Authors: Susan Bliler
Terr4tory
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Cover fonts, spine, and back cover done by:
Cindy Hubbard
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
Editing done by:
Leiah Cooper with
So I Read This Book Today…
http://soireadthisbooktoday.com/
As always thanks to my Beta, Cindy.
I couldn’t do this without you.
Thanks for believing in me when no one else did.
;o) ting
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Susan A. Bliler.
DEDICATION
For Michael Lee Lott
I remember one gloriously warm summer morning. All the other kids were sleeping in, but you and I were awake helping Ma clean. The house smelled of Pine-Sol and the warm summer breeze billowed the white and yellow curtains in the kitchen window. As a reward, Ma gave you a few stamps and you took me to T.C.’s to buy a soda. We walked the few blocks through the ‘jects and I remember being proud that I got to go to the store with my oldest brother. We each got a soda and you bought one for mom too, then you spent the last of your money to buy me some candy. I knew the other kids would be jealous, but I also learned that hard work was rewarded. I loved that day. I love you, brother. I hope life is treating you well, and just wanted you to know that I’m missing you with my heart and remembering you in my prayers.
Prologue
Willa Hutchinson stood stock still. The small dark room was crowded, and the acrid scent of impending death stung at her nostrils. Her Alpha was dying.
Garner had taken them all in, protecting them to the last, keeping their rag-tag group of misfit wolves together. She knew it couldn’t last. Garner was old when he’d found them, and now his body was simply giving up.
Becca, Sarya, and Keryn all cried. Their heads bowed as they waited for Garner to pass. Jase and Arden, the youngest of the pack males were too fresh to claim the helm, which left her or Cortez. Four years older than Cortez, she was the obvious choice with one exception. She was female. If
any
of the males claimed the position of Alpha, she’d have to fight to take it from them. She wouldn’t. She didn’t need the stress, and neither did the small pack.
But Garner waited with baited breath. He’d offered up the position, threw out the challenge, and everyone had bowed their head and stepped back. Everyone except her and Cortez.
Aside from Garner, she was the eldest in the pack at twenty-six. More of a matronly figure than anything, the others followed her lead but only because they were too young, too lazy, or too selfish to want to do anything else.
Lifting steely green eyes, Willa leveled her gaze on Garner and waited. She was nervous as hell, but she’d never let the emotion show. It was a habit she’d picked up her first years with the pack. Where the rest wore their emotions on their sleeves, Willa kept hers well guarded.
Cortez fidgeted, and Willa sucked in a breath. Here it was. He’d either step forward and accept the pack, or step back, relinquishing leadership to her. She prayed for the former. With him in a relationship with Keryn, they would become an Alpha pair, leaving Willa in her matronly role among the pack.
The next few moments seemed to drag on. Eyes still locked with Garner, she could see her own hopes and fears reflected in his eyes. They both knew she was born to lead, but to do so now, like this, would be hell. She’d either be challenged and have to battle to keep her seat, or she’d have to claim a mate, and only the strongest would do.
Suitors
would come. This meant, she’d have no say in who would claim her. Alpha males would battle for the right to mate with her, to lead the pack, and she’d have to accept whoever won. Unless she could defeat them in battle—an outcome which she doubted.
When Cortez took that deciding step back, she felt her heart plummet. She had no choice but to claim the title of Alpha to protect the pack. Any outsider would disband them, just to prove he could. She knew that word of Garner’s death would travel. When it did, the first natural question would be, ‘who is the new Alpha?’
Challengers
would come. She wasn’t battle born and that fact would inevitably make her a target.
Alphas came into power in one of two ways. Many Alpha positions were passed down within Packs, with the outgoing Alpha handing over power peacefully. If Garner and the pack accepted her as the new Alpha, the transition would go smoothly—at least until challenges began. Battle born Alphas were something completely different than bred Alphas.
Of the two ways to become leader, battle born were most feared because the position wasn’t handed down. It was earned. They fought to earn their position in the pack, taking over weaker Alphas through battle and death.
In Willa’s case, if she were to take lead, it’d have to be gifted to her by the out-going Alpha and approval of the pack.
Sarya and Becca cried harder. Keryn looked equally fearful and happy. She should look happy. Cortez was free from challenge, which meant the untried young wolf would live. Willa swallowed hard, lifted her chin a fraction and stepped forward. Even as approval shone in Garner’s eyes it warred with dismay. They both knew she, and likely the whole pack, were doomed.
Garner’s chapped lips parted and he whispered an almost inaudible, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
Willa snorted and smiled. She knew the Bible verse. Isaiah, chapter six. “Here am I.” She lowered her chin, narrowed her eyes on Garner in her best Alpha-female sneer, and repeated. “Here am I. Send me.”
The decision made, the others shuffled from the room, soft crying the only sound. Willa made to follow, only to have Garner hold up a hand. He let his eyes settle closed as he spoke. “All is not lost yet. I have a plan.”
A plan?
Hope flitted through her. “What plan?”
“Evander Kane,” Garner smiled weakly.
Evander?
She knew him only from the time he’d been traveling through and stayed a few days to visit with Garner. Old friends, the two spent a week making repairs to the farm that the other wolves were too young or too inexperienced to help with. She’d thought him handsome, but hadn’t felt a spark. Regardless, he was a good man, and if Garner could somehow talk the wolf into fighting for her, she’d be eternally grateful. Hell, she’d even be willing to overlook the fact that she had no sexual interest in the Alpha. It’d be worth it. He’d be worth it.
***
One week later, Willa Hutchinson and her Minnesota pack stood on the sunny hillside overlooking their farm as they laid their Alpha to rest. Garner had gone peacefully in his sleep, and Willa envied him his long mostly peaceful reign as Alpha. Hers promised to be decidedly more violent.
To Garner’s disappointment Evander Kane hadn’t come, and the frail Alpha could no longer hold off his death. Left as an unmated female Alpha claiming a territory she hadn’t earned in blood, Willa knew that challengers would be quick in coming.
Vibrant green eyes touched on the bowed heads of her pack mates as they stood and watched Garner’s casket as it was lowered into the ground. He’d wanted a human burial, and she’d made it happen. How could she not? He’d taken them all in and had accepted them as family. What’s more, he’d been a good Alpha. So many now, were abusive opportunistic tyrants. Not Garner. He’d been a kindly father figure to them all. Fair, but firm when needed. He’d taught them well.
The wind picked up and whipped hip-length, white/blonde hair back from Willa’s face. The morning had been bright and warm with the lick of the sun favoring the farm, but as Garner’s casket was lowered, ominous clouds rolled in as if laying the scene for her future. There’d be no sun, no light. Shit was about to get real, and Willa needed to get real tough, real fast. A shiver swept through her and she scanned the horizon, half expecting to see wolves baying in the distance. The threat of takeover was real, and her pack all knew it. To their credit they didn’t run. No, they were family. They’d stand behind her and that was the hardest part. The rational voice inside her told her to disband the pack, to send them into the wind and pray they could make it alone. The matronly side of her, the Alphina side, refused to be forced into submission. Her pack was young. Six boys and six girls, with only Keryn and Cortez out of their teens.
Cortez was the eldest at 22, but he was far from a man. Even as a shifter, he still hadn’t formed the aggressiveness needed to protect himself, let alone protect Keryn. The two had always been interested in each other, but had only just recently begun “courting”. Just a year younger than Cortez, Keryn set the pace, and Willa knew they hadn’t gone any further then necking in the woods and holding hands.
All of Willa’s girls were untried. At 19, Becca was viable, but too silly and youthful to be any sort of a mate at this point. The pack prankster, she got her kicks out of harassing the others and making jokes. Sarya was nothing like the older two girls. Only 17, she needed guidance and a matronly figure and she took to constantly watching Willa and mimicking her lead. Both Keryn and Becca had grown their hair long to their waists like Willa, but Saray found her spark of independence there. Currently, her shoulder length hair was dyed a vibrant red. Funny, Willa found that it suited her.
Arden and Jase were the two youngest males and the two youngest of the pack. A fact that grated on Arden. Constantly trying to out-do the other males, he was the serious one of the pack. Too serious for his sixteen years. Willa wondered if it had something to do with the fact that he was darker than the rest. Caramel skin with a fuzzy almost fro, Arden was determined to be Alpha one day. Willa could see it in his drive. Always going out of his way to help out, and the first to volunteer for duties, he was her most dependable pack member.
Too young to do much other than beam his great smile and be cute as hell, Jase didn’t do much aside from follow Arden around like a lost little puppy. At only eight, it was understandable. He needed a male figure to look up to and Garner was gone. Keryn’s actual blood brother, Jase shared her same glowing blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Cortez too looked similar to Keryn and Jase, which was weird. Still, they were a good pack and Willa loved each of them for their own uniqueness. Too young and naïve to make it out on their own, Willa vowed to keep them,
protect
them as long as she was able.
Chapter 1
“WILLA!” Cortez bellowed as he barreled into the house, sneakered feet sliding on the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor.
Turning from the boiled eggs she was peeling at the sink, Willa rolled her eyes. With Cortez, the sky was always falling. “Now what?”
He was doubled over with his hands planted on his jean-clad knees, sucking in lungs-f of air. A pathetic sight for a shifter really. She’d tried to get the pack out on consistent runs, but any sort of planned activity was like herding cats.
“S-Stranger,” Cortez finally gasped out. “Stranger coming!”
The words sent ice water shooting through her veins and acid filled her belly. It was beginning.
Damn vultures!
She was supposed to be allowed two more weeks for the pack to mourn their Alpha before suitors or challengers could begin arriving. The lack of respect was as irksome as it was terrifying.
Swallowing hard, she dropped the egg she was peeling into the pan in the sink and calmly dried her hands on the kitchen towel sitting on the counter. Appearances weren’t everything with an Alpha, but they were a lot, and right now, her pack was watching her. They’d follow her lead, and if she went into panic mode, they’d follow.
Turning, she found Becca and Sarya seated at the oak picnic table in the kitchen that comprised their dining area. The girls stared up at her with fear-filled eyes. They’d been working on a puzzle, delighted only a few moments earlier. Now, poor little Sarya’s lower lip began to tremble, her shock of red hair twitching as fear shook her limbs and vibrated through her body.
Willa gave her an encouraging smile, her eyes shifting to young Jase and Arden when they abandoned the puzzle and stood in unison, as if to tell her they were prepared to defend her. Sweet boys, but she’d find no help there, not that she’d ever consider it. No, she was on her own.
Keryn came racing into the kitchen, breathless. It was obvious she and Cortez had been out together, and that he’d left her behind to deliver the news of the stranger’s imminent arrival. Cortez crossed to a still panting Keryn and pulled her into his arms, eyeing Willa with clear worry.
He should be worried. A challenge which resulted in a new Alpha meant that any female in the pack could be claimed. The thought of any man attempting to touch Becca or Sarya in that manner had Willa’s gut clenching and her teeth gnashing. Her hope was that, if it came to it, he’d take her, but even that was troublesome. Although she was five years older than Keryn, they were almost identical in height. Both blonds, Keryn drew all the attention with her cascade of wild curls and lush lips, colored shocking shades of red. Her love of makeup and form-fitting, sometimes too revealing tops placed her in imminent danger of claiming, no matter her wishes.
Willa was different. A quiet beauty, her good looks were natural. Impossibly full lips were normally the perfect shade of pink with no need for lipstick. Instead of the bright blue of Keryn’s eyes, Willa’s were a brilliant green, framed by long, dark lashes, which was odd considering her waist-length wavy hair was so blond it was nearly white, matching the coat of her wolf almost perfectly. Her skin was flawless, never needing the assistance of makeup. The girls were all lovely – dangerously lovely given their desperate situation.
“This is our farm,” Willa stated evenly, eyeing each of the shifters in her kitchen. “We aren’t accepting challenges, or suitors, for another two weeks.” She narrowed her eyes on Arden and Jase. “Take a seat.”
Reluctantly, they did.
Willa’s eyes softened as she looked from Becca to Sarya. “Finish your puzzle, girls.” She turned to eye Keryn and ordered. “Go change your clothes. Put on something less…
inviting
. And wipe that make-up off your face.” Finally, she faced Cortez. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”
Cortez shook his head as he took a step toward her, but she held up a hand.
“That’s an order.”
Keryn wrapped herself around Cortez’s arm, and he swallowed before asking, “You sure, Phina? If he…”
“I’m sure.” Stepping out onto the porch she let the screen door slam closed behind her. The room was notably silent as she descended the creaky front steps and lifted her head, scenting for the stranger.
She’d expected the stranger to be male, and Cortez had confirmed it with his, ‘What if
he
…’ Walking determinedly toward the scent of the stranger, Willa fought to tamp down her anxiety. Any shifter would scent it, and if it was a challenger she was about to face, he’d see it as a weakness.
Halfway up the rise, near where they’d buried Garner, Willa heard the squeak of the screen door as it opened. Making a mental note to reiterate the lessons on the following of orders, she balled her fists to still the adrenaline-filled shake of her fingers. Nothing good could come from the stranger arriving from this particular direction.
The farmhouse was surrounded by thick woods on the back half that gave way to the Superior National Forest. Home to the nation’s largest population of timber wolves outside of Alaska, Garner had picked Minnesota for that very reason, so they’d have the freedom to run in their wolf forms.
Now though, Willa was headed southwest, up the barren grassy rise of the hill. She’d have preferred to watch the stranger from the cover of the forest before she made her move, but he’d been smart. Once she crested the hill, there was nothing to hide her approach, or his. She supposed it was an honorable thing for him to do. Arriving in the open made his intentions clear. Still, it was scary.
Turning to look back at the pale brick farmhouse, she felt her heart squeeze. The farm wasn’t much. The house was too small for the pack. With only five rooms in the old two-story, Becca and Sarya were forced to share a room, while Arden and Jase made do in the basement den that had been recently dry-walled and painted to make it feel more like a bedroom than its previous dungeon feel. Still, the too small and much in need of repair farmhouse was home. A home she was willing to fight for, and filled with a family she was willing to die to protect.
Willa let her wolf surge to the fore. The ripple of the shift swept over her, and she reveled in her heightened senses and the feeling of power that washed over her, even as she realized it might be the last time she’d ever experience it.
NO!
She chastised herself. She couldn’t afford self-doubt. Not now. She was Alphina here. This was
her
territory!
Filled with determination, she rushed to the draw that cut through the rise. The wind was with her, but if she could get through the draw in time, she could flank the stranger and hit him from behind, attack going into the wind where he wouldn’t scent her approach.
Willa pushed hard, her wolf’s eerie green eyes narrowing on the draw as she reached it and jumped to the bottom to take the cut up the rise. It was hard running, but it’d give her the advantage, so the effort would be worth it.
Reaching the top of the hill, she inched out of the draw, scenting with her nose and tasting the air with her undulating tongue as she breathed deep to slow her breathing.
There.
The scent of the stranger was potent. Masculine. Heavy in the air with the thick musk of power and significance, the scent cried out
Alpha
.
Shit!
Part of her had hoped it was a friend, come to pay respects. Another part hoped it was simply a stranger passing through…a
human
stranger. She’d been wrong on both counts. This Alpha male was here with intentions.
Stalking over the rise, Willa kept her ears pinned back, her shoulders down. She inched over the grassy knoll until she finally located him, walking determinedly toward the farm. Below her, with the wind in his face, he wouldn’t scent her.
Damn
!
He’s frickin’ big!
The guy was built like a brick shithouse. Thick arms and legs, broad shoulders, massive chest. His pitch-black hair gave him an ominous look, even without seeing his face.
This is it!
She drew in a breath, preparing herself for what was to come. The plan? Barrel down the rise and hopefully take him by surprise. If he was here for a challenge, she’d have the element of surprise and hopefully wouldn’t die today. If he wasn’t here for a challenge, then he’d learn not to waltz into her territory uninvited.
Steeling herself against what she was about to do, Willa sent up a quick prayer to her former Alpha.
Garner, protect me now!
Then she was moving. Racing down the hill at a break-neck pace, she knew she’d do some damage if she could just reach him before he sensed her approach.
Back legs propelling her forward, the distance between them closed rapidly even as she sized him up, trying to determine the best way to strike.
The distance to him seemed to drag on as time slowed to a near stand-still. Her breathing heavy in her ears, and the impossibly fast thundering of her heart blocked out the fact that the wind had suddenly died down. When she was feet from him, Willa lunged.