson, but I guess my wolf’s got the taste of blood. I have my fist drawn back again when Tye grabs my forearm. When I snarl, Tye immediately drops his hold and shows his neck.
I growl from the chest. My wolf flashes his fangs. Tye lowers his gaze to the ground.
My heart pounds for no reason. Fallon Campbell isn’t a challenge. He’s hardly more of a workout than the bag most days. And Tye is my beta, my right hand. I don’t need his submission. I need him to check my ass when I lose it.
But out of nowhere, aggression is rolling off me like it’s fight night. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. It’s not a full moon, not even close. I take a few breaths, bounce on my toes, and throw a few punches into the air. I’m unsettled. Is there a threat I’m sensing?
“You didn’t smell anything when you were out, did you?” I ask Tye. He’s lounging against the ropes, the fraught moment passed.
“Nope.”
“No tracks?”
“None.”
“No signs?” I push, a dog with a bone.
“A woodchuck took a dump near the old dens. Is that what you want to know?”
“You can tap gloves with me anytime, pretty boy.” I bare my fangs and lick the tip of the incisor.
Tye raises his hands. “You saw me last night. I almost let Lochlan Byrne pin me.”
“Yeah, what was that?” Tye should’ve finished off that upstart in one round. I’d forgotten about it in all the drama afterwards.
Tye shrugs. “Too much turkey and gravy? Fuck if I know. It was a strange night.”
“That it was.” I duck between the ropes and slap his back. “Sauna?”
He nods, and we make our way to the locker room. I kept most things the same when I became alpha, but I did have the old gym restored and the facilities updated. We’ve got a sauna and hot tub now, and I had a ring built in the middle of the basketball court. When you can leap ten feet from flat-footed, dunking isn’t really a thrill.
Before I was born, this camp used to be a nature retreat for school children, church groups, and the like. In the 80s, there were budget cuts, and the county was forced to sell the lodge, a dozen cabins, and fifty acres, including the river, ponds, a tract of virgin forest, and a cross section of Quarry Pack’s claimed territory.
Earning the money to buy our land from the government was my father’s greatest accomplishment. And it made our males what we are now-prizefighters mostly, bounty hunters and hired muscle on the side. It could be worse. We could wear suits and sniff human ass all day like Moon Lake Pack.
It’s an impossible balance-the old ways and the new, the human world and our own. There is no balance, really. It’s not unlike Una Hayes’ gait-steady only because we keep it movin’.
There are only a few in the pack who realize how tenuous our hold on all of this is. Humans are weak, venal, and undisciplined-and they outnumber us by billions. That’s an unstoppable force. They’ve been content to profit off us where they can-bet on our fights, sell souvenirs to the lookie-loos-but how long before they eye our territories?
Our DNA?
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?