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“He knew he couldn’t.”
Titus snorted. “Oh he could have, and you know it, or you wouldn’t have waited until he was out of town to make your move.”
We’re outside,Ryder sent.Be prepared.
Jessie acknowledged the heads up. “You wanted to know who holds your pack Second bond,” she said. “It says something, Alpha, that you can’t tell. You want to know who killed Bjorn Hansen? I did. And I hold the pack. I will do whatever is necessary to protect the Penticton pack.”
Jessie dropped the walls. She staggered a bit as the fear of the pack hit her. A pack should not be afraid! It was the duty of the Alpha and the Second to protect the pack, to make them safe. She glowered at the man in front of her, who was staring in open-mouthed disbelief.
I will protect you,she promised the pack in her head.I will make you safe.
“Kill her,” the Alpha ordered the man sitting to his left.
The man looked at Jessie, and she met his eyes steadily. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to attack a girl-wolf, Dad. She’s done nothing wrong.”
“She killed Hansen!”
Benny stalked into the room at that point, followed by Ryder and his men. She could feel Ryder, but she didn’t turn around. She kept her focus on the men in front of her.
“I am Benny Garrison, intelligencer for the Northwest Council of Alphas —again,” he added a bit sourly. Jessie sensed the amusement of some of the wolves at that. “I stand witness. Jessie Nickerson, granddaughter of the former pack Second for the Vancouver pack, and great-granddaughter of the former pack Alpha, defeated Bjorn Hansen in a fair fight. The pack bonds judged the rightness of her cause and moved to her when he fell. Hansen, her former fiancé, abandoned her to the hands of the Alpha to rape and abuse, while he came here to set up his own small empire. He admitted it, and she retaliated. All praise to her for her dominance in battle.”
Well, he could hardly say skill, she thought sourly. But it was an interesting summation. Was he saying she had inheritedthatkind of dominance? Her grandfather had been formidable. An amoral would-be dictator. But formidable.
“She’s female,” the Alpha protested. “Women can’t be pack Seconds!”
“Six months ago, the packs of the New World believed women couldn’t be Alphas, and we were wrong,” Benny countered. “There are three of them in the region now. And a female pack Second. She holds the bonds, Alpha McKenzie.”
“Not for long,” McKenzie growled. A man leaped into the center of the circle.
“I challenge,” the man said with a grin. “Come here, little pussy.” The men laughed. Jessie stepped out of her clothes and shifted. Score, she thought. It works. She leaped for the man’s throat and tore it out. She stood over him and howled her triumph as he bled out.
“Looks like my advice in the truck paid off,” Titus said into the silence. Jessie-wolf laughed at him, and then trotted back to her clothes. She girded her courage up to shift back and stand naked in a room full of men.
We have your back,Ryder said. Heartened, she shifted and pulled the sweats back on. Even the sweatshirt was still good. The room was silent while she dressed.
“Challenge accepted,” she said levelly. “And defeated.”
“I won’t stand for a female Second!” the Alpha roared. He stood up. “I’ll kill her myself.”
Jessie prepared to shift again. She worried her wolf was tiring from the multiple shifts. Her wolf snorted. Or maybe not.
“No,” Ryder said, stepping forward. “I cry challenge, McKenzie. I am Penticton pack, heir to the Alpha. And I challenge you for the kidnapping and torture of our pack Second. I challenge you for the good of the region. You have stirred up unrest and participated in schemes that came close to first-rule violations in Vancouver. You scheme and play politics while your own pack cries for help. I challenge.”
“Well, now,” McKenzie said softly. “The Garrison cub thinks he’s grown some teeth?”
“For the love of God, fight as men,” the bartender pleaded. “Do you know how hard it is to get a dead wolf out of a bar like this without people noticing? And I promised Joe, no blood on the floors!”
Jessie glanced over her shoulder and gave him a small nod of approval. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, and she thought his lips twitched. But mostly he focused on the men in the center of the room. She turned back to them.
“So noted,” Benny said, and he was amused too. It didn’t show, but she’d been working closely with him for a week. She knew. “The challenge has been declared. Because we are in a human establishment —a choice made by the Alpha, I remind you —the fight will be in human form.”
“Attend me, pack Second,” the Alpha ordered, his smile was cruel.
Jessie shook her head. She felt Ryder’s alarm. For her, not for himself, the idiot. But she was her grandfather’s girl, after all. She’d watched pack politics from day one. And she thanked Benny for that reminder. “I protect the pack,” she said, simply. She moved back to the door. “No humans will be allowed to enter.”
“Fair enough,” Benny allowed.
Both men stripped to the waist. Jessie paused to admire her mate, and then blushed when she realized her mate knew it. She glanced around the room. Looked like a lot of them knew. Well, Ryder was a fine-looking man, and her mate. So they could go suck eggs.
