Page 16

It felt good. God, it felt good. Little by little, my Omega was giving in to me, letting me knot her, allowing me to help her shift, and now sleeping happily next to me in the dappled sunlight around the small pool.

We couldn't rest forever, though; it was getting late, and I didn't want to have her out in the woods after dark because of the attack yesterday. I licked her face, nudging her with my snout until her impossibly black eyes opened sleepily.

She yawned, revealing a row of sharp teeth, and looked around with a sigh. We didn't need words for her to understand what I wanted. It was time to go, but we could revisit this again when things had calmed down.

Where the run out had been as fast as possible, taking turns nipping at each other's heels and trying to outpace the other, heading back was slower. We walked side by side, our tails occasionally brushing together. I was in no hurry, until a sharp, discordant feeling ran through the pack bonds, cutting through the rush of the forest. It was trouble. Kiera whined—now that she was fully connected with the Saltfang pack, she'd feel everything even more intensely than I did. The curse of being an Omega.

We ran then, and once we were back near the house, I wrapped my body around Kiera and tried to help her through the change once more. Kiera, though, had discovered something about herself. I felt the swell of her magic, and she used that to absorb the pain of the shift. Before I knew it, she was human again, pulling on her clothes.

As much as I would have liked to keep her naked, I had Alpha business to attend to.

"Stay here," I told her, yanking my shirt back over my head, "I'll handle this."

But Kiera gave me a look, "It's my pack, too, now. Let me help."

I knew better than to argue with her, and if I was being honest, she was right. An Alpha's Omega wasn't just a prized possession for him. An Omega was also meant to act as a mediator for pack issues, and her innate gentleness was a counterbalance to the violence of an Alpha.

"I dealt with a problem earlier, and you didn't even notice," she argued, taking my silence for dismissal. "Francine and company came here looking for me specifically. She'd been bitten by a snake, and they trusted me to extract the venom with my magic. If I can handle that, I can handle this."

Considering that the trouble I could sense had the distinct scent of Francine and her two followers, the timing was almost humorous. If what she said was true, then Kiera would be a better asset than she knew. "Impressive. Alright, let's go. I think we're about to discover that those three are up to some more bullshit anyway."

Tensions were rising in the pack, and I could feel that a fair amount of them had gathered outside of Waylon's property to see what was going on, but I still forced a protein bar into Kiera's hands before we climbed into the Jeep. The first shift was hard on anyone, but even more so for an adult, and she needed her strength. Plus, I got a secret thrill out of taking care of her in any way possible.

My Omega was licking the chocolate crumbs off her fingers when we skidded to a stop outside of Waylon's property, and my Beta's anger hit me like a brick wall. I trusted Waylon to deal with petty pack bullshit, but whatever was going on must have been important enough to wait for me to defuse it.

"What's going on?" I called out as I got closer. There was a small crowd surrounding my Beta and a few of the other pack members. I caught a glimpse of Francine's fiery red hair before Waylon stepped in front of me.

"Mason challenged one of the others for dominance," he said grimly, jerking his head towards the crowd. "And it's turned into a shit show. The three stooges over there won't separate for it to be a fair fight, but..." he dropped his voice so only I could hear, "If you want my opinion, boss, it'd be a good idea to keep Mason as low in the hierarchy as possible. He's dominant as hell, but something is off in the kid's head."

I pushed through the group, not bothering to answer, seeing Pete, Curt, and Francine on one side, and another young wolf, Mason, on the other. Francine looked like shit, which corroborated Kiera's snake bite story from earlier, and she was clinging to Curt like her life depended on it. Still, she was clearly furious, and when she bared her teeth, I could see her canines were longer than normal—her wolf was skating close to the surface.

I'd often thought that if a woman could claim rank in the pack on their own, Francine would be above both her boyfriend and Pete, but as it stood, the four wolves in front of me were ranked with Curt at the top, followed by Pete, Mason, and then, of course, Francine. Her rank would rise when she and Curt married.

"Explain!" I yelled, making nearly everyone jump. Kiera, next to me, was one of the few who didn't.

"This fucking prick waited until we were at a disadvantage to challenge Curt," Francine answered while her boys stayed silent. "We've been hunting all day, and I'm injured. Curt had to carry me out of the forest. It's shameful to try and challenge him right now."

I looked at Curt, who shrugged, "It's true. Francine got bitten by a snake, so after Kiera helped us, we headed back. He was waiting for us."

"Excuses," Mason snapped, his stance aggressive, his body radiating a kind of dominance that immediately put me on edge. He was dominant, that was clear, but he was also low in the pack hierarchy—too low, in fact, to be acting with such aggression without cause. With a shaved head tattoos crawling up his forearms, he might have looked intimidating to a human, but none of that shit mattered in the pack. "He's using his bitch to get out of it."

I'd heard enough. I strode forward and shoved Mason back, making him stumble. "That's enough. You want to challenge for the rank? Fine, you can challenge me if you're so fucking stupid."

Mason's eyes widened, and he shrank back from me, shaking his head. "No, Alpha, I wasn't challenging you. I just wanted—"

"You wanted to challenge Curt, but Curt has a higher rank than you," I said coldly, baring my teeth. "You don't like it? Then, take your challenge up with me. Or would you like to challenge Joe Longwood or Scott Nevada for their packs next?"

I could hear a few people in the crowd snickering, but I ignored them. Mason was getting desperate, looking for any way out.

"I...I was just trying to protect the pack," he said weakly, knowing how lame that sounded. He was starting to sweat now, and I could smell the fear rolling off of him in waves.

"By challenging a higher-ranked member of your own pack when he was weak?" I sneered, and Mason looked away. He had no answer to that, and we both knew it. "You're lucky that I haven't kicked your ass out of my territory yet."

The crowd erupted into surprised murmurs, and I knew exactly why. Even just a few years ago, I would have thrown Curt into the ring myself. I would have welcomed any and all challenges for dominance, believing that a pack with more violent, more dominant wolves was stronger than others. I'd fed into this mindset, and now that I'd matured, I was left to clean up the mess that young, rage-fueled Samson had fostered.

It wasn't just Mason's challenge, either. As I stepped back and watched the dynamics of my pack, I saw the undercurrent of violence between its members. Curt, Francine, and Pete were only middle-of-the-pack wolves, but they'd spent years fucking around with anyone lower than them. Waylon was a rare calm but dominant wolf, making him perfect as my second, but the five or so wolves right below him were constantly sniffing around for blood in the water.

All the bullshit aside, I'd been running my pack like a dictator for far too long. I'd thought that the harsh rules and punishment I'd doled out made me a strong leader, but it had just made my pack weak. Wolves that feared me more than respected me.

But fear was a tool, and it was the one I was most comfortable with. "If this is the way things are going to be, then I don't see any other choice but to banish all four of you for six months." I kept my voice low, but the crowd went silent at my words.

"That's not fair," Curt protested, glaring at me. "Mason is the one who—"

"Shut the fuck up," I growled, making him shrink back. I turned to Pete and Francine, "If you don't want to be exiled permanently, I suggest you get your asses off my territory by nightfall. And if I ever hear of any more bullshit from you, I'll make it a year—"

A small hand landed on my forearm, and it stopped me in my tracks. I looked down at Kiera, so absorbed by her that I barely noticed that Mason was stalking towards Curt again, taking any opportunity to continue what he had started.

"Samson, please. Just let this one go. Francine was bitten by a snake, and Mason is tired. Just...just give them a break."

Her touch was gentle but insistent, and I looked down into her eyes, black pools that seemed to be able to see through my very soul. At that moment, I realized that the old ways wouldn't work anymore. I couldn't just exile people anymore and expect that to fix things. I had to change.

My chance to do better, at least with this challenge, was nearly gone. Mason was inches from Curt's face, and I knew I was too late to stop this fight.

But Kiera wasn't.

She drew a pattern in the air with a flick of her wrist. It glowed green before flashing bright white, making everyone flinch and cover their eyes. When we opened them again, Mason was flat on his back, trapped by an invisible barrier, and Curt was looking at my Omega in awe.

"I could have handled that," Curt said, almost petulantly, and Kiera sighed.

"I'm sure you could have," she answered, "but if you had, then Samson would have had to exile you."

"Kiera," I rumbled, looking down at her, "If you don’t want exile, how should we proceed with these four?"