Page 28 of Ruthless Alpha
I couldn’t help laughing at the expression he pulled, like a teenage girl thinking about her crush.
“I do not look like that,” I protested, but Jace only shrugged.
“Just calling it like I see it. And I do see it. Every day.”
I was about to reply with something incredibly witty and correct when the door of the lab opened, and Cole rushed in.
“Challenge in South Four,” he panted. “Looks like one fatality.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Stay here, Jace. I’ll check in later if I can.”
Jace simply nodded, shooing me away as he turned his attention back to the project. With tensions already high, I didn’t need Jace on hand to make me look weak. Not that Jacewasweak, but when faced with a similar resources issue, Opifex had elected to concentrate on mechanics over warfare, and there were plenty of Ensign who looked down on them for it. If a fight had broken out, the males’ blood would be up, and I didn’t need them trying to challenge a visiting Heir.
“Report,” I barked at Cole as we ran the short distance to South Four.
“Tyler’s mate came to see him in the dorm because she’s an idiot,” Cole told me. “Harris made some comments about her—he’s always liked a blonde—and then all hell broke loose.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Tyler.”
That was not the answer I’d wanted to hear. Tyler was pretty level-headed, a decent fighter who knew what his business was and what it wasn’t. His mate, Nessa, was never sporting bruises, and the two seemed happy together. Harris, on the other hand, was a hothead who thought he could brute-force his way through any issue. It seemed like he’d done so successfully on this occasion, and it was my job to bring him back down to earth before his ego made him do something stupid.
I could hear Nessa wailing from a hundred yards away. When we arrived at the scene, she was cowering against the side of the South Four dorm, her clothes torn and her hands bloodied. She’d probably tried to staunch the bleeding of her mate’s wounds before she realized it was fruitless. My heart ached for her, but now wasn’t the time for comfort: Harris and a couple of others were looming over her, and it looked like I had gotten there just in time.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Hey, what the fuck’s going on here?”
The assembled males stood to attention at the sound of my voice, and Nessa curled further in on herself where she was backed up against the building. Harris was still eyeing her, unable to keep still, his attention barely on me.
“I won her fair and square, Alpha,” he declared. His mouth and chin were soaked in blood, and I could tell he was still high from the kill. “Tyler started with me, so I finished it, and now she’s mine.”
“You gonna give her a minute to mourn the loss of her mate?” I said. Technically, itwaswithin his rights to claim Nessa, but the thought of letting him take her made my stomach turn. She was so small, blonde just like Rosie—but I knew she’dput up a fight if he tried to touch her, even if the smarter move would be to just let it happen.
“He was useless anyway.” Harris grinned, hawking a gob of pink spittle onto the ground. “She’ll have a better time with me.”
“She’ll have a better time in the widows’ dorm,” I corrected. “Cole, take her over there, see if you can pick up Lenise on the way. She’ll know what to do.” Lenise was good with the widows, knew just what to say, and offered the right brand of comfort. She was feisty, too.
“But Alpha—” Cole tried to argue, but I shut him down, my voice ringing with authority.
“I wasn’t asking.”
Everyone seemed to hold their breath. This wasn’t how things were done, and maybe I was going to regret it later, but I couldn’t allow Harris to touch Nessa with hands still covered in her mate’s blood. Cole looked at me like I’d lost my mind—and maybe I had—but he followed the order, yanking Nessa up and dragging her toward the females’ dormitories.
Harris stared after her, his fingers sharpening into claws, and a growl shaking his chest. He had no self-control, no discipline. I walked into his space, ignoring the warning snarl he let out as I placed a fist against his chest.
“If I hear you’ve laid a finger on her,” I said quietly, evenly, “you’re gonna find out what your insides look like.”
“It was a fair fight, Alpha,” he insisted. “I have a right—”
“You have the rights I let you have,” I reminded him. “You might have beaten Tyler in a fair fight, but I won’t hear you talking that way about your Packmates. He was a good man anda good fighter, and you will leave his mate alone if you know what’s good for you.”
I wasdefinitelygoing to pay for that later. No matter how much I dressed it up in respect for the dead, I’d come between a victorious fighter and his prize. The males wouldn’t like it—hell, they were probably already planning their challenges—but I wasn’t about to back down.
It took another hour to clean up the mess in South Four and to move Tyler’s body into the little morgue at the back of the medical building. We’d hold a proper funeral for him in a few days, and I barked orders at my Betas to build a pyre and make sure the bell was rung at sundown to let the Pack know we’d lost someone. As if the news wasn’t already all over town.
It wasn’t exactly common to lose a Packmate like this, but it had happened enough times that I should be inoculated against the anger that burned beneath my skin. I’d been defending this Pack to Rosie for the last month, and this was how they were going to act?
I would be of no use to Jace for the rest of the afternoon. I needed to go home, head downstairs to the basement, and wail on my punching bag until my knuckles were bruised and swollen. I didn’t even think about the fact that I was covered in congealing blood when I arrived at the house, only realizing it when Rosie’s eyes widened in horror.
