Authors: Gwen Campbell
“Catch any bad guys today, Cutler? Where’s your hat? I
checked on the ewes before we left like you asked and yes I had Fina go with me
into the fields,” Ryan added with an exaggerated sigh as the two of them
disappeared into Cutler’s office.
Work slowly resumed around Fina. Every officer in the
building walked past her on one pretense or another—some more transparent than
others—during the first minute or so following Cutler’s departure so they could
sniff her. Every officer, that was, except Suzanne Young. The busty blonde
dispatcher sat in front of her computer, thumbing through a small stack of
papers repeatedly, refusing to meet Fina’s eyes while every other gaze in the
room followed Fina’s movements. After the men had sniffed Fina, assuring
themselves she wore their Alpha’s mating mark just like Cutler wore hers, they
drifted back to work.
Fina’s brows drew together in a harsh line as she approached
Cutler’s dispatcher. Soon Fina stood so close that Suzanne couldn’t ignore her
presence any longer. Suzanne stood up suddenly, turned her impressive body
toward Fina’s and stared down at the shorter woman. Bristling visibly, Suzanne
clenched her fists repeatedly. Her blue, artfully made-up eyes flashed. Suzanne’s
sharp exhalations made one corner of her full, shiny, pink lips lift.
Fina stood her ground. She didn’t blink. She was being
threatened, challenged. How she reacted to this strong, ranking member of
Cutler’s pack could set a pattern of acceptance amongst the other females. The
young ones especially. Fina would remain Cutler’s mate. Nothing could change
that. But if she backed down from this challenge she’d be reduced to a
cowering, submissive cur for the rest of her days.
She hadn’t asked for power. She’d never coveted prestige.
But Fina was the daughter of Alphas, surrogate mother to a defenseless cub, and
her wolf possessed the haughty, righteous strength of a top bitch.
A twitch of her brow narrowed Fina’s eyes. Her lips pulled
back just enough to reveal the sharp, white edge of her teeth. Without
conscious thought, she leaned into Suzanne’s space.
To her credit, Suzanne held her ground. She stood up to her
full height, shoved her flawlessly pert breasts into Fina’s then blinked when
Fina shoved back.
Fina held herself still as Suzanne looked away. The blonde
seemed to shrink in size. She shuffled back a step, hunched her shoulders
forward then tipped her head to one side, unconsciously—or consciously—exposing
her throat to Fina.
“Hello, Suzanne,” Fina said quietly, politely. “I like that
shade of lipstick you’re wearing,” she added, deciding to take the moral high
road. She could backhand Suzanne into the next county and nobody would raise an
eyebrow. But this was her pack now—hers and Cutler’s for however long she
needed to stay here. Packs were more stable if they were ruled with an even,
compassionate hand.
“Um. Thanks. It’s new. Miss Whitesage,” Suzanne added
quietly and looked down at Fina’s feet. She sank back into her chair slowly,
letting Fina tower over her.
“You can call me Fina.”
Suzanne’s obscenely perfect face turned up to Fina hopefully
but she didn’t quite meet Fina’s eyes. “Um. Thanks,” Suzanne murmured as she
looked back down. The transmitter on her desk squawked.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Fina drawled quietly. It
wasn’t in her nature to be rude or condescending but, for these first few days
especially, she had to be tough with the other bitches. Ruthless, almost, as
she asserted her dominance, cementing her position and strength in their minds.
After that she could be as friendly as she wanted.
Suzanne picked up a slender headset, positioned it over her
shimmering hair, cleared her throat and dispatched a unit to the site of a
reported fender-bender off the town’s main street. When she was finished, she
switched off the microphone and looked back up at Fina. Her beautiful face was
composed but she wore that slightly blank, timid look that lesser pack members
showed higher-ranking members, especially when they were hovering over them in
deliberately intimidating positions.
Fina held her posture for the span of two more breaths. Her
point made, she stepped back and offered Suzanne a thin smile.
“I was pissed when he came in today,” Suzanne said with
quiet frankness.
Without asking, Fina understood that Suzanne was talking
about Cutler.
The busty blonde continued in a demure, soft tone. “He
stepped through the door and I knew the second I smelled him he’d…mated with
you.” Suzanne’s mouth tightened like she’d tasted something nasty and she
cleared her throat. “I mean, who wouldn’t be pissed? Who wouldn’t want to make
a play for him?” Suzanne added wistfully. “I tried, a few times.” She shrugged
then glanced up at Fina. The station had become strangely quiet. “I don’t think
he even noticed. All those times I tried though, there were these thoughts
niggling in the back of my head. The possibility that his true mate would come
along some day and I’d get turfed.” With a dreamy look in her eyes, she looked
away. “Someday he might tell me he loved me because he thought that’s what I
wanted to hear but that would only make him leaving for his true mate cruel.
Despite that, I didn’t settle on a mate of my own. A girl can hope…
could
hope,” she added resignedly, straightened her back and looked up at Fina respectfully.
“Besides,” Suzanne added and her voice was stronger, more confident. “If I can’t
be top bitch, at least I can get in good with the top bitch.” Her smooth brow
furrowed thoughtfully. “We haven’t had one since Sheriff Cutler’s mother died.
Yeah, I was pissed,” she added almost as an afterthought as she moved the
papers to the other side of her keyboard and began making entries. “But trust
me, I’m the least of your worries. Let’s just say Sheriff Powell is…popular.”
Nodding quietly, Fina turned away and headed for Cutler’s
office, drawn by the sound of his smooth baritone voice and Ryan’s high-pitched
laughter.
Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed Officer Wally
Pierce’s puppy-like expression as he stared at Suzanne.
“Shut up, Pierce,” Suzanne barked, even though the young
officer hadn’t said a word. He flinched like he’d been shot, dipped his head
and disappeared down the hall.
“Ass as flat as a pancake. You
know
he likes some
meat to dig his hands into when he’s humping…”
Fina turned a wooden smile up to Cutler and kept pushing
pieces of spinach salad around her plate. The café was unnaturally busy today.
Bodies were squashed into booths and extra chairs stuck out from the ends of
tables. The whispers had been quiet at first, preceded by haughty, even angry
looks. Whenever Fina looked, she saw unmated women glaring at her with
perfectly made-up eyes. She stared back for as long as it took for them to
break eye contact. Either that or they’d pretend to be distracted by something
their friends said. Something that was harsh, insulting and aimed at Fina.
The whispers were now loud enough that Cutler couldn’t
pretend he didn’t hear. He touched her hand, wrapped his thick fingers around
hers in sympathy then released her and sat back. This was her fight. For him to
interfere would diminish her. Fina had to claim her own rank within his pack.
He couldn’t carve one out for her and expect the others to respect it.
“Hello, Cutler.” Two beautiful women in their mid-twenties
walked past their table. Not even bothering to acknowledge Fina’s presence,
they brushed their bodies against his.
Furious, Fina growled loud enough to make her point. The
women moved on. Still, it was an unsubtle challenge to her position as his
mate. Finally giving up all pretense of eating, Fina leaned over Ryan, wiped
his mouth with a napkin and sent him over to the ball-pit to play. She squared
her shoulders and stood.
“I’m going to the ladies room,” she told Cutler quietly,
knowing the wolf ears filling the café could hear.
“You’re, um, sure?” Cutler glanced around. Everywhere he
looked he saw women he’d had sex with at one time or another—in wolf and human
form. Damn. He hadn’t realized there had been that many—and two more from the
next county over had just walked in the door.
Fina bared her teeth in a parody of a smile. “Time to get
this show on the road. May the toughest bitch win,” she purred in a tone too
quiet for anyone but him to hear.
Something flashed in Cutler’s eyes at her words. Pride
perhaps, with a touch of resignation. Mostly he just looked confident and Fina
lifted her chin and headed for the washrooms.
From the other side of the café a harried-looking Dorothea
Pike watched Fina. The older woman gulped then gave Fina a nod and a reassuring
smile before turning back to her customers. Fina wasn’t surprised to hear chair
after chair scrape the floor in her wake, then the gathering sounds of
footsteps—high heels, flats, boots and trainers—follow her down the hallway
leading to the washrooms.
She took care of business quickly, looked at her hard,
determined eyes in the mirror as she washed her hands then threw open the door
to the hallway.
“Hello, girls,” Fina snarled at no one in particular. “Got a
bone to pick?” Her eyes raked over the women lining both sides of the hall. The
door drifted shut behind her.
“Yeah.” One woman, taller than most of the others, pushed
away from the wall and planted her high-heeled feet directly in Fina’s path. “Whelp,”
she snarled dismissively. In her late twenties, she was probably five-nine or
ten but her heels put her at over six feet of long, lean muscle. She had short
black hair and blue eyes. They sparkled with malice under the fluorescent
lights. Hands planted on hips, she stared down at Fina. “You’re not welcome,
stray. Oh sure your little sob story about your pack being taken over softened
Cutler up but that doesn’t make the dogs who spawned you any less weak and
pathetic.”
Fina snarled and stood so close to the woman that their
breath fluttered each other’s hair.
“Yeah, yeah…keep it in your pants, bitch,” the woman taunted
dismissively. Several of the women around them chuckled. She poked Fina in the
chest with a short, polished fingernail. “You’re a baby. A cub. Cutler and his
pack need a real woman.” She smiled and it was full of venom. “Not some skinny,
underdeveloped weakling.” Blue eyes raked Fina’s body dismissively. “I know he
likes to put his hands on a woman with some meat on her bones. Likes to feel something
round and soft against that nice, hard body of his when he lays a woman down.”
The corner of Fina’s mouth twitched then curved up slowly
into a knowing smile. She felt the corners of her eyes crinkle.
“Funny…he liked it best when I laid
him
down. Just
this morning in fact.” Her smile widened and the woman’s haughty expression
faltered. “Oh. I’m sorry. I guess you never had the balls to throw him down on
his back, mount him and make him howl.” Her eyes left the woman’s. It was a
calculated risk. Sure the taller and obviously stronger woman could flatten
Fina with a single punch but looking away when they were standing so close told
her and every woman standing around them that Fina wasn’t intimidated. Fina
scanned the other faces. About half of them looked away immediately. After the
second pass only four were still looking at her. One by one they looked away,
except for the black-haired woman standing directly in front of Fina.
With a dismissive snort as her only warning, Fina shoved at
the woman’s shoulders with all her strength. The woman skittered backward on
her heels then flopped down on her ass. From the floor, she glared up at Fina.
“Get out of my way, bitch,” Fina growled. “If that’s all you’ve
got, I’d say we’re done here.”
The woman’s pale eyes flashed. Rage and indignation were
replaced by calculation as she looked around the hallway at the other women,
obviously searching for support. One by one the other women subtly tipped their
bodies away, exposing their flanks to Fina and keeping their line of sight well
away from hers. They were here to intimidate, to take a first measure of their
Alpha’s mate. To see if she might have what it took to lead their pack
alongside him. It seemed only one of them was actively looking to challenge
Fina for that position. Today anyway.
The woman scrambled to her feet but she was hampered by her
heels and hobbled by her skirt. Fina had no trouble grabbing her upper arms and
slamming her back into the wall. Bodies scurried out of the way before they got
pinned behind her.
Jumping up, Fina landed a solid head smash into the woman’s
forehead. The pine panel behind the woman cracked. She wobbled and her eyes
teared up.
“I can go for hours, bitch,” Fina hissed. Adrenaline and the
knowledge that, for now, Ryan’s rank would be tied to hers, fueled Fina’s
determination. That and growing up the youngest of four squabbling siblings
meant Fina was going to hold her own in this fight. She grabbed the woman by
the throat and squeezed.
Being top bitch wasn’t all about strength. Neither was being
Alpha for that matter, although holding your own in a fight went a long way in
their world. Leadership was more about having an inborn ability to lead. Having
more of it than anyone else. A select few had the ability to take command of a situation,
of a group, just by showing up. They were smart, focused, ruthless when they
had to be and they didn’t back down from any challenge. They’d fight just like
they faced any situation, full-on, full-out and believing they had the biggest
balls in the room. It didn’t mean they’d be good leaders but it meant that
others submitted to their leadership.
Long fingers tipped with red lacquer flailed beside the
woman until she tapped on Fina’s shoulders repeatedly. “All right,” the woman
managed to choke out when Fina eased her grip.
“Hmm? Sorry. I missed that. Would you mind repeating
yourself?” Fina taunted. She tightened her grip for two more seconds, pressing
her fingers and thumb in behind the woman’s voice box. With cold determination
Fina showed the bitch and every woman standing around them that if they’d met
in wolf form instead of human form she’d be ripping the challenger’s throat
out. Fina eased her grip but didn’t move her fingers.