The ladies shrieked as I tore out of the carpark on paws like springs, streaking out onto the footpath, sending people shouting and crying out, leaping to get out of my path. I liked that, this automatic reduction of obstacles, as I ran out of the city centre, across main roads, down alleyways, and out, out, out, towards them.
I couldn’t tellyou how long it took or even how I got there. All I knew was I was panting heavily as I trotted up to a familiar open gate, looking up the rise to a house I recognised easily.Home, my wolf heart asserted, then we loped on up the pathway, catching snippets of conversations on the wind.
Deep masculine ones, they drew me closer and closer, creating a pain inside me, but one I ran towards rather than away from, and then there was her.
My jaws snapped shut, and I paced for a second, allowing my lungs the chance to circulate oxygen through my body, my muscles a chance to process the lactic acid build-up. My wolf self might not understand the complex machinations of humans, but she knew this—one went into battle from a position of strength, or you didn’t do it at all.
I came back to skin, and usually, the thought of walking into a group of people stark fucking naked would have filled me with horror, but hey, the element of surprise was always useful in battle, right? I strolled round the back of the house, full of studied nonchalance, breathing in the scents of cooking meat, the flowers in the garden, and them. My mates’ eyes all jerked up the minute I rounded the corner, their dads and Eloise taking longer, but see me, they did.
“Eloise, Omega Vanguard of the Vanguard Pack,” I said, remembering Janine’s words perfectly. “I challenge you for your position as omega of this pack.”
Chapter 43
“What?” Eloise frowned, looking me up and down with that self-same disapproving look—theI’m very disappointedlook we were all on the receiving end of at some point, irrespective of age. Janine’s explanation of Eloise’s self-concept made perfect sense now. She saw herself as the whole town’s mother, with all the care, authority, and lack of appropriate boundaries that could come with that kind of relationship. Well, I was done being anyone’s kid. “Put some clothes on and stop being ridiculous,” she said, dismissing me completely.
But Fen, Ryan, all of my mates, they smiled then, the deep lines in their faces, the dark bags under their eyes clearing in that moment. I snorted in response to Eloise’s high-handed bullshit and then took fur, the process as fluid as breathing now. I knew my wolf and my wolf knew me, and we were done pretending we didn’t. There was no more need for words, so I dropped my head down, snarling my intent.
“No, Eloise,” John, one of the dads, said. “You can’t just dismiss a dominance challenge, not unless you’re ready to relinquish your position in the pack.” I watched her frown at that, eyes flashing silver in response. She put the BBQ tongs on the table with a clack, her lips thinning down.
“Stand down, Riley,” she barked, throwing everything she had at me in a deceptively stripped back tone.
I felt the pulse of her will. Of course I did. I’d felt it for my whole damn life, like a whip across my shoulders, cracking over and over, correcting me any time I softened towards her boys, trying to keep me on the straight and narrow, but she still didn’t seem to get it. Sending me away from Bordertown had broken me. I wasn’t the dutiful little girl I had been. I’d been exposed to a whole wide world who didn’t give two fucks about Eloise Vanguard, just like I didn’t now.
I roared my answer, my growl growing and growing in my chest, getting so big, it felt like I was my fucking anger, my outrage, my complete and utter disinterest in what had gone on before, and Omega Vanguard, she could not take that lying down. She was out of her clothes and in fur in the time it took to blink, and then she was on me.
If you’ve ever watched animals fight, it’s bloody terrifying, all vicious snarls and raking claws. It’s also largely performative. There was a reason it was called a dominance fight, not a battle to the death. Animals killed each other all the time, but when it came to dominance, it was largely just hurting the other and posturing until the other backed down, but I wasn’t sure if Eloise had gotten that fucking message.
A massive white wolf came barrelling towards my side, ready to knock me on my arse, but I swept my body out of the way at the last minute, then turned in the air, twisting around to attempt to do the same to her. When my head hit her ribs, when she went spiralling back, something rejoiced inside me just for a second before I gathered myself and attacked, ready to try and capitalise on my success. I got a few snaps at her flailing forelegs, human shouts coming from behind us, but I didn’t care. It was her I wanted, but she righted herself quickly enough, a picture of an angry wolf.
Well, I was pretty fucking jacked off myself.
Her ears were laid flat against her skull, her lips pulled back from her muzzle. Her teeth shone in the morning light, but the thing was, mine did too. I lunged at her, not fucking caring if she bit me right now, and my recklessness gained me something. I snapped and I snapped, driving her back, then I darted in, my teeth sinking down into her ruff and her skin, dragging a high little yelp from her, right as my head began to thrash. I flicked it from side to side, tearing at her flesh, even as she fought to bite at me with glancing little bites all over my face, but I just kept going, right up until I released her and snapped again, digging my fangs right into her muzzle.
Her screams rang through the block, sending birds flying out of the trees and forcing the men to cluster closer. I hadn’t seriously damaged her, but it would’ve hurt like a bitch. A dog or a wolf’s nose was exquisitely sensitive, and by burying my fangs into the flesh there, I’d caused maximum pain without killing her.
“Stand down, Riley,” John said, his alpha command feeling like a hammer beating against my skull.
“No fucking way, Dad,” Fen snapped. “This is a fair fight, and it needs to end that way.”
“It has ended that way,” John said to his son before turning back to me. “Shift, Riley and Eloise, now!”
My skin came rushing back in a flash, and so did Eloise’s, the two of us sitting on the gravel blinking for a second, blood pouring out of Eloise’s face.
“You bitch!” she shrieked the minute she came back to herself, launching herself at me, but John hooked her around the waist, lifting her up in the air, a flailing bunch of limbs. “You bit me! After everything I did for you!”
“Stop,” I said firmly, clearly, as I got to my feet. “This stops now.” And just like that, quiet settled over the whole house. “John, you and your pack need to leave now. This is my territory, not yours. You’ll be welcome back when we say so, but not before then.”
“No! No!” Eloise’s shouts were the screams of the heartbroken. “No, this can’t happen. John, Malcolm…you need to stop this, now!”
“What are you fighting, love?” Malcolm asked, brushing his hands off on his jeans and scowling at his mate. “What are you working so hard to prevent? The concern before was that Riley was a latent, that she and the boys would be trapped in a relationship that would make them miserable, and we didn’t want that for either of them. They’ve worked out a way. I don’t know how or when, but Riley’s an omega now.”
“More than that,” Colt said, eyeing me with a smug smile. “She’s Omega Vanguard, just like she was always supposed to be.”
“No…” The fight seemed to die in Eloise as she collapsed against her mate’s body, dissolving into tears.
“You worked so hard to keep them apart, and for good reason, but those reasons are gone now,” John said. “It’s time to let go, and we’re going to do that, at home.”
Malcolm and the rest of the dads nodded to us, readying to carry their bloodied omega from the property.