Charmed Wolf

shoulder, questing, questioning. The Guardian slept, but not fully. Our intrusion had caught its attention.
Not now, I murmured silently, using the thread of a link between us. Like my pack bond, the link allowed communication. Unlike the pack bond, it couldn’t be used to force obedience.
Still, the root hardened into stillness beneath my back even as I reared upward. The Guardian wouldn’t protest our intrusion. It trusted me, for now.
Which was good, because I still had Ash to deal with. My fangs were bared and my growl was deep menace. Earlier in the evening, I’d been reining in my attacks. After all, my challengers were pack mates. Our matches were more game than fight.
But Ash had twice used subterfuge against me. He hadn’t paid attention to Kale’s presence. He’d acted like he was challenging for the role of Alpha.
So I treated his ambush as a true attack.
This time, when I pinned him, I didn’t stop with a growl. This time, I marked him, fangs slicing through the fur then skin of his chest in a gaping X.
It was the external sign of an alpha’s displeasure and Ash knew it. Shifting beneath me, his naked human fingers cupped the bleeding flesh. “Tara....”
I didn’t bother to shift and speak. Just sent my words to him down the pack bond. “Alpha. You’ll call me Alpha.”
His mouth tightened. We were friends. We didn’t stand on ceremony.
Make that past tense. We had been friends. Now, not so much.
The rest of what I said, the pack should hear. So this time I did shift upwards. Ash had ended up on his hands and knees but I leapt as I transitioned, coming to rest on the earth barefooted but upright. Toes pressed into leaf mold, taking strength from the Guardian. Roots bit into my skin, reminding me of my duties in exchange.
“You will apologize to the Guardian,” I ordered, keeping alpha command humming in the air until Ash bent over. He squeezed his chest wound with shaking fingers. Dripped blood onto the churned-up soil.
In response, the Guardian subsided. Roots slid out of my feet to suck up the gift. Broken flower stems straightened.
“Is it enough?” Ash murmured. Unlike me, he couldn’t feel the Guardian’s acceptance. Probably hadn’t noticed the flowers break or mend.
I nodded and Ash’s fingers eased, the whiteness of his face easing along with them. He didn’t comment on the pain, however. Instead, he wiped one red hand across the bare skin of his thigh and extended it to me. “We’re good now. Right, Tara?”
“Alpha,” I corrected a second time, voice hard. After tonight, friendship with Ash would be an unearned indulgence. A chink in our clan’s cohesiveness. One we could ill afford.
Raising my voice to ensure all onlookers could hear me, I added: “You fought with dishonor so you are barred from further Beta challenges.”
“But....” Ash started.
Speaking over him, I continued. “You may still challenge, but if you do so it will be for the role of Alpha.”
His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Just speaking now could be construed as a challenge.
And Alpha challenges, as we all knew, were fought to the death.
THE ALPHA DIDN’T LINGER and gossip, so I left the pack to discuss implications among themselves. Back at the mansion, I wiped dirty feet on a much-used door mat. Grabbed a robe from the free box and pulled it around me as I padded up to Kale’s door.
There was a light under the crack, but he didn’t answer when I knocked. “Kale?” I said rather than banging my fist a second time. “It’s me. Tara.”
“You mean Alpha,” he answered from the other side of the barrier. His voice was muffled as if he was muttering into his covers. He likely hadn’t meant for me to hear.
“May I come in?”
This time, he said nothing. Instead, I heard the click of a metal switch. The light beneath the door winked out.
That was a no as obvious as if he’d yelled it. Still, I stood listening for one long moment. Got down on my hands and knees and sniffed beneath the crack.
There was no salty scent of tears. Just annoyance. Teenage temper.
And, as I listened, Kale’s breathing slowed and evened. He wasn’t so upset that he’d stopped falling asleep the minute his head hit the pillow. I’d removed him from the challenge field in time to ensure he continued reacting like a cossetted human child.
So I left him there, promising myself I’d make things right between us in the morning. I headed up a long flight of stairs to my empty tower. There, I slipped into my bed, above and apart from the pack.

Chapter 7
The next morning, tightness gathered behind my eyes when Kale refused to speak with me. I’d cleared enough of my schedule to drive him to school, and for the entire fifteen-minute commute I tried tweaking his tail the way my childhood nurse used to. The trick had always worked on me. Tease, tease, tease...and soon enough I’d turn and nip. She’d accept my angry words, then I’d tell her what was wrong and end up crying in her arms.
Kale was a sturdier specimen. His lips remained sealed for the entire drive and he disembarked without once meeting my gaze. His shoulders stiffened as he walked up the steps to the school building. Even his nods to friends appeared forced.
So I’d flubbed that one. The kid in my charge arrived at school just as upset as when he’d subsided into his pillow. No wonder the tightness behind my eyes built into a throbbing headache during the drive back to pack central. No wonder I snarled at Ash when he met me at the factory entrance with a steaming mug in one hand.
“You missed breakfast, Alpha.” His eyes stayed on the ground, but he held out my usual peppermint tea along with a plate of syrup-smothered pancakes. The gesture needed no explanation. It was an apology for yesterday and a hope that I wasn’t ditching our