The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 1)

Ifeel cooped up all morning. The gym is stuffy. Reeks of socks and jocks.

I take B-roster down to the ravine to train on a downed oak laying across a dried-up creek bed. Put them through their paces. It’s always fun to watch males who think they’re badass eat dirt ‘cause they can’t find their center.

Conor and Gael are coming along, but Fallon might be better suited to the maintenance crew. It’s a shame. The kid has heart. No fuckin’ balance, though.

Una gets along well, considering how jacked up her gait is. I was never clear on how her leg got mangled. Thomas Fane was involved somehow right before my father put him down.

She could probably improve function with consistent training. I’d start with heel and toe raises, lifts and crunches. Put her on a treadmill. Maybe some yoga. Jimmy’s been doing that to maintain flexibility as he bulks up. He’s had some decent results.

Other than the leg, her musculature is decent. She’s got a female’s round hips and soft belly—you don’t wanna mess with that—but there’s definition in her arms. Her posture’s good. And she’s got those sweet tits.

I don’t remember them being so ripe. Earlier, she was wearing a white T-shirt that clung to the slopes of her breasts. It was so thin you could see her fat, dark areolas. Big as half dollars.

My mouth waters. Up on the log, Fallon teeters. Conor gives me a side eye. Did I growl again?

My wolf’s antsy. I already let him run along the river for a few miles, but he’s still making himself known. He knows he can help himself, but he’s not interested in food or a fight to work off some energy.

This is Una’s fault. She’s disturbed the force. She seems so innocent. Stays in the kitchen, keeps her head down. So why’s she so thick with the crone? Haisley and her crew wouldn’t be caught dead up at the cottage. They ward against the evil eye when they so much as hear Abertha’s name.

And now that I think about it, she gets around. Doesn’t stay in her own circle like the other females. She’s tight with the other lone females, but I also see her around Old Noreen’s and the Campbell’s cabin. Some of the quieter elders will call her over for a word at the lodge—I’ve seen her and Nuala with their heads together. Una gave her some honey or jam or something. And last month, wasn’t it, I saw her talking to Liam at the garage. What business does she have with him?

And why do I care? She’s not breaking any rules.

It’s this mate bullshit. It’s gotten in my head. I accepted a long time ago that I’m destined for something else. The flip-shifting. How I have my own ideas—I don’t want to do shit the way it’s always been done. I figured the cost of greatness was no mate. No young.

It’s isn’t what I would have chosen, but that’s the thing about Fate—she’s got her own mind.

It’s a bitter pill, but I deal with it.

And Una wants to stand in the middle of the pack, claim me, and nearly die for the insubordination. Haisley’s teeth were real fucking close to her carotid. If Haisley had seen Una as a real threat, she’d be dead.

What a cluster.

I’ve got a riled wolf inside me, an unsettled pack, and there’s no fight to look forward to. The next match is a month from now in North Border.

I sigh. Fallon pinwheels his arms and falls into the river for the sixth or seventh time.

Too far from the commons.

My senses jolt. The hairs on my arms stand on end.

I sniff the breeze. “Do you smell that?”

“What?” Conor and Gael twitch their noses. “Dinner?”

I inhale again. There’s a faint hint of smoke and beef in the air. Maybe that’s what caught my attention.

“Get back up there, Fallon. Front snap kick. Go.” I clap a few times. He groans. I nod to Conor to partner him.

Get back to camp.

I pop my ears. The voice—if that’s what it is—is silent.

The sun’s still high, the sky is blue and cloudless, and the woods are peaceful. Birds chirp. Beavers are building a dam a half-mile downstream.

Shivers creep up my spine.

A black dot swoops across the horizon, riding a current. My fangs shoot out.

“Damn.” I suck the cut. It’s just a hawk, not even a very big one.

It’s like I’m jittery. I don’t get jitters. I get stoked. Aggressive.

Fallon lands a high kick, forcing Conor back a step. Fallon stumbles, falls on his ass, squashes his balls, shrieks, and then tumbles off the log as he curls up like an armadillo.

It’s funny as shit. Conor and Gael crack up, but I hardly break a smile.

I’m missing something.

We should go back to camp.

“Conor, check him for a concussion. If he’s good, ten more. See you back at the gym.” I don’t wait. Once I make a decision, I go. I shift and lope north. They’ll catch up.

I race east, and instantly, some of the tension eases. The wind riffles my fur, and the soil and leaves, wood and water, all the sights and sounds of my territory sift through my senses, unraveling the knot that’s been coiling in my gut.

Maybe I’m spending too much time training the males and not enough time roaming the pack lands. Bad things happen when you stifle the wolf. You start hearing voices, for example.

When we trot into camp, I expect him to give up our skin. The wolf doesn’t like buildings. He keeps his form, though. I don’t fight him; I never do. He sniffs, noting the fresh venison in the shed we use to butcher meat and wet pussy from a cabin along the common. Rowan and Lochlan.

Lochlan’s supposed to be patrolling the southwest quadrant with Tye. Are we abandoning our posts to bang females now? That’s the kind of self-indulgence that leads to fuck ups.

I figure the wolf will handle it, take out some of his nervous energy on Lochlan’s ugly hide, but he canters straight through the commons, up the path along the ridge, winding past the laundry and the elder cabins. He’s got a destination in mind. The garage.

Liam’s out front under a truck, country blaring on the radio. Only his legs are visible. The place reeks of oil and metal. What scent is the wolf tracking? I can’t make anything out under the chemicals.

The wolf snuffles around a tire and plops on his haunches, scratching his hindquarters like he’s got nowhere else he’d rather be. We have shit to do. Training. Meetings with elders. Finances. Phone calls. All the other crap I avoid by training B-roster.

But I guess I’m gonna scratch my ass by an old tire.

Then I hear giggles. Females.

Una and Annie walk around the corner of the garage, and the instant they see my wolf, they freeze. Guilty as hell. Annie’s eyes go round as dinner plates. She has the most skittish wolf I’ve ever met. Una steps in front of her.

My wolf doesn’t move, but he barks an order.

Shift.

Annie shifts immediately. Under the truck, a curse devolves into a pained yelp. My bad. I guess Liam shifted, too.

Una is still standing on two feet.

My wolf barks again, louder. She lifts her chin.

My wolf growls a few more times for good measure.

Shift. Shift now.

Liam wriggles out from the undercarriage on his belly. Annie cowers, trembling, gaze averted, neck bared. As is right.

Una is frozen in place, wearing a pale-yellow blouse, rolled up past her elbows, and a long jean skirt. There’s something balled in her left fist. Her brown hair shines, wisps framing her face. She’s tied it back in her usual braid.

My wolf pads closer to her very slowly. Almost cautiously. She tenses. My wolf stops, sits, and—whines.

My wolf never whines. He’s a huge silver beast with pure white markings, bigger than a dire wolf. We fear nothing and no one. We’re unbeaten in battle. Sought by all females. Alpha.

What witchcraft is this?

My wolf stares at Una. Una stares at us.

He strides forward. One pace. Another. Like he’s trying to be casual. Annie scuttles backward, whimpering.

Una cocks her head slightly to the left. My wolf pauses, patient, watchful. He wants her wolf to come out. Badly. He’s frustrated, but he’s being very careful not to let on.

For the first time that I can remember, he is not me at all. I want to force her down to her knees, snatch that braid and tilt her neck until I can see the vein throb in her exposed neck. Make her submit.

She’s mad, and she’s gonna get herself hurt. You don’t bait a monster like mine. He has mauled males for less provocation than this. It’s not in his nature to ignore a challenge.

But he’s not giving up the skin. And for some reason, he’s not responding to her defiance with aggression.

I don’t get it. And I don’t understand why he’s so keen to see her wolf. It was painfully small and scrawny with a gnarled hind leg. The thing looked underfed.

And how can she resist shifting at our command? Only another alpha can defy our compulsion.

This can’t be a mate thing. I don’t feel a bond. I’d know if we were connected in that way.

My wolf rumbles low in his chest, a sound used to soothe the newly born. Una stands, all false bravado. Her knees knock, swaying her skirt. I can smell her fear. Neither my wolf nor I like it. It burns our nose.

My wolf pads toward her, closer, closer, until there’s no more than an inch separating us. He lowers to his haunches, almost to eye level. Una’s pupils are huge, eating up her irises. What color are they?

I try to recall, but all I can picture is her gazing down or scurrying away, like all the lone females. And then a memory—an old one—pops up from nowhere. Brown. They’re a dark, hickory brown.

Without warning, my wolf darts forward and buries his nose in her hand, snuffling and slurping.

She yelps. Her fear spikes, and then it retreats, disappearing with her abrupt laugh. My wolf is smug with satisfaction.

She snatches her palm away and wipes it on her thigh. “That’s so gross. Your nose is wet.”

He nudges her again, nuzzling her hip, trying to reach the hand she’s now tucking behind her back. I understand why. She smells delicious. It’s subtle. I couldn’t pick it up a foot or two away, but this close, it’s fucking amazing. Delicate and earthy. Like vines and shade and pussy.

And her taste? So good. Unbelievably good.

My wolf butts his snout into her again.

She sighs and peers into our eyes, brow furrowed. I don’t know what she sees, but her demeanor changes. She relaxes.

“You aren’t him, are you?” she says. She stares a moment longer. “No. You definitely aren’t.”

My wolf whines. She actually smiles, and then she tentatively offers me her palm. I dive in, licking, covering her in my scent. She tastes—homey. A hint of salt and warm, light things. Bread straight from the oven. Melting butter.

Now he’s whining and nuzzling like a pup until she gives in and scratches behind his ears. I haven’t asked for this since my mother was alive. I’d forgotten how it feels.

My body goes boneless. I flop on the ground at her feet. She laughs softly. It’s a pretty sound. Tentative and delicate.

Behind us, Annie perks her ears, curious.

My wolf growls, but it’s playful. He nips at the hem of Una’s skirt.

“You’re as bossy as he is,” Una says, awkwardly lowering herself to the ground so she doesn’t have to bend. “And you’re big, too.”

My wolf scoots himself forward with his rear legs until he’s draped across her thigh. I tense, preparing to fight him for our skin.

Is he laying on the jacked up one? Does it hurt her?

No. He’s flopped on her good leg.

“What are you doin’, big guy?” she murmurs. He kneads her belly lazily with his front paw.

A short giggle escapes her lips. “Hey. That tickles.” She grabs the paw and puts it back.

My wolf wriggles higher on her lap and sticks his snout under her arm.

A peal of laughter rings out. “You did that on purpose!”

She shoves him back, her fingers slipping into his thick fur. “Oh. Wow. You’re so soft.”

I’m not. If I were in human form, my cock would be hard as a rock. As it is—I try not to think about it.

She plunges her fingers deeper into my pelt and scritches. My wolf’s tongue lolls, and he stops messing around, resting his muzzle on her upper thigh so he can sniff her pussy. He’s so damn happy.

I’ve never really felt his feelings before. We’re usually on the same page. Irritated. Aggressive. Excited. Horny. Somehow, he’s developed a mind of his own. Preferences.

I like big hair, big tits, a little effort. High heels and shit. I’m not into, like, homesteader chicks. But my wolf digs this female.

Mate.

It’s not possible. The wolf and the man are one. If the wolf has a mate, so does the man.

Mate.

I’ll be damned if my wolf doesn’t sound patronizing as hell. Like he’s talking to an idiot.

Annie cautiously creeps closer. My wolf ignores her. She’s not a threat.

Una glances at Annie. My wolf butts her. He wants all her attention.

She smiles, indulgent. She’s not scared—at all—anymore.

“Look at these paddles.” Una lifts my foreleg and measures herself against my paw. It eclipses her hand. Her palm is exquisitely soft against our rough pads.

Annie burrows into Una’s side and gawks. Between Liam and her, the whole pack is gonna hear about this by dinnertime.

Una’s gone back to smoothing my sides and scratching behind my ears. She’s humming under her breath, her expression dreamy. She’s pretty like this, unwary, unhurried. She seems younger. And when she leans to reach my far ear, her tits brush my flank.

Why did I never let her show me a good time?

For one, I guess she never came on to me like most of the other females. I’m not so lazy that I won’t make a move if I’m interested, but I never sniffed after her.

I’d say it was because I never noticed her, but we’re a small pack. Everyone’s on my radar, especially wolves like her who stick out.

She’s the lone female who sat at the front of the bus. The female who never shifted. The one with the tidy braid down her back. And obviously, the one with the busted leg.

If I’m gonna be honest, over the years, I’ve thought about her a lot. And little Mari and Old Noreen and the other lone females. And Conor and Jimmy and Kennedy. All the ones who would have been exiled, tormented, or exploited under my father.

Fixing that shit took years. Almost a decade, and I’m not half as far as I thought I’d be when my father passed and I beat Eamon Byrne to become alpha. Spared his life to set a new precedence—pack over ego. Pack over everything.

What my father never understood—and the elders refuse to grasp—is that subjugating and abusing your own packmates leads to a weak pack.

We’ve got Moon Lake to the east, growing fat off human money, snapping up land as quick as they can buy it. How long before they get the idea that Quarry Pack territory should rightfully be theirs? Might makes right.

If your pack has a bunch of broken females and cowering young, you look weak. I want plump, happy females swollen with young, and well-fed pups with thick coats yipping and wrestling in the commons.

In my father’s time, I’d only ever see it from the window of our old yellow bus as it rolled up to the Moon Lake school, but I knew it was good. It was strength.

So, yeah, I’ve considered Una a lot, but never in a sexual way. She’s damaged. It’d have been wrong.

My wolf doesn’t see her as off limits. He’s getting playful, and he’s not watching his strength like he should. He’s wriggling up on her lap, propping his paws against her chest to lick her face. She’d be knocked flat on her back if she wasn’t bracing herself on her arms.

He slurps right across her lips, and she shrieks, reaches up, and whacks him upside the head. I freeze.

He doesn’t even snarl. He plops back and rests his head on his paws, makin’ eyes at her, a contrite whine in the back of his throat. And then when she reaches out to pet him, he lunges up and slobbers on her face again.

He loves her shrieks.

He thinks this is the best shit ever.

And she’s smiling.

Maybe I’d be, too. If I were in my human skin. It would be a sight to see. A giant wolf teasing this small female as if he’s a pup.

This whole interaction is blowing my mind.

Generally, when I’m the wolf, my mind is blank, my consciousness deep in the animal. I’m along for the ride, brain disconnected, enjoying the experience.

Not now.

I’m hyperaware, and I’m baffled. I don’t get his motives.

He wants something from her, but he’s not pushing. He’s just messing with her.

He wants to get his rocks off, but he’s deferring the urge. He never defers the urge. We never have to.

Annie’s getting bored. She trots away to sniff Liam. He’s already shifted back to skin and working on the truck.

Eventually, my wolf has had enough of making Una squeal, and he rests his head in her lap. After a few seconds, she starts stroking the top of his head.

“You’re not scary at all, are you?” she says.

She’s a hundred percent wrong. My wolf and I have more kills than any alpha in North America. We’ve taken on a pack of ferals alone and left their drained carcasses in a heap. The sun-bleached pile of their bones still sits on the border of the southwest quadrant as a warning. The male pups dare each other to go there and steal a bone. It’s become a rite of passage.

I am a once-in-a-hundred-years flip-shifter, alpha at eighteen, bigger and stronger than any competitor I’ve faced on the circuit. My wolf and I show no mercy to those who threaten the pack. We rule with an iron fist.

And my wolf is drooling through this female’s jean skirt, luxuriating in the scent of her ripe pussy.

“I like you.” She runs a finger down my muzzle and fuckin’ boops my nose. My wolf flops and wriggles until his upper half is plastered to her lower abdomen—her womb, where she’ll grow our young.

Is that the wolf’s thought?

Mine?

She’s still propping herself up with her arms, and they’re wobbling, but she lets him lounge on her. He doesn’t have any concept of his weight. I’m gonna need to force him out of the skin if he doesn’t back off soon.

There’s nothing but birdsong and the distant ratcheting of a wrench, so when she speaks, I startle.

“You have to make Killian leave me alone,” she says low, almost under her breath.

What?

My wolf growls. He doesn’t like that either. We don’t take commands.

“We’re not mates anymore,” she goes on. “Abertha fixed it. Tell him to ignore me. Okay?”

Abertha fixed it? What the hell is she talking about?

She’s not moon mad. The wolf can smell that rot a mile away. She’s not making sense either. No one can “fix” a fated mating.

“Tell him he doesn’t have a mate now. He can do whatever he wants. He should leave me alone. I won’t cause any more scenes in the middle of dinner.”

She laughs, and it’s self-deprecating. Sad.

The wolf does not like how she’s talking. Impulsively, he bites her shirt and yanks.

She smacks him—hard—and says, “No.”

Immediately, she freezes, sucking in a breath. Now she shows her neck.

I’m summoning my skin, ready to wrestle control back, when my wolf very deliberately licks all the way up her exposed neck and then bites the shirt again, tugging back and forth, gently so as not to rip it, sly as hell. Teasing away her rush of instinctual fear.

It’s hard to think. Her taste explodes in our mouth. Our heartbeat kicks up, groin tightening, balls swelling.

He wants her. He nudges her. Growls a command. Roll over. Present.

She’s breathless. Nervous. Unsure. She scrambles away from us.

I don’t want that.

He lets her go, dropping his muzzle to his paws and pricking an ear. Holy shit, he’s trying to be cute.

She’s doing the complicated maneuver that she did after the fight to get herself back to her feet. Roll from her hip to all fours. Push up on her bad knee. Rise to her good leg. Take the pressure off the bad one and balance.

My wolf keeps his distance. We keep our distance.

What is he going to do? Somehow, we’re split for the first time in our lives. I don’t know what he’s going to do next, and I don’t trust him near her when she’s vulnerable. She’s unsteady on her feet. I stay back. I don’t draw attention to her weakness.

Why is my wolf giving her space after being all up on her? I have no idea.

“It was nice to meet you, Killian’s better half.” She speaks softly, her lips curved. “Tell him I’m not a threat, okay? I’m not going to attack anyone else. It was all a mistake. Everything can go back to normal. Please?”

Her brown eyes are big and round, and damn if they don’t remind me of something. A place and moment a long time ago, just beyond memory.

This isn’t normal.

Everything’s out of whack.

My wolf’s gone rogue. My brain is on the fritz. Abertha the crone is somehow involved.

And Una Hayes tastes fucking amazing.