One Deadly Bite

Chapter 6

The next kick was to his nose and I could hear the crunch and there was a whooping noise from the side of audience. But I did not care who it was. My focus was to let him stand up.

“Two bones down. Three more to go,” I said in a sing song voice and Jack immediately came at me like a huge gorilla trying to pound. It was like a bulking body lumbering towards me with aggression and I slipped beneath him again and the next punch was in his stomach. It made him wince and I started punching him so rapidly that he could not even understand what was happening to him. Then I whirled and placed a round house kick on his jaw and it snapped.

Then I caught hold of his arm and lifted him pivoting his own weight against him and dumped him on the ground and said,” I am going to break your arm and your wrist now.”

And before he could make any noise there were two snaps and I said,” Done.” And then there was another kick down to his crotch which made him scream and groan and curse and I said,” You were beaten up by a human girl. Accept defeat and say that you are never going to treat any girl or woman like your property. Because we are not your property, understood?”

Jack nodded as I increased the pressure on his wrist and said,” Speak it out in words.”

“Fine. Fine. I accept defeat. I won’t treat any woman like my property ever again.”

He screamed like hell and I said,” Great. The Alpha will announce that what is the result.”

Callum came forward and said,” I never thought that I would have to stand and watch that. It was very painful and I had to see that a grown up werewolf is so bad in his fighting form that he was defeated by Rossetta. And I am glad that at least one of my students have taken training as a part of their responsibility.”

Macbeth and Shera whooped and I smiled at them.

When Callum was not of hearing Jack said,” This is not over, bitch.”

I turned towards him and said,” I can defeat you any time any where. So yes, this is not over. This is merely the beginning, so from now on keep your eyes open because you never know when I might come and castrate you.”

And then I walked away from that i***t in the direction of my friends but Callum was standing there.

“I am going to talk to Rose for some time alone. After that you can go back to your friends.” When the Alpha said anything all the other wolves listened to it as if it was an edict. And everyone was the same, maybe except me. I did not listen to him always and I looked at him and said,” Are you not happy that I defeated him?”

“I am happy about it. But there is something else that I would like to talk to you about.”

I clamped down on the flicker of anxiety, snuffing it out. I was well acquainted with the dangers associated with strolling down that path on memory lane. I also knew from years and years of experience that Callum never lost control; his wolf would never harm a human. In any form, Callum would have died before hurting me. Instead, he took my sass and responded to it just as he always had—with a warning look and the air of someone who was trying very, very hard not to laugh.

Slightly abashed because I’d maligned him with misplaced anxiety (not fear), I took Callum’s silent chastisement and didn’t push back at him.

“Motorcycle.” Callum issued the word as a statement rather than a question, but I felt compelled to answer anyway. That’s the way it was with Callum—once you stopped pushing back, once you submitted, you’d find yourself acting in line with his will. He would have had the same effect on any other human, whether they knew what he was or not. The Mark on my flesh, and the bond between us, let me recognize the compulsion for what it was, but I didn’t fight it.

“A kid from school offered me a ride on his motorcycle,” I said, by way of explanation. “I took it.” I chose not to mention the fact that I’d nearly died of shock at the invitation. The kids in town didn’t mix with those of us who lived in the woods, and I wasn’t generally the kind of girl who drew attention from the male of the species. Any species. “There is a slight chance that the guy in question didn’t want me driving aforementioned ’cycle, but I might have ended up with the keys anyway. I guess I’m faster than he is.”

“I didn’t train you to move so that you could steal motorcycles,” Callum said sternly.

No, I wanted to say, you trained me so that I could run away from fights I couldn’t win—the kind where my opponents had fur and claws and very few weaknesses.

Out loud, I opted for, “I gave the bike back. And Jeff barely even minded.” I did, however, doubt that Jeff would be inviting me to homecoming anytime soon.

“Are you interested in this boy?” Callum asked, his brow furrowing. Despite the fact that he did a good impression of an overprotective big brother, I’d lived under his rule long enough to realize that his concern wasn’t just for me or my heart.

“I have no interest in provoking interspecies aggression,” I said, using the politically correct phrase for incidents involving young, stupid werewolves and young, stupid human males. “And, believe me, if I did, it wouldn’t be for a guy who wouldn’t let me drive.”

I spent enough time resisting testosterone-driven dominance maneuvers in my day-to-day life. The last thing I needed was a human boyfriend who wanted me to play the simpering miss.

Callum stiffened slightly at the idea of my dating anyone, even in the abstract. Werewolves tend to be very protective of their females, and even though I wasn’t anyone’s actual daughter or sister or—God forbid—mate, Callum had ceremonially dug his claws into me when I was four years old. While that had no effect whatsoever on my humanity, by Pack Law, it made me his. As a result, Callum’s wolves owed me their protection, and as far as they were concerned, that made me theirs, too. If werewolves had been into using “property of” stickers, I would have been mummified in them.

I just loved the idea of being owned.

“I don’t like the idea of you on a motorcycle, Rose. You could get hurt.”

I didn’t dignify that particular concern with a response.

“I’m asking you not to do such a thing again, Rose,” Callum said, choosing his words carefully, making it clear that this was not an order but a request. Lot of good that did me—Callum’s “requests” didn’t leave much room for noncompliance. If I refused to give him my word, there was a good chance that he would turn the request into an order, and as the leader of our pack and one of the highest-ranked dominant wolves on the continent, Callum’s orders were very close to law. Disobeying an official edict from the alpha meant incurring the wrath of the entire pack—some of whom refrained from sending me to my just rewards only because Callum had likewise forbidden them from killing me.

Framing my orders as requests let Callum keep the pack out of it, and that left him free to deal with me on his own terms, which was sometimes a good thing and sometimes not.

“Rose?”

“Your request has been noted,” I said, my lips twisting inadvertently into an easy grin. “I don’t anticipate there being any motorcycles in my future.”

I was pushing him again, but I couldn’t help it. You didn’t get to be alpha of the largest pack in North America by winning popularity contests, and Callum was so dominant that the day I stopped pushing back would be the day that I was a member of his pack first and myself second.

To Callum’s credit and my relief, he didn’t push for a firmer promise—probably because there were still two major items left on his Rose Agenda.

“Your algebra grade is lower than it could be. Education is important, and I’d not have you slacking off, sadistic teacher or no.” His voice took on that odd, old-fashioned lilt he sometimes adopted, a mere remnant of the accent he’d had before coming to this country.

“Right. Algebra.” With the spring semester a month under way, I was getting a solid B-plus, but it could have easily been an A, and Callum had all kinds of lofty ideas about the importance of my living up to my potential. It was impressively modern of him, considering that he predated Women’s Lib by a couple of centuries—at least.

“Did you tell Aly on me?” I asked. When the pack had adopted me, Callum had Marked a second human as well. Alison St. Claire had come to Ark Valley in search of her sister, who’d left their human family behind when she’d married into the pack. No one had counted on twenty-one-year-old Aly tracking her sister to Shannon’s Ridge and unraveling secrets best kept in the woods. Any other alpha would have killed Aly the moment she saw her brother-in-law Shift. Callum had given her a choice.

And then once she’d chosen, he’d given her me.

That is why I used her name in mine. She was my adoptive mother and she protected me even worse than a mother bear did.

“I am proud of you. Even if he thinks that it was not the proper way to fight,” came Aly’s voice as she walked on us and I said,” Are you glad that I listened to you?”

“Of course I am. There is no pride in losing even though if Callum tells you otherwise. You have to win every move and every match by any way possible. It is all about strategy. But I need to take a look on the mathematics portion it seems.”

I glared at Callum once but Aly said,” There is no point in glaring at him. I need you reach your full potential. Come on. Let’s go.”

“I need to talk to Mac and Shera. They were cheering me when I was fighting,” I pleaded with Aly and she said,” Ten minutes, then I want to see you home.”

I smiled and skipped in the direction of my friends.

“That seemed like a good start.”

“that was the best thing I have ever seen in my life and I am not just saying this because you fought in order to save my honour. But because you are badass. You have no idea how loud I was howling and thanks…we won a lot of money because of your winning.”

“I want share in it,” I said with a grumbling look and Mac said,” Can’t do. Alpha’s orders and Aly has said that if she sees you spending any more money then she is going to come after us. Even if we could hide from Callum, we can’t hide from Aly. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know. I am going home. Come along with me?” I asked Shera and she said,” You have already done so much for my sake. Now I just want us to be really good friends.”