Omega's Harem (Feral Wolves of the Arctic Book 3) Page 4

  About ten feet up, she found a pair of branches that forked, creating a comfortable seat that was wide enough to provide plenty of support. She tried it out and found that it was both comfortable and gave her a feeling of safety. She wouldn’t fall. It would be safe to spend the night there.

  She settled in and leaned her head back against the tree trunk.

  It was the first night she’d ever spent on her own, away from the other members of her pack. The first time she had ever relied on herself. Now that she had stopped moving, she realized she was hungry. She hadn’t bothered to hunt all day.

  Well, it could wait until morning. She had gone longer than this without food before, in the dead of winter when game was scarce. One day was nothing.

  The sounds of the forest were soothing, and a small smile crept across Lily’s face. She couldn’t believe she’d spent her whole life worrying that she might not be able to handle life on her own. She was fine. In the morning, she would find the river again, and she’d be back on track, one step closer to finding the mate she had always dreamed of.

  And when I bring him back to my family, they’ll have to admit that they were wrong to keep me cooped up in the cave for so long.

  Chapter Four

  DONOVAN

  Most of the wolves who’d attended the funeral had now begun to drift, to go their separate ways. Each of the alphas who had attended had been given space in the Vancouver Wolf Pack’s house, but most of those spaces had been cleared out and returned to the betas of the Vancouver pack who ordinarily occupied them.

  But Donovan hadn’t left because Pax hadn’t left.

  There was no way Donovan was going to voluntarily give up the opportunity to confront his old adversary.

  He’d never understood why his pack had been so willing to take in a stray like Pax. It had happened when Donovan was only six years old, and he knew everyone had assumed at the time that he would get over the rivalry he felt with Pax. That he would eventually grow to accept the outsider, even to welcome him as a little brother.

  Perhaps he would have if Pax hadn’t been an alpha himself.

  Of course, with his pack destroyed, there had been no reason for Pax to maintain his alpha status. He didn’t have anyone to lead. He could easily have submitted to Donovan’s authority as they grew older, letting everyone in the Moose Jaw Wolf Pack see who was really in charge. Who was really going to have authority over the rest of the pack one day.

  Instead, though, Pax had always been an outlier. He had refused to submit. He had kept himself apart from the rest of the pack, and at the earliest opportunity, he’d left.

  Donovan resented him for it.

  The rest of the Moose Jaw Pack still talked about it. They saw it as their alpha having been bested by another. If Donovan had truly been the superior alpha, they said, he would have proven it. He would have gotten the rogue in line.

  Now, Donovan had a second chance to corral Pax, and he’d be damned if he was going to take his pack away from here before that job was done.

  Pax must want a fight with me, too, he reasoned. Why else would he still be here? The funeral is over.

  It was an intimidating thought. Could Pax be planning to challenge him for control of the Moose Jaw Pack?

  If that’s what he’s after, I’ll kill him. He’ll never take my pack away from me, not while I have a breath left in my body.

  The cabin was quiet. The Vancouver Wolves were subdued by the loss of their longtime leader. Most of them were sitting around brooding, and Donovan could understand. The Moose Jaw Pack had been through a similar period of mourning when his own father had died—not that Donovan’s father had been anywhere near as notorious as Josh had been.

  He wandered out onto the porch.

  Sure enough, Pax was standing in the yard, totally alone. It was very like him to spend time on his own like this, to avoid the company of others even when he was living in their home. He had always been strange that way. It wasn’t normal for a wolf to like solitude as much as Pax did.

  He wasn’t normal.

  And Donovan was determined that the long-brewing conflict between the two of them was finally going to come to a head. One way or another, they weren’t going to leave Vancouver without determining once and for all who was the more powerful alpha.

  He descended the porch steps and crossed the yard determinedly.

  Pax looked up as he approached, and Donovan was pleased to see that his expression became guarded. “Hi, Donovan,” he said.

  “Hi yourself,” Donovan said. “What are you still doing here?”

  Pax frowned in apparent confusion. “I’m just enjoying the weather,” he said. “It’s a nice day.”

  “There’s weather everywhere,” Donovan snapped. “What are you still doing in Vancouver?”

  “Oh,” Pax said. “I told Victor I would stay here until he got back.”

  Victor’s departure had been the subject of a great deal of speculation. No one really knew where he had gone or why. There were a lot of theories floating around, each as unlikely as the next, but Donovan had chosen not to participate in the gossip. It wasn’t his business. Victor could do whatever he liked.

  There was a more pressing question. “Why would he ask you to stay?”

  “He wanted to make sure there was an alpha with his pack while he was away,” Pax said, shrugging. “He didn’t want to leave them alone.”

  “And he chose you to protect them?” Donovan didn’t bother to disguise his astonishment. Pax might have had a strong will, but he was about a foot shorter than Donovan, and his build was a lot wirier. Donovan knew Pax had plenty of muscle, but his appearance didn’t exactly scream tough.

  “I didn’t ask for the job,” Pax said. “I don’t even want to be here. I’d much rather have moved on. That’s what I’m planning to do as soon as Victor gets back.”

  “And what are you planning on doing if someone attacks the Vancouver Wolves?” Donovan demanded. “How would you defend them?”

  “Well, I don’t think there’s going to be an attack,” Pax said. “No one has attacked the Vancouver Wolf Pack for decades. That’s part of why we think of Josh as such a strong leader, right? He kept this land secure, and he led such a strong force that nobody wanted to attack them.”

  “But Josh isn’t here anymore,” Donovan said. “And that’s not a secret. People know. What if someone decides this is the right time to try to overtake the Vancouver Wolves?”

  Pax stared. “Are you making threats, Donovan?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you saying you’re going to attack the pack?”

  “Of course I’m not,” Donovan said. “Why would I attack the Vancouver Pack? I’ve got my own pack.”

  “Well, nobody who didn’t have a pack behind them would stand a chance attacking a big and well-organized group like this one,” Pax pointed out. “They’d be defeated easily.”

  “Is that really what you think of me?” Donovan asked. “That I’m so bloodthirsty that I’d attack another pack without provocation? While their alpha was away and they were mourning a death? While they were completely undefended?”

  He could see that the completely undefended line had bothered Pax a bit, but he didn’t mind. That served Pax right for the hell he had put Donovan through over the years.

  Besides, Pax wasn’t an adequate defender for the Vancouver Pack. Surely he had to realize that. The idea of anyone choosing to leave him in charge was downright laughable. Victor must have been insane with grief when he’d made that decision. He couldn’t possibly have been thinking straight.

  Pax turned away from Donovan. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he said. “Haven’t we all been through enough this week, what with Josh’s death? Just leave me alone, and the two of us will be out of each other’s hair soon.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Donovan said. “You’d like to walk away from this and tell everyone that you got the best of me yet again.”

  “
Okay,” Pax said with a sigh, turning to face Donovan. “I really didn’t want to get into it. But how is it possibly considered me getting the best of you if we both just leave Vancouver without a fight?”

  “Oh, there’s going to be a fight,” Donovan said. “You can count on that.”

  “You’re going to attack me?” Pax’s eyes widened. “I thought you weren’t making threats.”

  “It’s not a threat,” Donovan said. “It’s a promise. And I don’t see why it has to be an attack, either. It’s not like I’m going to come into your room and drag you out while you’re asleep, you know. I’m not a monster.”

  “Then what are you going to do?” Pax said. “I don’t want to fight you, Donovan.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Donovan said. “You know you’d lose.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

  “It’s just the truth. I’m not trying to insult you, but look at you, and look at me. I must be twice your weight.”

  “That’s exaggerating things a bit,” Pax said. “You’re taller than me, but I’m still six feet. You’ve got more obvious muscle, but I’ve held my own in plenty of fights. You don’t scare me, Donovan.”

  Donovan raged. That was the same kind of quiet dismissal Pax had always used on him when they were growing up. Donovan was the alpha of the Moose Jaw Pack, and it was his duty and his right to bring everyone else in his pack to heel. But Pax had never cooperated, and that had never ceased to be infuriating.

  “You’re going to submit to me,” he told Pax.

  Pax sighed. “I thought you and I put this issue to rest a long time ago,” he said. “There’s no need for one of us to dominate the other as long as we don’t belong to the same pack.”

  One of us to dominate the other? Could Pax truly have thought there was a possibility that he might be the one to emerge victorious in a fight? The very suggestion was offensive, and if Donovan hadn’t been determined that this was going to come to blows, he was now. There was no way he would allow Pax to get away with a comment like that.

  “You and I are going to keep crossing each other’s paths,” he said. “It’s inevitable. As long as we live in the same part of the world, we won’t be able to avoid each other forever.”

  “We’ll be able to avoid each other most of the time,” Pax said. “There’s no reason this needs to get dramatic. I’m sorry we had to see each other here. I know it’s difficult for you.”

  “Don’t you fucking patronize me.”

  “I wasn’t going to miss Josh’s funeral,” Pax said. “You couldn’t expect me to do that. I’d be dead if it weren’t for him.”

  “You could have had the decency to disappear after the funeral was over, though,” Donovan said.

  “I told you already. Victor asked me to stay.”

  “And you do whatever Victor tells you to do?” Donovan asked. “We both know that isn’t you, Pax. You don’t do what anybody else tells you to do. You only do what you want to do.”

  “You’re never going to get over the fact that you couldn’t control me, are you?” Pax asked. “It kills you that you couldn’t dominate me, that I wouldn’t submit to you. It makes you feel like less of an alpha. And every time you see me, you’re reminded of that weakness.”

  Donovan could have hit him for that. The anger that burned within him was so powerful that for a moment, he was sure he was going to shift right there on the lawn of the Vancouver Wolf Pack’s home. He was going to lose his grip on his own humanity, sink into the easy power of his animal form, and get his teeth and his claws into Pax’s fragile human skin.

  But he didn’t want it that way. He wanted a fair fight. He wanted to defeat this upstart in a way that showed the rest of his pack what he was capable of, what should have happened from the beginning.

  “If you think I’m so weak,” he said, “then fight me.”

  “I don’t want to,” Pax said.

  “Because you know you can’t win?”

  “Because I don’t want a fight.”

  “I’m not giving you a choice,” Donovan said.

  “You’re going to maul me when my back is turned?”

  “You know I won’t. But my pack wants this fight as much as I do. They’ve been salivating for it for years.”

  “They want to see their leader humbled, do they?”

  “It doesn’t matter what they want to see. The only thing that matters is what they will see. I’m going to give you the thrashing I should have given you before you left Moose Jaw. My pack will make sure you show up to the fight. But it will be more respectable if you come of your own accord.”

  Pax shook his head. “You’re really not going to let this go, are you?”

  “I see no reason why I should,” Donovan said. “You’re a blight on my life, and now I have the chance to erase what you did.”

  “We’ll fight, then,” Pax said. “But after this fight is over, win or lose, I want this to be over between us. I want us to go our separate ways and not worry about each other anymore. Can you agree to that?”

  “Sure,” Donovan said. “Whatever you want.” He would have said anything at that moment to ensure that Pax would commit to the fight.

  “Fine,” Pax said. “Two days from now, right here.”

  “You need two days to prepare?” Donovan asked. “Or maybe you’re planning to run away?”

  “You really just can’t resist getting a last taunt in, can you?” Pax asked. “You don’t need to worry about me running away. I gave Victor my word that I would be here when he came back. I’m not going anywhere until then.”

  “Fine,” Donovan said. “Two days, then. But if you try to back out, my pack will round you up. They’ll make sure you show yourself.”

  Pax shook his head. “I wish you could hear how you sound right now,” he said.

  “I’m more interested in how you’ll sound when I finish kicking your ass,” Donovan said. “All you have to do to end the fight is to submit to me. Tell me you recognize my authority, and we’ll be done.”

  “Oh, I understand what this is all about,” Pax said. “You haven’t been subtle.”

  He turned and walked off across the yard, back toward the house.

  Donovan watched him go, realizing belatedly that he had allowed Pax to get the better of him simply by going inside. If he went in now, it would look like he was following Pax.

  And being inside meant that Pax would have the first opportunity to tell the others about the fight. They would hear the story from his perspective first.

  Well, it didn’t matter. Perception was important, of course, but at the end of the day, what mattered most was who won the fight. And that would be Donovan.

  Pax had always been able to resist Donovan. He had always been able to stand against him, to position himself as an equal.

  But that was because the two of them had never come to blows.

  Now, for the first time, there would be a test of their physical strength. And Donovan knew it would be no contest. He would take Pax out without even breaking a sweat. It would be easy, a walk in the park.

  And after their fight was done, no one would ever be able to question again which of the two of them was the more powerful alpha.

  Chapter Five

  LILY

  Lily awoke to the sound of something moving around beneath her.

  It took a few moments for her to remember where she was. I ran away from my family. I came to find my mate.

  And today, she was supposed to find the river and use it to navigate her way eastward once more.

  But she couldn’t do that yet. Because something was moving underneath her tree.

  She peered down through the branches.

  Not something. Someone.

  A man.

  Her heart began to beat double time. A man! Perhaps he would be the mate she had been looking for! Could it really be so easy?

  Before she could remind herself to move with caution, she was leaning to one side to get a better
look at him. She slipped on the branch—just slightly—and had to grab at another branch to keep herself from falling.

  And the man heard her and looked up.

  She froze.

  “Who’s there?” he asked suspiciously.

  She didn’t answer, hoping that he would decide he had imagined what he had heard. She did plan on speaking to him eventually, of course, but she wanted it to be on her own time and on her own terms.

  Unfortunately, he seemed determined not to give up on confronting her. “I heard you,” he said. “You might as well come down out of that tree. I know you’re up there, and I can wait down here all day.”

  There didn’t seem to be any point in pretending she wasn’t there. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I want to talk to someone who isn’t in a tree,” he said.

  “Well, I don’t know if I can trust you,” she said. “What if I come down and you turn out to be some kind of creep?”

  “I’m not a creep,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t tell me if you were, though,” she pointed out.

  In truth, she wasn’t afraid of him at all. She was enjoying this banter. Already, she was thinking about what it would be like to tell her family the story of their meeting, how much she would enjoy listening while he described the way she had teased him.

  “Just come down,” he said. “I have food.”

  “Food you want to share? Why? What’s in it for you?”

  “I just want a conversation,” he said. “Then we can go our separate ways.”

  That wasn’t good. He seemed like he was losing interest, and Lily definitely didn’t want that. This game had been fun, but she had to give him a chance to imprint on her.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m coming down. Just stay there.”

  She clambered quickly out of the tree, doing her best to look strong and graceful as she did so. But getting out of a tree wasn’t the most graceful activity there was, and it bothered her to think how she must look to him backing down out of the branches. She was tempted to tell him to turn away, not to look at her. But that would have been silly. It would have called attention to the fact that she cared what he thought of her, and she didn’t want that.