“Yes you have, and a great second youhave been. I know this is a bit of a shock to all of us, to have a newlychangedfemale so high up in the pack. As you know, nothing will feel settled with youabout Aurora until we know how dominant she is. Your wolf will wonder if youcould take her in a fight and I can’t have that. Not in my pack. Max, Aurora.Continue.”
I was already sweating because thelast two stare downs had been very difficult. I felt like looking down multipletimes but I didn’t. Not before they did. But with Max I was scared. What wouldthis mean? If I was more dominant than him would I become the second in commandof some new pack I knew nothing about? Some life I didn’t ask for? Maybe Ishould just look down halfway through so I didn’t have to deal with this.
‘If you do that, his wolf will alwayswonder where you stand, and a fight will break out eventually.’Kai. In my head. Great. I steppedforward. I had to be brave or at least try to be. I looked Max in the eyes. Ididn’t blink. I barely breathed. After about thirty seconds he started pantingand I began to feel weak in the knees. I felt the strongest urge to bow my headin submission. I pushed the urge back. Iwasstrong.
I had been through a lot in my shorttwenty-two years on this planet, enough to give me a thick skin. I’d beenthrough things that still gave me nightmares. Things no person should ever haveto endure. I didn’t know what this meant for my future; didn’t know what beinga werewolf meant for what I had planned for my life but it was better thanbeing dead, and if Kai hadn’t saved me, I would be. If being this high up inthe pack was where I was meant to be, then I would be. I stared. He stared.Sweat broke out on my forehead and his as well. He bit his lip and with agrunt he dropped his eyes, bowing his head down low.
I took a step back, startled. I wipedmy forehead and tried to catch my breath. Max looked at Kai and somethingunspoken seemed to pass between them. Anger was coming off of Max in waves. Kainodded slightly and Max scowled at me and then took off running into the woods.He shed his shirt and slowly changed into his wolf form, his body wascontorting and cracking. I sucked in a breath at the sight. I turned to see Kaiopen his arms wide.
“Brothers and sisters, I welcomeAurora into my pack as my second in command.”
There was murmuring among the wolves.‘Pack,’they told me, as they looked me up and down. Kai’s warm bodypushed up against me as he whispered in my ear. “You have their inner wolves’respect. Any one of them would die in a fight for you, but now you need to gettheir human side’s respect. That’s a whole other ballgame as you Americans liketo say.” His breath against my neck made my stomach drop, but his words flushedcold water through my veins.
“Let’s eat! Steaks are on the grillout back,” Kai announced and motioned for us to move to the back of the house. Myinner wolf was pleased with our new place in the pack. I was scared shitless.
Second
“Wow, second,” Emma squeaked behindme. I turned to her voice and she cast her eyes down slightly towards my nose.I wondered if I would ever get used to having to think before I made eyecontact with someone.
Now that I had time to look around, Irealized we were in a heavily wooded area on Mt. Hood. There were cabinsdotting the property. But Kai’s was by far the biggest. There were no fences,just open space.
“Yeah, who knew?” I shrugged, notsure of what to say. We walked together around to the back of the house towardsthe smell of cooking food. I was still in shock over making second in the pack.
She smiled and grabbed my hand. “Comeon, I’ll introduce you to my mate.”
That word again. Kai had said some ofthe men here were wondering if I was their mate.
“Your mate…” I left the sentenceopen.
“Yeah, Devon. We just had our matingceremony a few months ago. You missed it.”
“So that’s like a wedding?” I inquired.I glanced around. The backyard had a large green space with four large rectangletables and a few grills that were smoking. I wondered if they had any veggieburgers. Yeah, right.
“Kind of like a wedding, except matesare extremely rare and once a werewolf mates, they mate for life. And insteadof exchanging rings, like I’ve seen humans do on TV, you exchange blood.”
My eyes must have bulged out of myhead.
“Not like drinking blood! Just alittle nip, a marking.” She pulled up her long shirt sleeve to reveal a teethbite mark on her wrist. “It’s infused with magic. Devon and I are mated forlife and now we can have children.” She smiled.
“Talking about me, I hope?” A tallguy with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes came up behind us.
Emma blushed. “Aurora, this is Devon.My mate and husband.”
Devon grasped my hand and bowedslightly. “A pleasure. Welcome to the pack. We are all really excited to haveyou. Most of us anyway.” He gestured to Sadie and a few other guys that sat atone of the tables, scowling. Emma smacked him and he kissed her cheek beforeheading over to tend to one of the grills. I remembered Devon being towards themiddle of the pack.
“So it’s not a problem that you’resubmissive and Devon’s…”
“Dominant?” Emma threw the word outthere. “It’s actually the best combination for mates. Two wolves that are tooclose within pack rank could either be very powerful together or haveunderlying tension. If you have two highly dominant wolves and danger comes, whoprotects who? If the less dominant tries to protect the more dominant, it’slike saying they can’t protect themselves. It could start a fight. With Devonand I, we know our place. If something ever happened and he was hurt, I wouldprotect him with my last breath, but generally, I let him take the lead.” Shesmiled. “Enough Wolf 101, let’s mingle. We have plenty of time to talk in thecoming centuries. Did I forget to tell you? Unless killed, werewolves prettymuch live forever.” She walked towards the crowd.
Okay. I was immortal. No big deal.Holy crap!
A young Indian boy that was thespitting image of Kai set a large bloody steak in front of me. “For you, mylady.” He grinned. He looked about sixteen but who knew what his real age was.I covered my nose; the smell of meat made me nauseous.
“Thank you, but actually I’m avegetarian.”
The boy’s face fell. Werewolves musthave good hearing because every voice stopped and you could see all heads turntowards me. The boy began laughing, a deep throaty laugh. “My brother’s newsecond in command. A vegetarian?”
I smirked back at him. “Yes. Key words,second in command.” Power radiated out of my voice. I hadn’t meant to be likethat. The boy immediately stopped laughing, dropped his gaze and everyone wentback to talking. Kai came over with a plate of corn on the cob and mashedpotatoes and set it in front of me. He ruffled his brother’s hair.
