Page 48 of Alpha Games
The old man sighed over the phone as if resigning himself to some fate. “She likes sunflowers, but don’t tell her I told you.”
“Noted.” I pulled up the florist order on my laptop, changing the arrangement and adding rush delivery. They’d bring it to the resort in a few hours. It still amazed me what money could do and how fast it could make people move.
Aspen’s papa took a long slurp of a drink. “You got the hunt coming up soon.”
“I do.” I nodded, powering down my laptop. Another thing to add to the never-ending list, but I was an expert at checking items off.
“You know what’s in season this time of year, don’t ‘cha?” His mischievous tone made me chuckle.
“I sure do.”
*
I stared out over the mountain range through my wolf’s eyes, taking in the forested valley below. He was more relaxed up here, stretching muscles he hadn’t used in days, and working out the kinks in his pace. I might have imagined it, but his paw prints seemed bigger. Which was a strange sign of the coming rut we’d not experienced before.
I’ll tell you what else is bigger.He strutted along the top of the ridge with his tail swishing high in the air. I chuckled, not feeding into his arrogance.
It was late afternoon and I still had a few more hours to kill before the flowers arrived so we were using the lag in time to scout a little further than before. I wasn’t the only shifter who’d been up here in the past few days and wouldn’t be the last.
If I remembered right, there were no local Alphas on the show this season. The terrain was unfamiliar to us all. It wouldn’t be too difficult to compete in this round though. Hunting was in our blood. It was the nature of the wolf. But the true test of strength was a clean kill which was a delicate balance in the dance between human and beast.
“I scented some natural coyotes a few hundred yards back.”Mattox’s wolf approached my right flank, following the elk trail I’d tracked up here.
I wasn’t searching for elk or coyotes though. Not for the kill I had in mind.“I’ve got what I’m looking for. Let’s head back down the mountain.”
Mattox mumbled something about “a waste of time”but I hadn’t asked him to follow me. Like tonight, I wanted tomorrow to go as smoothly as possible so I could be done with these games.
We raced through the woods, making good time with the downhill slope aiding our speed. Mattox lagged a bit behind, but I’d always outrun him. We were evenly matched in size and strength most of our lives, making us good sparing partners in the cages, but he hated cardio.
I slowed my pace, thinking of how different things would be between us in the coming days.
“We both may be mated this season.”
“And?”He panted behind me.“Think it will slow you down finally?”
“I’m not worried about that.”My wolf and I both huffed as we neared the dirt road and clearing where the pack campsite was set up.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet. We’ve got too much riding on this now.”Mattox trotted up beside me.
I shifted into human form, grabbing a pair of shorts from where I’d left them on the tree. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means the whole pack is excited you’re bringing home a Luna.” Mattox pulled his shirt over his head. “So you aren’t allowed to screw this up.”
“Was there something I messed up?” I stilled, looking him directly in the eye. Mattox was my second because he was one of the few people who told me like it was. He was also one of the few peoplewho’d punched me in the face and lived to talk about it.
We’d grown up as teenagers together and though our circumstances were different for why we’d both ended up in the ring, he was the closest thing I had to a brother.
Which is why it pained me when he lowered his gaze, grumbling, “No Alpha.”
“Now who’s got cold feet?”
His upper lip curled as his wolf flashed in his eyes. “Fine. You haven’t screwed anything up yet, but if we’d gone about this like Fallon or I suggested, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”
“If we’d attacked like you two wanted, we’d be no better than Lester sitting in prison to rot,” I growled. “This was the right way to challenge them. The honorable way. And if I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have met Aspen. So I’m okay with thismessas you call it.”
Mattox rubbed his hand over his bearded jaw, nodding. “You’re right. I just… I want this to be finished. We’ve waited too long to make them pay. It was so close I could taste it and now it seems like it’s slipping away.”
“We chose the long game and it’s not over yet. I swore not only to my sister and dying mother, but to you and Ivan and Foster and everyone else affected that I’d get revenge for the bullshit they’d done. Also…” I stopped walking to shake Mattox’s shoulder, “I’m always right. You know that.”