Again, his loyal Beta tries to intercede.
“Gem, Ryker’s right,” Shane says calmly. “This isn’t the time for this conversation.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I hear it straight from the Alpha,” I promise.
They could drag me out of here, but I know they won’t. Just like I know that Shane is only trying to cover for Ryker, as usual.
When it’s obvious that I’m basically daring them to do just that, Ryker pushes his chair away from his desk. But he doesn’t stand. He just lounges cockily in the leather seat.
Damn it, but he has good reason to be cocky. His dominance is off the charts, he’s good looking and he knows it, and now I’ve made it obvious that he has two females fighting over him.
Ha. If only I could settle things as easily as that. Trish has no problem taunting an omega, but how would she react if she learned that I’m an alpha? She’d have no chance—and I hate that my pulse quickens at the thought of going for her throat.
Not when all of the blame falls on the handsome bastard at the desk.
“Well.” I tap my flat against the floor, glaring at him. “I’m waiting.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Any other packmate would back down when they heard the pure alpha dominance in his voice.
Not me.
“I can take it.”
The way he looks me up and down tells me that he’s not so sure about that. But he answers me anyway. “Then, no. I have no intention of mating you this moon or the next.”
Or at all, I bet.
Trying to hide how his answer affects me, I straighten my shoulders as the absolute rejection slithers down the echoes of a bond that began to build when I was still a kid.
I’ve spent the last ten years working toward the moment when Ryker would take over his father’s pack and accept a mate, knowing that it had to be me. Even if some part of me didn’t already sense it, during his Alpha Ceremony at the beginning of the year, it was formally declared that I was to leave the Lakeview Pack, joining with Ryker as fully bonded mates.
But then my arrival kept getting delayed, and Ryker barely spoke to me after I came to Accalia, and I put up with all of it because that’s what good girl Gemma was supposed to do. And because I’ve spent ten years wondering what it would be like to be with the infamous Ryker Wolfson, I figured I could wait a little longer.
It feels like I’ve already been waiting a lifetime.
I met Ryker, the son of the former Mountainside Pack’s Alpha, at one of the grand meets where nearly every pack leader in the country travels for an annual get-together. And I knew from that very first meeting that he was meant to be mine.
At fifteen, it was little more than a schoolgirl crush.
By seventeen, I was smitten with the older shifter.
When I was twenty, after a night spent talking together while we sat behind the Alpha cabin where the pack leaders were assembled, I was enchanted.
Two years later, when a bunch of us younger wolves went for a run together in our fur, I had to admit that I would follow him anywhere.
I hadn’t seen him again after that—not until the moment I arrived at Accalia with all my earthly possessions and the new Alpha couldn’t even look me in the eye.
Damn it, he’s doing it again. Gaze sliding away, fixed on a point just over my shoulder as if giving the illusion that he’s paying attention while, truthfully, he’s utterly bored.
I’ve finally hit my breaking point.
I’ve been riding an unstable cocktail of adrenaline and heartbreak ever since Trish crowed that she was his chosen. Fate might say one thing, the moon might say the same, but none of that matters. A chosen mate always wins—which means that I’ve already lost everything.
And since there’s nothing left to lose…
Before anyone can guess what I’m about to do, before any of the other dominant shifters in the room can react, I leap onto his desk, then pounce. I land on his lap, stretching the skirt of my dress as I straddle him.
His head snaps forward.
Oh, yeah. He’s totally looking at me now.
I’m not a moron—but I am a bit of a hothead. And sometimes I know better than to act so impulsively, but that doesn’t stop me.
When Ryker became Alpha, everyone knew that he would take a mate. He had to. It’s how it’s done. How it’s always been done. But I had thought, when he arranged with my home pack for me to come to him, that he’d at least felt a little something for me.
Obviously, I was wrong.
I hurt. The way I see it, it’s only fair that I return the favor.
I flex my fingers, my claws positioned perfectly to attack. And I do. I lash out, stabbing him with every single claw on my right hand. The sharp points slide through the fabric of his shirt, the meat in his chest, as I just about touch his fucking heart.
“I gave you mine,” I whisper. “Don’t you think it’s fair I get to take yours?”
The wolves behind me go absolutely still. Even after watching me stalk in here, they never really expected Little Miss Shifter Barbie to go feral, and they don’t know what to do. Their Alpha is in danger, but whether Ryker and I have mated yet or not—whether he rejected me or not—their instincts are telling them this is a battle between an Alpha couple and they can’t interfere. Not even Shane speaks up again.
They’re half right, too. We’re both alphas here—even if I finally understand that I’ll never be his mate.
Tonight has made that perfectly clear.
Ryker’s expression doesn’t change one bit. One quick jerk, one wrong breath, and I could rip his damn heart right out of his chest, and he looks as disinterested as if we’re discussing the weather.
I want to do it. But that’s the bloodthirsty nature of being an alpha wolf shifter speaking, not my more rational human side.
Actually, no. That’s not right.
It’s the rejected, heartbroken, aching human half that wants to destroy Ryker—but I can’t.
I can’t kill him. I hate him, I hate him for making me want him when I never really had a chance with him, and I hate him for making me love him when I was too young, too silly, too hopeful that he could be my savior. If I mated him, it didn’t matter what I was or who I was. I would be Ryker’s, and maybe then I wouldn’t have to hide.
Welp, I’m definitely not hiding now.
But I can’t kill him. Even now my wolf is whining, eager to lap at the claw marks I’ve made in him, tending to the wolf she instinctively knows is her mate.
Only he isn’t, is he?
I can’t lap at his chest, but I have a better idea. As carefully as I can, I withdraw my claws from his chest. I leave five tears in his shirt, with five perfect puncture wounds deep in his skin that I can’t see save for the blood staining the white fabric a rich crimson.
The points of my claws are coated in his slick blood. Still daring him to even breathe, I lift my right hand to my mouth and, with the tip of my tongue, lave each claw clean.
I can’t help it. As soon as the tang of his life’s blood hits me, I moan.
His eyes widen slightly, the first sign of an honest reaction I’ve gotten from him this last month. Not even when my claws were centimeters from his beating heart did he show any sign that he gave a shit—until now. Until I cleaned his blood off of my claws with my tongue and felt an answering tug deep in my pussy.
I’m not the only one affected by it, either.
Ryker shifts suddenly in his seat, leaning back as I’m forced to move with him. His eyes flare from dark gold to molten lava as my legs spread a little wider, pressing close to him. In this position, there’s no way for me to miss the rock-hard erection just underneath me.
I can’t stop what happens next. Between his undeniable arousal and the taste of his blood hot on my tongue, I respond: my eyes flare the same bright golden shade.
Ryker’s lips curve. The tiniest hint of a fang plays peekaboo with me. His hand slides up from his thigh, settling like a possessive brand on my hip. Through the flimsy material of my dress, I feel it. I feel the scorch of his palm on my skin, and I feel the rumble low in his chest that makes us both vibrate.
For the last month—for the last decade—all I’ve wanted was to feel his hands on me. But as the color of his eyes fades back to their dark gold shade, I can barely pay attention to his touch.
I’m too busy kicking my own ass.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
He knows. From the shocked silence that is just about screaming at me, he’s not the only one. This is understanding dawning, Ryker’s pack council figuring out that Gemma has been a naughty, naughty wolf.
What did I expect from my little display? That they’d just accept their newest omega had snapped?
Omegas don’t snap.
I start to slide off of him. My twisted instincts are telling me to go, to run, to get out before the rest of the pack turns on me for being another alpha, and not just their leader’s female. But I’ve barely gone an inch away from him before Ryker lashes his hand around my wrist, tugging me closer.
His voice has dropped, gone husky as he demands, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Let go of me, Ryker.”
“Oh, sweetheart. I don’t think so.”
I yank but as strong as I am, Ryker is stronger.
Crap.
He tsks. “You’ll stay here, Gemma. With me. You started this. Let’s finish it.”
“No.”
“No?” His smile widens, but there’s no humor in it, only lust and an expectation that I will obey him. “You’re my mate—”
A lump lodges in my throat at his words. Because, as he says them, it just about kills me that he’s telling the truth.
Gee. I wonder what made him change his mind?
My mom always warned me that a male shifter will do anything to make me his if he ever found out I was a born alpha female. I thought Ryker would be different, but I was wrong. He already chose Trish. She told me so, and so did he. No way in hell am I going to let him change his mind just because I’ve foolishly let them all in on my secret.
With my other hand, I slash at his forearm. Blood sprays from the gash, covering the both of us. He wasn’t expecting me to do that, and I take advantage of the way his grip goes slack to break free.
I’m off his lap and on the opposite side of his desk before he can staunch the blood flow with the edge of his shirt. Thanks to our advanced healing abilities, there won’t even be a hint of a scar come morning, but I’m secretly glad he tended to it anyway. I didn’t mean to get him so deep this time.
Not like I’ll let him know that.
I point a claw at him. “Don’t start that shit, Ryker. Not now.”
“What? The moon said—”
“Forget the moon,” I snap. “I think you’ve made it pretty clear. I’ll never be your mate.”
You think I would have succeeded in pissing him off by now. Nope. That sexy little grin from before makes another appearance.
“You will,” he says. “You are.”
I turn away from him, glaring at the rest of the council. “Never. His. Mate,” I say, making sure to enunciate each word separately so that they can’t pretend to misunderstand. He already rejected me with each of them as witness when he said that he never intended to mate me. Welp, turnabout’s fair play, right? Now I’ve rejected him, and it’s time to get the hell out of here.
I don’t look over my shoulder at him. Instead, I gauge the distance between me and the door that I thankfully left open, and pray that I’ll reach it before the rest of the wolves break out of their stunned stupor.
I make it three steps before one of the council members lunges at me. He’s a big guy, bulky, with dark hair and meaty hands so I know it’s not Shane. I side-step him easily, my claws outstretched in front of me.
I didn’t kill Ryker. That doesn’t mean that the rest of his council is safe from me.
Right now, no one is.
The air is brimming with tension. One wrong move and I’m poised to shift. As a wolf, there’s only one shifter in this room who can beat me—and the Alpha is still sitting at his desk.
The big guy misses me, but I can sense someone else sneaking up on my left. I snarl and drop down to a crouch before—I recognize him—Jace can try to get his paws on me.
Finally, Ryker gets to his feet.
“No.” His voice echoes with the command. “Let her go.”
“But, Alpha, she’s—”
She’s what?
An impossible alpha?
Ryker’s former intended?
His attacker?
This time, all of those descriptors are true. But Jace doesn’t get a chance to use any of them before Ryker says in a voice so cold, so different from his husky rasp that it obliterates the last of my broken heart: “She’s nothing. You heard her. She’s not my mate. Let her leave.”
No one stops me after that.
As soon as the cool mountain air welcomes me back outside, I break into a run. The rest of the pack council all stayed behind with Ryker, but I know better than to think that they’re just going to let me go. The Alpha’s command will only last so long, and I’m not so naive as to believe that Ryker’s going to accept my rejection of him as easy as that.
Give up his very own alpha female? Yeah. I don’t think so.
I debate shifting but decide to stay in my skin. I don’t want to sacrifice all of my stuff, including my Jeep, and I’m just super fucking grateful I had the foresight to pack it all up before I went to confront Ryker.
I always had a back-up plan. Even as I was throwing everything I own in the back of my car, I think I knew that this was going to happen. I couldn’t stay in Accalia if Ryker was going to keep his chosen mate, and now that the entire pack council knows what I’ve been hiding, I’ve got to go.
Going back to Lakeview is impossible. It’ll be the first place they check, and I know my dad. Paul will hide me like he did when Mom and me first ran from my bio-dad’s pack, and there goes any prospective alliance between Mountainside and Lakeview. I won’t do that to my old pack, to my dad or my mom.
And then there’s the matter of my sperm donor. If the bastard wolf who sired me ever figured out that I was still alive and that I’m, well, me, I don’t even want to think about what he would do. My mother spent years trying to shield me from details regarding Jack Walker, but you can’t be a shifter in the States and not hear rumors about Wicked Wolf Walker of the Western Pack.
No, thanks.
So, as impulsive as I can be, I do always have a back-up plan. This particular plan might not be a good one, and I’m risking death by fang attempting it, but that’s probably better than being forced into a mating that’ll leave me even more miserable than I’ve been lately.
At the base of the pack’s mountain, there’s an urban city that’s controlled by a powerful cadre of vampires. Muncie is a total Fang City, with vamps who rule it ruthlessly. Like the rest of the supernatural world, technically their identities are kept hidden, but in a vamp town like Muncie, there are a few select humans in on the secret.
Walking buffets, I sneer as I hop in my Jeep and quickly start the engine.
For centuries, my people and the vamps have been at war. Claws versus fangs, shifters against vampires. An isolated pack who wants nothing to do with humans looking down on the more integrated vampires who rely on the humans as their sole source of food.
And they call us beasts. Better than being a parasite.
These days, we have an uneasy truce. Shifters keep to their packs, vamps have control of their cities, and we do not mix.
Even when I came to Accalia, I had to go the long way so that I could avoid coming within miles of the vamp town. If they caught me on my own, I don’t know how they’d react, but I doubt it would be good. As a shifter, I know all about territory. Me going into a vamp town is just asking to be drained.
Which is precisely why none of my former packmates will ever think I’d do something so reckless.
I throw my gear into drive and, without a backward look, I take off. Once the roar of the engine echoes across the still night’s sky, I figure it won’t be long before someone comes after me. They’ll expect I’ve gone down the hidden path located on the far side of the mountain mainly because only a shifter with a death wish would head straight into Muncie.
I try to convince myself that this is my only choice. I couldn’t stay behind, and going lone wolf is the only option I have after what just happened at the Alpha’s cabin. And an uneasy truce is still a truce, right? I haven’t heard of any shifter/vamp skirmishes in years now so maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Or, I tell myself as I slam on my brakes barely a mile into Muncie, I was just in denial.
I don’t know where they came from. One second, the road was empty. It’s late, and the path into the urban city is more rural as it leads out of the mountain. I was the only car on the empty stretch of dirt road, and the only soul around for miles.
That should’ve been my first clue. As a shifter, I can sense all living creatures. Humans. Animals. Even insects.
But vamps? Unless they’re making noise, they’re dead to me. Because, well, they are dead, aren’t they?
Just because they’re dead, though, I know better than to slam into them with my car. Not because it’ll hurt the vamps—short of chopping off their heads, they’re indestructible—but because of the damage an accident would do to my precious Jeep.
I expected something like this to happen at some point. It’s an open Jeep on purpose; my shifter side can’t stand to be contained. But I went this way knowing there was a good chance one of the vamps would pick up on my scent and want to investigate it further, especially since Ryker’s blood still stains my dress.
Just my luck, I’ve attracted three.
“Look at what we have here.” It’s a throaty female voice. “The little puppy dog’s gotten herself lost.”
I decide to let the ‘puppy dog’ crack slide as I unbuckle my seat belt and slowly ease the strap over my shoulder. Like I know exactly what they are, all it takes is one look, one sniff, even one lucky bite, and these vamps know what I am.
I have one thing in my favor. Because I never shifted, I’m still wearing my sundress and my flats. My blonde curls are windblown, but that just adds to my purposely cultivated air of innocence.
They must think they’re dealing with a gentle packmate instead of the big, bad wolf otherwise they wouldn’t stalk toward me, bloodlust already turning their light eyes a shining red color.
Though this patch of road is unlit, I use the waxing gibbous moon to focus on this latest threat. Three vampires, all of them stunning knock-outs. Tall yet voluptuous, each one has a face that I deem almost unnaturally perfect before I remember what I’m dealing with and, yeah, it’s not natural, is it?
They’ve arranged themselves in a triangle formation, a striking blonde with iridescently pale skin in the lead; she’s the one who spoke. To her left, there’s a dazzling Black female whose box braids clink softly as she sweeps toward me. To her right, a freckled redhead giggles as she tiptoes toward the Jeep. The three of them fan out, and I wonder how many will be able to get their fangs in me before I can shift.
As a wolf, I can probably take two down at the very least. But in my skin? It’s a little dicey.
And that’s when another voice whispers across the still night air.
“What’s so interesting, ladies?”
Ah, crap. There’s not three.
There’s four.
And I’m super outnumbered.
I can’t see him at first—and it is a him. His voice makes that obvious. Though it’s soft and lyrical, with a noticeable yet faint European accent, it’s still undeniably male. I can hear him, but I don’t see him until, suddenly, there’s a fourth figure in the distance.
“It’s nothing, Aleksander,” coos the blonde. “We don’t need any of the Cadre to step in. We’re fine.”
Oof. If she had said anything else, I might’ve been able to try to bluff my way out of this. Be harmless Omega Gem who wouldn’t hurt a fly. But after the night I’ve had, I don’t know if I can ever be Omega Gem again.
This alpha bitch is looking for an excuse to make someone else hurt as much as she is.
As I am.
“Nothing?” I snarl. My claws are out again as I brace myself, poised to leap out of my Jeep and go for Blondie’s throat. “I’ll show you nothing.”
The redhead bares her fangs, hissing at me while Blondie lowers herself into a crouch.
She might be sizing me up, but she’s giving me a perfect target.
Before I can prepare to shift, the male vampire moves closer. “I think that’s enough. Find your midnight snack elsewhere, ladies. You’re not to feed on this one.”
If that’s all he thought was going to go down here before he showed up, I’ve got a bridge in New York that I can sell him for cheap. From one predator to another, these vamps aren’t just hungry. They have murder on their minds, and I’m the idiot shifter who appears to be easy prey.
Blondie clearly agrees with me. She slowly rises from her crouch before turning toward the shadow at her back. “What? No. I want her.”
“Go on, Gretchen.”
“Aleks—”
“You know the rules. No unauthorized biting outside of Muncie. You wouldn’t want me reporting this to Roman, would you?”
“Unauthorized?” echoes Gretchen. “She should’ve known better than to leave the mountain. This is our city.”
The vampire walks out of the shadows. My eyesight is keen—like my sense of smell, it’s a shifter thing—and even I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Vamp, I have to remind myself. I’m a shifter, and he’s a vamp, and if he’s one of the most achingly beautiful males I’ve ever seen in my life, that doesn’t mean we’re not mortal enemies. But, coming so close on the heels of Ryker’s rejection, forgive me for staring. This vamp is so different from the ruggedly handsome Alpha that it’s almost a relief.
Despite his autocratic and gentle appearance, something about him has two of the three female vampires backing away even before he says, “That’s not for you to decide. Take Tamera and Leigh with you. You can’t have this female.”
Gretchen is the only one left holding her ground. She stamps her foot, throwing her hand out toward me as she snaps, “Can’t you see? She’s a—”
“I know exactly what she is,” he announces firmly before turning those eerily pale eyes of his on me. “She’s mine.”
Um.
What?
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