Page 5 of Alpha's Baby Girl
“You havegotto be kidding me,” Dakota muttered beside me. She was a she-wolf who had been the only one to not give me a scathing look as soon as we’d entered the hotel yesterday. Gossip was rife in Silverlake Valley, as it always was with small towns—part of the reason my heartbreak recovery had taken so long to get over was that nobody would let me forget it—and the other six she-wolves were part of that rumor mill.
Some thought I was bold; others thought I was foolish and begging to be rejected again.
I laughed at them all with their judgments. I didn’t care about winning Fenrys back, but I’d had the smug satisfaction of watching his face at the introductory dinner the night before realizing who had approached him. That moment of him recognizing me had been everything I had wished for.
We’d all been given coordinates to a place on the woods’ outskirts and told to make our own way, so long as we were there for a headcount by ten in the morning.
“Making us do this in a storm is so overkill,” Dakota muttered. As the friendliest face so far, I had headed off with her earlier that morning. We huddled in a group alongside the other she-wolves who passed heated glares amongst each other.
I met the head counselor at my parents’ wedding. He was a broad man, a wolf shifter, who always dressed impeccably. He stared us all down, the rain plastering his blonde hair to his head.
“Good morning, ladies,” he greeted. He paused, but nobody responded, too eager or anticipatory for the first trial. “You may already know me, but my name is Graham; I am the speaker on the council, and will be leading the Mating Games. Today, you’ll be proving your navigation skills.
“As we know, our prosperous Silverlake Valley is renowned for storms, and while that’ll make the trial harder, it will challenge your senses. The alpha you desire waits for you deep in the woods. Your task is to first find the trinket wrapped in your own scent that Fenrys has prepared for you, and then you must find him. The last two wolves to find him will be eliminated. I must remind you that this trial determines a lot about your ability to become a Luna. Rely on one another, but pick yourselves over any rival. Remember who you compete for.”
“Fenrys has a distinct scent,” Shiba said. “I can find him in no time.”
“Ah,” the head counselor said. “Don’t be too sure. He agreed to take a scent suppressant last night, lasting for twelve hours. On top of that, he’s adorned with all the gifts provided last night to mix up his scent with your own to throw you off-track.
“You will hold power over the pack who accept you as Luna. Navigate your way in the storm, find Fenrys, and prove yourself. You have two hours. Good luck.”
Shiba and another red-haired wolf had shifted before he could even stand back. They snarled at the rest of the she-wolves, their coats both respectively gorgeous. One gray streaked through with black tones, the other a russet bronze. They pawed at the tree line of the woods, waiting for the blare to start our two hours.
I inhaled, stripped off—unlike some of the others, because I wasn’t ready to be so brazen as to shift back and remain naked in front of Fenrys—and folded my clothes beneath a nearby tree. Then, I let my body change into its other form.
As a wolf, I was white with shimmers of gold through my fur. I was relatively tall for a she-wolf but slender and muscular. I’d done my hard training in both forms. Locating a trinketandFenrys would be no task at all.
Finding him first would ensure I was noticed even more than last night.
I tore through the woods, crunching leaves and snapping twigs beneath my paws. In wolf form, connections to my family lingered at the back of my mind, but I blocked them out. Scents from the other she-wolves carried on the wind, but I thundered on, leaping over fallen tree trunks and diving over creeks. I had to find my own scent first.
The woods were rife with the mingle of all of us. I searched for my own, quickly snapping it in my mind.There, to the right. I veered off my main path and found my way to an oak tree. I sniffed the ground, pawing at the soil. I dug hurriedly until I found one of my nightshirts buried. I snarled, hating the carelessness with which my intimate night clothes were taken, not even covered, and buried.
Snatching it up in my mouth, I went onward, now searching for Fenrys’s scent. It was hard not to be overwhelmed by the aggression circling the smells of the other she-wolves. They could fight for Fenrys. I only wanted to reach him first.
Kato’s mission stayed firmly in my mind:take out the alpha, claim your revenge.
He hadn’t said more than that—only that Fenrys’s pack’s history had caused a lot of trouble for the town, and Kato wanted to help change it. What good could Fenrys do, if he simply followed in his father’s footsteps?
My paws pounded the woods as I chartered a mental path to avoid as many of the other she-wolves as possible. Fenrys had taken scent suppressants so he wouldn’t be easy to find. I had a bonus. Fenrys may have rejected our mating bond, but I still had that connection to him, a spark that was mere embers now, but if I focused on it, I could feel the pull of him.
The storm continued, and the wind raked claws through my fur. I sniffed the air, catching on to something that smelt distinctively like myself again. What had the head counselor said? He would be wearing something of every she-wolf to further mask his scent. Fenrys smelt of pine and something heavier, muskier, underneath, a testament to the woods he had grown up and around in. I caught that much yesterday at dinner.
I spent a few moments searching for his scent, which should have been alongside mine, and the other she-wolves. There was the citrus scent of Dakota, a rich jasmine scent for Shiba, and the others, which I didn’t know yet. But I dug through them, separating each smell from the others.
Up ahead was a waterfall to the left. To the right was a large clearing behind a lake. That was where Fenrys was. When I focused, I could sense him pacing. There was an undercurrent of impatience and annoyance to him. A part of me delighted in detecting those—I was no stranger to my wolf abilities, but it felt like having power over him. He’d held himself so rigidly last night. In human form, I hadn’t gotten a hold of him. Butnow… Now, waiting to be found like some sort of lost damsel, he was annoyed.
I let out a snarl as I tore off in his direction. I could win the game like this. Even if the other she-wolves could sense him and everything we all conveyed in our smell, I had something else. The power in me rose as I thundered through the woods, skirting around paths that led to the cliffs or waterfall. I ignored prey on the trail, even though my wolf’s interest was piqued by the animals scurrying around in the brush.
After being rejected, I shifted to my wolf form to feel that rejection had been hard, and while I was no stranger to my wolf, I didn’t let her out as much as I naturally yearned to. I ran wild, stretching every limb and muscle, letting my size and weight carry me through the trial.
I skidded onto the shore of the lake.
Chasing Fenrys was something I’d enjoyed, and now there he was, his wolf form a hulking black figure in the distance. Around his neck were trinkets he had been given the night before. Mine was the closest to his head, as if it was last on and would be the first to take off.
He was alone. I made it there first. The temptation to see my mission through now and leave the Games early rose in me, but I had direct orders from Kato—the Games were to go ahead. I needed to earn Fenrys’s trust again, to make that revenge all the sweeter when I betrayed him as he had to me.
A shift of air had been turning around for a second, stupidly distracted, but it was just Shiba’s shadow, the other she-wolf trying to gain popularity by association. She snarled at me.
