Bride of the Alpha (2 page)

His picture likely wouldn’t be online, because shifters try very hard not to have an online presence – we like to keep a low profile in general, since humans don’t know we exist – but it’s a small world out there among us supernatural folk, so we probably had mutual acquaintances. There’s only a couple hundred

packs in all of the U.S., all of us living in rural areas so we can shift when we want to without fear of discovery.

I made a face. “Nope. I could care less what he looks like,” I said. “He’s the caveman who was going to grab my friend by the hair and drag her off to the wedding chamber. Screw him.”

I turned back to the mirror and pulled a comb out of my purse, humming “Here comes the bride,” as I

combed my hair.

Chapter Two

Oh, my fur and whiskers. My future soon-to-be-ex-husband was
hot.
So, so hot. He was standing

outside the lodge, talking to a few very handsome shifters who looked as if they were related to him, but I could barely see them because he was so
hot.

I was even willing to forgive them for having come to pick me up in a pickup truck on my wedding

day.

Maxwell was tall, about six four. I’m five six, not exactly short, but he would tower over me. He had

broad shoulders and big, burly arms, and mighty thighs. I could tell because his jeans fit him quite nicely.

Jeans. Was that what he was going to marry me in? My illusion spell made it look as if I were wearing a flowing white silk wedding dress trimmed in lace, and a massive gauzy veil covering my face and flowing down my back, held in place with a garland of pearls and white roses, and he was wearing a black t shirt and jeans?

Oh, well. I wouldn’t mind stripping those jeans right off him. I went back to mooning over how

gorgeous he was. Full, sensual lips, high cheekbones, thick dark hair that I couldn’t wait to run my fingers through…

Wait. I gave myself a mental slap on the face to bring myself back to reality. I’d never get to run my

fingers through that hair. I’d be effectively divorced by this afternoon.

I watched him throw back his head and laugh at something one of the guys who’d come with him said,

and felt a sudden twinge in my belly. Maybe Corwin was right. Maybe he would want to be married to

me…

No! What was I thinking? I’d taken leave of my senses.

A hot guy like that would never want me. I knew that quite well. I looked just like my mom, and I’d

spent my childhood and adolescence listening to her moan about how men never fell in love with women

who looked like her – and then watching her be the living proof of that. My dad had an affair with my

mom, and left without marrying her. It had broken her heart. She’d never gotten over it, she’d gone through life dating jerky guys and mooning over my dad, who ran off and married some beautiful, slim leopard.

Then he’d cheated on her and she’d booted him out, but that was another story entirely.

I sighed, and went back to admiring the scenery. Maxwell and his family were a very handsome group

of shifters, and actually the scenery behind them was beautiful too. It was June at the foothills of the Timber Mountains, and the emerald green of the trees and the shocking blue of the sky were like something out of a Technicolor dream. Fat white clouds floated like lazy, happy sheep, drifting in a gentle breeze. The Timber Mountains loomed in the distance, dark purplish blue and capped with white.

The Timber Valley pack, like many packs, had thousands of acres of property, which let their members

live in safety and privacy, away from human discovery. They had a central family compound, where

important gatherings took place, and where anyone who wasn’t working would likely be found hanging out

and socializing during the day. They had a farm and ranch animals, and a logging operation. I was in a

building a quarter mile down the road from the compound, so I’d been told.

The building was a guest house, and I was in a living room with furniture hand-hewn from logs. I

turned away from the lovely scene in front of me, and walked back to the round mirror that hung on the

wall. I’d been checking my reflection every five minutes, petrified that the charm would somehow stop

working.

Nope. Camille still stared back at me from the mirror. I stuck my tongue out at myself, put my thumb in my ears and wiggled my fingers.

“You are in for a big surprise, Max Battle,” I said to myself with Camille’s mouth. “And it serves you

right.”

The door flew open with a bang, and I started and spun around. I expected Maxwell to come striding

through, but it wasn’t him. If I had to guess, based on the descriptions I’d heard of him, I’d say it was Kray Renker.

My heart froze in my chest. Had he found out what Camille and I had done? Even worse, had he caught

Camille and Frederick? God, not that, I prayed.

He slammed the door shut behind him. He was big and angry, with an air of menace rolling off of him

like a cobra that could strike at any time. I suddenly felt fear curling up in my stomach.

Kray was a handsome enough man, somewhere in his forties with thick black hair and a beard and

mustache shot through with some gray, but the enraged expression on his face made him very ugly to me.

He had a scar slashing through one eyebrow, and another on his neck. Not surprising. Most Alphas were

pretty scarred up. He looked me up and down, glowering.

“I came to make sure you didn’t try to make a run for it,” he snarled. “And what the hell are you

wearing?”

“What?” I was taken aback. “It’s called a wedding dress.”

A look of shock and fury washed over his face. “What the hell did you just say to me?” he demanded.

Uh oh. Camille probably never talked back to him. She was a sweet, soft spoken girl; a bully like him

would run right over her.

I glanced down at the illusion wedding dress, which would vanish once I took the charm off.

“What difference does it make what I’m wearing?” I asked.

He scowled at it, his face reddening. “It’s ugly, and I already told you what dress I wanted you to wear.

What did you do with it?”

Oh, crud. Camille could have warned me about this. Then again, seriously, who the hell was he to insult Camille’s choice of dress, or tell her what to wear?

“I wanted to wear this one,” I said, struggling to sound respectful when what I really wanted to do was shift and throw down. That would, of course, get me killed, so I resisted.

“
You
wanted to wear it? Since when the hell does it matter what you want?” He stalked over, and I backed up, until I was up against the wall and he was towering over me, his hot breath on my face.

He grabbed the neckline of my dress in his fist. He thought he was holding on to my wedding dress, but

what I was really wearing was a simple white sun dress, which was bunched between his fingers and ready to tear as he twisted his hand.

“This dress isn’t sexy.” His lips wrinkled back in a snarl. “We want you to look sexy. This alliance is important to me, and he could still change his mind. You need to be showing off your goods, and by your goods I mean your tits. Where is the other dress? You’re going to change right now.”

With him in the room? Hell with that.

I grabbed at his hand, trying to pull it off me. He clenched tighter, and the fabric started to rip. There was murder in his eyes.

“Let go of me!” I yelled, panic clutching at my throat. “I left the other dress back home. Get off me!”

I put my hands on his chest and tried to push him away. He grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm

painfully.

“How dare you speak to me like this?” he roared. “You think that just because you’re joining the Timber Valley pack, you can act any way that you want? You’re in my pack and under my command until the

minute you say I do.”

“Let go!” I screamed. “You’ll break my wrist! Let go!”

“I’ll break more than that!” he bellowed. “Forget it! This wedding’s off! No woman talks to me that

way! I’m going to take you home and show you some good old fashioned discipline!” He got a gleam in his eye which terrified me. “In fact, maybe I’ll just claim you as my bride. Yes, I believe I will. I’ll give you a wedding night you’ll never forget, and once you can walk again, you’ll learn the meaning of respect.”

He could do it, too. He had already claimed two brides. That was the privilege of the Alpha, if he so

chose to exercise it. In the 21st century, most Alpha’s didn’t.

He grabbed my arm, nearly wrenching it from its socket, and began dragging me towards the door.

Chapter Three

The door flew open again, and Maxwell stood there, towering so high his head scraped the

top of the door frame. He stomped through, and slammed the door behind him.

“What the hell are you doing with my bride?” he roared. His face rippled, and his eyes

glowed with anger. Gray and white fur sprouted on the backs of his hands, and black claws shot

out from his fingertips. His ears turned pointy.

Kray let go of me immediately, and stumbled back. Maxwell’s fur and claws receded and he

grabbed me, and slung a protective arm around me, as I blinked back tears. His arm was so

strong, and it felt so good to lean into him, breathing in his cologne and animal musk. My knees

were shaking, but I felt his strength pouring into me and I began to calm down.

“Are you all right? Did he hurt you?” he demanded.

“I’m fine.” I resisted the urge to rub my aching wrist, because I didn’t want to inspire him to

get in a fight with Kray on the spot.

My heart pounded in my chest. This was what Camille had been living with ever since Kray

took over her pack? Why hadn’t she told me? Then again, what could I have done to help her?

The Alpha made the rules.

The council of Elders, the thirteen who oversaw matters which affected wolf shifters as a

whole, would be very unlikely to help out in a case like this. What could Camille have told them?

Her new pack Alpha was a mean asshole? They wouldn’t care. They mostly only intervened

when there was a threat of exposure to humans, or some threat to all shifters. They didn’t

interfere with pack business.

“The wedding is off,” Kray growled. “I’m taking her with me.” He made a move as if to grab

me away from Maxwell, and Maxwell let out a mighty growl of rage and went wolf.

I staggered back as he shifted, splitting out of his shirt and jeans. His snout shot out, his ears

went pointy, and white fur rippled like a field of grass in the wind. He’d been wearing a necklace

in human form, a strip of leather with some tokens dangling from them, and that stayed on him,

dangling down. The rest of his clothing lay in strips on the floor.

Maxwell was a very fast shifter, turning in seconds, and he was, not surprisingly, one very

huge wolf. Saliva dripped from his gleaming fangs, and his eyes glowed with rage.

Kray shifted too, into a big, sturdy wolf with thick gray and white fur. It took him several

seconds longer than Maxwell, and Maxwell was significantly bigger than him.

I stumbled back away from them as they crouched there, snarling at each other. Then,

abruptly, Kray shifted back to human form, which signaled his surrender. It wasn’t quite as

submissive as rolling onto back and baring his belly, but it was a clear admission of defeat.

I was startled and relieved. This was the mighty Kray Renker? When he was up against a real

Alpha, he didn’t seem so tough after all.

Maxwell shifted back, hands balled into fists, his jaw set with anger.

Kray held up his hands placatingly. “This should be a day of celebration,” he said. “There’s

no reason to fight here.”

“You attempted to put your hands on the woman I will be marrying. That’s a reason to fight,”

Maxwell’s voice was a rough, angry growl.

“She has disrespected me, and I can’t tolerate that,” Kray said. “I need to take her back to my

family compound and teach her a lesson. An Alpha can’t tolerate disrespect; you know that.”

I shrank away from him, heart hammering on my rib cage. This was bad. If Maxwell let him

take me, I was as good as dead, especially when he found out who I really was.

“Her behavior is now my concern, not yours. Are you attempting to renege on your deal with

me?” Maxwell demanded. “Because that is the equivalent of declaring war on my pack. Is that what you wish to do?”

Kray swallowed hard, and then cleared his throat. I tried not to look at how incredibly well

hung Maxwell was, but it was really hard not to look.

Ouch. Hurt me so good, I thought. Then I immediately chided myself. This was really not the

time or the occasion to go all pervy!

“I can provide you with another bride, equally attractive and much more agreeable,” Kray

protested. “You want a bride that is submissive and will obey you, and show you the respect

you’re due. That isn’t her. My apologies for bringing the wrong woman. I had no idea she was

capable of the kind of behavior she’s displaying today.”

“Don’t tell me what I want in a bride,” Maxwell snapped. “You promised me this one. I want

this one.”

Oh, goody, now I was the juicy bone that the two wolves were fighting over.

Still, he had saved me, and I was grateful for that.

Kray stood there, furious, not wanting to back down but not wanting to challenge Maxwell

either.

“Your pack and my pack can meet on the field of battle,” Maxwell said, smiling a very nasty

smile. “Or you and I can meet wolf to wolf. Shall we notify the Council of Elders?”

Maxwell was basically threatening to issue a formal Death Challenge. Winner would have the right to

take over the other’s pack and lands. Somehow, I didn’t think Kray would take him up on that – and I was right.