Becoming the Alpha (3 page)

Phased
was such a simple word that was wholly inadequate for the metamorphosis that I watched happen before my eyes. They might as well have called it magic because what I observed didn’t fit any reality that I knew until that moment.

Lukas’s limbs lengthened, and his face contorted as his jaw bones changed. His handsome face morphed into a snout and teeth filled jaws. A wild roar broke into the air. Then time sped up. Lukas was already moving toward the sheriff even as a thick pelt of pitch black hair sprang into existence covering every inch of his muscular body.

One minute, he was a man. The next minute, he was a grizzly bear. I gasped even as my brain processed just how fast the phase had happened. As my mind was trying to wrap itself around the fact that this was still Lukas, he catapulted himself at the sheriff. It hadn’t even registered with me that the sheriff had already phased as well.

The two massive forms hit each other hard and then locked into a tight bear grip. I could have been amused by my mind’s quip and feeble attempt to understand what was happening, but there was no time for it. Lukas and the sheriff stood on their hind legs with their front paws wrapped around each other’s neck. As they struggled and twisted with each other trying to gain additional purchase, their snarls told everyone that despite any bluster on the sheriff’s end, the two seemed fairly evenly matched.

My eyes danced over Lukas’s form. He had to be over seven feet tall in his bear form, and the sheriff appeared only an inch or so shy of that height himself. These were the nuances that I forced myself to pay attention to because they were the ones that would matter to those who read the story later. Whether for the clan’s posterity or national news, readers would want to know every gory detail.

It was easy to tell them apart. The sheriff’s pelt was a faded, burnished black and tan, and there were shots of gray decorating parts of his back and shoulders. The sheriff was in his forties but given he didn’t have a gray hair on his human head, these were curious markings. I made a mental note to ask Lukas if there was anything different about shifter biology when it came to the aging process.

Then the sheriff seemed to gain the upper hand, and their bodies tilted in unison. Lukas fell backward even as the sheriff took the opportunity to pull his body up on top of him. I felt a small whisper of a moan escape my lips when I saw the sheriff’s strong jaws lock onto Lukas’s shoulder. His roar of pain bit at some part of me deep inside as if the sheriff’s teeth had sunk into my own flesh.

“You didn’t think someone was going to come out of this without bleeding, did you?” Marilee hissed at me. “Get a grip, girlfriend. This is the big leagues.”

I had a sharp retort on my lips, but then I saw the slightly frenetic look on her face and the sweat that shone across her brow. A ripple of fear crawled up my spine as I recognized the same look on all of the faces around me. It was as if they were holding onto whatever small shred of humanity they could, because there was a war of emotions raging inside of them. The spectacle in front of them had heightened some kind of primal excitement. If they all phased into their bear forms at the same time, I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be safe; not even for a moment.

Then I realized that if the sheriff won the match, there was no certainty that he would let me go after having seen what was transpiring in front of me. Tendrils of icy dread wove themselves around my ribcage, and I felt like it was hard to catch a deep breath.

“C’mon, Lukas,” I whispered under my breath. I channeled every thought I could toward the direction of the bear lying on the ground in front of me. I saw the sheriff’s jaws clamp down for another full bite just above the wound that he had already created. I heard the sounds of clapping hands and squeals of joy from the crowd that masked whatever verbal reaction Lukas unleashed in response to the attack.

It was disgusting. Lukas was trying to leverage his broad form to get himself out from underneath the sheriff, but he had hundreds of pounds of solid muscle hammering down on his chest even as the sheriff continued to ravage his shoulder. A thick pool of blood formed on the ground beneath him, and I felt faint. Things couldn’t end this way between us. No matter what I thought before, I wasn’t going to let Lukas die in front of me.

No way. No how.

I didn’t know what to do. But something broke inside of me then. I pushed my way around the bodies in front of me ignoring the snarled curses being hurled in my direction. I had to get closer to him. I knew it would be my funeral if I tried to interfere in the match itself, but I needed to do something. Marilee shouted my name, but I ignored her too. This might be their way, but that didn’t mean I had to go along with it. I wasn’t a part of their clan. Their rules didn’t apply to me.

Once I reached the ground, I found that it was difficult to see what was happening in front of me without the vantage point of being further up the wall. Here, men from the clan gathered in clusters. I wasn’t sure if it was to ensure that the spectators stayed away from the match or to have the best view of the match itself. Probably a little bit of both.

I couldn’t go through them, so I did the only thing I could think of. I ducked down and forced my body between two of them. There was a heavy smell of sweat and dirt that unsettled me far more than I’d like. I was in the middle of the woods surrounded by bear shifters. I should be committed because it was certifiably crazy. But I lasered in on the reason that I was willing to risk it all, and I felt as if it wasn’t soon enough.

Somehow, Lukas managed to squeeze out from under most of the sheriff’s bulky form. The sheriff was fighting him every inch of the way and had his paws locked around Lukas’s throat. There was a heavy bounce of their bodies upwards and a shift, and Lukas almost got away. I gasped. It felt as if my heart leaped into my throat. But the sheriff hadn’t released his hold, and now he held Lukas in a bear hold from behind.

In that instant, Lukas’s eyes locked on me, and I felt a searing ripple of anguish, pain, and anger roll through my body. It was as if we were connected on an entirely different level. I didn’t understand it, and there certainly wasn’t time to question it. But I did know that my bear needed me and my strength. I would gladly give it to him.

The reality of the whole thing was this wasn’t the first time I had been forced to sit on the sidelines and watch Lukas in a fight. Those earlier scrimmages had been with other boys at school or kids from neighboring schools who wandered over to Greyelf curious to see what a shifter looked like. Lukas’s temper practically guaranteed that if they ran across him, there was sure to be a clash. I used to give him a hard time about it. The thing was that in all that time, I had never seen him give up, even on the rare occasion that he ended up on the losing end of the fight.

Lukas Kasper was a fighter. In the past ten years, he might have tried to temper those emotions and hide them underneath the exterior of a successful businessman. He had done his part to fit in with the humans and probably led a semi-normal life. But that wasn’t the person that he needed to be here in Greyelf. I saw that now. If he wanted to be the alpha, he needed to fight.

For a split second, everything came into sharp focus, and it all made perfect sense. Alphas didn’t take shit from anyone, and there couldn’t be any cause for question or uncertainty. I knew then the sheriff would kill Lukas to win. It was the only way to guarantee his victory while sending a message that didn’t need any interpretation. But Lukas couldn’t do the same because whether he liked it or not, he needed the sheriff. He needed to know what the sheriff knew about Markus’s final days and to find out what was being hidden from him around Markus’s death.

So that meant that Lukas had to beat the sheriff into submission. But the threat of what the sheriff represented would still linger. That was why Lukas needed me too. He would be surrounded by people who didn’t want him. He could earn their trust and respect over time, but only if given a chance. As I watched him beginning to falter in the arena, I knew somebody had to believe that he could do it.
I
had to believe he could do it.

I let my face tighten in a cruel grin. I twisted my arms up and showed him my fists. Then I jabbed one first hard into the air as I mouthed three words to him.

Kick. His. Ass.

His eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure if he understood me. I wasn’t sure what could be understood when he was in his bear form. But my gesture should have left him little doubt about what I was telling him to do.

One of Lukas’s heavy paws came up, and I saw the flash of claws as he awkwardly swiped in the air behind his head. I heard the first squeal of pain from the sheriff, but I couldn’t see what damage had been done before the sheriff’s lock released. Lukas was free. He shot into the middle of the arena and turned back toward the sheriff. He went up on to his hind legs and then let out a mighty roar that sent shivers down my spine again.

It was a signal to the sheriff and everyone in the arena who had gone quiet. Lukas Kasper wasn’t giving up. The sheriff’s paws covered his face, and I could only see blood seeping through the fur and onto the ground as he squirmed in pain. Lukas had gotten his claws into one or both of the sheriff’s eyes.

Lukas moved back toward the sheriff’s prone form, but Doc Walden moved between them. The sheriff hadn’t moved yet.

“Yield or kill?” Doc Walden looked at Lukas. Lukas snorted and twisted his head up into the air. He came back down onto his haunches. Doc Walden nodded. I wasn’t sure if there had been some kind of bear telepathy that had just gone on, or if Lukas’s snort was some gesture that I was supposed to understand.

Doc Walden moved closer to the sheriff. “Do you yield?”

The sheriff howled. I shivered. I couldn’t understand if he said anything at all, but there was a clear mingling of frustration, anger, and pain underlying the noise.

Doc Walden shook his head. Then he threw his hands up in the air and yelled, “Continue!”

Lukas shot across the arena floor in an instant crossing the distance between him and the sheriff. He barely missed knocking Doc Walden out of the way. As soon as he was within striking distance, his claws were back out, and he swiped his paw across the sheriff’s exposed chest.

The brutality of the action took my breath away. Lukas hadn’t even hesitated to do further damage knowing the sheriff was already injured. But what I gathered from Doc Walden’s brief intervention was that the sheriff had been given the chance to stop the match and chose not to.

The sheriff’s paws came away from his face, and then his jaws snapped in the air. He went for the wounds on Lukas’s shoulder, but Lukas didn’t give him time to find purchase before snaking away from him. Their paws locked on each other’s shoulders, and they danced an awkward dance on their hind legs pulling and pushing at each other trying to draw the other off balance.

When their bodies turned so that I could see the sheriff’s face fully again, I felt a small pang of guilt for wishing him harm. One side of his face was open and raw, and I couldn’t even see his eye through all the blood matted in his fur. I wanted Lukas to win, but I still wasn’t a person who delighted in seeing anyone else in pain. It was necessary; the logical part of my brain understood that. But seeing the reality of it caused my humanity distress.

Lukas put his head down, and it appeared as if the sheriff thought for a moment he was going to gain the upper hand again. Then Lukas released him, and his head became a battering ram pounding squarely into the sheriff’s upper chest. The sheriff went flying backward, and that was when Lukas pounced.

I heard the crack of bones this time when Lukas landed heavily on the sheriff’s body. Then everything went still. Lukas roared into the air, and I felt sick when I saw his powerful jaws bite into the sheriff’s neck. The sheriff’s body jerked once and then twice. Then he went still.

Doc Walden stepped back into the arena. The expression on his face was stormy.

“Lukas Kasper! Return to the center!”

Lukas bit into the sheriff’s body again, and Doc Walden hollered his name for the second time. I wondered where Lukas had gone in his head. There was a zeal about the way that his teeth worked into the sheriff’s body that made me think that he was enjoying himself. Doc Walden yelled his name a third time, and slowly Lukas turned his head in that direction.

I was on the other side of the arena, so I couldn’t see what it was that Doc Walden saw, but the man took a step backward. His face paled. “The council asks that you return to the center of the arena, Lukas.”

Something had passed between them. I wasn’t sure what it was, but there was a shift nonetheless. Lukas puffed a loud exhalation of air and then slid off of the sheriff’s body. I didn’t know if the sheriff was alive or dead, but all eyes were on Lukas now. He lumbered across the arena in the exact opposite pacing as crossing to attack the sheriff just minutes before. When he reached Doc Walden, he snarled.

“Yield or kill?” Doc Walden said. His voice carried a note of uncertainty that it hadn’t the last time he had asked Lukas the question.

There was a long pause. I felt a faint tendril of fear that despite everything, Lukas was going to choose kill. His bear had taken over completely in the last few moments of the match. He wanted to kill the sheriff. I had to hope that the man still existed inside of him enough to answer the question correctly.