Page 13 of Cruel Alpha

Shit. I hadn’t realized that there was a low but distinct rumble in my chest, angry and aggressive. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t burst into the hall ready to throw down.

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking a few deep breaths to smooth out my breathing.

By the time I had myself back under control, we were at the hall. I snapped an order at Dale and Harry, who were loitering outside as I’d expected, to go stand guard over Julia’s cottage before I pushed open the doors. My heart sank as I saw how many of Dad’s old Betas were lining the walls of the main room, ready to watch me face off with the Arbor Alpha. Maybe Ishouldtake a leaf out of Leo’s book and invest in a private meeting room for my Alpha business.

The Arbor Alpha definitely didn’t have a meeting room. He stood barefoot on the cold stone floor, shirtless, with a ratty pair of sweats clinging to his hips. Older than me by at least twenty years, he was an established leader and strong, but his ego was easily bruised: a fatal flaw in any Alpha.

He’d brought a couple of his Betas with him, likely as a show of strength, but I could use that against him if I needed to. To be embarrassed in another Alpha’s Pack was one thing, but to be embarrassed in front of one’s own Betas was unthinkable for a shifter like him.

“What can I do for you today, uh—” I hesitated as though I didn’t remember his name. “Remind me?” I said to Nate, low enough to seem polite but loud enough to reach every ear in the room.

“Connor Slade,” Nate whispered back to me, failing to repress a grin.

Connor Slade’s hands balled into fists at his sides, and he clicked his neck. Good.

“Connor,” I said, smiling wide and insincere. “What can I do for you?”

“You know damn well,” Slade growled. “I want that whore witch and her mongrel children.”

I could have ripped his throat out for that alone, but I had my wolf in a stranglehold. I wasn’t an animal. I was in control.

“Her name is Alyssa,” I said, infusing every syllable with the authority that had always been coiled inside me. “You will use it while you’re on my island.”

The other Alpha did not flinch or bow his head at my words—he’d be no kind of Alpha if he did—but I knew I’d been understood. What I liked less was the collective intake of breath from the wolves in my own Pack. Plenty of them had been happy to see Alyssa banished, whether they agreed she deserved it or not. They weren’t going to like that she was back, and they weren’t going to like butting heads with Arbor, but they were going to have to live with it.

“What claim do you have to them?” I continued. “Alyssa is of Lapine Pack. She and her children belong to us.”

I braced myself for his counter, for him to claim the children as Arbor’s property, but no such claim materialized. Instead, he scowled back at me.

“The girl brat attacked one of ours. Her mother was living amongst us and hiding her true nature. Arbor does not abide a witch as other islands do.” He said “witch” as though the very word could curse him. It was superstitious bullshit.

“Did the girl do serious harm?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Your man who was attacked, does he live?”

Reluctantly, Slade said,

“Yes.”

I frowned as if confused.

“Did he bleed?”

This time, I could have sworn the other Alpha’s face colored with embarrassment.

“No,” he grumbled, barely audible.

“Then I fail to see the issue here,” I said, relaxing my posture to lean back against the table behind me. “There are scraps between members of different Packs regularly enough. We don’t seek retribution unless serious damage is done. But here you are in my hall asking me to hand over a female and her two young children for what? A couple of bruises?”

Slade’s face was definitely coloring, but the flushed red of embarrassment was moving swiftly to the mottled purple of rage.

“They’re unnatural!” he spat. “She flouted our laws and touched us all with her foul magic. If she were precious to you and to your Pack, she would not have been living onmyisland. Would you really offend your neighbors for her sake?”

Shit. That would hold weight with the men around me. They certainly weren’t prepared to go to war with Arbor, to endanger the entire Pack for the sake of a woman whom my own father had banished from the island not three years earlier. They didn’t know she was their future Alpha female; to them, she was just some half-breed that no one had ever cared for.

“She is a Lapine wolf.” I shrugged, as if this was all that needed to be said. “Her children will grow up to be Lapine wolves. Do you think I don’t know what you have planned for those children? You would really stoop to the murder of our young?”

I had hoped that would cow him, but Slade seemed utterly unconcerned with the horror he was willing to perform for the sake of a slight.

“The witch’s get are not our young. They are a blight on these islands, and they should be culled before they can do any more damage.”

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