Page 34 of Violet Moon (Pitch Mountain Pack #1)

twenty-four

“You ready?” Sera asked Parisa, but she already knew the answer.

Parisa was shedding layers, face twisted in determination. “Ready,” she growled. Gone was the softness from last night. In her place stood a woman who’d been tested time and time again and come out on the other side stronger than before.

She was dauntless in the face of her challenger. Jason was jumpy, itching to fight and hurling taunts across the clearing. Parisa didn’t dignify any of it with a response until she’d finally had enough.

“Stop wasting my time,” Parisa called out. “Are we talking or are we fighting?”

She turned towards Sera, placed a hand on the back of Sera’s neck, and pulled her in for a kiss. Parisa grinned. “Now I’m ready.” She played with the short hairs at the nape of Sera’s neck. “Keep your eyes on me.”

“Always.”

“I love you. Don’t worry.”

“I love you, too.”

Parisa stepped back, stripped, and shifted into her wolf. She was confident before, but there hadn’t been this self-assured calm in her actions. She moved around the edge of the clearing as though she’d already won. Perhaps, in her mind, she had.

Jason snapped his teeth and growled at the other end, his gray and white fur standing on end.

Parisa didn’t wait for him to attack first. She went on the offensive from the beginning, barrelling into him and knocking him off his feet.

He flew back into his witness, but got up, angrier than before.

He rushed to retaliate, but Parisa was ready.

She lunged at him before he could reach her, going for his neck.

He dodged at the last second and she only grazed his side, but she’d still made contact and her message was clear. She wasn’t backing down today.

Jason’s rage grew with every slash of teeth, every time he was knocked to the ground.

He moved with a desperation to prove himself while Parisa was smooth and in control with every step.

Jason became harder to predict as his anger boiled over, and Parisa misstepped, giving him an opening to bring her down.

Sera clenched her hands into hard fists at her side. Her pulse was racing as she was forced to watch and, despite what Parisa said, worry. For all the faith she had in her Alpha, it was still hard to watch her go through this.

Jason dove in towards Parisa’s neck. Sera gasped, staggering forward, but Parisa growled and shoved him off, flinging him to the side as she stood.

He crumpled when he hit the ground and he had deep gashes in his skin as proof that Parisa had gotten the best of him more than once.

Parisa bore her own wounds, but far fewer and they were shallow enough that they were already healing.

Jason snarled as he tried to stand, but Parisa was already on him, pinning him to the ground as he attempted to bite her legs. Parisa sunk her teeth into his neck as a warning, but Jason refused to give up.

“Yield!” His witness called out from the edge of the clearing.

Jason let out a sickening growl. He snapped his jaws, still trying to tear out bits of Parisa’s fur, but it was futile. She had a hold on him and he was growing weaker from blood loss and exertion. Parisa had won from the very beginning. It was clear to everyone except Jason.

Parisa bit down harder and he howled in pain.

“Yield!” his witness shouted again.

Parisa gave him one final shove into the ground and backed off, giving him space to breathe.

Jason stood on trembling legs, still trying to dash forward, but stumbled and fell before he could reach Parisa.

He started to shift back, yelping in pain as his bones cracked and reformed.

It wasn’t a planned transformation. It was his wolf retreating.

His witness rushed over to tend to his wounds and Parisa walked over on all fours towards her pile of clothes. She let go of the wolf and emerged as her human self with a heavy sigh. She got dressed in the loose-fitting dress she’d worn here and finally turned to Sera.

“I told you not to worry.” Parisa’s chest heaved with the need for deeper breaths.

Sera opened her mouth to speak, but Jason shouted, “It’s not over! I haven’t yielded!”

Parisa grit her teeth. She swung around, fists clenched at her sides. “It’s over.”

“I don’t yield!”

“He yields,” his witness said.

Jason flung his witness off of him and tried to look as intimidating as he could manage from the ground. “I don’t yield, so you’ll have to kill me.”

“Never. The old ways are dead.”

“Just like you’ll be if you let me live.”

“Are you trying to provoke me? It won’t work. You’ve lost. You and I both know it.”

“I don’t yield to you!” Jason screamed. His witness tried, and failed, to get him to stop talking. “I don’t recognize you as an Alpha!”

“Your opinion means nothing,” Parisa responded, shoulders squared, chin tilted up as she walked towards him. She stopped next to his prone body. “Yield,” she ordered.

“Never.”

“I don’t need your agreement.” With one swift smack to the side of his head, Jason was knocked out cold, falling into his witness’ arms.

Sera rushed to Parisa’s side as she walked away from Jason.

“It’s done,” Parisa said.

“I never had any doubt.” Sera wanted to hug her, but she was aware of making her look weak in front of others, so she stood back, arms twitching at her sides.

Parisa had no such reservations. She grabbed the front of Sera’s shirt and pulled her forward, bringing their lips together in a hungry kiss.

Sera gasped and Parisa slid inside of her mouth.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she held on to Parisa to keep standing, kissing her back and trying to match Parisa’s fervor, but coming up short.

Parisa was as much a dominating presence as she’d been minutes ago, claiming Sera as hers with every lick and nip of her kissed-red lips.

Behind them, Jason coughed his way to alertness. Parisa pulled away, leaving Sera with a need for more of whatever that had been.

“I didn’t yield. It’s not over.”

“You passed out. It’s finished,” Parisa snapped.

Jason’s witness tried to tell him the same, but Jason got to his feet on shaky legs. He jabbed a finger forward towards Parisa. “I don’t adhere to the new rules.”

“And I don’t recognize the ones we’ve left behind.”

“I don’t recognize your authority.”

“I don’t need you to. It’s already mine.”

Jason seethed for several moments before he shouted, “Fine! I yield, but I can’t go back to my pack! Clyde knows what I’ve done here. I don’t fit there. I never have. I have nothing!”

“And so you try to take from me what I have built? Try to take my family from me?” Parisa laughed. “Do you think your experience is unique? The only difference is the rest of us don’t go around trying to claim a pack they have no right to.”

“But I —”

“Already have a pack.” Sera stepped in. “And you still might have one if you learn to control the gift you’ve received. It’s up to you to decide to embrace it or let it curse you. Learn from Alpha Clyde. He’s more of an Alpha than you could ever hope to be.” She turned her back to him.

“I’m finished here.” Parisa said, wrapping a possessive arm around Sera’s waist. She nuzzled into Sera’s neck, her breath hot along her skin. “Let’s go home.”

The moment Parisa’s bedroom door closed, she pressed Sera against the wood, kissing her hard enough to give Sera no room to think of anything other than what was happening.

Parisa tasted like sweat and felt like power beneath her palms. Sera tried to fill as many of her senses with Parisa as she could — the taste of her skin, the sound of her panting breaths, the sight of her Alpha focused only on her.

Parisa was an entirely different version of herself with victory running hot in her veins.

Sera tried to rise to the level of her Alpha.

She met every passionate kiss with one of her own.

Her back kept hitting the door, rattling it on its hinges, and the thought of their packmates on the other side knowing what they were doing made Sera shiver.

She pressed closer to Parisa, sliding her arms around her waist and wishing their clothes weren’t between them now.

Parisa pulled back, her stare searing. She licked her lips, eyes flashing a wolfish amber. She gripped the front of Sera’s shirt and pulled, making two buttons fly off somewhere in the room.

“Pari!” Sera gasped.

Parisa dove into the crux of her neck, licking at the supple skin. Sera melted into the feeling until two sharp teeth scraped along her neck. Her eyes bolted open wide as a moan slipped free from her throat. Her Alpha growled in response, those teeth pressing in just a bit harder.

Heat pooled between Sera’s legs as Parisa’s tongue lapped at her skin and her Alpha’s hands wandered her body.

Sera relaxed and gave into it, letting her head hit the door behind her as she tilted her neck to give Parisa more skin to touch.

Her Alpha licked a long line up the length of her skin and didn’t stop, licking into her mouth with a growing hunger.

Parisa was everywhere. Her scent and the feeling of her hands on her skin filled her senses until there was nothing left but Parisa.

She gripped her fingers into Parisa’s thick hair and pulled, eliciting another low growl from her Alpha. Parisa yanked on the button and zipper on her trousers. Again, the door rattled on its hinges.

“Pari, we should —” Move to the bed. Be anywhere but here. But Sera couldn’t manage another word because her Alpha was drinking her in with her stare, eyes amber, features sharp. Parisa wasn’t transforming, but she was riding the edge of untamed wildness.