When a Pack Dies (8 page)

Fina promised herself that next time she took Ryan shopping for a new toy, she’d snap every damned Barbie in the store in half.

Despite all that, Fina froze her pathetic, warm smile in place.

“That’s because I make an effort,” Suzanne laughed. “It’s called enunciation, boss.” She slapped her Alpha’s belly lightly with the backs of her long, slender fingers. “You should try it some time.” She turned back to Fina. “I like this woman already,” Suzanne smiled and it made her impossibly beautiful. “I feel like I
know
you already. He talks about you all the time.”

Fina didn’t know what to make of that but with her conflicting and uncharitable feelings, she wasn’t about to explore it—not now.

“You got what you came for,” Cutler snapped at Suzanne and the tall blonde paled visibly. She let out a quiet yelp then a whine...a nervous sound of distress then, tentatively and slowly, moved closer to her Alpha.

Cutler swore at himself mentally and held himself still. He had no right to go off on Suzanne like that. It wasn’t her fault her timing sucked. That was the second time she’d interrupted him with his mate. She didn’t deserve to be reprimanded for what amounted to his lack of self control. He didn’t refuse her when she hesitantly lowered her head to his chest. She moved slowly, in small increments, sniffing the air around him and glancing up at him again and again, gauging his anger and wary of it. She trembled lightly when she pressed her cheek over his heart.

Fina actually backed away from Cutler when the busty blonde started rubbing her face against his chest. With long, deliberate, gentle strokes Suzanne caressed his heavy pectorals with her cheeks, nose and chin, nuzzling him and whining so quietly Fina barely heard her. Her breasts pressed into his ribs but with boobs that big, there was no way it could be avoided. Fina was surprised the woman didn’t just fall flat on her face from the weight of them...only she’d probably bounce right back up again.

Fina felt like booting her in the ass to test her theory.

Fina jumped a little when Cutler’s strong hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her back to his side. She tried to resist—tried to pull away from him but he held her tight and refused to let go.

Cutler knew why Suzanne was nuzzling him. He’d been angry with her—really angry and she needed the reassurance that her Alpha’s reprimand was over—needed comforting and needed to reaffirm the bonds of Alpha and pack member between them. He held back his impatience, held himself still and waited for her anxiety to recede. When the scent of it faded, Cutler sighed quietly. “Go on, Suzanne,” he said with uncharacteristic gentleness. He tipped his head toward the huddle of six, unmated males who were standing nearby and raptly watching his dispatcher’s every move. “Before your admirers have a stroke.”

Grinning self consciously, Suzanne lifted her head from him, glanced up at him once then lowered her eyes and walked back the way she’d come.

When she left, Cutler filled his lungs slowly then exhaled. Suzanne’s scent was fresh on him, light, healthy, fertile and undeniably female—but hers wasn’t the scent he wanted. His wolf snapped its jaws angrily and prowled through his head, trying to get away from the scent of this interloper and locate the smell of its mate again. Cutler tightened his grip on Fina’s wrist and drew her closer.

“Mark me,” he growled, dipping his face and rubbing his rough cheek across the side of her face. He slid his free hand around her waist and pulled her into him, overpowering her strength easily, holding her small, warm body against his. “I want your scent on me. I need it,” he snarled. Cutler let go of her wrist, wrapped his hand around the back of her head, stood up to his full height and drew her face to him.

He threw back his head and let his wolf’s growl reverberate through his still-human larynx. It was a frightening sound—part man and part animal but the cry was picked up by other male werewolves throughout the clearing. The wolves inside them trumpeted their strength and vigor in anticipation of the rising moon.

Trembling from head to toe, Fina rubbed her face over Cutler’s chest, reveling in the scratchiness of his hair, drinking in the heat of his body, letting the beating of his heart overwhelm her hearing. The pulsing filled her head and her blood began to pound in her ears in time with it. She opened her mouth, dragged her lips over him, moving faster now. She gripped his thick biceps, dug her fingers into him, stretched up onto her toes so she could reach more of him, flipped her head back and forth and painted him with her scent.

Cutler held himself absolutely still except for his head. It lolled back and his eyes gazed unseeing at the stars. He willed his skin to drink her in and let his arms fall helplessly to his sides as his mate touched him.

The other woman’s scent on Cutler’s body receded, replaced by her own and Fina growled. A low, continuous sound she’d never made before—hadn’t even known she was capable of. It was a song of possession, intent and need and a rational part of her wondered why this formidable Alpha didn’t just simply throw her body away from his. Raise his hand to her and cuff her for her insolence. She snarled and stiffened when she felt another werewolf pressing into her back but her anger fizzled when she realized it was Nathaniel. He lifted her hair and began rubbing his temple against the back of her neck, her shoulders and spine—rubbing his scent over her like she was rubbing hers over Cutler. When her scent had completely erased Suzanne’s, Fina turned, grabbed Nath’s biceps and began to rub her face over his torso.

Cutler blinked then grinned like he was drunk. He growled but it was a drugged, glutted sound. He leaned down, wrapped his arms around Fina’s waist and began sliding his cheeks over her shoulder blades, marking parts of her his brother hadn’t.

The three of them clung to each other in a sated huddle until Cutler’s deepest instinct lifted his head. With unerring accuracy, his eyes turned to the white nebula just visible over the treetops, heralding the approach of the full moon. He held his breath for the span of a heartbeat, then two, then threw back his head and howled. “Let the run begin,” he bellowed in a voice that was half human, half wolf.

All around him, naked, human bodies shrank in height but expanded in mass. Rising, multiplying howls sang out through the clearing as his pack shifted into the form of the wolf. He kept his chest pressed to Fina’s back but clawed at his zipper, yanked down his jeans and kicked them aside. He could hear his brother panting and growling as he too shed the last of his clothing.

The two of them stood on either side of Fina, standing tall and powerful and pressed against her.

Fina trembled but for the first time in weeks, it wasn’t with fear. It was desire—raw and foreign and she looked at the two powerful males, smelled the heat and need pouring off them, saw the fully erect and formidable penises rising from the dark thatches on their groins. Her wolf howled with all the power it possessed and she felt her bones splinter. Her spine shifted, drawing her head back and pulling her mouth open. Her gums ached, then her jaw as her teeth shifted, grew and moved back to fill her elongating mouth. The ache flashed into pain then disappeared entirely. The sound of her howl changed. It was fully animal now, strong and primitive and gloriously free. Her skin broke loose from the thin layer of womanly, insulating fat beneath it, slithered over her freely then fastened onto violently expanding muscle. Hairs formed beneath her skin and slid out through tight follicles. She dropped down onto all fours and howled again only this time the tremendous sound of it joined hundreds of other wolves crying out with unfettered joy. Her ankles shattered, stretched without impediment then knit themselves up almost immediately. Her nails thickened into sharp, thick daggers that promised death to anyone foolish enough to challenge her.

Her snout snapped shut and Fina’s fully wolf eyes gazed over the clearing, seeing everything. Her tipped, perked ears swiveled and she heard everything. She smelled everything. A red squirrel in a cedar chattered down at them aggressively then seemed to sense the combined power of the new animals crowding its territory. Its tiny claws dug into the soft bark and it spun, raced up the trunk and disappeared into a tiny crevice between two limbs. Fina knew it wouldn’t come out until after sunrise. She heard a leaf tremble in the breeze, heard a blade of grass bend as the rough pad of a paw passed over it, smelled the quick, frightened release of an elk’s urine from over a thousand feet away just before it flipped its tail up and ran, causing its small herd to stampede away in its wake. The muzzle of the wolf that was Fina pulled back from its sharp, solid teeth in a parody of a human smile. They were the most powerful creatures on the face of this land this night and the most powerful had the luxury of play.

But before her wolf let itself indulge, it had a piece of business to attend to. Moving smoothly and powerfully, Fina loped forward a few feet and waited. Another female, smaller than her, sleekly muscled and elegantly beautiful because of it, strolled her way with a wide-eyed crowd of young, impetuous males so close on her tail their muzzles bounced off each other as they pressed in after her, jostling each other for a whiff of her scent. When the female was close enough, Fina’s wolf growled in warning. She turned to the side, presenting her flank to the other but held her tail high. The glossy, reddish-brown fur on her haunches stood up and her head was low to the ground.

The smaller female accepted her challenge and snarled. They circled slowly, not losing eye contact. They struck at the same time but Fina’s attack was motivated by anger and a perceived slight that her wolf’s intellect was too limited to comprehend. It only knew this bitch had offended her. She lined her thickly boned head up with her spine and slammed into the other female’s flank, bowling her over. Fina’s strong jaw latched onto the other’s neck and she sprayed spittle all over the golden-brown fur that was lightly streaked with the color of sunshine. She let go just as quickly, trotting off with her tail and her head held high. The other female’s scent and lack of resistance had clearly telegraphed her capitulation.

The drooling males who’d been following the female weren’t as perceptive. Four of them rushed at Fina, snarling and growling and making more noise than effective aggression...or romantic overture. Fina spun and dipped her head. She nipped the belly of one, sending him yelping and racing for the tree line. She slammed her shoulder into another then turned to snap at a third when two massive chestnut-brown males came up from behind her and flanked her.

These were no blundering pretenders. These were prime males and they stood shoulder to shoulder with her, lifted their lips and showed their massive teeth without making a sound. The last of the combative males turned tail and ran off into the woods.

Fina trotted forward then paced around her would-be champions slowly. They truly were magnificent and they held themselves with a stillness that was as virile as it was confident. These males had no problem letting her sniff them first, judge their status, gauge their worth. The one with the taller haunches drew her eye first. He was easily the largest wolf she’d ever seen and his powerful frame was covered in thick muscle and a dense, protective covering of fur. It was so glossy it shone eerily in the moonlight. He cocked his tail, inviting her inspection when she walked behind him and his pale eyes, luminescent like the ocean, looked back over his massive shoulder at her with haughty confidence.

Fina sniffed and felt the delicate tissues around her ovaries quiver with anticipation. Her womb though was strangely quiet but Fina’s wolf distanced itself from the deadened feeling. His testicles were large, round and stood out proudly from his body. The fur-cloaked shaft guarding his penis was deeply and securely rooted inside his loins. His size and confidence trumpeted Alpha and he snarled at her with a touch of self-entitled arrogance when she lingered too long at his vulnerable backside.

Fina moved on to the second wolf. This one wasn’t quite as massive as the first but his health and virility were equally unmistakable. There was no arrogance in this wolf and his eyes followed her with clear and unfeigned desire. Yet it was an oddly chaste, restrained need that radiated from his powerful body. Fina’s wolf registered the restraint, puzzled by it. She continued moving. She shoved his tail aside with her snout then held her nose very close to his back end and inhaled. Again, her unborn pups jostled each other in an attempt to free themselves from the pack and be mated with this male’s seed. His...or the other’s. She sensed the strong, family connection between this wolf and the first. They smelled like...home.

Fina trotted around to face them, rubbed her snout over the high, broad skull of the first wolf, then the second, then stepped back and waited.

Cutler lifted his head and looked down his long, smoothly furred snout at the young female standing before him. Her strength made her cocky, although he didn’t doubt it was well deserved. She was large for a female but that roused his interest in her even more. This was a powerful, worthy female and he would have to work hard to run her down—harder than he’d ever had to work to claim any female and Cutler knew without thinking about it that he
would
claim this female. The struggle would make the claiming glorious. She was his. She was his mate. He knew that just as surely as he knew he was the single most powerful creature in these woods. She had bright, silver-blue eyes and they looked at him and his brother with brazen insolence. She was a child of Alphas and her wolf’s haughty pride would accept no less as her mate.

He also sensed a gentleness in her. She was confident enough to reveal that to them. She would make a formidable but loving mother. That same spirit softened the haughtiness in her just enough to accept his Beta. His brother. With a low, resigned growl, Cutler’s wolf cast its blue-green eyes over Nathaniel. He could smell the other wolf’s need for the bitch and it was as strong as his own. Unless he was willing to kill his brother, he would have to share her. For the first time in his adult life, the idea of sharing an Alpha’s privilege did not meet with fierce, instinctual resistance.