Page 3 of The Alpha's Bullied Mate

Tess growled. “Shut it, Elin.”

“I’m just teasing,” Elin answered with a laugh.

Mica opened her mouth, but the words got lost on her tongue. Hayden started to walk forward, the six other wolves following after him like soldiers following their leader. Which they were, she realized. Her heart started pounding even harder, as though she somehow knew what was happening.

“Alpha Monroe,” Hayden called out. His voice boomed through the hall.

Monroe narrowed his eyes at him. “Hayden. What are you doing, interrupting me?”

“I challenge you for the leadership of the Bluebell Valley Pack,” Hayden said. His shoulders threw back, and his chest puffed out. “I want to be Alpha.”

Chapter 2 - Hayden

Gasps and whispers erupted all throughout the hall. Hayden pretended like he couldn’t hear them, never moving his gaze off Monroe. They could be shocked all they wanted, but it didn’t change anything. Behind him, his team stood in perfect formation. He could sense where each one of them was. He felt the coiling of their muscles, ready to fight should anyone attack.

“You? Challenge me?” Alpha Monroe frowned at him.

He was a muscular man still in his prime, more than a challenge for most wolves. But Hayden wasn’t most wolves. After leading his team for years against threats that the shifter world was ignorant of, he had more than enough experience to take down the alpha of an admittedly disorganized and uninteresting pack.

“Yes,” Hayden answered. “I challenge you. Shall we set the date for the fight?”

Monroe’s beta, Spencer, as hairy and dense as a bull even in human form, stormed forward. “Take that back, Pup, before you get ripped to shreds. How dare you abandon this pack only to come waltzing back in, thinking you can challenge our alpha?”

Hayden didn’t flinch as Spencer stopped right in front of him. He lifted a lip, revealing a long canine as he snarled.

“I don’t believe I offered the challenge toward you, Beta Spencer,” Hayden said. He fought the urge to smirk. “Only Monroe can answer this challenge. Either set a time to fight or forfeit like a coward.”

More muttering broke out around them. In the years Monroe had been Alpha, nobody had challenged him. Whenever there were whispers about someone challenging him, they endedup badly beaten and run out of town in the best scenarios. In the worst cases, they met with mysterious accidents—like the one that had killed Hayden’s parents.

Hayden couldn’t believe that his father would have challenged Monroe, but when it came to bullies like Monroe, the truth hardly mattered.

It was no wonder why the demons had chosenhim.

Even though Hayden didn’t have the ability to see the red aura around a person possessed by demons, Finn could. And it hadn’t taken more than a glance for his teammate to confirm what they all suspected. A demon was controlling Monroe. A powerful one, too, if the density of the aura around him was any indication.

Why the demons had a special interest in the Bluebell Valley pack was anyone’s guess, but they were here.

“Spencer,” Monroe said sharply.

Spencer glared a moment longer at Hayden. Then he hissed, “If you managed to beat the challenge, do you think you could hold this pack?”

Then he turned and stalked back to Monroe’s side. Hayden cocked his head slightly to catch Finn in his peripheral vision. Finn gave a slight shake of his head. So Spencer wasn’t possessed. Not that it made much of a difference. Hayden’s goal here was clear. Defeat Monroe, find the source of the demon activity in the area, and shut it down.

He’d deal with the reality of being an Alpha afterward.

“I don’t think you know what you’re doing, boy,” Monroe said. “It’s not something you can merely say and then take back later. Are you certain you know what you’re getting into?”

The condescending tone made Hayden grind his teeth together. A few people in the crowd laughed out loud, as though the alpha had said something witty.

I have a reason for being here,he reminded himself.

The others in his team, Ryder, Blayke, Kai, and Maverick, wanted to save the pack. Even if it weren’t his home pack, they would need to do something to stop the demon threat. If demons got a foothold in the world, it would be difficult to purge them from it.

And yes, Hayden did feel responsible for the pack, too. It came with the territory when one had an Alpha’s spirit. His parents were dead, and he had no strong ties to this pack anymore, but it was where he grew up. He knew these people. He knew who suffered beneath Monroe’s rule before the demons came, and who would be the first to be sacrificed.

The shock of red hair that had caught his eye the moment he stepped into the hall moved slightly. Hayden resisted the urge to turn. He could imagine the look on Mica’s face as all this went down, but imagining was as far as it would go.

“I know exactly what I’m getting into, Alpha,” Hayden answered. “I can’t help but wonder why you seem to be delaying answering my challenge.”

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