Alpha

  Jace leaned his face down until his forehead met mine, and I could hear his heart beating too hard, his pulse rushing faster than it should. I could smell stress mixed with his personal scent, and that fueled my own anxiety. “But, Faythe, it doesn’t have to be you taking him on. Let one of us fight him.”

  “No. It has to be me. And Marc knows why.” Jace looked up, and Marc frowned, but held my gaze. “What did you say to me last week, Marc? What will happen if…someone challenges you, and you don’t beat him?” That someone was Jace, and while he no doubt picked up on that fact, I wasn’t going to say it out loud.

  Marc sighed, but he wasn’t going to lie. “If they think I can’t defend my position, they’ll keep challenging me. And Malone will have reason to claim I’m not Alpha material, thus not worthy to stand at your side. To help lead the Pride.”

  “And that’s why I have to do this. If I don’t prove I can hang with the boys—even if that means taking down the biggest bully on the playground—I’m not going to be able to hold on to this Pride, now, or in the future. And you both know it.” I hesitated, then sank onto the side of my bed and looked up at them both. “But beyond all that, he killed my dad. I have to do this.”

  Finally Marc nodded, though Jace looked less than convinced. “But I’m not going to let him kill you. I’ll stop the fight if it comes down to that, and—” I stood and tried to interrupt, but he spoke over me “—and if you try to tell me not to, I swear I’ll walk away right now. I can’t watch him kill you.”

  “Me, too,” Jace insisted, and I looked up to find his face lined in fear and confliction. And determination. He meant it. They both did.

  “Fine. It’s not like I want to die. Just make sure I’m really going to lose before you throw in my towel, okay?”

  Marc nodded, and I stepped closer to him. My heart thumped so loud it echoed in my ears. I slid one hand behind his neck and Marc kissed me like he’d never have another chance. And I knew that deep down, he actually believed that. I could die in the next few minutes, and some part of him was kissing me goodbye.

  When I finally pulled away from him, his jaw tensed and he closed his eyes. He glanced at Jace, then back at me, and the pain shining in his eyes had so many sources it was like looking into a kaleidoscope of anguish. “I…I’ll be out there.” He walked stiffly across the room and out the door, then closed it softly, and my heart ached, even in the midst of my own maelstrom of conflicting fear, rage, and dread.

  But before I could decide whether or not to call him back, Jace was there, and his angst was just as real. Just as immediate. “Please don’t do this, Faythe. I’m begging you. We all know you can fight, so your badass status is in no jeopardy. But you are not evenly matched against Colin Dean.”

  “Jace…”

  “I know, you’re going to do it, anyway. If Marc can’t talk you out of it, what chance do I have?”

  I looked up into his eyes, letting him see what all was at stake for me. “What would you do in my position? If he’d killed your father, and cut you up, and told you how he wants to make you scream before you die, and this was your one chance for a fair fight… What would you do? Honestly?”

  Jace sighed, but looked far from mollified. “I’d want to rip out his insides while he watched.” He wrapped both arms around me, and I wondered briefly if his warmth was the last pleasant thing I’d ever feel. “You are the single most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” he whispered, his lips moving against mine with the last words. Jace’s kiss wasn’t saying goodbye—it was begging me to stay.

  When he finally stepped back, I took a moment to steady myself, then pulled my hair into a ponytail, stepped into my work boots, and headed for the door, focusing on my own devastating rage to override the fear now pulsing through me with every beat of my heart. I was neither stupid nor blind. Dean was a monster, and he was a fucking huge monster.

  But I was smarter and faster. And I had to avenge my father and defend my Pride. If I couldn’t accomplish two such vital tasks, what good was I, as a daughter and as an Alpha?

  Outside, all eyes turned my way when I stepped onto the porch. No one spoke. I stopped to give my mother a hug and marveled at her strength—she was stubbornly resisting tears. Then I marched down the steps and into the informal ring created by our gravel driveway.

  Colin Dean stood in the center of the circle. Waiting for me. Smiling crookedly, thanks to his grotesquely scarred cheek.

  I glanced at Malone, expecting him—as the new council chair—to give the official signal to begin. Instead, he glanced at Dean and nodded. I turned to find a huge fist flying toward me. Pain exploded in the left side of my head, and the world spun around me. I hit the ground half-twisted, both palms flat on the grass.

  But I was up in an instant, and my fury had a new face.

  Colin Dean was going down.

  Twenty-three

  “This is what you picked to die in?” Dean sneered as I hissed at him. I wouldn’t be caught off guard again. “Not that it matters. You’re gonna be all red and sticky in a minute, anyway.”

  “This is what you get off on, right?” We circled each other slowly, my head throbbing, and I felt every single gaze on me, most of them waiting to see David stomped into the ground by Goliath. And me without my slingshot… “You finally have permission to beat up a girl, in front of all these witnesses, and you’re just sick enough to actually believe you’re doing it for a cause. The good of the entire community.”

  “Nah…” Dean leaned closer, risking a blow to confess his little secret where no one else would hear. “That’s their cause. I’m in it for payback, which they say is a real bitch. Just like you.”

  He tensed in preparation to kick, but I lurched out of reach and spun for a roundhouse. His boot swung inches from my stomach. My foot slammed into his ribs. Dean grunted and stumbled to one side, but he never stopped smiling. “You’re right about one thing, though—I am having fun.”

  My left fist smashed his nose, but he was already moving.

  Dean’s next kick knocked my legs out from under me. His blood seemed to drip in slow motion as I went down hard on my left hip. My injured knee screamed. My mother gasped at my back. A black blur arced toward my face. I rolled, and the world spun around me. Dean’s boot hit my shoulder instead of my face.

  Old pain echoed with fresh intensity in my left shoulder. Dean’s foot landed beside my hip, stopping my roll. I shoved with both hands. His leg slid out from under him, and his weight crashed on top of me.

  I couldn’t breathe. But neither could he. Stunned, Dean gasped, and sat up to straddle my hips. I buried my right fist in his side. He grunted, then grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed my head into the ground.

  My vision swam. My pulse roared in my ears, and each breath I took was a ragged gasp. Another dark blur, and pain exploded in my left side. I swung blindly and hit something soft. Hairs popped softly as they were pulled from my scalp. My skull hit the earth again, and everything started to go fuzzy. If I couldn’t get him off me, I wouldn’t last much longer.

  I clawed at the hand curled around my hair, and the sudden scent of his blood was a fragrant pick-me-up. Actual claws would have worked better, but I was pretty sure a partial Shift would be considered cheating, since I’d opted for flesh over fur.

  I dug harder into his flesh, gouging, burning with determination. Dean hissed and let go. I shoved him back and threw my weight to the right while he was off balance, tossing him to the ground. I leaped to my feet, the ranch spinning around me, and he was up an instant later, watching me warily.

  Blood dripped from his broken nose. More rolled down the side of my face. My scalp burned. My brain felt like mush. My nose was dripping from the cold. But Dean looked tired and bruised, and that made it all worth it.

  “You know, you don’t have to make this so hard,” he said, breathing heavily enough to give me hope.

  “Is this the part where you try to talk me into dropping my fists and climbing into bed with
Malone’s marionette?” I panted, trying to slow my pulse and catch my breath.

  “You’re either going to lie down under your new Alpha, or next to your old one. The choice is yours.”

  “Well, you got that last part right.” I rushed him, already swinging. Dean twisted to avoid the blow. He caught my foot and shoved me backward. I hopped, then limped on my bad knee, reclaiming my balance. But it was too late. Dean rushed me, but his hands were open. I kicked again. He swatted my foot away, spinning me halfway around. Huge hands grabbed my right arm and thigh, just above my knee. The world canted violently, and I was suddenly in the air.

  The house flew past my face, a blur of bricks and mortar. I screeched. Dean grunted, and I bobbed, then lurched higher, still screaming, flailing for something to hold on to.

  “No!” my mother shouted, but I couldn’t see her.

  Dean’s grip tightened. He hurled me at the ground.

  The earth slammed into me with the force of a planetary collision, and agony exploded all over my body. My lungs wouldn’t fill. My heart wouldn’t beat. My head wouldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my limbs.

  I blinked, and the colors swirled together. Something warm dripped from my ear and curled in the dip of cartilage. Distantly, someone was screaming, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  Something hard slammed into the side of my skull. My head rocked violently on my neck. The world went black, but distant blurs of sound still swirled around me.

  Something hit my left cheek. Then my right. Something smashed into my nose, and it crunched. I tasted blood, but there was no pain. Why was there no pain? I raised one arm, but it fell away from my face with the next blow.

  Someone roared, a thunder of outrage and agony.

  Someone else was still screaming, but it wasn’t me. I could only gurgle and choke on my own blood. Then new pain burst within my head, and the sounds disappeared, too.

  There was nothing left of me but darkness and silence.

  “Faythe… Please wake up, mi vida. Come on. Open your eyes….”

  Marc. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him. I blinked, but there was only a pink haze. A one-dimensional pink haze, because my left eye wouldn’t open. The air tasted like blood. I heard voices everywhere. Talking. Arguing. Shouting. Someone was laughing. And my mother was sobbing. Through it all, I heard my mother crying, and Jace whispering. He was reassuring her with words I couldn’t understand, but I could tell she didn’t believe them. I didn’t believe them, either. “That’s it, nena. Wake up.”

  I blinked again, and some of the red cleared. Marc’s face came mostly into focus, but it was oriented strangely. That’s when I realized I was lying on my right side. And that the ground was freezing. And that the world was made of pain.

  I gasped, and breathing hurt, so I stopped breathing, but that hurt, too. Each beat of my heart pumped agony through my abused body, throbbing in every bruise, stinging in every cut. And over it all was a background of complete anguish, like tactile white noise—if white noise could kill you.

  I couldn’t smell anything. Why couldn’t I smell anything? My nose felt swollen, and hot, and…smashed. But that one pain was hard to separate from the general din of agony. I tried to sit up, but Marc put one gentle hand on my shoulder.

  “Whoa, not yet. Give it a minute.”

  I sucked in a small breath through what was left of my nose—and froze. Blood. All I could smell was blood, everywhere. And most of it was mine. “Noooo…” I moaned, swallowing more of my own life force, and tears burned in my eyes. Then scalded my cheeks when they fell.

  “Shhh, it’s okay, cari. It’s gonna be fine.”

  “It’s not.” I sobbed, choking on blood, and tears, and bitter pain and grief. “It’s not ever gonna be okay again.”

  “Oh, sure it will. I know how to make her feel all better…” Colin Dean said from somewhere over me, already laughing again.

  “Take one more step and I’ll kill you,” Marc said, talking to Dean, though his gaze never left me.

  Dean laughed harder. “Why don’t you pick up the pieces of your Alpha and get the hell out of here.”

  Marc stood then and growled until my mother told him to stop.

  I tried to sit up again, but I couldn’t. Everything hurt, and the whole world slanted when I moved my head.

  “Faythe?” It was Dr. Carver. He knelt next to me in his good slacks, still dressed from the funeral. Which would be convenient if I were dying. “Can you hear me?”

  I started to nod, but that hurt my head. “Yeah,” I rasped instead.

  “Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?”

  “Front yard.” Bruising hands. Tilting house. Collision with the earth. “I think I got drop-kicked.”

  Dean laughed again, and there was more growling, from several sources this time.

  “I know you’re in a lot of pain, but can you move your feet for me?” Dr. Carver asked, and panic set in, tingling like my whole body had gone to sleep. He was testing for a spinal injury.

  No… I moved my right foot, flexing my calf, and the surge of relief was like aloe on a sunburn. I did the same with my left foot, and pain shot through my hip. But pain was good, right? That meant I could still feel.

  Carver smiled like I’d just done a nifty trick. “Okay, now your fingers…”

  I flexed both hands at once, and this time my left shoulder screamed in pain just like my hip had. And vaguely I remembered hitting the ground on my left side….

  “Okay, let’s get her inside. Be careful with her head.”

  “I’ve got you,” Jace whispered, but I couldn’t smell him. I could only smell my own blood. He lifted me, and the world pitched harder. I clung to him, terrified that I was flying again. Or falling. “Just hold on…”

  “Put her in the car,” Marc said, and his footsteps jogged to catch up with us. “I’ll ride in back with her. We can stop for supplies on the way.”

  “You don’t have to go,” someone else said, but my eyes had closed again, and I couldn’t place the voice, though it sounded familiar. “I mean it. At least let her rest in her own bed for a while first. It doesn’t have to be…like this.”

  Marc growled, expressing more in that fierce, furious sound than I could have managed in a thousand words. “Kent, get out of my way before I rip your face right off your head.”

  “He’s right,” Jace said, squeezing me a little tighter. “Let her rest before we go.”

  “Go?” I murmured.

  No one answered me. “She can’t stay here. With them,” Marc insisted, and I tried to look at him, but my eyes—my eye, anyway—wouldn’t stay open.

  “No one’s going to touch her. You can stay with her. Both of you. I just feel bad putting you all out while she’s still unconscious.”

  “I’m not…” I started, but I lost the rest of the words in a fog of pain and confusion.

  “Fine. But if you come within fifteen feet of her bedroom door, I’ll feed you your own fingers, one at a time.”

  “He’s not even coming inside,” my mother insisted from somewhere nearby, and I thought I felt her cold hand on my forehead. “None of them are.”

  “Now, Karen, it’s his house now…” Calvin Malone chided, and I flinched at the sound of his voice, though his words made little sense.

  “We’ll wait,” Kenton said, with an impressive note of finality. “Take your time.”

  Jace tightened his grip, and when he jostled me, I forced my eye open to see that we were going up the steps. The porch roof came into half focus, then he turned to carry me through the front door sideways. I tried to thank him, but then everything went dark. Again.

  “Faythe, you have to wake up.” It was Jace this time. Something cold and wet touched my cheek, and I tried to jerk away from it. But moving hurt, and I could only moan. “Hold still,” he whispered.

  “I’m tired. And that’s cold.” I shoved at the wet rag in spite of the pain in my shoulder, and Jace laughed. But it was a
relieved, half-panicked laugh, not a happy one.

  The bed groaned beneath his shifting weight, and the ambient red behind my eyelids brightened when he leaned away from me. “She’s making sense. Doc, she’s awake and coherent.”

  “Good.” Carver’s decisive footsteps crossed the room toward us. “Faythe, do you feel dizzy at all? Any nausea?”

  I opened my functioning eye to see his blurry, concerned face. “A little dizzy. But mostly I just hurt. Everywhere.”

  “I know. Let’s get a look at her ribs.”

  I pushed at his hands as he tried to lift my shirt. “I just want to sleep.”

  Jace shook his head, frowning. “You need to let the doctor check you out. You’re hurt pretty bad, Faythe.”

  Hurt. Shit. Malone. Kenton Pierce. Colin Dean. Nonononono! I’d lost the Pride. The entire Pride. Everyone. I’d lost them all. Except…

  I opened my eyes, and Jace came into focus in one of them. The other showed only a slit of light that was painful to look at. “Did they get away?” I demanded, clutching his arm, though my grip sent pain shooting through my left shoulder—evidently Dean had tried to rip my arm from its socket. “Manx and Kaci? And Des?”

  “As far as I know, they’re fine,” Jace said, and my next breath sent an echo of pain throughout my body. Was it possible to literally hurt all over? “Let the doctor look at your ribs.”

  I laid back and let them pull my shirt up, and bit my lip to keep from screaming when the doctor touched my side. “Where’s Marc?”

  “He’s keeping your mother occupied. She’s pretty upset.”

  “My fault.” I licked my lips and tasted more blood. “I thought I could at least hold my own.”

  Jace interlaced his fingers with mine. “Faythe, he picked you up over his head and threw you at the ground. There’s not much you can do after that. Not much any of us could have done in your position.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t break your back.” Dr. Carver sat on the other side of the bed and aimed a penlight at my eyes. “Or your shoulder. You have at least one cracked rib and a broken nose. Does anything else feel broken?”