Alpha Girl

Sage and I burst through the forest as we ran blindly, away from the haunting howl of Sawyer’s voice. I felt him shut down inside of our bond. 

He went completely numb and it killed me. 

‘I’ll be right back,’ I kept saying over and over, mostly to assuage my own guilt. 

He stopped responding, but I knew he had a war to deal with. 

“We need to be careful not to step into Ithaki land,” I told Sage as I leapt over a fallen log. There was a visible line on the ground made of crushed blue stones, and I hoped we were on the right side of it. I was running away from Waterfall Mountain, which I knew to be Ithaki land, and toward the direction Astra had run when we’d said goodbye. 

Sage was in wolf form behind me, but I was running as a human. For now. My wolf was begging to come out, but I still wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. I wanted to have a good first impression with the Paladin people, and I didn’t want to roll up to their homelands and be like, Yo, I’m your alpha and I need ten thousand men, and I’m also a split shifter. Everything is fine, nothing to see here.

Wolf Angel is what Arrow had called what I was.

Maybe they would be cool with it … me, my powers, the fact that I was about to ask a very big favor… 

‘Alpha?’ Astra’s voice suddenly boomed in my mind and I stopped dead, catching my breath. I didn’t want to run too fast and lose Sage, so I wasn’t using my super speed powers.

‘Astra! Where are you?’ I spun around, scanning the dark forest. I felt her. It was hard to explain, but I knew she was near. My body thrummed with power the deeper we stepped into this land.

Pack, my wolf chanted, excited at the prospect of seeing Astra. I’d sort of mentally glossed over the fact that I’d bitten her and claimed her as my pack member. But now I was completely confronted with it. 

‘Alpha! You came home!’ Her jubilation spread through my limbs until a bubble of laughter burst from my chest. Sage looked at me like I’d gone mad as I ran in the direction that I felt Astra. 

‘I need to speak to you, and Arrow and … everyone,’ I told her.

My wolf was beyond excited to be here, but I was tempering that excitement and focusing on the goal. 

I needed a couple thousand warriors by morning. I’d promised Sawyer and I would come through. 

“Alpha!” Astra’s excited scream ripped through the dark night as Sage and I altered course to follow the noise. 

Suddenly twigs snapped all around us in a circle, and floodlights turned on. We both froze. Astra burst from the trees, grinning just as over a dozen warriors, all naked but for a suede junk cover, stepped out with bows and arrows, spears, and knives. Rich blue paint streaked down their cheeks in thin lines, and they looked absolutely one hundred percent ready to kill us both. 

Sage’s head snapped to me and I swallowed hard. 

“Alpha!” Astra threw herself in my arms as I embraced her, wrapping my arms around her thin form and ignoring the twelve angry men glaring at me. The earth vibrated under my feet and my wolf pounded against my chest, begging to be freed. 

“She came!” Astra pulled away, pushing her brown hair from her face as she grinned at the armed men. “Praise the Father, she came like I said she would!”

The men didn’t lower their weapons, they simply glared at me with disdain, nostrils flaring. “City wolf,” one of them growled. “Go back home. You’re not welcome here.”

I cleared my throat nervously. “Actually, if I could speak to Arrow—”

“Go home.” Arrow stepped out from behind the line of men and the hurt in his voice caused a frown to pull at my lips. “We don’t want any more of your charity.”

So that’s what this was about. I saved their lives with food and they were acting like dicks over it? Astra spun, crossing her arms over her chest as if they’d pierced her with their nasty words. “What’s the matter with you?” she shouted, her voice shaking. “This is our alpha! She’s come to save us. She’ll heal the land and our people.”

I swallowed hard as Sage’s gaze flicked to mine, wide-eyed. 

One of the men, holding a knife, lowered it to his side and stepped out from the trees, deeper into the floodlights. Pale light and shadows danced across his perfectly toned body as I met his hardened gaze. He looked about twenty-five years old, and had a scar running from the bottom of his eye to his lip. 

“Is that right? Are you here to save us like my brother and Astra say?” He tipped his head to Arrow, who promptly looked down at his feet. “Or are you just a witch who has tricked everyone?”

I recoiled at his accusation. I wasn’t expecting this frosty reception. “I … I’m not a witch. I came because I need help. The city wolves are at war, and obviously I’ll help you in return, if—”

Every single warrior burst into laughter then, and I heard even more voices, men and women, from deeper in the tree line behind the bright lights. 

Fuck.

The floodlights had tiny solar panels on top of them, and when I let my eyes adjust I noticed the shadowy figures in the trees looking down on us. Hundreds of people listened on. 

“You want our help because your stupid alpha started a war?” He spat at my feet and I felt the wetness brush across the front of my legs. “You’re not my alpha.” The scar-faced man growled and everyone cheered in response, all of them. Their laughs and yells of agreement rang into my soul, twisting into me like a hot knife. 

Unbridled rage ripped through me at his disrespect toward me and to Sawyer, and I couldn’t hold my wolf in any longer. She burst from my chest. One second she was a ghost and the next she solidified, hitting the scar-faced dude in the chest, knocking him on his ass and making him drop his knife. 

Gasps rang throughout the forest as my wolf peeled her lips back, saliva glistening on her teeth as she eyed his throat. I knelt beside her on the forest floor as dozens of Paladin warriors stepped close. I stared Scar Face down as he looked up at me with wide blue eyes. 

“I am daughter of Running Spirit, granddaughter of Red Moon, and if you ever spit on me again, I’ll rip your balls out with my teeth,” I growled. 

A chorus of female whoops and cheers ran throughout the forest, but the men stayed silent. I was well aware of the challenge I’d issued, but I wasn’t going to let this prick ruin everything. Pelts of fur ran down the man’s face as his wolf started to emerge. A firm hand fell on my shoulder, and then I was yanked backward, my wolf retreating with me. 

I spun to see who’d pulled me off, thinking it was Sage, only to see Arrow’s piercing blue eyes. 

“We have dominance fights that end in death. I would take it easy until you learn the rules here,” Arrow whispered in my ear.

Oh. 

People sometimes got in fistfights for dominance in Wolf City, but it wasn’t like a real dominance fight you heard about hundreds of years ago. Was I ready to get in some fight right now and kill this guy to prove to them I was an alpha? I just came here for help. I needed help. 

“But I’m…” I couldn’t even say it now. It felt wrong. Was I an alpha? Astra and Arrow had begged for my help and I’d merely sent them food. Oh God. Guilt and shame burned its way across my skin until my entire face felt hot. 

“The title of alpha needs to be earned,” Arrow murmured under his breath, as his brother fought his wolf’s change. “You’ve earned a bit of respect with the women just now, but the men won’t be so easy. Your charity food delivery, instead of coming to meet everyone, was a poor choice.”

Shit. 

I opened my mouth to speak, but the man who I’d just knocked on his ass stood and glared at Arrow. 

“Can she stay, Rab?” Arrow asked. “Prove herself? Enter the alpha trial?” 

Alpha what now? Stay and prove myself? Fuck that, we were at war. 

“No. I need your help,” I pleaded. “I can’t stay. The witches, fey, vampires, they are all together now. They are marching on Wolf City as we speak. I need warriors or thousands will die. Please.” 

Rab, or whatever his name was, gave me a maniacal grin, the thick scar pressing his lip down in a lopsided sneer. He stepped closer to me, slowly. My wolf gave a low warning growl and he stopped. 

“You need warriors?” he asked, and I couldn’t get a read on him. “You need our help or your people will die?”

I nodded. “As many as you can spare. And in exchange I’ll send more food, monthly even—”

“You need warriors … okay, then, we can send you some weapons.” His grin widened and the men cheered and clapped their hands. 

I frowned. Confused. Weapons. Like spears and arrows? No thanks.

“I don’t need weapons, I need—”

He growled in my face and I froze. “We didn’t need food! We need our land healed. We need our pack’s power restored, our crops replenished. You put a Band-Aid on a bullet hole and now you expect us to help you?”

He laughed, tipping his head back, and the men in the darkness of the trees joined him.

Fuck.

He met my gaze and his eyes flashed golden yellow. “I’d rather turn into a human and starve to death than follow a cowardice alpha like you.”

He spun then, giving me his back, and walked away.

Each one of his words lashed into me, cutting deep into the bone, into the very core of who I was. I’d rejected Arrow’s plea for help to restore their people and their land, and then I’d come and asked for the same thing. 

My body sagged with shame. Arrow had told me thousands would die and I needed to return home to help them, and I’d sent dried food and fucking firewood. This was a moment of reckoning, one that would haunt me for the rest of my life if I didn’t choose wisely. 

“You’re right!” I yelled, and Rab froze. 

An eerie calm washed over the space as a chilly wind rose into the air, whipping my hair around my face. 

“When Arrow and Astra told me they needed my help, I panicked. I don’t know your ways, I only just learned who my real father was, and my life has been hard enough. I was selfish. I wanted to get married and live an easy life and not have to worry about other people’s problems.” My lower lip quivered with the truth and it felt dirty in my mouth. I wanted to spit it out. 

Boos came from the trees, but they were soft, accepting and admonishing at the same time. 

I lowered my head, thinking of Astra and Arrow’s heartfelt pleas.

Our people are dying.

The land is dying

Our magic is dying.

Come home.

I’d just … ignored him. My throat constricted with emotion and I cleared it, steadying myself. “I’ve come home,” I declared, the goosebumps on my arms standing up as the wind rushed past me faster. “I’ve come home to save our people and our land, if you will forgive me and give me a chance. Let me prove I’m worthy to hold the title of alpha.”

Rab spun as the people in the trees started to beat on the trunks with their fists, cheering as they screamed into the night like madmen and women. It was savage and beautiful, and my wolf tipped her head back and howled at the moon right along with them. This felt right, this was where I belonged, where I was needed, but as soon as I thought it, Sawyer’s pained wail sifted across my memory and I swallowed hard. 

I needed to be alpha. I couldn’t let these people down, my people. I needed to do both. Be both a Paladin and a city wolf. 

“Send the warriors I need by first light and I will stay. I will stay here as long as needed and do whatever is required of me to save this land and these people.” I gestured to the trees and the howls and cheers got louder in agreement. More of them must have come, because it sounded like a chorus of thousands all echoing into the treetops.

Rab watched me with two thin, blue slitted eyes, cold and calculating. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

His nonchalant reply angered me. I’d fucking apologized, laid myself bare. I was willing to do anything. Using my vampire speed, I zoomed across the clearing and got into his face. “Now it’s your pride and selfishness that’s showing!” I screamed in his face, and the voices cut off. 

He huffed through his nose, trying to control his wolf, but his eyes went yellow anyway. 

“Don’t make me draw a line in the sand,” I whispered. 

I would, I would ask for volunteers, those with me to go to Wolf City, and I would go against him even though he was clearly in charge. He opened his mouth to speak when a small, delicate hand brushed his shoulder. 

We both turned, blinking out of our rage-fest to see Astra looking up at Rab with an angelic smile. Her mousy brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and she wore a patient and understanding look that neither of us deserved.

“God wants this. She’s blessed. She will bring a thousand years of prosperity to our people. I’ve seen it.” She raised her wrist and held the scarred bite mark in his face. 

‘Pack.’ My wolf echoed her gesture and I had to blink back tears at the risk she was taking for me. Making up some prophecy or whatever she was doing to get him to agree. 

The trees shook, people whooped, drums even started to beat deeper off into the trees, and Rab gave a resigned nod to Astra. Reaching out, he brushed his thumb across her forehead in a delicate, loving gesture. “Our priestess has spoken!” he bellowed, spinning in a circle.

Priestess? I looked at Astra more closely. Was he talking about her? She was in her mid-teens, meek, shy, wearing no headdress or fancy regalia.

She simply gave me a small smile. 

“Because I trust the mouthpiece of God, I will allow this city alpha to prove herself to us.” His voice projected into the trees, which shook like a troop of monkeys were rattling their branches. 

“And the help? For … the city wolves?” I asked. 

He sneered at me. “What does God say of that?” he asked Astra.

She looked at her feet, quiet.

‘Please. We need help or thousands will die,’ I begged her.

‘God does not condone war,’ she said to me.

She flicked her gaze up to Rab. “He is quiet on the matter,” she told him. 

Rab chuckled, shaking his braid. “Then we will be quiet too.”

“I’ll go!” Arrow stepped into the open circle, grasping his spear and looking out at the shapes into the trees. “I will go at first light to lend help to the new Wolf City alpha. A new alpha who is different from past ones. When he learned of our crisis, he used his military to give thousands of pounds of food and firewood. I will help that alpha as hehelped us.” He stamped his staff on the ground, and a single tear leaked from my eye. 

Arrow knew it wasn’t Sawyer who approved that food delivery. It was his dad, but there was too much bad blood there. I could see it. He was trying to make them think differently about this new alpha and I loved him for it. Sawyer was different, and he would be a different alpha than the ones before him.

“I will stand with Arrow.” A man came out into the open, wielding a badass looking blade. All of these men were seriously sculpted from stone, hardened warriors in the best shape of their lives.

“New alpha? What’s new about someone who’s been bred to hate us for a millennium?” someone yelled from the trees. 

Dammit, I wish it were lighter out and I could look that bastard in the eyes. 

Thrusting my left hand into the air, I let the light catch on my giant engagement ring. “The new alpha, Sawyer, is my fiancé, my true mate.” I stopped talking because they’d gasped at that. “And he knows I’m half Paladin. He doesn’t care. If we work together, both of our packs can benefit.” 

It was like it was the knowledge they needed to throw themselves behind the cause. One by one, I heard them. 

“I’ll go!”

“I’ll fight with Arrow.” 

“Screw the vampires!”

Relief crashed into me. I’d made a promise to Sawyer, and I was keeping it. 

Or was I? 

I’d said that I would be back by morning with warriors. But now…

“Come on, I’ll show you to the guest house.” Astra pulled my hand and it sank into me that I was going to stay here. 

Nerves churned in my gut and I’d completely forgotten Sage was there until she stepped over to me, wide-eyed and wearing a half shredded t-shirt and sweat pants. “You’re staying here? What have you done?” 

I … followed my heart and it split me in two. Again. 

Arrow raised his fist into the air. “Go home and tell the warrior of your household … we leave at dawn!” And a chorus of the Paladin equivalent of an oorah rang out, but it was more of a guttural ouh ouh!

I walked over to Arrow and stood before him as my wolf nuzzled against his leg. He grinned and dropped his hand down to rub the top of her head. I swear sometimes she was more dog than wolf. 

‘I resent that,’ she said and I bristled, still not used to our bond.

‘Sorry.’

“Thank you. Truly,” I told Arrow.

He bowed his head to me. “Thank you. For coming home.” 

Home. That word on his lips felt so right, so much so that it made a stone sink in my gut. In what world could Sawyer and I get married and live together if I were alpha of these lands? I shook off that problem for future Demi. 

I didn’t want to ask how many warriors they would get by morning, I just had to trust it would be enough. Arrow, being Rab’s brother, seemed to have a lot of pull in the community, and I knew he’d just stuck his neck out for me and I really appreciated it. 

I made my hand into a fist and held it out to him. He frowned and I grinned, grabbing his hand and banging them together. “Fist bump. Goodnight. I’ll be up first thing to see you all off.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “City girl.”

I smiled and Sage inserted herself between us. “She’s marrying my cousin FYI, but I’m single.”

I smacked her arm and Arrow looked down at her, confused for a second, then her words seemed to dawn on him. “Oh, I’m mated,” he said, and Sage frowned, stepping away from him with a pout. Every male here was distracting eye candy. I wasn’t going to deny that, and clearly Sage had noticed.

“You are? I’d love to meet her,” I told him as movement picked up behind us and everyone started to disperse. I’d always felt a brotherly vibe from Arrow. Was he hot? Yes. But he was sweet and helpful and … totally in the friendzone.

“Tomorrow morning, at first light,” he told me, and then Astra was back, tugging my hand. 

“Alpha, come. I’ve been working on your guest home for weeks. Come and see.” She pulled me away and Sage and I followed her. 

Weeks? 

I shared a look with Sage. 

“I knew you would come.” Astra grinned, as she pulled me into the dark trees past where the floodlights had brightened the meadow, and we were plunged into darkness again, only the moon to light our path. There was a flagstone walkway covered in moss, and suddenly my eyes adjusted, noticing the appearance of hundreds of people to the left and right of the path. Some were climbing down from the trees where they had perched, others just stood, arms crossed, talking in hushed tones and watching me closely. 

Every three feet was a little solar garden light that lit our path—and also the faces of some seriously pissed-off women. 

“Taking our men off to war already, Alpha?” one snapped as I passed by. 

I ignored her and yanked on Sage’s arm when she opened her mouth to retort. It wasn’t the time. I needed to go into a dark room and tell Sawyer what was going on and then cry myself to sleep. My wolf leapt into my chest then, and I nodded for Astra to lead the way. I was ready to see where Run had grown up, the land I was supposed to heal and the place in which I was going to lead these people should I be found worthy.