“You’re beautiful and strong. Your coat is whiter and shinier than ever. But the gold streaks of the Moonlight pack are gone, replaced by silver streaks of the Wintermoon pack. Your eyes have lightened and are striking. And your wolf is larger than before,”Ambrose says in my mind.
Kael walks over, looking at me in awe. “Do you still need that challenge to accept that you are the alpha? Or is the power granted to you enough?”
I nod, still needing the challenge. I need some validity to my claim, or I’ll never be able to reach my full powers as alpha.
Kael returns my nod. “Then I challenge you for alpha of the Wintermoon pack.”
Chapter 18
Nyx
Acosmic shift almost knocks me off my feet. The ground trembles while the stars flicker overhead, as if a powerful surge were pulling them toward us. The world seems to shift on its axis, thrown off kilter.
The corner of my mouth lifts for the first time in a long time because, for once, I know exactly what has happened. Lumi rejoined Wintermoon. She’s an alpha. And the world gave her powers beyond any of us. She took control of her wolf, ripped it from Ambrose, and no one will be able to take that from her again.
Good job, my love. I’m proud of you. You are worthy, trust that.
But I know my words die in my head, never reaching her, just like every other thought I’ve had that I wanted her to hear.
I shift into my own wolf, needing to just run and run and not think. So I do. Letting the cool, night air flood my face as I run.
I’m not alone, I realize quickly. I could outrun whoever it is, but something in me tells me to hesitate.
White fur, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, flashes under the moonlight. Untamed, pure beauty carved into a sleek, muscular frame. She’s taller than before, yet still a half footshorter than me. Every movement ripples with endless power and confidence in her body that draws me to her until I’m transfixed.
I watch her run. Each of her strides is magnificent, as she seems to glide like a cloud of snow over the ground.
And then I see him.
Another wolf is hot on her heels. A low snarl is directed at her.
No fucking way.
I see red.
I don’t know who it is or why they are chasing her like they want to murder her, but fuck that. She doesn’t get to be attacked on her first day as an alpha. I refuse to let that be her story.
I leap, going straight for the brown-furred wolf with a death wish, knowing that I’ll easily be able to stop him. But stopping him isn’t enough. I want to rip out his throat. I want to murder him for what he did to her.
I tackle him to the ground, my teeth inches from his carotid. The vampire in me that still lurks even now sharpens my fangs and begs me to sink my teeth in. To taste the blood that I know is flowing. It has no preference between wolf shifter, witch, or human blood. It’s all the same to the predator within me.
The brown wolf doesn’t fight me. Doesn’t try to stop me. Like he thinks I won’t truly kill him.
He’s wrong.
I angle my head, moving toward him, when Lumi howls.
It’s the kind of howl that reverberates through you, down to your very soul. It stills every animal that hears it within a hundred miles and me.
I turn my head and gaze at her. I can’t not. It’s the howl of an alpha. One that commands me to leave the wolf beneath me in peace.
I howl back—alpha to alpha. And there’s a tingling where our bond used to be. It’s not the same. Barely a whisper of what it once was. But it’s there. The kind I share with other alphas. The most rudimentary kind of bond that might allow an emotion or simple phrase through to each other when I’m doing alpha business.
“Let. Kael. Go.”Her command is crystal clear in my head.Gods, I’ve missed her.And now she has that raspy, commanding edge to her voice, threaded with something dangerous and powerful.Fuck me, I’ve never wanted her more.It’s going to take everything in me to control myself.
It takes me a second to realize that it’s Kael that I have pinned. Not that I care at all about his life. He’s nothing to me. An annoying cockroach that somehow wormed its way into Lumi’s life and has done more harm to her than good, as far as I can tell.
I go to release him when I feel the trepidation coming off Lumi. She became the de facto alpha of the Wintermoon pack. The gods sure as hell weren’t going to let this bastard become the alpha. I know that Kael was trying to challenge her. Trying to get her to see that she was deserving.