Wolf Landing

Chapter 3-2

THERE WAS NO POINT in following the bloodling’s lead. After all, in fur form, the teenager’s wolf could send my animal half rolling head over heels with a single glance. Even two-legged, my wolf was currently active enough to force me to stumble backwards in the face of a stronger power, my feet tripping over Lupe’s discarded backpack as I windmilled my arms in an effort to remain erect.

The attempt to recover my center of balance didn’t work though. Instead, I landed on my butt with a thud, those fancy ceramic tiles I’d been so impressed by when we updated the kitchen earlier in the season bruising my tailbone even as my head cracked against the corner of a nearby counter.

Ouch!

But the resulting physical pain was nothing compared to the agony I experienced as twenty young wolves flung themselves at Lupe en masse. It wasn’t so much that I thought they were going to kill her...although the snarls and growls emanating from the heap would have prompted a one-body to assume our furry pack mates had entirely lost their minds. No, the problem lay much deeper than mere threat to life and limb.

I’d failed as an alpha.

Four months earlier, I’d thought I could hold my own with the single bloodling charge I’d combined with Hunter’s more numerous tagalongs to create a new clan. Our cobbled-together pack was strong and seemed able to encompass both sets of youngsters with ease.

Sure, Sinsa and her compatriots had been leery of Lupe from the very beginning, sensing the young woman’s divided loyalties and unwillingness to fully attach herself to our clan. But with both me and my mate pressing the point, the wolf-form bloodlings eventually decided to play nice. Soon they were including the slightly older girl in their antics whenever she deigned to play along.

Now, though, Lupe had done the unthinkable. She’d attacked an alpha and overtly removed herself from the established shifter pecking order in the process. As a result, the other bloodlings no longer saw any reason to treat her as one of their own.

In fact, as the scent of blood filled the air, I abruptly realized that I might have mistaken the bloodlings’ ability to manage their own aggressions. Was Lupe already injured? Bones broken? Spine snapped?

“No!” I ordered, trying and failing to push alpha compulsion into my words even as I drew myself up onto my knees in preparation for diving into the melee.

But before I could move more than a few inches, a stabbing pain in my right temple sent me sagging back toward the floor. Meanwhile, my wolf whimpered out a jumbled confusion of pleas and complaints. No, here, go, stay.

I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, then immediately regretted the action. The warm rectangle of light streaming in through the west-facing windows dimmed as my vision tunneled down to one small circle. “Leave Lupe alone,” I croaked out, the short sentence all I could manage before lowering my cheek back down to rest against the cool floor tiles.

Then a flash of fur sprang across the room almost too quickly to identify. I knew who it was, though. I’d recognize Hunter’s graceful stride anywhere.

The uber-alpha waded into the battle in ominous silence. Perhaps he wanted to give the bloodlings a more physical reminder of their place in the pack, or perhaps he was simply too annoyed to growl. Either way, he didn’t resort to alpha compulsion in order to stop the attackers in their tracks. Instead, grabbing wolves by the scruffs of their necks one after another, he flung them away in every direction as he dug down toward his target.

My barely verbalized command had been easy to ignore, but Hunter’s more obvious admonition did the trick. Because not a single reprimanded bloodling rose back to his or her feet. All simply lay panting and shamefaced in the wings, taking their lumps like wolves.

And then, after what seemed like eons, Lupe emerged from the bottom of the stack looking significantly better than I felt. By this point in time, I’d leveraged myself back onto my feet with the help of the same kitchen counter that had done such a number on my skull. Still, my stomach was coiled up in distress, my stabbing headache threatened to send me back to my knees, and sudden shivers wracked my shoulders. Nonetheless, ignoring my own ills, I carefully released the wooden support and found I was able to brave the few short steps that separated me from the bloodling face-off.

Hunter shifted back into human form as I advanced, the better to berate a young woman who had previously avoided him at all costs. Because despite my best attempts at bringing them together in the past, Lupe had always adamantly refused to accept my mate as her alpha...which was ironic since the wolf-form bloodlings had no problem bowing down beneath my own meek orders. Meanwhile, my mate had been willing to give the traumatized youngster time to find her equilibrium rather than forcing the issue before she was ready to acknowledge his place in the pack.

Now, though, Hunter had had enough. “You will never attack my mate,” he growled, lifting the fur-form teenager off the ground by her ruff and shaking her so vigorously that it was easy to forget she weighed nearly as much in lupine form as she did when two-legged. “You will never disobey her orders. And you will act like a member of this pack.”

And, at long last, Lupe quailed in the face of the uber-alpha’s displeasure. Wagging her tail submissively, she turned her head to lick at the hand holding her aloft. You’re right and I’m wrong, her posture broadcast. Don’t eat me...please?

The subdued behavior should have been heartening. After all, the youngster was finally embracing her place in the clan, right? Perhaps now she might also let down her guard and fully accept us as the friends we were trying to become.

Unfortunately, I had a sinking suspicion that the independent-minded youngster would only consider this episode yet another instance of being forced to do another’s bidding against her will. And sure enough, when I sniffed the air, the emotions rolling off my charge still seethed with tension rather than mirroring her body’s mellow posture.

Yep, the conclusion was clear. The battle I’d been trying to avoid had ripped away whatever tenuous illusion of safety Lupe had been able to drape around her wounded soul. And Hunter’s show of force had cleaved my own shared bond with the girl asunder.