Mated to the Pack(4)

Not once had she looked up toward him, even when he roared his anguished  fury. He would have been more upset if she had. Yes, his Cassandra was  an alpha female through and through, despite the veneer of scared human  she'd presented at first. She knew better than to take her eyes off an  adversary as treacherous and conniving as Aliana.

Frustrated beyond belief he could not reach them, he paced along the top  of the cliff. Taking care to keep back from the closest part of the  crumbling edge, he glared downward. Aliana had been clever. Too clever.  She would not have risked her life so foolishly if she did not intend to  live through this. She was behaving like a crazed wolf, one closer to  madness than not, but she still had quite a quick, analytical mind.

She was also patient. Far more patient than he'd ever given her credit.  As soon as Trevor had realized she and Thayne-the tip of his tail  slapped the air at the thought of his banished brother-had long planned  to eventually overthrow Trevor's alpha status in the pack, he'd also  understood the depth of their patience. While Thayne had never kept his  animosity toward Trevor a secret, he generally had deferred to him as  alpha.

Of course, Trevor thought as he prowled along the edge of the cliff,  Thayne had had no choice. The will of the alpha was almost impossible to  defy. Yes, an alpha was advised by a council. There had to be, with  more than three hundred wolves in a pack. Order had to be maintained,  and one wolf alone could not provide complete order, safety, and  regulation to an entire large pack.

But more than that, the alpha's purpose in a pack was unerring leadership. He was an extension of the pack's needs.

The alpha was the pack.

And the alpha's mate, being essential to the alpha's well-being, was  just as essential to the pack. Symbolically, she was mate to not only  the alpha, but to the entire pack.

Trevor growled his storm-dark rage as he looked down at the traitorous  wolf poised again to attack the mate of the Wicked Mountain Wolf Pack.  The traitorous female wolf who surely had been goaded on by his own  brother.         

     



 

For years, Thayne had niggled at him. Challenging him at every turn, in  small ways meant to slowly erode. Provoking. And, it turned out,  actually planning a treasonous act. Challenging the alpha was one thing.  It was accepted and expected. But planning to destroy an alpha by  nefarious ways-planning to destroy an alpha's mate-that was treachery of  the first order.

Trevor felt his claws extend in anger, scratching at the ground as he  walked. Despite his own animosity toward Thayne, he'd allowed their  blood tie to soften his usual wariness. Never would he truly have  thought his own brother would descend to such deception as this.

"Fool," Trevor muttered at himself. His voice came out as a harsh growl,  edged with rising desperation as he searched for a way down. There had  to be one.

A perverse part of him was pleased that Thayne knew Trevor's strength  was such that he could not be thrown from his alpha status without an  opponent resorting to the direst methods possible. Such as killing the  alpha's mate.

More snarls dropped from his curled lips. He planned to do more to  Thayne than merely banish him if that cowardly excuse for a wolf ever  showed himself again. And this. Letting a woman do his work for him,  then hiding during the worst of it.

Hiding. Or, perhaps, silently stalking.

Trevor's eyes narrowed as he abruptly focused on more than his imperiled  mate below. His agitation at her danger had also dulled his usually  keen senses to everything around him. Snapping his head around, he took a  long sniff of the air as he sent a searching glance into the darkening  woods behind him.

If Aliana were here, Thayne must be nearby as well.

"Show yourself. Brother." Trevor snarled the word in contempt as he scanned the woods.

A derisive half-howl greeted him from the woods. Every hackle Trevor had  raised itself. He lowered his head, glaring at the shadowy trees. In  seconds, one shadow distinguished itself and moved toward him with  deadly grace. Thayne's scent, peppery and overlaid with an odor Trevor  only now recognized as longtime bitterness, stretched to him over the  air currents. Trevor peeled back his lips even harder.

Twenty feet away, Thayne stopped, facing off with the alpha. His own  hackles raised along his back, he let sharp canines gleam through the  twilight at Trevor. "Surely you didn't think we would simply flee at  your command?"

Trevor cocked an ear at the sheer ugliness in Thayne's voice. That was  new. Then again, Thayne had never before been free to be explicitly  clear in his antipathy toward the pack's alpha. As a banished wolf, he  now had no compunctions about being so openly scornful toward his former  alpha.

"Actually, I did not think of you at all after I had you banished from  the pack." Trevor let his voice drag in careless disregard. He knew  Thayne would take the easy bait. Thayne never could let things go, which  was why he was never meant to be an alpha.

An alpha always had to be in control. Always. Even during the worst  moments in his life, an alpha could not lower his defenses. As he almost  had right now, worrying about his mate.

A painful memory from the past tickled at him. Jaw clenching, he thrust it aside.

As expected, Thayne's scent changed with an even more sour note at  Trevor's tone. But before he could form an equally acerbic reply, howls  from a mile off carried toward them. Thayne tensed while Trevor felt a  rush of renewed power.

Tamsin was coming, and she was bringing the pack with her.

The alpha of said pack looked hard at its banished wolf as he barked out  a laugh. "Fight the entire pack, will you now? I think not."

Suddenly, the raging screams of fighting wolves echoed out from far below.

Instinctively, Trevor snapped his head around at the sound of his mate's furious cry.

In that split second of inattention, Thayne jumped him.







For the third freaking time in mere minutes, Cassie's breath whumped out of her from the impact of a wolf smacking against her.

Seriously? This was getting tiresome. The dark, powerful something deep  within her, that something she knew with certainty was her, rose to the  surface with infallible precision and force. It overtook her every  motion, her every thought. It worked through her because it was her.

She was a wolf. She was the alpha's mate. And this moment was the one in which she must prove her worth. She would not fail.

Deliberately, Cassie let herself be knocked down. She then immediately  rolled and struck from beneath, sending ripping claws slicing through  Aliana's vulnerable exposed belly. A shriek of pain rent the air,  followed by an echoing cry from far up the cliff above.

Thayne. Cassie recognized his wolf's voice. Even as that knowledge  filtered into her mind, like quicksilver she was back on her feet, out  from under Aliana. Whirling fast, she took the advantage of surprise and  barreled into the other wolf.         

     



 

Aliana went sprawling, sending another scatter of pebbles tumbling over  the edge into the yawning abyss. Cassie inhaled dirt and fur before she  locked her teeth on the other wolf's shoulder, eliciting another yowled  shriek. Aliana fought with a deadly skill Cassie knew came from years of  training. Years of being a wolf.

It didn't matter that Cassie lacked the same training. As the alpha's mate, she would not back down. Not this time.

Not ever again.

Aliana shook her off with a massive ripple of muscles. Despite the fact  it was nearly full dark now, Cassie could see clearly. Everything was  grey and black but perfectly outlined. Her night vision was astounding.  Her aim was deadly accurate. Her goal was undeniable.

Snarling a furious "Oh, no, you don't," Cassie lunged again. She feinted  beneath Aliana's swipe and aimed for a front leg. Locking her powerful  jaws around it, she crunched down with no mercy

Aliana's horrific scream ripped past Cassie's ears as her teeth smashed  tendons, sinew, bones. An answering roar from Thayne drifted down to  them, snapped off almost immediately by another triumphant howl.

Trevor's voice. By the sound of it, victorious. The knowledge spurred  Cassie on. Although he was separated from her by well over a hundred  feet and fathomless yards of open air, oddly enough she and her mate  fought side by side.

Nothing could stop her now. She let go of Aliana's leg and threw herself  against the other wolf. Shoving her toward the void she'd shoved Cassie  over. Pushing with all her might, claws trying to gain purchase on the  slippery, pebble-tumbled surface of the ledge, Cassie threw all her new  power behind it.

With a last burst of desperate adrenaline, the other wolf managed to  shove back, enough that Cassie tumbled backward. She smacked into the  high wall of the cliff behind her. Immediately bouncing up again, she  made to lunge forward again. Something in Aliana's bloody, battered  stance halted her.

"Well now." The other wolf's voice came out soaked with pain, although  that vicious streak still underscored it. "Whatever happened to the  frightened, fat little human surrender who showed up here, determined to  come into this pack and behave in a way no surrender ever has before?"