Page 6 of Pack to the Wall

“I don’t know! What does that even mean? Fated?” Since I’d been old enough to ride, I’d been groomed by Harley to be the next alpha. I knew everything about our kind… or so I’d thought.

I turned and sat on the front step, the woman still laying in my arms, and my mom sat next to me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders.

“It means that you’re bound to her. That you’re her mate, for life. That you’ll do anything and everything in your power for her, to serve and protect her. It means that if she dies, you’ll probably go mad.That’swhat fated means.”

That certainly matched how I felt. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” My mom shook her head. “Tyson, you know she’ll be dead in a week. There’s no way Brick or Tank won’t challenge her. And now that they know she has a gun, they’ll be wary. If they’re shifted, bullets won’t mean as much to them. They’ll kill her, and you… I don’t know, Tyson. This is messed up.”

“I won’t let them harm her,” I growled, even though some part of me knew I wouldn’t be able to protect her in an alpha challenge. I’d be an outcast if I did.

“You guys are werewolves, aren’t you?” came the unsteady, cracking voice of a teen boy from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder at the kid that had started all of this. The pup had run out, waving at us. When we’d stopped, he’d said he knew our secret.

“Why?” I asked him, growling. “Why would you do something like that? It was foolish and dangerous.Especiallyif you know what we are.”

“Cause werewolves are cool! I was hoping you’d bite me and make me strong, like you.”

It was clear the little pup had watched too much TV. I glared at him, letting a partial shift take my eyes, fading from dark blue to golden yellow.

“Yeah, we’re what you say, but wewon’tbite you,” I growled. “We aren’t superheroes. We’re villains and you don’t want to join us.”

The kid backed off, trembling, nodding. Then ran back into the house.

I returned my eyes to their human shade and sighed.

“It’s too late,” my mom whispered beside me. “This woman claimed our pack, which means her pack joins ours. That kid is one of us now, even if he hasn’t been bitten yet.”

“Fuck,” I said, yet again. She was right.

This was messed up, and there wasn’t a way out of it.

Ineededthis woman to live. But that meant I had to teach her to fight…in a week.

Moreover, in that time, I also needed to instruct her on how to run a pack and what it meant to rule a gang of shifters. Most likely, I’d have to turn her, too.

It was a good thing the full moon was tomorrow night. That was a stroke of luck, at least. I had one week to make sure that my fated — a woman who wasn’t a wolf and had no clue we existed — could fight and survive an alpha challenge with my father, who’d been a wolf his entire life.

I breathed a final, confounded, “Fuck.”

We didn’t have time for this woman to remain unconscious. Gods, Ireallyneeded to know her name. I needed to wake her and get her ready. Now.

I tapped her cheek lightly and whispered, “Wake up.”

“She just killed a man. I think it’ll take more than a light tap to wake her,” my mom said.

“You’re right.” But I wasn’t going to hit her any harder. I couldn’t. I rose and took her inside.

The house was a bungalow with a wide front room divided into a living room, dining room, and kitchen, from left to right. I set her on a couch, then went to the kitchen, found a cup, and filled it with water. Returning, I splashed it on her face.

The woman sputtered, waking.

Time for some hard truths.

But first I knelt beside her and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Jane,” she said, before she’d fully come to herself. She wiped the water from her face, then looked at me, eyes going wide. “You…”

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