Page 82 of Dawn of the Pack

“Come on Alpha!”

“He’s nothing compared to you.”

“You can do this!”

“I believe in you!”

“Find your power, Lilliana. You just have to believe.”

That last voice I know without hesitation; it’s my uncle Dom.

“Dom?” I think back at him, unsure if this works both ways.

“Yes! You’ve got it! I knew you could do it.” His voice radiates pride.

“What am I doing? I don’t even understand it.”

“You’ve finally accepted your place as alpha. It allows you to communicate with the pack, and draw on their energy when you need it.”

“Are you serious right now? So all this time I still wasn’t alpha? And that’s why I couldn’t fight?”

“It’s more complex than that, but until you fully embraced your duty as alpha, you couldn’t draw on an alpha’s most important resource: the pack.”

Nielsen growls again, shaking me back and forth in his efforts to claim my submission. I force myself to remain limp, allowing him to think he’s still winning while I wrap my head around this new information.

I thought the ‘strength of the pack’ meant just having so many people, many hands make light work. It never occurred to me drawing on the strength of the pack meant literally drawing from their energy.

My voice still reverberates with the alpha timbre when I think at him, but Dom’s doesn’t. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about this? Shouldn’t they know I’m supposed to hear them?”

“They can’t speak to you; you can only hear them if you reach out to listen. I’m not speaking to you so much as thinking loudly, and hoping you’ll hear me. It’s another talent of the alpha’s, so we can monitor the pack. They don’t know you can hear them.”

A sudden flicker of apprehension hits me. “Can Nielsen hear us?”

“No, not unless you’re aiming your thoughts directly at him.”

“Good. I don’t want him to know what I’m about to do.”

That distinctive note of pride is in Dom’s tone again. “You can do this, Lilliana. We all believe in you.”

“Thank you, uncle.”

As much as their whispered words—or rather, thought words—of encouragement are buoying me up, I mentally cut myself off in order to focus.

Right now, Nielsen believes I’ve all but given up and have nothing left to fight him.

Of course it makes sense, now, how he could beat me so easily. He was drawing on an endless well of energy, able to recover almost instantly from the injuries I dealt him. I only had my personal reserves, so I didn’t stand a chance against that sort of power before. I conjure up a silent prayer of gratitude that something in me refused to concede in those long, dark minutes, despite my utter lack of hope.

But despite his obvious frustration, I get the sense that Nielsen isn’t that upset that I’ve yet to whine my submission. He seems to bask in the belief that he’s won, practically preening with it. He drags me around in a circle as if showing off his handiwork to all the observers.

Mentally, I check myself over carefully. Of course I can’t observe them, but all the wounds I’ve received don’t seem to hurt anymore. Whether it’s some kind of mental block or the collective pack energy bolstered my recovery and I’m actually healed, I’m grateful either way.

But my body feels primed and ready to continue fighting, as if I’ve just woken from a long, restful night of sleep.

Even Nielsen’s teeth in my throat aren’t painful. I can feel the pressure, but it doesn’t really hurt.

My body is bursting with vitality, but I remain limp. I need Nielsen to be convinced I’m completely out of a fight so he’ll make a fatal error for me to take advantage of.

It takes a few more minutes of his ridiculous show, but he finally does what I’ve been waiting for.

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