LEX

My paws slam into the forest floor. Beneath me, logs snap as if they are twigs. My claws rip a path through the ferns and foliage, carving footprints into the soil, soft as belly flesh.

On the cold wind I catch the scent of damp, earthen roots, and then fear.

Her  fear.

She gives it to me, so sweetly.

I won't answer her frightened little questions yet. But if I did...I would tell her:

This is what I want.

Her fear.

Her terror.

Somehow, I think she knows.

I lift my muzzle to the air and drink it in, the thick, honeyed waves.

God, that's good. Delicious. Intoxicating.

Sure, it would have been nice to get the drop on her. I was pissed at first when I felt her little voice in my head.

But what kind of almost-Alpha would she be if she hadn't scented me?

After all, there is no honor in mindless slaughter. I had been hoping she wouldn't make this easy.

Plus, it'll be more fun this way.

My wolf is ravenous for her throat. He wants more than simply the ending of her life. He wants to make her suffer. Wants her eyes wide and watching as we sink our fangs into her, the hot, sweet blood spilling from our jaws.

But that's not what this is about.

This is about ending a war, I remind my wolf, who snarls in savage response.

Tonight, I'm ending ten years of ripped fur and opened throats under cold moons.

Ten years of orphaned cubs, of blood for blood, of my pack suffering.

I am Lex Steele, Alpha of the Shadowclaw Pack.

It is my job to protect them.

And I have failed.

Until tonight.

Because tonight, I will kill Kaelyn Hart, Alpha heir-apparent of the Silverfang Pack.

I was little more than a child when this duty fell upon me.

But I am a child no longer.

I pick up the pace.

In wolf form, I am indomitable. And that's me being modest. Nothing wrong with the truth. I've killed grizzlies with one swipe of my paw. As massive as I am, at full speed, I'm a black blur. They have a phrase for me:

"The last silhouette you'll ever see."

No Alpha could pay for a better reputation.

Trees fly by as I sprint harder, heart slamming in my chest. I raise my muzzle, catch another gust of wind. It's there, stronger now, the smell of terror, of desperation, of something else, something equally, if not more so, delicious.

Now. I need her now.

Soon, I tell my wolf. I'm getting impatient, too. Where the hell is she?

Then I hear it, a quick, soft crackle of a pile of dry leaves. With a snarl, I whip my head in the direction of the sound. There. A flash of silver fur.

Found her.

Already galloping impossibly fast, I ratchet up my speed, pushing myself to the limit. Past it, even. At this point, I'm not so sure. It doesn't matter, because my wolf will never let me quit. In fact, I'm counting on it. And finally, I see her about thirty feet ahead of me.

She's larger than the average wolf, as all Alphas are, but she's sleeker, sylphlike.

Fragile, I think. Defenseless.

But fast. Faster than I'd expected. But I'm faster.

And meaner.

Are you lost, little girl? I link to her with a taunt.

You're the one that's lost, asshole. Even in my head, I can hear the snarl in her voice.

I tamp down my surprise. She'd sounded so frightened a second ago. But gone is the tremor in her voice in my head. Guess there's more fight to her than I expected.

Feisty. My wolf is delighted. We like feisty.

I ignore him. I'm about to respond to her when she turns, quick as a heartbeat, and disappears into a thicket.

Shit!

I twist my body mid-leap, crashing easily through a small tangle of willowy branches. There's not much my hulking body can't barrel through or destroy, but the downside of strength is no agility. And this bitch has it in spades.

But that won't matter when I catch her.

I've got her in my sights again, and she's gained about another ten feet of distance on me. Shit.

I can barely hear her running. If I punch the dirt with each gallop, her paws kiss the forest floor with silent pads. No wonder she was so hard to track before.

Her silver fur catches the moonbeams from the night sky, and the way the light reflects on her coat is almost...tricky. I keep trying to anticipate when she'll take another sharp turn whether to the left or to the right, but I'm finding it impossible. It's like trying to predict the path of a spooked rainbow trout: I can't do it.

I'm starting to lose my patience.

I once ran for ten hours straight, I say, linking with Kaelyn. And I could have run ten hours more. Give up now, and I'll make it quick for you.

In my head, I hear her laughing.

Kaelyn is laughing. At me.

No way. No one has ever dared to laugh at me.

But she does.

Okay, but how old were you when you did? she mocks. I'll be impressed if you tell me that you were nine years old. Because that's how old I was when I first tracked a prey for a straight ten hours.

She flicks her glossy tail at me, and it gets my blood boiling.

End her.

My wolf's done messing around. And so am I.

Run as long and as far as you want, little girl. This ends the same for you either way, I threaten through the link.

And how is that, exactly? Kaelyn's tone is still taunting.

I give a deep-chested, resonating growl that has an owl fleeing from a nearby tree. I'm delighted to see even little sure-pawed Kaelyn take a stuttering step.

How does this end for you? I ask. It ends with your kidneys bursting in my jaws. It ends with me eating you, slowly, while you watch, from toe and tail to—

Kaelyn takes a sharp, diving leap to her right, into a thick cluster of bramble bushes.

How in the hell did she—where in the hell did she—?

Anyone else would have been shitting themselves the moment they scented me. Even would-be Alphas.

I've threatened to rip this little wolf limb to limb several times already, and she gave me the slip, again.

Who is this girl?

I don't have time to ponder that, nor do I want to.

Fury has me tearing down small trees and smashing fallen logs to follow in her steps.

I glimpse her again, Kaelyn's sinuous, silver form just ahead, the same distance away. Christ, will I ever gain on her?

I'm about to keep taunting her, when the wind shifts.

The slight change in elevation, maybe?

Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

What does matter is the scent I catch on the crisp wind.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Kaelyn is in heat.

She's in desperate, unfulfilled heat.

Catching that one scent on the wind has hijacked my brain. It hijacks my wolf.

It hijacks every splaying, splintered nerve in my body, nose to tail.

My wolf loses his absolute shit. We both do.

Now. Mine. She needs. Needs US.

It's rare, but in this moment, my wolf and I are of one mind.

In this moment, Kaelyn Hart is not my greatest enemy.

She is the answer to every question we've ever had.

And we are hers.

We know what she needs. We know what her wolf needs.

And we are the only ones who can give it to her, I agree with my wolf.

Yes, he says. I can feel his dark yearning like a sword at my neck. But I can't give in. Not to him.

Because I can't forget why I'm here tonight.

I can't.

I am the Alpha, and I owe it to my pack.

This night must end with Kaelyn Hart's throat crushed between my jaws.

It must.

And there can be no distractions.

My paws are pounding faster and harder into the dirt.

My wolf is howling, snarling, clawing at my insides.

He's furious, and he's tearing me apart.

I'm finally beginning to gain on her. I thought I was running fast before, but the frenzy of my wolf has me flying in the dark.

Mount her. Mate her.

Shit, shit, I need to get control of myself, control of my wolf.

It's difficult, but I'm not Alpha for nothing. I manage to wrest some semblance of clarity from the thick haze of lust.

Why didn't you tell me, little wolf? I link to her, and I can see the tightening in her shoulders.

She was trying to hide her heat from us, and now she knows she failed.

I figure, the more frightened she is, the quicker this will be over.

You needn't be scared, Little One, I taunt cruelly, at least now you get to have some fun before you die.

I know what they call me.

Monster.

Never to my face.

But I know what they call me.

And maybe they're right.

Maybe.

Because as hard as I fight him, my wolf is winning.

This is beginning to feel like something I cannot control. Maybe I am a monster. Fuck. Because this feels inevitable. This feels like something I have to do. And I'm a monster for this, for this thing that I have never wanted more.

So I tell her what is going to happen to her.

Kaelyn. Through the link, I can feel the tremble of her mind, her startling when I use her name for the first time.

Kaelyn, I am going to have you.

I am going to mate you.

I am going to have you begging for more.

And then, I am going to kill you.

And that's when her scent goes from being delicious and perfect, to exquisite. Because now, she is perfuming the air with not only her heat, but her fear. So much fear. Fear like a fresh kill after a famine.

And something else. Something I couldn't dare to hope for.

It would seem that her wolf doesn't hate the idea as much as Kaelyn might.

That's when I know I have her.

I throw my massive head back and unleash a howl that will be heard for miles.

Every wolf who hears it will know of my victory.

I'm almost upon her now, but I'm not quite there.

Let me taste you. Let me bury myself in you. Let me ruin you.

It is not until I see the visible shiver of Kaelyn's glossy, silver shoulders that I realize that she can hear the demands of my wolf through the linking.

With one, final leap, I'm on top of her, and sinking my nose into her soft, silver coat almost has me taking her right there, because Christ, she smells like every fantasy I've ever had.

It's short-lived, however, because immediately, she shifts back into a human, ducking swiftly out of my grasp.

Smart, I think, but I shift too.

I'm significantly smaller in human form than in my wolf form, but as far as humans go I'm like a Greek God.

Her slender, human body is swift, much like her wolf's, but just one leap from me, and I've got her pinned.

Kaelyn's face is pressed into the forest floor, and I've got both her wrists shackled in my large hands.

It doesn't escape my (or my wolf's) notice that I'm lying on top of her, and we are both naked.

And I'm hard.

Like, just-scented-a-desperate-she-wolf-in-heat hard.

Her body feels so good underneath me. She's all long-limbed and soft-skinned, and her long brown curls are fanning out over the leaves like she's in a photoshoot.

I press my long, thick erection against her.

"What do you think?" I leer. "Not bad, hm?"

Kaelyn lifts her head, refusing to turn her face. She spits out a mouthful of dirt.

"Go fuck yourself," she says. She fights against me, her hips bucking up, her arms struggling.

I don't budge.

But I do get harder.

"But, sweetheart, I'd much rather fuck you," I say.

"I'd rather die."

"Well, that comes after." I want her to face me. I want to look in her eyes as I have the greatest fuck of my life—the victory fuck—the one that not only means satisfying my wolf (finally) but also means an end to the war.

I flip her easily, and Jesus her tits are gorgeous. Every part of her is. My mouth's already watering.

But Kaelyn still won't look at me, her chin jutting out, her head turned, eyes squeezed stubbornly shut.

I'll admit it. There's a small part of me that's... impressed. There's an even smaller part of me that's... regretful. She's lovely and brave and—

But I've gotten good at ignoring that tiny part of me.

Running my eyes over her high cheekbones, the full lips, the impudent set of her jaw, I recognize her weakness:

Pride. That's what this is.

So that's what I'll leverage.

"So this is you," I say in a low voice. "Kaelyn Hart. You were supposed to be the Alpha. But you can't even die like one. Can't even look your enemy in the eye. Pathetic."

It does the trick.

"FUCK you, you slimy piece of—" The words are out of her mouth as she turns her face to meet my eyes, but she immediately goes silent.

Because when our eyes lock, everything changes.

Fucking everything.

"No," I gasp, releasing her wrists. "No fucking way. Please, no fucking way."

Because when I look into her eyes, those perfect, whiskey-brown, amber pools, I see everything. And feel everything.

Because I am looking into the eyes of Kaelyn Hart, not only the future Alpha of our greatest enemy, the Silverfang pack, but something worse.

Far, far worse.

I am looking into the eyes of Kaelyn Hart: my one, true mate.