The rush of the wind caressed my naked skin and the scent of the deep forest filled my lungs. I dashed deeper into the wilds of the thick Grayville forests—hiding from my would-be attackers.

Nimbly, leaping into a high branch, it was easy to clear the fifteen-foot jump—I was an alpha born female after all. My pursuers came into view and they looked suddenly confused, my scent seemed to have just vanished to them. They looked around, scanning for traces of anything, or any direction I could have gone.

Finally, I leaped down and I double kicked the first and then I slammed the second into the tree I had just jumped out of. There was a satisfying popping and cracking sound, so I had won the game.

"Winner of this week's Lycan Games, Jenna—not that it surprises anyone."

The booming and authoritative voice of the Alpha female declared, my alpha female, Eleanor Cambelle, my best friend and the only she-wolf I have ever met who is stronger than me.

She gave me a smirk, but turned and looked at the hungry, lustful expressions of the men in the pack, so she threw me a large black Metallica tee shirt to put on. I heard a groan of protest from the handsome four-hundred-year-old alpha male beside her now.

"Honey, why do you keep stealing my vintage metal tees? This is Jenna we're talking about, she is gonna ruin it before we even make it back to the pack house."

He was running his hand through his messy long dirty blond, sun kissed hair and complaining to his mate—and even his alpha technically. She gave him a cheeky smirk and said, "Well, maybe this will teach you to let me get my damn coffee, before you try to have your way with me at an ungodly hour in the morning!"

She sounded a lot more pissed off than she actually was, though Ele hated to be woken early. Ele was one of the hardest working young alpha's in the whole continent, so I could understand her grief. Clay on the other hand, had waited four hundred years to find a mate he was in love with, so I get why he probably seems a bit clingy with Ele.

I scowled at the two of them and said, "Will you two keep the damn pillow talk in the newly sound proofed bed room. You sound like a pair of old bitches to me."

Ele smirked and her jade green eyes danced with some amusement, Clay just stared now, but I think he was still worried about his shirt. It's not like I destroy clothes on purpose, or for fun, I am their second in command, so I end up in a lot of sticky situations.

"Holy crap, you just beat the shit out of all of them Jenna," I high-pitched and very hyper thirteen-year-old girl skipped to a stop in front of me. Her green-blue eyes were filled with excitement and wonder. I ruffled her messy red hair and said, "You lasted to the survival match, not too shabby pup."

Camilla Moss growled, she hated being called pup even more than I did, thogh I was abo0ut to turn eighteen, so I hoped Ele might ease up on the pup soon. Cam, as we typically called her, was our third strongest female, she had just shifted for the first time a few months ago, and she had already been gifted with natural high beta ranking power. Ele had taken her under both our wings for training and protection, since she is still too untrained to protect her neck from horny ass males, who will break pack laws for the chance to capture themselves such a strong she-wolf.

The lycan world is a vicious and dangerous place to live, I was born into it, my father and mother were the alphas of my birth pack. We had been sieged by human hunters and Clay had managed to rescue me, but he could do nothing to save my family.

I had shut down for many years after that and I was forced to be an omega to his pack, because the older lycan women feared me. They thought they had beaten the alpha out of me, until I met Ele, they very well could have. Ele blood-oathed me and it was like the blood of her pure-blood lycan alpha awakened all that I was meant to be. Ele had become the sister I never had and she will be my alpha for the rest of our long, immortal lives.

There have already been a lot of alphas pestering Ele about me, they all want to "obtain" me. Ele never speaks of these things to me, but she does warn me, if any visiting alphas are of that mindset.

It pisses me off, since I am only seventeen—going on eighteen--I have zero desire to find a damn mate. I am second to the pack that controls all of Grayville, Canada now. After the other pack, the former Shannon Pack, attacked us and failed, we now own everything. We have the widest land mass of any single pack in all of Canada and most of the US now. That makes us a target, because we also have a pack ran with two alpha females at the head of the pecking order, men do not accept defeat to women with grace.

Lucky for Ele, she met Clay, they might fight and she might be bitchy to him, but they love each other—just like my parents did. My mom was like Ele, a pure-blood, I think that is a small part of my attachment to Ele, besides the very sisterly way we act with one another.

I turned to the two young beta males picking themselves up from the wreckage of my assault and I smirked at them in a sassy manner.

"Ryan, I would have thought you could track my scent upward, how disappointing, not that you stood a chance in the first place."

He nodded and said, "Dammit Jenna, I don't think I will smell anything for a week now!"

I laughed at him and said, "You will heal by morning you big baby, don't let your guard down like that next time, or I am upping your training menu farther."

His eyes glossed over in unbridled fear at the thought, they all seemed to hate my training, but it was to keep them from getting picked off by other pack, or hunters. I pushed our Lycans, made every pack member learn to defend themselves, my parents had sheltered their pack too much. Ele and I agreed on the hefty training regiments, since it was to keep our steadily growing pack safe.

Daemon—our pack doctor—came to a stop in front of me and gave me a once over. He was always patching me up from my own training with Ele, so he was in the habit of checking my physical condition now.

"I'm fine Daemon, but I am pretty sure you are going to be scraping up a forest full of warriors tonight."

He sighed and said, "We should never have let you buy a copy of 'The Hunger Games.' It has only given you more sadistic training ideas, and over working my staff now."

Clay laughed and said, "Oh, common, you know it is pretty amusing to watch her LycanGames Daemon—Angela must be watching on with pride."

There was a silence that swept over the pack members present now, Angela had been the alpha female of the original pack before Ele. She had trained Ele after she was bitten and turned into a lycan alpha female. Our pack held great reverence for the fallen ice queen of the north. Ele often joked that she thought I was Angela's love child, because we did look strikingly similar. Bother have white-blonde hair and similar feminine curves, but I am only five foot two now and I have blue eyes with white and silver mixed in, a color that only Lycans can possess, thus marking me as not human.

"Well, this is great, but we have to greet Clay's family in about an hour, so can we hurry back to the pack house."

Ele walked up and ruffled my hair and said, "Good job pup, now let's get you in the bath."

I glared at my best friend and said, "I can wash myself Ele, you just don't want Clay sneaking into your bath again—with his parents in bound and all."

Clay gave us both a pained look and said, "I feel like a battered man with all you dominant females around here."

He shook his head in mock hurt and Ele punched him in the stomach and said, "Suck it up, or you will be in the literal dog house tonight."

Daemon muttered, "Sometimes I actually pity that man."

Victor came over and cleared his throat and said, "No need to pity Alpha Clayton, I can promise you that I receive daily migraines from him—speaking of—can you prescribe me morphine, the headaches are getting worse."

Ele and I looked at each other and laughed. I pulled the large black metal band shirt free and tossed it to Clay and then I quickly shifted to my pure white wolf form and dashed back towards the pack house. I heard the howls of the powerful black wolf behind me—Ele had shifted too.

A chorus of howls sounded, calling out to their alpha, I ran with a blur of speed, racing Ele. I zipped past a whole group of gamma ranking wolves and they all lowered their heads in respect as I passed them. Ele was gaining on me now, her larger paws were pounding the ground and her pace was quickly beginning to overtake mine.

We raced into the yard and she hit the door a split second before me. I cursed to myself and followed her up the stairs, we were both headed to the bathroom, the master bath that is. Ele had a huge tub that could double for a small pool.

We shifted back to our naked human skin and she was giggling at me now. Her levity was clear in her eyes and she smiled brightly as she led the way to the bathroom.

****

We had close to one hundred and fifty Lycans under our pack blood oath now, and most of them had come out to meet Clay's family in our massive front yard. I stood next to Ele on the opposite side of Clay and Victor stood on his opposite side too. We are one of the only packs in the world with a double command structure. Ele and Clay combined packs, but did not force down either of the other's seconds or thirds—I am Ele's second.

Victor and I share the same level of authority inside the pack, but we agree to split tasks evenly, so as never to turn anything into a pissing contest. Victor is perfectly fine with me being the second that focuses on our defenses and our training. I am like the general in the Lycan army and Ele and Clay are the joint presidents. Each of them are respected equally, even if we all know Ele is stronger, Clay is no weak alpha male though, he is just short of the power of a pure-blood.

A black SUV pulls in and a few moments later a tall dirty blonde haired man exits. He has short cropped hair, but my keen eyes can tell that his shade of hair is a dead match for Clay's. A tall woman, about five foot nine, walks over and links her arm through his. She has light brown hair and luscious curves and she is wearing a very expensive silky red dress. I am not a clothes girl, so I have no clue what brand name that is, but I do know it is an expensive outfit.

Another car is pulling in now, it rumbles with the sound of its huge engine pumping and reeving. It is a classic of some kind, an American muscle car and only the Chevy decals tell me what brand of muscle car it is.

Out steps a young me, not many years older than Ele, he looks very like Clayton. He is younger looking, human aging wise, maybe a twenty in human years in appearance. He has the same sun kissed dirty blonde hair as Clay and their father, but he has blue-green eyes. He smiles brightly to Clay, he clearly respects his brother and then he looks over Ele, inspecting the woman who tamed his brother.

My protective nature kicks in and I catch myself lowly growling a warning to him. He snaps his head in my direction and his eyes go bug wide and he begins to walk forward, as if on impulse now, drawn to the unmarked alpha female growling at him.

Ele pushes him pack casually, but he falls on his ass from her raw power and she locks her glowing jade eyes on him.

"I will let her kill you, if you ever try anything again little alpha. Your brother knows how to treat a lady, so prove to me that you do to, because I know your father has taught you rightly."

The ancient lycan man rumbles in laughter and he claps his hands together and he looks down to Ele with all of his six foot and three inches of height and says, "Oh son, I really like this one, she reminds me of your mother, god rest her soul."

His accent was faint, but it was strange, maybe some type of Eastern-European? He had an air of extreme power about him, the type that could match Ele's, but she did not fear him at all. She extended her hand to him and said, "Alpha Wells, welcome to our pack, it is truly an honor to meet you finally."

He took her hand and shook it firmly and then he extended it to me and said, "Miss Second, it is lovely to meet you as well, Clay was not joking when he said he was surrounded by strong ass females."

I shook his hand and the torrent of raw power that passed through me was unmistakable, it was something I would have to live many hundreds of years to obtain. The hairs on my neck stood at attention, I half expected my hair to be raising from a static electricity, but thankfully that was not happening.

I nodded to him slightly, a show of respect, but not submission—he is not my alpha. His eyes twinkle at this and I see his younger son standing again and he looks shocked by this exchange. Most Lycans would be on their ass from his power, but I am nearly a pure-blood myself, and I spar with Ele twice a day.

"A pleasure to meet you all sir, ma'am and Clayton's baby brother."

The cheeky jab just slipped out and I braced myself for anger, but Clay's dad just laughed again and said, "Oh, I am going to enjoy this visit, it is past time we teach this one how to behave around females Ruby."

The red clad beauty nodded and she had just hugged Ele now and she said, "Of course Harold, it is refreshing to be around so many strong ladies. Your pack has an interesting structure, to say the least, but I am truly glad that Clay has finally found a true mate."

Ele raised her eyebrow and said, "What do you mean, true mate?"

Ruby gave her an apologetic look with her blue-green eyes and said, "Forgive me, I forget that you were brought into this world recently, true mate means a mate of actual love and consent. It is one of the things all of us lycan girls hope to have one day, like I have with Harry here."

She pats her mate's massive, muscular chest a few loving times and then she looked past us and her eyes widened a fraction at the sight of Cam standing behind me. I stepped fully between them, blocking her view and more importantly, blocking her son's view.

She must have read the gesture for what it was and she shook her head saying, "Relax, I was just surprised that you have three dominant females, nothing else, I survived a pack with terrible ethics towards women for over a hundred years, I would never repeat such horrors."

She turned back to her young son and said, "Jamie, introduce yourself to these ladies and you be on your best behavior, lest I allow Alpha Cambelle to sick her second on you."

He did not look at all impressed with me, but he nodded none-the-less and extended his hand to Ele and said, "Jamie Wells, a pleasure to meet you Alpha Cambelle."

His voice was deep and masculine like Clays, but it held a pitch and accent of a modern American young man. Clay had a slight French accent when he spoke, since his mother bore him in France, that is not surprising.

Jamie came over to me for the second time and extended his hand in greeting this time.

"Jamie Wells, nice to meet you."

I took his offered hand and I crushed it in my full strength. He did not cry out, but I could feel the shock and the pain of the breaks clearly. I tartly said, "Yeah, I heard your name the first time pup."

His lips twitched, it was either anger or annoyance, but I did not care. He would just have to get in the fucking line—the one full of men that want to force me to accept a claim.

Clay had been like a big brother to me my whole life, so it was shocking for me to fell such hostility for a member of his family. I would not back down and just bear my neck for this young man, or for anyone. Hopefully he could behave himself well enough not to end up having Daemon try to re-attach his balls, that has happened before.