The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #1)(90)

Haisley draws herself up and smirks. “Or what?” Now that sounds like her.

“I’ll shut it for you.”

The entire pack looks at me. They know. Even Cheryl’s starting to look green around the gills.

Haisley doesn’t give an inch. Whoever’s put her up to this has done a thorough job of messing with her head. Her instincts should be screaming, but instead, she laughs. “Don’t you remember my fangs in your neck, bitch? That’s what’s wrong with you and all your misfit friends up in the reject cabin. You think ‘cause Alpha pities you that you’re safe? Strength rules in Quarry Pack, and everyone knows your wolf is a sad, scrawny loser.”

There’s the sound of a hundred simultaneous drawn in breaths.

Haisley glances over to her brother, proud and high on her own audacity. There’s a shine in her eyes. I wouldn’t doubt but that she’s high on something else, too. I catch Cheryl’s attention and nod for her to come get her girl.

“He’s gonna breed you and leave you, and then you’re gonna be back on the bottom with Toddlers and Tiaras, weepy Annie, and the freak who doesn’t even know if she’s a boy or a girl.” Haisley jerks her thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen door where Mari, Annie, and Kennedy are gathered.

Una snarls from the back of her throat, a clear warning, and I’m just about to step in when everything happens at once.

Una tugs the bond so hard I can feel it in my breastbone. Come on.

“I told you to shut your mouth. Now you’re gonna lose your teeth.” The words are garbled by Una’s lengthening fangs, but we can all make them out. The pack edges backwards, riveted. Dams hiss at pups to back up.

There’s another yank at the bond like I got a goddamn leash attached to my solar plexus. Come, mate. We attack.

I can’t stop the stupid grin. Good thing Una’s focused one hundred percent on Haisley. “Alpha doesn’t pity me. Alpha belongs to me.”

Hell, yeah, I do.

As Una’s body breaks, I become the wolf, and howl the truth to the rafters. Finally, the insolence in Haisley’s eyes dims, and her gaze darts around the room. Cheryl’s waving wildly, but Eamon and Lochlan are still standing, unbowed, so she hesitates.

Big mistake.

I bolt for Haisley. Females scream. Haisley abandons her skin to her wolf who promptly panics as she registers the enraged alpha leaping for her.

Haisley should thank freakin’ Fate that Una shifts slow as molasses, and I beat her wolf across the floor. If Haisley raised a paw to her, I’d rip her head from her spine.

As it is, all I have to do is snap my teeth, and Haisley’s wolf skitters backwards and crawls under a table, mewling for her mother. Cheryl has backed off to huddle beside her mate in human form. No help coming for those quarters.

Dermot’s looking uneasy, but he’s not gonna make a move. Not for a “strictly for heat” mate. Not against certain death.

It takes a second for Una’s wolf to catch up to me, and she nips my haunch as she passes, howling and growling and letting the whole damn lodge know that no one touches her girls, and Haisley better come out and fight us.

Haisley cowers closer to the floor, neck bent at a right angle. Eamon and Lochlan exchange glances, but they don’t move to help her. She’s a female. In their eyes, she doesn’t rank. Not enough to risk skin or fur. They want to live to plot another day.

Una’s wolf yaps louder, unsatisfied with Haisley’s submission. She wants a pound of flesh.

Drag her out so I can kill her.

I love how her wolf doesn’t hesitate to boss my ass around. She knows how it is. But you can’t always get what you want, especially when you’re in charge. The sooner Una and her bloodthirsty wolf learn that the better.

I bite the scruff of Una’s neck and draw her back to the dais. She growls in the back of her throat and stays stiff as she lets me pull her away. It’s freakin’ adorable.

I shift back to human first. Gael’s right there with another pair of shorts. This pair rides up my ass. I don’t look around. I don’t want to know what scrawny whelp he got ‘em off of.

Una’s wolf rumbles a little longer to make sure her point is taken, and then she plops on her rump and gazes up at me expectantly. I squat, my back to the room, so that no one will see my beautiful mate in her bare human skin.

I know we’re shifters, and it’s normal and everything, but if shit’s changing, maybe we all need to get more modest. Fit in better with the humans or whatever. I’ll figure out a justification. No one sees Una’s tits but me.

Finally, Una takes back her skin, and she’s flushed and breathless. Magnificent. Gael lays a sundress on my shoulder and scurries away. That one is smart. The fabric smells like an unmated, protected female. Not ideal but acceptable.

I help Una tug it over her head. Her braid’s undone, and her eyes are still flashing with temper.

“No one touches my girls,” she says.

I turn to direct my response to the pack. “No one touches the lone females.”

“Or threatens them.”

I nod in agreement.

She lowers her voice, and her brow furrows, like she’s working something out. “She wouldn’t fight me.”

“Nope.”

“Because your wolf would kill her.”

“Yeah. Without hesitation.”