AllFreeNovel
Share Us
What else can he do really? I’ve wrangled him into submission. Unless he wants to risk shredding his own heart, he has to stay in the dirt. I could kill him, or I can force him to accept that I beat him in the challenge.
“You’re soft,” the Wicked Wolf taunts, spitting out the words so that he doesn’t move his chest any more than he has to. “Janelle was soft, too. She didn’t let Booker go for the kill twenty-five years ago, and now you’re hesitating, too, Ruby. Like mother, like daughter.”
He says it like it’s an insult. Like comparing me to an omega wolf with a heart of gold is the worse thing he can do.
But that’s the thing. I wish I could be more like my mom. Be good and kind and caring.
Yeah, right. And the way he uses my dreaded birth name like that again?
He has it coming.
I tighten my grip so that he knows I’m deadly serious. The crowd falls away again as I purposely meet the hatred in his stare. Of course he hates me. He’s probably hated me from the moment I was born and my protective mother sacrificed everything to hide the fact that I was different. He hated me for being an omega then, and he hates me now for being an alpha out of his control.
And, Luna, he’s gonna loathe me for what I do next.
“I won’t kill you. I won’t have to. And if that makes me my mother’s daughter, there’s nothing else I’d rather be. Because maybe I’m my dad’s… my real dad, that is… I’m my dad’s daughter, too, because there are worse things than dying in a challenge.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
“Losing it with plenty of witnesses.”
The only reason Jack Walker was able to retain the title of Alpha after he lost the challenge to my dad was that he let him. Paul could’ve claimed the victory, then taken everything from Walker. His title, his pack… his power. He didn’t, though. Because all he wanted was to keep my mom safe, he told Walker to leave and never come back.
My dad’s a good man. Me? I’m a teensy bit more vengeful than that.
I don’t need him to yield. For my own ego, it would’ve been nice, but I don’t need it. He’s flat on his back, my claws tickling his beating heart. Sure, he could survive his ruined throat so long as it heals. But could he survive it if I pull his heart out of his chest and show it off to the Western Pack?
No. I know it. He knows it. Every freaking shifter watching with bated breath knows it.
“I win,” I announce. I don’t take my eyes off of him just yet, mainly because I want to see the look on his face when I add, “But I don’t want the Western Pack. I belong to Mountainside, with my Alpha mate.”
All he wanted was to trap me here. As his servant, as his captive, as his broodmare popping out pups in the hope that one of them would be another female alpha like me, Walker orchestrated everything to get me to return to the place of my birth.
What better way to really drive home my victory than to reject it?
I won’t be its Alpha. Now that the Wicked Wolf lost his challenge—and there isn’t a single shifter who would refute his loss—he can’t be its Alpha. No self-respecting pack would follow an Alpha who was bested in a challenge.
To me, this is the best revenge. I don’t have to take his life. I just have to take his pack from him.
“Kill me,” he demands. “If you don’t, I’ll rise up again. And next time? I won’t let you win.”
Let me win? Please. Even if he did, that only proves my point. He’s weak. No dominant wolf would ever let a challenger win.
I slide my hands out of his chest before slowly getting to my feet. Walker stays down. With a small smile that is as vicious as one of his, I give him my back.
I wipe my bloody claws along the side of my thigh. I’m already stained with red, streaked with gore. It doesn’t make a difference to the mess of my battered body, but I feel no pain.
Know what? I actually feel pretty damn good as I search out Ryker. On the edge of the pit, he’s watching me with such open affection and pride and, okay, lust that I nearly laugh. Put me in a sundress with curls and I barely turn his head. Have me nearly rip a male’s heart from his chest and he looks at me like I’m the most amazing female in the whole world.
My Alpha mate. I wouldn’t want him any other way.
I count to ten inside my head, making sure that none of his former packmates are looking to challenge me next. The fact that Walker doesn’t try to attack me while my back is turned makes it obvious that I’ve bested him. If only for right now, I’ve won.
When no one seems willing to try me, I look down at my bio-dad again. He’s propped up on his elbow, glaring at me with such heat in his gaze, my skin nearly sizzles.
Oh, this is gonna be fun.
“Challenge laws. You know them. We all know them. Any Alpha that loses isn’t fit to be Alpha.”
