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“You didn’t think to take me with you?” Jessie asked, she was pacing in the circle. Benny watched her with narrowed eyes. Something.... He frowned. She was wearing sweats, no surprise, but he was pretty sure she had nothing on underneath. And she wasn’t wearing shoes.
She’s prepared to shift, he thought with alarm. But he couldn’t interrupt this. He wasn’t sure he could have explained why, but he couldn’t. He glanced at Titus, hoping the old man knew more about what was going on than he did. But Titus was focused on the scene in the circle. Benny glanced around; they all were fixated on Jessie slowly circling Bjorn, even the Penticton men.
Danger, his wolf said. Benny agreed. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
“Take you with me?” Bjorn was saying. “And piss off the very Alpha who was giving me this chance? Hell, Jessie. Do you know what it would take to advance like this back home? Your grandfather wasn’t going to step down anytime soon. And I wasn’t going to challenge him, either. But the 2-bit Second out here? I could take him. And now I run things.”
“After the Alpha died, I looked for you everywhere,” Jessie said steadily. “I’d promised I would. I searched all of the Vancouver peninsula. Couldn’t find you, or word of you. Your family shut their door on me. But I’d promised I would look. And look I have. But you knew where I was, and yet you didn’t come for me.”
“I’ve had a few other things to clean up!” He said it dismissively. “Chen screwed up. And Alpha McKenzie has had a lot of patching up to do with their Chinese partner to prove we could step into Chen’s position. We needed to re-acquire the power batteries. We needed to take out the Okanogan pack heirs and grab their pack. And we needed to find the Okanogan pack Alpha. I didn’t have time to rescue you from problems of your own making.”
“Problems of my own making?” Jessie asked, and the growl was more prominent. Her wolf was taking over, Benny realized. “Having my grandfather sell me to the Alpha for his plaything, was a problem of my own making?”
“Well, you challenged everybody,” Bjorn said, condescendingly. Benny’s eyes opened wider — was he deliberately baiting her? Or just incredibly stupid about women? “You were constantly challenging my dominance —probably their dominance as well. Is it any wonder that the pack Second and the Alpha would take steps to show you your place? Bring you to heel?”
The last phrase barely had time to register with Benny when Jessie changed into her wolf and leaped for Bjorn.
Bjorn wasn’t expecting it. He dodged the initial attack, but he couldn’t shift — not in those boots. He tried to kick the boots off, and then he tried to kick her. Should have done that in the other order, Benny thought dispassionately.
Jessie didn’t know anything about fighting. Of course not. An abusive Alpha wasn’t going to teach girls of the pack to fight. But herwolfcould fight — and that was one enraged wolf. And Benny thought Jessie had ceded complete control to her wolf — a smallish gray wolf with brown markings, muscled, fluid. Jessie had spent some time as a wolf, Benny thought, which surprised him. Ryder moved as if he was going to intervene.
“No,” Benny said. “She challenged him. You can’t interfere.”
“Challenge?” Ryder said under his breath. “She’s a woman. They can’t challenge!”
“She did,” Benny said. “I’m not sure how either. But I can feel it. Look at his men —they’re not interfering. It’s a challenge fight. They feel it instinctively.”
“She knows nothing about fighting, Benny,” Ryder said, a bit desperately. “She caught him by surprise. But that’s not going to last long. And he’s a pack Second! He’s dominant.”
Benny gauged Bjorn Hansen’s dominance. Benny was easily the more dominant. So was Ryder. And he thought that might mean that Jessie was too. He glanced around. Titus? How did he compare? More dominant than Bjorn, but injured. And Jessie had commanded Titus to shift, and he had.
“You’ve got a mate bond forming with Jessie, do you know that?” Benny asked quietly, not looking at his brother. He focused on Jessie instead. She was harrying Bjorn, nipping at him. Bjorn cussed at her, as he tried to dodge her. But she was quick.
Ryder gave a half-shrug of agreement. “My wolf keeps saying mate,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “And since the only other word I’ve heard him use is ‘kill,’ I assume it’s true.”
Benny snorted. “So visualize your mind. Find your wolf. Find the warmth that is your pack. And somewhere near all of that you’ll see a bond forming. That’s the mate bond,” Benny said rapidly, his eyes on the fight. And it was a fight now. Bjorn had decided to fight as human since he couldn’t get out of his clothes rapidly enough. Bjorn did know how to fight — not well —but he’d been trained at some point. Just unpracticed. He probably had used more dominance than skill, then, to get to be the pack Second. Or treachery. That was possible considering what they’d done to Titus.
“Yeah, it’s there,” Ryder said in a low voice. He was almost panting as he tried to control his wolf. “I’m not sure I can hold my wolf back, Benny.”
“You can merge with her, through that bond,” Benny said quietly. “Lend her your strength. Let her feel that you stand with her, support her. Give her some of your energy. Careful!” Benny said with alarm. “Don’t overdo it, or you’ll black out. That won’t help —and you’ll never live it down.”
That made Ryder laugh, and he relaxed a bit. “Good,” Benny approved. “Now breathe. Send her energy, support, encouragement. A nice steady stream of power for her to draw on.”
He nodded. Benny watched him. It looked like he got it —who knew? It was all woo-woo, made up on the spot, like so many of his solutions of late. He turned back to watch the fight.
Bjorn first tried to play it for laughs. He patted her on the head. The wolf snarled at him and lunged for the Bjorn’s hand, and he snatched it back. Bjorn looked around and saw that no one was laughing. No one was coming to his aid either. He looked at Benny.
“Call her off,” Bjorn snarled. “Call your pet off, or I’ll kill her.”
“You can try,” Benny said with faked nonchalance. “Besides, she’s her own wolf. And I’d say you pissed her off royally.”
Bjorn kicked at her again, and Jessie-wolf nipped at him, then launched for his calf. Benny studied her methods. Ah, she’s trying to hamstring him, he thought, enlightened, as she circled around Bjorn. He was watching her warily. But it was hard for a human to fight a wolf. No claws, no fangs. But she couldn’t reach his most vulnerable spots without backing up and lunging upward. And Bjorn wasn’t letting her do that. Not a complete fool, then.
So Jessie worried at him. Making him dodge her fangs as she lunged at his Achilles tendon. then she went a little higher —his femoral artery. Or maybe his balls, Benny thought with a snort. Bjorn moved fast enough to protect them anyway. He thought of Abby’s take on pulling a man’s balls off as icky. Might be, but Abby had killed more than one man that way.
But a second lunge for Bjorn’s groin made Bjorn realize how serious of a fix he was in. He crouched down, pulled a knife out of a sheath strapped to his calf, and came up with it in his hand. He held it like he knew how to use it too.
There was a muttering among the men. Even his own. Wolves traditionally didn’t use human weapons in a challenge fight. But no one moved to interfere, although Ryder was struggling with his own wolf. Benny looked at him, and said, “No,” very firmly. Ryder glared at him, his wolf showing in his eyes, but he didn’t shift, and he didn’t interfere. “Focus,” Benny said. “Feed her strength and energy.”
