Page 36 of Rabid
The blond male isn’t Tyran, the tyrannical alpha of the Ruin Falls pack. The male whoclaimedme is. I don’t just belong to this barbaric group of wolves. I’ve been mated by the male who leads them.
Fuck. My. Life.
* * *
There’s a collective intake of breath from the pack as I reel with understanding and shock. My feet are backing up before I even realize I’m doing it, but as soon as I do, I force myself to stand still again. The second I’m rooted in place, his eyes move away from me. “Warrik and Reap, step forward.”
My head snaps to the right as I watch the two wolves who filled the bath in the shed come forward. Warrik looks rough, as though he didn’t sleep last night after my run-in with him in the woods. Tyran’s eyes stay locked on the two males as they stop in front of the deck, heads tipped up to look at their alpha. If they had tails right now, they’d be tucked under them as tightly as they could be.
Beneath the sun, the tanned skin of Tyran’s muscled chest makes my mouth water. Right now, with his hands braced on the railing as he looks down at the two wolves beneath him, he looks every bit the formidable alpha leader. I kick myself for not realizing it sooner. He’s strong. So much stronger than anything I’ve ever experienced. No wonder he was able to handle me and my wolf at our most rabid.
“Beta Warrik, you are accused of giving an outsider access to the pack and our territory on the night of our sacred claiming hunt.” Tyran’s grip tightens on the railing, and my stomach tightens right along with it. “Do you deny it?”
Warrik stands tall and proud, hands clasped in front of him as he looks up at Tyran. “No.”
At his answer, voices murmur through the gathered group.
“What was your reasoning?” Tyran asks, his face a stony mask, expression unreadable.
For a split second, Warrik turns, his eyes finding me in the crowd. “She was captured on our land, which means she belonged to our pack the moment we found her. It was moon-blessed that she arrived here on the night of our claiming hunt,” he argues. “She’s wild, and there are males here who deserve a claim. All females in our pack participate in the hunt.”
“She was not yet part of our pack,” Tyran snaps out, voice cracking like a whip. “You could have loosed a spy. A saboteur. Or an even greater threat. But more than that, you acted without your alpha’s permission and without thought for your fellow pack members.”
It’s almost imperceptible, but the shifters standing around me seem to inch away from me at Tyran’s words, distrustful gazes falling on me, though every time I try to meet their eyes, they’ve already turned away.
Tyran moves his attention to the second male. “Delta Reap. You are facing the same reckoning.”
The second male’s eyes widen, and he tears a hand through his ashy brown hair, yanking on it in frustration. “I told him it was a bad idea!” he calls up, shooting an angry look at Warrik that’s filled with blame and accusation.
“But you did nothing to stop it from happening,” Tyran bites out. “You did not report Warrik’s behavior to your superiors.”
At that, Reap goes silent, head hanging down as he stares at the ground. Warrik continues to look straight ahead, though I don’t miss the way his face has seemed to pale. I have no idea what areckoninginvolves here, but it’s put fear and dread into these males, and tension is pulsating out of the rest of the gathered pack.
Tyran lifts his gaze to the crowd. “At the moon’s first light, the reckoning begins,” he announces, and the pack nods almost in unison. “May it be a good reminder for everyone that your alpha does not tolerate disobedience or selfish acts that could put the pack in jeopardy.”
Without another word, he turns and walks into the large house with the blond male, door slamming shut behind them. And I...I just stand there, gaping, blinking, a hundred thoughts swarming in my mind. But one blares louder than the other. He didn’t announce me. He didn’t announce that my escaping the shed and running in the hunt has resulted inhimclaiming me. And for some reason, that bothers me. Much more than it should. Yet when I look around, I find every single pack member is still standing in place, staring at me, and my wolf and I bristle.
A nervous lump gets stuck in my throat, but I meet their gazes head-on. Tipping up my chin, I pretend I’m not covered in dirt with their alpha’s teeth marks in my shoulders or his release caking my thighs. I pretend I’m not completely clueless about pretty much everything when it comes to this pack or what the hell is going on.
The rankling fact of the matter though is that Tyran has left me to flounder. The prick bit me not once buttwice, ensuring that my blood tainted the air during this announcement, making his scent mingle with mine more than it already is, and has essentially just left me to be fed on by his wolves. I’m no better than the meat roasting on spits over the spread out fires. Will someone do to me whatIdid to their food earlier? Swipe me away and gobble me down?
“Problem?” I ask testily, my gaze swinging from left to right. It might seem a little bit like poking the beast, but I’m not left with another alternative. If I drop my gaze and tuck tail, I have no doubt this pack will pick their teeth with me. No, I need to make each and every one of them think that I’m the biggest, baddest bitch they’ve ever seen.
Tense seconds tick by without anyone saying a damn thing. My muscles are stiff, my wolf so near the surface that I’m itchy all over, dying to scratch the fur right out of my skin. The next pass of my gaze snags on Warrik, and I’m stunned at the level of resentment I see reflected back in his golden eyes, as if he blamesme.
The entire pack looks between us, a level of excited anticipation staining the air, and then Warrik spits on the ground and cuts through the crowd, walking in the opposite direction. As if his movement acted as the catalyst, everyone else begins to disperse too, and I’m finally able to let out the breath I was holding.
That is, until I hear Presley’s voice behind me. “Did you hear him? Alpha is pissed that she got loose and that his wolf claimed her. I don’t blame him, though. I mean,lookat her. Did you see her eyes? Her wolf is bent as fuck. It’s only a matter of time before she goes completely rabid.”
I whirl around, catching the tail end of her biting comments. She and three other females are staring at me over their shoulders, their eyes dripping with disdain. Presley shoots me a look of contempt before turning back around, her words getting swallowed up with distance and the rest of the pack’s mingling voices and sounds. My hands curl into fists, my nail beds aching with the press of sharp claws just threatening to break through.
But I can’t do that.
I can’t lose control and prove what Presley just so loudly said about me. I’d just be playing right into her hands, giving merit to her words, and making myself even more of a leper to a pack I might be stuck with.
“Don’t worry about her.” I look over to find Harlan coming up next to me. “Presley has some deep-seated bitterness against other females. She’s neither a powerful alpha, a coveted omega, or an equal beta.”
“She’s a delta?” I ask with surprise.
