He snarled, snapping his body back, ripping his hair out of my grasp right as his fist collided with the side of my head.
For a split second, everything flashed to black. When I opened my eyes, Mitch was gone. But before I could register anything more than foggy shapes, hands grasped me around the middle and I was tossed against the ropes. I bounced once, but snared myself with the cuff of my wrist. I stood on both feet, my head bowed, my ears ringing.
“Fight me, bitch!” Mitch shouted. “Or are you too weak, you human freak?”
“Weakness has nothing to do with it,” I panted, leaning forward, unhooking my arms and locking them on my thighs to keep me upright. I had to keep talking; it was either that or have him kill me and be done with it. An enraged wolf was a sloppy wolf. “If you haven’t noticed, you just let a human female break your bones—repeatedly. How does that feel, big, strong werewolf?” I tilted my head up and met his eyes for the first time. It was a defiant gesture meant to enrage. Direct eye contact and wolves didn’t mix. It sent them to their crazy place. “I can’t wait until word of your pansy-assness spreads to all your cronies. I’m sure they’ll only razz you for a few years—”
He had me by the neck, his breath foul and nasty against my cheek. “Bye-bye, Jessica.” My blood stained the edges of his mouth. “So sorry to see you go.”
“I’m not”—I took a sharp breath in, forcing my jaw open so air could reach my windpipe—“ready to go…yet.” My fingers found what they’d been seeking. Not hard, since it was a big target. They usually were. I gave a fierce squeeze, locking my entire hand around it, nails and all. Mitch yelped, his eyes widening. “How does this feel, you piece of shi—”
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?” The double doors into the arena exploded off their hinges, clattering loudly against the walls.
Mitch leapt away from me at the sound of his Alpha’s voice, but I still had a tight hold on Mitch’s jewels. There was an accompanying loud rip of fabric, followed by a strangled howl of pain. My hand came away bloody, strips of material caught between my fingers. Served the a**hole right. I smiled, which, given my state, must’ve made me look like a madwoman. “That’s what you get when you mess with me,” I slurred.
“Jessica! Explain yourself!” My father stormed in, followed closely by my twin brother, Tyler, and my father’s second-in-command, James Graham. Then he turned his gaze fully on Mitch. “And what the hell do you think you’re doing in here with my daughter?”
I’d chosen this particular day because the Pack Alpha, my father, was supposed to be off Compound. It was likely the only reason Mitch had accepted.
James vaulted into the ring with us and grabbed Mitch by the throat, putting him into a tight choke hold. Instead of answering his Alpha, he gurgled like a child.
My father switched his focus to me, crossed his arms, and waited for a response. “Well,” I mumbled, dashing more blood from my eyes with the back of my wrist. I scanned the ring slowly. “It seems pretty obvious from here. Mitch”—I gestured absentmindedly toward him—“and I were just in the middle of a little pissing contest. And, unfortunately, because of the interruption, a winner has yet to be declared. But quite honestly, I was on my way to sealing the deal. I had my fist wrapped around his Johnson, so things were looking pretty bleak for poor Mitchy. He would’ve had to sing like a girl or lose his manhood completely, which I know for a fact you guys can’t grow back—”
“Jessica!” My father stood on the ground in front of me, angrier than I’d seen him in a long time. “Get the hell out of there.” He slashed his hand from the ring to the bleachers in a quick, precise gesture. His voice held massive power and it flowed over me, testing my skin, pressing against it. And even though his Alpha mojo didn’t work on me because I wasn’t a wolf, I skedaddled. I was extremely good at pushing the envelope, but I also knew when said envelope was about to explode in my face. My father turned to James and flicked his head toward the doors. “Take him away. Now.”
I climbed out of the ring gingerly, picking my way through the ropes and down the small flight of steps in the corner. My whole body pulsed with pain now that my fighting high had come to an abrupt halt. Once on the ground, I limped past my father and took a seat on the nearest bleacher, closest to my bag of supplies. Across the room, my brother had his fists wrapped up in Josh’s shirt. It seemed Josh had his greatest fears realized once my father had arrived on the scene. Tyler shook him, forcing his neck back and forth like a puppet on a string, snarling, “Did you guys think you were tough shit beating up a female? Huh?”
I could feel Josh’s quivering from where I sat. For a beta, there was nothing worse than coming up against a strong alpha. Betas, the absolute followers of Pack, shied away from confrontation. Less than a third of the wolves born were beta; all the rest were alpha, constantly fighting and jostling for their place in line.
Much to my chagrin, I’d been alpha-born too. I’d just drawn the extremely shitty straw of being a girl and a human, instead of a boy and a wolf. The fact I’d been born at all equated me to being one big, scary genetic freak. Werewolves didn’t possess the DNA to create a female, so there was no rational explanation for my existence. I’d been labeled a witch, a freak—something the wolves had the right to punish. Couple that with a myth declaring me evil, and my life on the Compound had been set from birth.
Wolves were pain-in-the-ass superstitious, which meant my very existence threatened them. By walking around, I reminded them of that daily.
“Explain yourself.” My father stood in front of me, legs splayed. “What exactly did you think you were going to accomplish here tonight? Death? Challenging wolves is the quickest way to get yourself killed. This behavior won’t be tolerated, and it will stop tonight.”
I slid my gym bag closer, unzipped it, and plucked a towel out with my left hand. My right was so swollen it didn’t even look like a hand anymore—it looked like a cartoon glove. It throbbed, but it hadn’t overcome me yet. It was about time something swung in my favor. I cleared my throat, which was still bruised and sore. “I had no other choice but to fight him.” Surprising myself with honesty. That hadn’t been the plan. “It was either we clashed here or the bullshit was going to escalate to violence on its own. So I made a decision. Things have changed. Pack has gotten less tolerant of my presence, and I was hoping if I took Mitch down a few notches, I could breathe again for a little while.” I glanced up at my father, blotting the towel carefully on my face. “I know there are ‘sanctions’ against harming me—that you will kill any wolf who touches me—but I needed this fight. It’s time for me to choose a battle to fight, or it’s time for me to leave.” The word “leave” hung in the air with unspoken meaning. “The wolves and I can’t coexist here any longer. Now that I’m of age, the wolves are too restless, too fearful of what my presence means. You know all this already; you’ve seen the signs. You’re just choosing not to see what’s right in front of you. I’ve asked you to send me away, begged you to send me anywhere, but I’m still here.”
“I see just fine,” my father growled. “I understand there’s posturing with the young ones. I understand there are dominance issues with having a female in Pack, and there’s fear, but that doesn’t mean it can come to blows and end up like this.” He gestured to the ring in frustration. “You could’ve died tonight, and I won’t allow that to happen. If the wolves are agitated, I’ll institute more changes and deliver steeper penalties for any behavior involving you. I can fix this without sending you away, where you would be in more danger without my protection.”
I sighed. Mitch had been willing to die tonight to rid the world of me. What penalties could be more severe than his own death? I tossed the bloodied towel onto the ground. “I’m not Pack.” I fished around for another towel but couldn’t find one, so I settled on a T-shirt instead. “You and Tyler are the only ones who consider me ‘in Pack,’ because we’re family. I’m not a wolf; therefore I don’t qualify for the elite membership—and, honestly, not being Canis lupus is pretty much the biggest obstacle I face. The wolves don’t want me around, haven’t wanted me since the day I was born. And now I’m old enough to fight. They will find a way to get rid of me.” My throat closed for a second without my permission, but I shook it off immediately. “I’m a threat to their existence, a mistake, a witch, a problem, the Daughter of Evil—take your pick.” I lowered my voice and threw the soiled T-shirt on the ground. I was tired. “And guess what? I don’t want to be here anymore, which is exactly why I chose to come here tonight.” I waved my swollen cartoon hand at the ring. “I’m making the fight public. Beating Mitch tonight would’ve given me an edge and was the only way to slow down what I know is coming. In the end, we both know, I’m either going to die fighting, or you’re going to have to finally let me go.”
My father’s eyes sparked violet, his face cemented in rigid lines. I’d never been shy about my feelings, but I’d never been this blunt either. My leaving home was a prickly subject, and had become a polarizing disagreement between us over the last year. The moment I’d turned eighteen, I’d started petitioning for my independence, even more so when the wolves had become more aggressive. He’d gone as far as allowing me to submit a police academy application down in the cities, but after that hadn’t allowed me to attend. I’d had elite tutors my entire life, and had passed all the tests at the highest level, but he cited too many dangers and left it at that. My father was worried about how the supernatural community would view me, how they would treat a female born to a wolf, and in the process he’d blinded himself to the dangers right here at home.
“We’ll talk about this after you get cleaned up,” he said.
“Fine.” There was slim to no chance things would change, even with this fight. I was stuck in limbo with no safe place to go.
But I knew one thing.
I’d just celebrated my nineteenth birthday, and if I wanted to see twenty, I had to find a way to get the hell out.
Chapter Two
Jessica, it won’t work.” My father rocked forward in his chair, placing his elbows on his desk. We were sitting in his office. I’d left the ring six hours earlier, the infirmary a mere twenty minutes ago. My wounds were stitched and bandaged as well as they could be, considering the damage. I wore a thick cast on my broken hand and a number of Band-Aids dotted my body. In order to set the broken bones, Doc Jace had reduced the swelling with anti-inflammatories and loaded me up with Percocet. Being high on hallucinogenic painkillers was bound to make this conversation more entertaining than it had any right to be.
But there was no avoiding it. My father wasn’t going to let me out of his sight until we hashed this out, injuries or not. It was time for me to explain myself and make another case for leaving Compound life for good. Contrary to what it seemed when I fought Mitch in the ring, I did want to continue living. Starting a new life somewhere else was the only option I had left, even though batting it around again so soon with my father was taking a toll on my sanity. “Of course it can work,” I said. “You just don’t want it to work. That’s your stubbornness talking.”
My father blew air out of the side of his mouth, his exasperation building. “There’s no stubbornness involved. This is a simple situation. I’m not letting you walk out of here without adequate protection, and I can’t supply an army of wolves to make sure you stay safe. Logistically it’s not feasible.”