Unleashing His Alpha (16 page)

“Oh, lord,” the woman said, pointing to the spot on the map. “I hope you two can get him back before the storm blows in. That might be able to buy you some time to put some distance between yourselves and them.”

“Thanks,” Katie said, taking the hot buttered rum from the helpful bartender. “You’ve been the best.”

* * *

It didn’t take long for Shane to confirm his suspicions. Katie had been sitting in the car with a thermos full of hot chocolate to wait for him while he ran off into the snow from the side of the road and went searching for his pack. She knew it was dangerous just to be hanging out on the side of the road, but it was as close as they could get to his pack without possibly alerting their suspicion.

As she sat in the car, looking at the dark forest that was practically buried in snow, she wished she could go with him. She wanted to be there with him when he went up against this challenge and she knew they were so much stronger together than they were apart. The fact that she kept losing her spot next to him to the problem that she was human made her madder and madder with each passing second.

She would give anything to be out there with him, at his side and running through the snow with him, like it was no problem. When he stood out there in the middle of a snowstorm, the snow would hit him and immediately evaporate. There was nothing the cold could do to him and that made her feel confident that he wouldn’t freeze to death, but what if someone snuck up on him? What if he got caught in the middle of an ambush and there was no one there to warn him what was coming?

What was he supposed to do then? How was he going to be okay when there was no one there to help him? She was his beta and that meant she should be by his side.

All she had to console her broken heart was a thermos of hot chocolate and the music on the radio that only made her frustrated. She didn’t want to sit here and drink hot chocolate. She wanted to be doing something, so she tried to think about what she could do for him. What could she do that would give him the extra edge when he went up against these three murderers head to head in a battle that could very much claim his life?

There had to be a competitive edge that she could give him that would make all of the difference. If not, then what was she doing here? What was her point?

It was an hour before she saw him coming out of the forest. He was covered in snow and he looked like he was tired of slogging through the snow, but there was no blood and there were no signs of battle. She wanted to get out of the car and run out to him, but she knew they would just head right back into the car and that was a waste of time. The faster he got in, the warmer he would get. She turned on the car and the heater roared to life as he came around to the driver’s side door and opened it, falling into the driver’s seat.

“Good news,” Shane said, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath and find his footing. “Their leadership is away and I don’t think they’re watching for me. I don’t think they’re expecting me to even be coming for them. They’re completely normal acting and there isn’t even a watch set up.”

“How do you know for certain?” she asked him nervously. “What if they’re better than you expected? What if they’re hiding and they could see you but you couldn’t see them?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “They don’t see me as a threat at all. They’re not even masking their presence. I think they want me to find them so that they can deal with me once and for all. They’re cocky and they’re underestimating me. So, while they’re away, I want to go present myself to the pack. I want to introduce myself as a rival for their leadership. If they see me as strong, then maybe they’ll be willing to come forward and help me.”

“Or maybe they’ll ambush you and turn you over to them,” Katie said to him nervously. “Shane, I don’t like this plan, it’s way too risky. We need to go back to the hotel and we need to think of a plan that doesn’t involve serving yourself up on a platter to them.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Shane said to her. “If I present myself to them, they’re under no obligation to attack me. Only the leadership is. They will simply tell me to stay or to leave and I’ll just have to go back and wait for them to summon me or I’ll wait there until the leadership arrives. Either way, now is the time we’ve been waiting for and it’s time for me to act. I can’t hide anymore and I can’t wait. This is it, Katie. This is the moment where I have to prove I’m the leader they deserve.”

“I’m scared,” Katie said to him nervously. She looked at him and saw the man she loved and she knew there was a very serious chance he was going to end up dead once he faced these three men. They were going to fight with all their strength and they were going to throw everything they had at him.

If he wasn’t ready for them, he was going to end up dead and she would be alone in the world. She would probably end up surrendering to them and letting them kill her as well. How could she go on without him? He was the other half of her soul. There was nothing she would give more than to be with him. Without him, she was nothing.

“I know,” Shane said, cupping her face and kissing her with lips that were warm, despite the frigid weather outside. “But you had faith in me all along and right now, I need you to have faith in me still. I need you to be there, by my side when I come into their camp and present myself. I know that we’ll be strong together and that you’ll show them how brave and powerful you are. Once they see the two of us, they’ll know that I’m destined to be their alpha.”

“Okay,” she said with a nervous smile on her lips. “Let’s do this.”

When he pulled out onto the road, she felt like she was going to throw up, but she kept it all inside of her. The warmth of the hot chocolate in her stomach started to churn and spoil, and she could feel her entire body following suit. She felt like she was rotting and decaying in the seat next to Shane and that soon there would be nothing left of her for him to call his own.

This was the most terrifying moment in her life and she knew everything she had given up for him was going to be put on the line here. Everything was going to be sacrificed on the altar of this battle and she wasn’t sure that she was willing to give it up. Why had she encouraged him? Why had she told him that he was the leader that his people needed? She should have been comfortable with just having him in her life and being content with that? Why had she pushed so much where this was none of her business?

Because, he was going to be a remarkable leader. She knew when she looked at him that there was no one in the world who was fitter and more qualified to lead them down the path to success than he was. This was the leader they deserved and she knew he was going to lead them into a new world where they wouldn’t have to be on the move constantly and they wouldn’t have to live like they were nomads from the past.

She had listened to him as he had talked about his parents’ notions and their ideas that had been engrained into his mind. He had talked about building a world where Shifters wouldn’t have to feel like they were outsiders or that they didn’t belong in the world. He had told her all of this and she had wanted it so badly for him and their people. She wanted them to believe in something more than fear. So, she was going to stand by him as they stood together in front of his pack and declared that they were going to fight for their loyalty.

When the car stopped, she looked at the three RVs that were circled like wagons with two camper trailers and two trucks with campers on their beds filling in the gaps for them. It was like they were back in the days where settlers had to be afraid of native attacks and this was how they kept a wall around their people. She looked at them and felt her stomach coiling into knots and she knew that they had made the wrong decision here. They should have gone back. No, they had been fools to try and talk reason to these people.

“Let’s do this,” Shane said, squeezing her hand once before throwing open the door to the car and stepping out into the snow. Katie took a deep breath and slowly pushed her door open, feeling the cold air rush in around her. She stood up and looked at the doors of the RVs and the campers being thrown open and the residents of his pack coming out.

She could hardly make them out through the cold and the snow, but as she stood shivering in front of them, she felt like she was on display for all of them to see and to investigate with their own eyes. She was going to be the highest female in this group and that meant they were going to look to her when there were problems and when things needed to be handled.

She was going to have to help Shane make decisions that weren’t going to be popular and weren’t going to make him sleep well. She was going to be there as they were going through the darkness and into the new dawn that he was going to promise them. It was a job that was worth all the fear that came with it and she knew she was going to have to rise to the task, or suffer the scorn of all of these people.

“My name is Shane Blackwood,” he said at the top of his lungs, shouting to his people. “I am the son of Shayla and Thomas Blackwood. I am your rightful leader and I have crossed this land in search of you. I come here to challenge your leadership in the name of justice, honor, and vengeance. I am your rightful leader and I will show you through the fires of battle what I am capable of.”

THE FINAL
CHAPTER

“They’re excited to meet you,” Shane said as he closed the camper door and Katie was finally freed from the prison of her own thoughts. She felt like she was a captive in her own mind and she hated being there. When she looked up at him, she knew that the news he was carrying was good. There was an expression on his face that gave it away and the look in his eyes was something extremely close to the word merry. She had never thought of using the word merry before, but when she saw his face, she knew he was exactly that.

“I’m excited to meet them,” she said honestly. She had met a few of them briefly after he had made his introduction and she had quickly been ushered out of the cold when they saw that she wasn’t a Shifter like the rest of them. She had been grateful to the old man that had gladly given up his camper for her and gave her some privacy.

She had expected the place to be a dilapidated dump filled with junk that he had collected over the years on his journeys from one part of the country to the other, but it was actually extremely nice. It was clean and well taken care of.

It looked like he had done a lot of work on it himself and that he had customized his home to fit his rather sophisticated and modern tastes. She could see herself getting very comfortable in this place, but she understood why Shane’s parents had hated the idea of traveling around so much. It was small and it wasn’t home. It was temporary and it felt like that everywhere she looked in this camper.

There was a knock on the door of the camper and Shane turned and opened it. She watched as a middle aged woman came into the camper. She was beautiful, with red hair that reminded her of carrots and a smile that reminded her of Shane’s. She looked like the kind of woman that could tell you stories until you fell asleep and then would have more for you when you finally woke up.

Her face was spattered with freckles and her blue eyes were as clear and pale as the summer sky. She walked into the camper and reached out to hug Katie.

“I’m so glad that our Shane found you,” the woman said with a voice that sounded like it had been crying for many years. “When his parents were taken from us, it was the darkest day in our lives. We didn’t know what happened to little Shane, but we knew he was still out there. We thought we had left him behind and he was lost in the woods. When he finally stopped reaching out to us, we knew he was dead, but now that he’s back, we know we have you to thank.”

“Why me?” Katie asked with an embarrassed smile on her lips as she pulled away from the woman. It wasn’t like she had done anything special. She hadn’t been coaching him or training him on how to be a Shifter again. She had just fallen in love with him—helplessly, helplessly in love with the man of her dreams. That wasn’t exactly something that required a certain skill set.

“Because a mate is the most powerful bond in the world,” the woman said with a grin. “Without you, Shane would never have gotten his abilities back and the only thing he could possibly do was reach out to us and long for us. He’d given up on everything, but you gave him his powers back and you gave him back his destiny. Now, we’re all going to be much better off with him in our lives and that’s all because of you, Katie.”

“Katie,” Shane said, clearing his throat. “This is my aunt Priscilla.”

“Call me Priss,” she said with another hug that almost squeezed the life out of Katie as she hugged the woman back. “Listen, I know that this has probably been a lot to take in, but trust me, things are going to get easier. You’re going to understand some of the madness and it’s all going to start making sense to you. Everyone has already agreed that you’re the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen and that there’s no way that you’re going to let Shane down.”

“Let down Shane?” Katie was officially lost. What was she supposed to understand by that? “How could I possibly let Shane down?” Katie looked at Shane and so did Priss who finally caught on that Katie wasn’t all the way caught up. She had cut off Shane before he could tell her anything.

“Well, then, I’ll tell her,” Priss said with a huge grin on her face. “Katie, I was telling your mate that there’s good news and that there’s bad news. The bad news is that Shane is going to have to fight the man who killed his father, but the good news is that it’s just one of them.”

“What?” Katie looked over to Shane. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Peter Vincent is all that’s left,” Shane said with a proud tone in his voice, like something great had been accomplished by this, but Katie wasn’t following quite yet. If there was still one man that he was going to have to fight, then that wasn’t a good thing, that just meant there was still a fight that was going to take place. That fight was going to possibly claim the life of Shane. But, the thought that there were two less people he was going to fight was making her a little more confident.

“Peter and the others turned on each other, just like they’d turned on my father and mother. It turns out that most of their followers have either been exiled or have been killed in the treachery. Our entire pack has dwindled from infighting or hunters that have picked off our exiles. Right now, Peter has two lackeys, but they're spineless and they’re not going to stand with them.”

“Even if they wanted to,” Priss said, stepping up. “We won’t allow it. We’ve all had enough of Peter and there’s nothing more to say on the matter. Shayla and Thomas were right all those years ago and we all understand that now more than ever. We were afraid because Peter and his goons were numerous, but fate and time has removed that fear and we’re ready to stand with Shane.”

“Then why don’t you just exile him?” Katie asked. “If you just exile him, then Shane could be the head of your pack—your alpha—and you could all get back to normal without any blood on your hands.”

“He has to be beaten, broken, and killed,” Priss said, shaking her head. “When Peter is dealt with, we intend to do as Shane says and that will most likely mean that we’ll be following in his father’s footsteps and setting up shop for good in one location.

“If we’re in a fixed location, we'll be an easy target for anyone who’s out to get us, and Peter will undoubtedly be out for revenge. He has to be broken if we want any hope of stopping him from ever coming after us again. That’s why this duel has to end in bloodshed.”

“Wear him down,” Katie said to Shane. “Wear him down and break him, but don’t kill him. Don’t start your reign in bloodshed. You want to be known as a peaceful ruler and if you do this, you’re just going to show them that you’re no better than Peter was. I know I’m new to all of this and that I don’t have the information you do or the history, but I’m telling you that killing him is only going to come back to haunt you.”

“There’s no other way,” Priss shook her head.

Katie looked at Shane and she could see the conflict in his eyes. He was not a warrior like he had dreamed he would be and that he knew he had to be. He was a leader, just like his father had been and just like Katie saw inside of him. It was locked inside of him that he was going to be a man of righteous honor and justice. 

She wasn’t going to let him compromise and destroy himself in the name of vengeance. If they could get Peter to the point of breaking, then she knew they could convince him to leave and never come back. Even monsters knew when it was over, especially when you’ve broken them and humiliated them, which Katie was certain Shane could do to one opponent.

“But, Katie,” Priss said, drawing her eyes from Shane, “there’s one more part that you have to play in this. You cannot be at the duel. No matter how much you want to be there, it is forbidden for the challenger to have any allies there with him. Even though Peter and his allies were there when his father died, you cannot be there. It was a coup when they took over and Shane will take over the proper and rightful way, regardless of what they did in the past. Do you understand?”

“No,” Katie shook her head vehemently. “I’m not letting Shane go out there alone.”

“You are his mate and the future beta,” Priss said sternly. “You will give him a powerful advantage, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help him. Just because you can’t be there with him physically, you can still give him the extra power that he’s going to need to take over. You can give him everything that he’ll ever need to face his enemies and conquer them. You can help him grind them into the dust until they’re no more.”

“How?” Katie asked Priss.

“Give yourself to him tonight,” Priss hissed at her. “Give him everything he has ever wanted and you’ll give him the strength that not even Peter has ever known. So few Shifters ever find their mates and there’s a reason for that. Mates give the Shifter a power that, in the wrong hands, could destroy many lives. You are a force for good in Shane’s life. You can give him the strength to win.”

There was a loud pound on the door and suddenly the cold air was rushing in as the door was ripped wide open and a figure marched into the camper that was already starting to feel very cramped. Katie looked at the intruder who stepped in and threw back the hood of his parka, letting the snow fall all across the floor of the camper.

“Well, Priss, I should have known that you’d be in here betraying your own pack,” the newcomer said as Katie got a glimpse of his disfigured face. The man who was standing in front of her looked like he had been on the receiving end of many battles and that he had suffered many defeats, but had risen as the champion through all of them.

His face was crossed with scars and his lips were mangled. One of his eyes was destroyed, a sheen of milky white over the unseeing eye. She noticed that he was missing a hand and had a hook, as well, and with each step, he limped slightly.

“When I’ve put down this usurper and traitor’s bastard, I’ll be sure to have you exiled from the pack for your involvement in this coup against my rule.”

“Your rule is illegitimate,” Shane said, his fingers coiling into fists. “You might scare the rest of the pack, but you’ve never scared me.”

“Is that so?” Peter Vincent chuckled with his dark, deep voice that reminded Katie of the mouth of hell. His one good eye was dark, the blackness that only death could hold. As he glared at Shane, she was horrified that this was the man he was going up against. It would be age versus youth, experience versus idealism, and evil versus good. It was going to be everything the great stories had in them and Katie was terrified to see if the old stories were right. Could evil be defeated by good, or were they destined to sit in the darkness that the pack had been confined it to?

“So then, where were you when I was butchering your father and slaughtering your mother? Weren’t you hiding in the woods—terrified to even show your face? Something in my memory tells me that this is exactly what happened, but it’s hard to recall. I’ve put down so many usurpers and unworthy souls, just like you, boy. I’m sure that adding another name to the list won’t bother me too much.”

“I will kill you,” Shane growled and Katie could feel the temperature in the camper rising. It was getting hotter and Katie wondered if that meant they were about to transform into their animal forms and fight right here. If that were the case, then she would happily stay here and encourage Shane, but she knew her entire presence was going to put him at risk. She was a glaring weakness for him.

“You will try, boy,” Peter growled back, as calm as a bottomless lagoon. “But tomorrow, I will show you that it’s me who was destined to rule this pack and not the Blackwood fools. We will never give in to your liberal ideals and your stupidity. I would gladly die before I let one of you guide us to our ruin.”

“Then I’ll happily show you the gates of hell,” Shane growled back at him.

Peter Vincent gave out a little chuckle and turned from him. They watched as he left their presence and Katie knew it was going to be a dangerous fight. There was no doubt in her mind that Peter Vincent could get inside of Shane’s mind and that meant he was going to be a formidable opponent. The only thing she could do now was try and give him the strength to overcome everything that came his way. She needed to do what Priss had said and give herself to him.

She needed him to ravage her and take everything he needed from her. If she could give him the strength to beat Peter before he could open his stupid mouth, then maybe the power would be enough to end the battle before it even began. No matter how much she wanted to stop Shane from killing Peter, she would rather have Shane over Peter when the dust settled.

“You two have much to discuss,” Priss said to them. “I will see you in the morning, Shane. I will pray that you take victory from that bastard and we can start down the right path once again.”