Page 43 of Ruthless Alpha
“I think I’m your Alpha, and you’d better watch how you address me,” I said evenly, but Harris only laughed.
“Thing is, I don’t reckon you’re gonna be Alpha much longer.”
He might be right, but if I were getting supplanted, he wasn’t going to be alive to see it.
“Is that a challenge?” I asked, and he grinned.
“You bet.”
It took longer than it should have to clear space for the fight, but as the sea of people parted, loyalties began to reveal themselves; almost every female in the hall rallied behind me, along with more males than I’d anticipated, including almost all of my Betas. It was a surprise, but a welcome one, and I looked forward to telling Rosie that she’d been right: there were plenty of males on Ensign who were happy to see a change in the status quo.
The other side of the hall was more sparse, populated by young hotheads and a few of the older fighters who weren’t going to like any change I tried to enforce. I judged that maybe thirty of the males standing against me would actually present a challenge; the rest were either too old or too young to pose a threat, or were smart enough to know that they weren’t good enough fighters to stand a chance.
Harris was not smart enough to know this. He might get the edge on the other males of his rank by sheer brute force, but he was no match for me, and he should have known better.
“Think I’ll move Nessa into the big house when I’m Alpha,” said Harris as the ring began to take shape around us. There were no ropes here, only the press of bodies to push back anyone who fell.
“Sure, champ, you do that.”
I was done with his posturing, ready to get this over with. This would be my first fight of many, and I wasn’t in the mood to waste time talking.
I cracked my neck, stepping forward and raising my fists in invitation. Harris scoffed.
“I don’t think we need to bother with foreplay,” he smirked, and then he shifted.
That was his first mistake. His wolf was lanky and rangy, while mine was a hulking beast. No doubt he was arrogant enough to think that bloodlust and speed could win him this fight, but I wasn’t an unseasoned fighter like Tyler. I wouldn’t let him get the better of me.
His first move was obvious—darting forward to go for my throat—and it was easy to dodge, sending him careening past me, and I nipped at his back legs as he went. The males on my side jeered, and Harris snapped at them. Distracted as he was by his wounded pride, it would have been easy to sink my teeth into one of his back legs, but I wanted him to see his death coming.
Demanding his attention with a low growl, I waited for him to turn before I went for his face. He swerved—only just in time—but he was off balance from the shock of my attack, and I swiped at him as he went. Blood bloomed from the three deep lacerations on his right haunch, and several of the onlookers hissed. Both sides knew which way this fight was going to go.
Harris, with a limp, was even more predictable. Despite his half-hearted attempt to feint on his bad leg, he attacked again and again from the left, growing more and more frustrated with every miss. I was playing with him, but the fucker deserved it. He’d hurt Rosie—would have done much worse if Cole hadn’t stepped in.
I lashed out, striking the left side of his ribs and drawing several more red lines on his body. He yelped in pain, but managed to stay on his feet. Refusing to learn from his past mistakes, he snapped at me again, earning another gash across his muzzle. Desperate, he went for my underbelly, but I was too fast for him. He snapped at thin air, and I went in for my final blow.
Harris toppled with a single push, and then he was on his side beneath me. Slowly, I leaned my entire weight on his ribcage, watching his eyes bulge as he gasped for breath. I wanted this to be slow, wanted him to know the magnitude of the mistake he’d made when he came for my mate. He made a rattling, gasping, gurgling sound as blood began to bubble at the corners of his mouth, spilling out and over the floor as his ribcage collapsed entirely beneath my weight, and the light went out of his yellow eyes.
The hall was silent as I shifted back to my human form, nodding at my loyal Betas to remove Harris’s body. Splatters of blood decorated my chest, and I was ready to take down every motherfucker who tried me.
“Alright,” I said. “Who’s next?”
Chapter 20 - Rosie
Life on Ferris was everything I hoped it would be. The people were warm and welcoming, if a little too curious about where I’d come from and why I was there, but Julia fended off any over-eager questions with ease as she showed me around the town. We visited the laundry and the commissary, and the little school, looking for any gaps that I could fill. In the end, I’d asked to help in the large central kitchen, where they prepared meals for the Elders without families to support them. Ethan might have insisted that I didn’t have to pick up a job right away—I was sure Xander had told him at least a little about my upbringing—but I didn’t know what I would do with myself otherwise.
Julia had offered to help me hone my magic, but she was busy herself for most of the day, and Ethan already seemed uncomfortable with the amount of work she was doing in her third trimester. It was hard to be around them most of the time. They were easy with each other in a way that made me ache with longing for my own mate.
None of Ferris’s loveliness stopped me from missing Xander. He’d promised to return, but he hadn’t said when. In a week? A month? It was torture not knowing when I would next feel his strong arms around me or smell his woodsmoke and pepper scent. A little of it had lingered in my cottage for the first few days I had stayed on Ferris, but soon it had faded into memory.
It was better this way, I reminded myself. If I had stayed on Ensign, we would not have had the happy mating that Julia and Ethan shared. There would be no passing each other in town and exchanging a sweet kiss, no joking among friends, no happy toddler running ahead of us wherever we went. If I had stayed onEnsign, there would have only been tension and claustrophobia, and relentless fear.
On Ferris, I had space to breathe. Every afternoon, once the meals were prepared and plated and ready to be taken over to the Elders, I walked out of town and into the forest. In the fall, everything was cast in warm gold, red, and orange, with crunchy leaves blanketing the ground beneath my feet. Next time Xander visited—soon, it would have to be soon—I would take him out here and show him all the little rabbit warrens and birds’ nests I’d found.
Two weeks after I’d arrived on Ferris, the day was particularly beautiful, and I’d practically raced out of the kitchen when I was dismissed, waving an absent goodbye to the other women. The ground was hard beneath my feet as I took my first steps into the trees—the frost would be starting soon, gilding the trees with silver—and the air was cold and sharp in my lungs. The smell of the forest soothed me: rich soil and leaves and—something sour. Something familiar and stomach-churning. Stale sawdust, alcohol, and old tobacco.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
I whirled around. He couldn’t be here—there was noreasonfor him to be here—yet my uncle sat on a tree stump with his legs spread as if he owned the forest, as if it was perfectly reasonable for him to show up in my new life.
