Ariel (21 page)

Ariel was drowsy as she lifted a hand to his face. “My wolf loves to fight. Without your uber alpha presence, she’d have me attacking people all the time. Thank you for being there to advise me about my urges…and for everything else you’ve done. You’ve been better to me than any man I’ve ever known.”

Knowing Ariel was only moments away from sleep dragging her under, Matt rocked and held her, holding them both on their knees, repeating how much he loved her over and over.

When Ariel’s full weight sagged against him, he gently redressed her before tucking the bed covers around her body to keep her warm while she slept. Never in his life had he wanted to stay with a female so badly. Caring for the unconscious, sleeping Ariel was just as humbling now as it had been the first time he’d felt that sort of protective urge for her.

But it wasn’t safe for him to stay. If his presence was discovered in the Black Wolf pack, it wouldn’t help her or Reed. He placed a final kiss on her cheek, happy at least to leave her smelling of his love and lust. He hoped it would comfort her as much as it did him.

“Fight well tomorrow, Alpha Ariel. I will be waiting anxiously for your return.”

Shifting back to his wolf, Matt reluctantly left to make the long, lonely run home alone.

Chapter 16

The crowd around the large painted circle didn’t faze Ariel. Her arrogant wolf preened under the focused attention while her human eyes searched the crowd to determine their mood. It looked like most of the townspeople had come to watch, but every face was frozen in a frown as they stared at her.

Followed closely by a vibrating Brandi, Ariel stepped into the circle where Travis, Hanuk, and another male she didn’t recognize already waited.

“Where is your third, Ariel Jones?” Travis asked.

Ariel met his gaze steadily as she answered. “I don’t have one, Travis. I can’t risk Heidi. She’s a healer. Skills like hers have to be protected.”

“I am Ariel’s third,” Reed declared, stepping into the circle.

Ariel’s gaze swung to Reed. Given the shocked whispers running through the crowd, she wasn’t alone in her surprise. “I can handle it. You don’t have to do this.”

“Child, there was never any choice in the matter, but I thank you for trying to spare me.”

When Hanuk laughed at their personal exchange, Ariel’s irritated gaze returned to him. “Do you have any redeeming qualities at all?”

“Yes. I can kill without a single bit of remorse. I learned it from my grandfather,” Hanuk stated flatly. “It makes me a strong, worthy leader.”

“Or just a mean asshole,” Ariel added quietly, speaking low enough that only he could hear.

“The female alpha is mine to fight. No one touches her but me,” Hanuk declared.

Brandi turned to Reed. “I can’t prove what I’m about to tell you, but I’m pretty sure Travis was the one who shot you and left you on Feldspar’s doorstep. Maybe that makes things a little easier for you, Reed.”

“Since today I will finish what I failed to do before, I see no reason to deny it was me,” Travis offered.

Reed looked at Travis. If he hadn’t heard the boy say it, there would have always been doubt in his mind. “But why would you betray me, Travis? You were my choice for alpha. I offered to help you challenge Hanuk.”

Travis snorted in reply. “Why would I challenge the only real family member I have? When I was most ashamed, it was my brother Hanuk who lured my talkative grandmother out into the cold to stop the spread of the information. It was my job to make sure you never returned to challenge what we were doing. Hanuk has things running the way they’re supposed to in the pack. Giving you to the humans seemed an easy way to keep the blood of your death off my hands. They were carving up wolves and tossing them out in the trash nearly every day. Only they never tossed yours out. I never bothered to find out what they were really doing. How was I to know they were creating fake werewolves like them?”

Ariel stared at Travis, who was pointing at her and Brandi. She didn’t know whether to be relieved he and Hanuk weren’t in league with Feldspar, or appalled to know his grandsons were seriously trying to kill Reed just to keep a secret no one probably would have cared about.

“Enough talking. Let’s get this farce over with. I have three other pack members to punish today,” Hanuk declared.

Ariel turned back and glared. “Your punishing days are over, Hanuk.”

Before her eyes Hanuk morphed from a grinning man into a large snarling black wolf. A slow smile spread from her mouth to her eyes as she calculated his size. “Well, I guess that explains why you feel the need to make people fear you, Hanuk. Can you say the word
compensating
? Glad I got my genes from the giant wolf side of Reed’s gene pool. Hold on a second. You’re going to love this.”

She let her form dissolve until she glared back at him from all fours. When he leaped at her, she leapt too, instinctively grabbing him by the scruff of his neck. Without stopping to think about the reaction, she literally slung Hanuk out of the fight circle. The crowd parted to let him land at their feet, but no one offered any encouragement to him.

Her edge in their battle didn’t last long though because Hanuk jumped up immediately, insanely angry about what she’d done. Teeth snapping and eyes flashing, he charged back to where she calmly stood her ground. She let him come at her full force, her wolf quivering in anticipation of their clash. She waited until he leapt again before rising to her full height on her hind legs. Using her greater size and weight, she met his flying body with a hard push from her paws. Hanuk went flying backwards, landing and rolling several feet away. Before he could rise, she pounced on his back and locked her jaws around the back of his neck. One hard bite and he went still. But as much as she intended to keep biting until she had killed him completely, Ariel found that just couldn’t do it.

Lifting her confused gaze to the others, she saw Brandi in human form standing over the beta’s still human body. Arms crossed, Brandi stood watching Reed and Travis, two of the largest wolves she’d ever seen, circling and snarling. If there was ever a match that could turn out to be a draw, it was that one. But maybe not if she gave Reed a psychological edge.

Dragging the unconscious Hanuk over with her, she dropped him near where Reed and Travis were sparring. She sat down beside Hanuk’s body and offered up a triumphant howl that split the air. People outside the circle grabbed their ears. Suddenly, she felt Brandi sitting next to her, also in wolf form. Her second howl had a sharper accompaniment which made the air tremble. Between the two of them, their combined howls sent all onlookers to the ground in pain.

Travis stopped circling Reed, backed up, and looked around in stunned surprise at all the kneeling people. Reed looked at Hanuk’s still body and immediately morphed back into his human form. She and Brandi trotted over and took their place on either side of him. Travis whined in rebellion at their unity, barked several times, and then whined some more.

Then surprising them all, he turned and fled the circle, barking loudly to split the crowd as he ran.

Ariel stood, intending to chase him down, but Reed restrained her. “No. Let him go. He’s not evil. He’s just hurt and confused.”

Then they realized the three of them were alone in the circle—well them and the two males who had lost the fight. Brandi swiftly changed back again to a human. Ariel huffed in frustration at Brandi’s fully dressed body and leaned against Reed’s leg to brood about it. She was not going to shift and embarrass herself. Reed was still staring where Travis had exited and not smiling, but his hand came out to rest lightly on her head in understanding.

Ariel turned and looked around in amazement. All the Black Wolf pack members were still on the ground, with their gazes lifted cautiously to her. Ariel whined in gratitude when Heidi walked into the circle with a small blanket, shaking it out to drape it around her wolf form. Ariel shifted and stood tall, wrapping the blanket around the middle of herself. At least it covered the important parts.

“The beta is dead. Check Hanuk. He was still alive when I dropped him,” she ordered.

Heidi looked worried about the request, but took a tentative step toward the motionless black wolf. Ariel heard Brandi snort before she headed in the same direction. “I’ll check him,” she declared.

She turned and looked at Reed. “So what happens now?”

“You tell me,” Reed ordered, cupping her jaw in his hand. “You defeated the resident alpha, Dr. Jones. Under pack law that puts you in charge.”

Ariel shook her head. “Not a good idea. I took Hanuk down, but I didn’t kill him. Regardless of what a bastard he was, I couldn’t bring myself to kill someone who looked, smelled, and felt so much like you. Would you have killed Travis if he hadn’t escaped?”

Reed nodded, his mouth tight. “Yes. I was willing to kill them before I stepped into the circle.”

Ariel sighed. “I told myself I was too, but it didn’t work like that for me. Killing Crane was easy. Killing Hanuk was not. I don’t think I’m ready to kill twenty challengers to the alpha position over the years like Gareth said Matt has had to do. I can’t even imagine what kind of challengers you’ve had to handle.”

Her heart lifted when a ghost of a smile lifted the corners of Reed’s mouth.

“Let’s just say it was a few more than twenty. And yes, many of them were family members of one sort or another—unfortunately.”

Ariel nodded. “So how do I make you alpha instead of me.”

“Show your deference to me,” Reed ordered, sighing in resignation.

“You don’t sound too pleased. Don’t you want to be alpha again?” Ariel asked. She frowned as she watched Reed shrug.

“Not really, but I don’t want the pack to be under the control of another tyrant either. Unless you decide to stay, it might truly be time to look for an alpha outside of my immediate family—preferably one who might let me go off and live in peace.”

Ariel looked at Brandi, who stood and shook her head. Hanuk was gone. She had killed him after all. Her sigh was long. She hadn’t even taken their fight very seriously. Even now her wolf scoffed. It was the human side of her that rebelled against what had happened.

“I can’t be the alpha, Reed. I can’t do this—at least not right now. I’m sorry to dump this on you.”

“It’s okay. I expected this to happen. Kneel to me and lower your gaze until I tell you to rise again,” Reed ordered softly, stroking her cheek with his hand again.

Nodding, Ariel knelt and bowed her head, keeping her eyes on Reed’s shoes. She heard the whispering crowd muttering in shock. Moments later, Brandi and Heidi appeared next to her. They knelt and mirrored her actions without asking a single thing.

Reed lifted his head and looked around. “Any other challengers want to take us on?” he yelled.

From the corner of her eye, Ariel watched the circle of people shake their heads and lower their gazes to Reed.

“I declare myself alpha of the Black Wolf pack once again. I will choose a second later. These women are my family, and until their death, will be under the protection of this pack. The female alpha, Ariel Jones, retains the permanent right to challenge for the role of Black Wolf Alpha any time she is willing to come back and serve.”

Reed watched until the pack members stood and nodded to him before slinking away. The majority of faces were filled with relief. He filed away the faces that had not been. He had no doubt Hanuk and Travis had been paying for the loyalty of those who carried out their so-called punishments. Persuading them to forget their old part-time work was not a job he relished taking on, but it had to be done.

When the rest of the pack had disbursed, he reached out a hand to Ariel. “Okay. You three can stand up now. It’s all over. I’m the Black Wolf Alpha again.”

Ariel kept a hand gripped tightly on her meager covering as Reed hauled her to her feet. Brandi and Heidi looked around. Both sighed in relief when Gareth and Ryan finally walked into the circle to hug them.

Ariel sighed too. “I have just one more question. How am I supposed to figure out where my clothes went out here?”

Reed chuckled. He was going to miss her. “You might find them back in the cabin. It was the last place you dressed.”

She looked down at her naked feet. “Shit. I didn’t even keep my shoes this time. This naked shifting thing is so not fair. I’m an alpha. Why can’t I do this?”

Everyone exited the circle, laughing at her complaints.

Brandi eventually left Gareth’s side and dropped back to walk with her as they hiked back to the cabins. “How did you get that bite mark on your shoulder? From where I stood, it looked like Hanuk didn’t even get to touch you—not once. Your wolf was nearly twice the size of his, by the way. I loved it when you just stood on your hind legs and knocked him the hell out of the air.”

Ariel reached a hand over her shoulder, trying to feel where the mark was. “Damn it, Matt.”

Brandi laughed as she reached out and touched the spot with her finger. “It’s here and shaped like teeth. Man, Matt just loves to mark you, doesn’t he?”