Feint of Heart (4 page)

"Incoming!" Fen shrieked.

I cocked my head, watching the drama unfold around me. At his pack mate's words, Wade had immediately dropped to the ground, hands shielding his head as if responding to a bomb threat. The shifter's nose was in the earth, his eyes squinted shut.

And his quick reflexes seemed to have done the trick, effectively breaking Alexis's compulsion. Because the beguiler had to resort to prodding him with one foot, her dainty nose wrinkling up in annoyance at his lack of response. Then, when my pack mate gave no further reaction, the parasite tried gazing into my eyes one last time.

"No dice," I told myself as much as her. It took effort, but I was able to keep my tone and stance as cold as my opponents'.

Shrugging, she turned away smoothly. I'd expected a tantrum at the end of her game of wills and lies. But, instead, it was as if the failure meant no more to her than if she'd lost a game of monopoly.

"Whatever," the young woman muttered. "There are other packs."

Then she sank down onto four paws and slunk off into the night. And despite my better sense, I stared hard into the trees until the last flash of white fur was long gone.

No, I wasn't making sure the threat had been truly snuffed out. I was simply unable to take my eyes off the enticing temptress when even now I ached to don fur and lope away to join her.

When all that remained was black shadows beneath winter-bare trees, I finally returned my attention to my pack mates. "What was
that
?" I asked, hoping that hearing Fen or Wade speak would keep me from turning wolf and bristling at the sudden emptiness of the forest. The air felt thin and cold without Alexis's persimmon aroma clogging my nostrils.

And I still yearned to run after the parasite and beg to join her.

"Safe word," Wade replied around a mouthful of dirt. "We practiced the whole time we were tracking you down. Is she gone?"

"Yep," Fen responded. Unaffected by Alexis's absence, the cocky fourteen-year-old walked forward now to give her compatriot a hand up, patting a few dried grass blades off his shoulder in the process. "You done good, kid," she added, her words a near perfect imitation of my own frequently used term of approval.

And just like that, the spell was broken.

We did it.
Relief that we were all alive and unchanged made laughter bubble up out of my chest and explode from my lips. It was the first honest sentiment I'd felt since the Chief saddled us with his lackey, so I fell into the emotion and let all of my angst dissipate into gales of laughter.

Fen looked abashed for a split second. But then she joined in until we were both clutching each other's shoulders to keep from falling down. It felt good to be the only inhabitant in my head once again.

"Not to break up the fun," Wade said at last, when our mirth was finally winding down. "But the moon's gonna rise in thirty minutes." He held up the smart phone I'd long since dropped, weather data shining toward me from the lit screen. "I texted Chase to let him know you're okay. But if we want a chance of winning Wilder support, we need to get a move on."

"I guess we didn't find you soon enough." Fen's face went from happy to sad in an instant, and I tousled her hair in reassurance. The kid had saved the day, and now she was upset for not buying a new territory for our entire pack in the process. She was something else.

"You found me just fast enough," I promised. Then, before slipping into wolf skin, I added, "We still have time to catch the rat. He's not far away."

***

Wilder's trail had confused me when I noticed it earlier, and not just because Alexis's overwhelming persimmon aroma overlaid his subtler scent. The Chief had also gone to the trouble of finding a skunk to spray the clothes he'd donned after returning to human form, effectively blocking his trail from shifter noses. Because while wolves enjoy strong smells, skunks held little allure to our sensitive nostrils. No wonder everyone—me included—had turned aside after catching a whiff of the skunky aroma.

But the other alpha had been too lazy—or too particular—to coat his skin and hair with the same musk. As a result, his personal aroma was still present in the air, albeit only faintly discernible beneath the other species' protective spray.

Now that my brain was clear enough to think straight, it was easy to guess at the Chief's plan and to track the skunk scent to its source. Well, easy mentally if not physically. In the end, we had to hunt down our quarry in human form because his lair was located halfway up a cliff where wolf paws couldn't tread.

We tried to climb in silence, but I was sure Wilder knew we were coming by smell if nothing else. So I half expected to find a puddle of clothes as I crested the ledge, wolf escaped. Surely a wily old shifter like Crazy Wilder would have selected a cave with a bolt hole out the back?

Nope. The wolf bristling and growling before me had been cornered by his own overconfidence.

Which isn't to say he was defenseless. Instead, Wilder's eyes bored into mine with the exact opposite effect of the compulsion I'd experienced just thirty minutes earlier. Alexis's gaze had melted me into a lovesick fool, while Wilder's eyes threatened to push me off the rock face through sheer force of will.

I wanted to wave Wade and Fen back down the cliff so I could handle our opponent alone. After all, despite being adults by shifter standards, the duo seemed so much younger than my twenty-four years.

But they'd been the ones who'd seen through Alexis's chicanery while I'd fallen into her trap with blind confidence.
Not much different from Crazy Wilder after all, now am I?

So when Fen clawed her way up the rocks behind me, I offered a hand to pull her to her feet and waited as she gave Wade the same boost up. Still, I kept my broader form between the other alpha and the teenagers. If anyone was going to be attacked by the grizzled pack leader, I wanted it to be me.

We all stood poised for a long moment as the thin sliver of a waning moon gently drifted up above the tree line below us. Despite his defensive posture, I still held out hope that our opponent might cede gracefully. After all, I'd sometimes felt that the older shifter looked upon me with as much affection as a cold-hearted bastard could muster.

But Crazy Wilder had no intention of going down without a fight. Instead, he leapt forward without warning, his sheer bulk pushing me into the ground mere inches from the edge between rock and open air. His teeth snapped together around my human arm, and I expected at any moment to hear a crack as skin pierced and bone broke.

Which is when Fen pulled the next item out of her bag of tricks. One Taser later, the Chief lay groggily in human form at our feet, thoroughly vanquished.

"You could've waited to shock him until we were back on solid ground," Wade carped at the younger girl as he accepted the inert form of Chief Wilder that I was lowering from ledge to earth. "He weighs a ton."

In response, Fen stepped forward to add her own grip to the man's hairy legs just as he slipped out of my hands. Like a well-oiled team, the pair eased our opponent gently onto the leaf litter, bantering all the while. "He'd attacked Wolfie," Fen countered, as if the words explained everything.

I smiled indulgently. Despite my opponent's bite, I thought I probably would have done okay against a shifter twice my age without any help from human technology. But I let my pack mate's explanation slide. After all, Fen had saved my ass enough times this evening to make it clear she should trust her own judgment.

And, honestly, I didn't have any particular plan about how to get an unwilling Chief Wilder back to the All-Pack clearing without benefit of rope or handcuffs. So it was just as well my pack mate had turned our problem into a dead weight.

I ended the bickering the easy way. "I'll carry him," I intervened, hopping straight down then hoisting the other alpha across one shoulder in a fireman's carry. "Let's go."

***

The return journey felt longer but also far more pleasant than our initial run through the Wilder woods. When I'd been following in Alexis's wake, I'd thought I was drifting in a sea of pure bliss. But now I saw how distant I'd been from the present moment as I noticed entire turns in the trail I'd blanked out the first time around. I usually built an internal map as I explored new terrain, but I figured it was a good thing Fen's phone had GPS functionality or we might have been backtracking half the day before reaching camp.

As it was, we still didn't arrive at the All-Pack field until well after dawn. The hum of confused shifter voices hit us as soon as we stepped out of the trees, and I could smell strong odors of anxiety and speculation joining the frost on the ground. The other attendees would have known something was up as soon as Chief Wilder failed to return at daybreak, and they'd since enjoyed over an hour to make up stories explaining both his and our absence.

I scanned the area, noticing members of the other eight teams resting sore feet in their own campsites. In contrast, our own patch of earth lay empty, fire burnt out and no bustle of pack mates to greet us.

And I was glad of that fact. It would have been nice to return to a warm meal, but I was relieved to find that Chase hadn't been so shaken up by my stupidity that he'd hopped in a car to join us. No, I needed my beta at home guarding our territory...and guarding the ace in the hole we had secreted therein.

Because Chief Wilder's grandson was a good kid, and I'd hate to see him snatched up in a werewolf power play. Plus, I needed the leverage point if I wanted to get Crazy Wilder off my back.

Well, at least I can
literally
get him off my back
. I allowed my opponent to slide to the ground more roughly than I might have had the other pack leaders not been watching. Yep, I'll admit it. At All-Pack I toed the line and pretended to be a typical testosterone-enhanced macho male.

"Is that...?" one voice whispered. As if in response, a heaping handful of Wilder's lackeys came out of the woodwork and stepped forward menacingly, drawing all eyes toward the impending altercation. The large males were obvious enforcers, dressed in black leather with handguns belted to their waists like Old West cowboys.

Due to their threatened firepower, I only allowed myself one smug moment of triumph before raising empty hands into the air and backing away from their chief slowly. "He's all yours," I said. Then, reminding them: "It's just a
game
."

The youngest enforcer bared his teeth, forgetting he was two-legged, and I could feel Wade tense beside me. I placed a calming hand on the teenager's shoulder. No need to let this get out of hand.

"He should wake up shortly," I offered as another Wilder shifter dropped to his knees and felt the older man's pulse.

"He seems fine," the enforcer confirmed. Tension dropped away from his compatriots at the words, and it was as if a dam had broken within the surrounding crowd. Whispers turned into excited chatter and soon excited speculation filled the air in one solid roar.

"Guess it's time to clean up and get some breakfast," I told my own little pack, turning away from the interested onlookers. "We've got a busy day ahead."

Chief Wilder didn't support our bid for territorial rights after all, but we won by a hair in the end. My brother had been too busy consolidating his own leadership to attend this year's gathering, and Justin's usual allies had largely drifted in my direction as a result. But even with that windfall, I still wouldn't have had enough votes without Gavin's help.

To my surprise, when push came to shove the kid grew a spine and spoke in my favor. In the process, Crazy Wilder glared so hard at the young alpha that I thought the teenager might topple over, but Gavin held firm. His faint smile in my direction after all was said and done suggested that the youngster thought his action was equal repayment for the fact I'd resisted the urge to snap his neck when I had the chance.

But I'd never felt any such urge. So I figured I now owed Gavin a favor in return.

An issue that would have to be dealt with at a later date since Wilder was even more unhappy with me than he was with my new friend. "A word," the older alpha growled as he walked past, effectively ending All-Pack's business meeting for the night. My win at the Winter Hunt aside, no one would dream of continuing our annual conference without our resident big, bad wolf present.

As I padded along at the older alpha's heels, I couldn't prevent myself from reliving the experience of being taken aside by this same shifter two years prior to atone for my sins. Then, I'd allowed arrogance to put my pack in harm's way and Wilder had come through to save my skin...but had exacted a promise in the process that I would repay that debt at a future date. At the time, I'd felt chagrined by my own stupidity and cowed by the unfamiliar sensation of being taken down a notch by a shifter stronger than myself. But I'd also been jubilant that I was managing to escape my sticky wicket alive.

Now, my weaknesses had once again put my pack in danger. But Wilder was the one who'd lost face in the end, and I wasn't so sure his waning alpha dominance was still stronger than my ever-increasing power. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that if we stood toe to toe and gazed into one another's eyes, Crazy Wilder would now be the one to blink first.

Which meant I was in even more danger than two years prior. Because dominant alphas like Chief Wilder hated nothing more than being taken down a peg. So the other pack leader would likely exact vengeance by calling in his debt in such a manner that I'd be forced to fall on my sword to prevent doing even more harm to my little clan.

Images of the worst possible requests the other alpha could make swam through my mind. What would I do if he demanded Fen be turned over to his pack? The halfie would drown in the morass of prejudice here in Wilder territory, her youthful spark snuffed out by his manipulative impatience. Or perhaps the old wolf would insert a few of his shifters into my little clan and use us to shore up his waning power.

Not possible
, I reminded myself. I'd offered Wilder my word to do his bidding, but had made it perfectly clear that only myself, not my pack, would suffer for my sins.

Plus, Keith was still shielded by my clan's growing influence. Surely Wilder would back down once he saw we were in the position to harm his own flesh and blood.

"You think you're so clever," my opponent said at last, when we'd walked far enough into the trees that no one else could hear. "But what you don't realize is that Alexis was a test. A test that you failed."

"I thought...." The words were out of my mouth before I could call them back. And the smirk on the other alpha's lips proved that he'd gotten the exact rise out of me that he'd hoped for.

Let him gloat
. My opponent's tension eased a bit more with each minute he made me wait, and I forced my shoulders to hunch inward in supposed cowardice. If Wilder needed a show of submission after being dragged back to his own camp unconscious, then I wasn't too proud to give it to him.

He seemed to be waiting for me to speak, though. So I offered up a comment at last. "If I failed the test, does that mean you don't want to call in my debt?"

Wilder rubbed the back of one hand across the stubble that coated his chin, and his eyes narrowed into dark slits as his lips spread into a humorless grin. "Oh, no. I'll still take that favor. But I think I'll let you sweat a little longer first. Triumph is always so much sweeter when your adversary falls shaking at your feet before you even bother to strike the first blow."

The old cuss turned away from me while his words were still ringing in the air, and I thought the meeting was over. But then the wily alpha looked back over one shoulder and added, "In the meantime, I wish you luck training your second young halfie to heel. A mixed-blood raised by humans. He's of no value to me."

And then, having proven that in this game of cards aces were low, Wilder walked away muttering and chuckling to himself. The older alpha seemed to be drifting into madness...and my honor was clutched in his decompensating fist.