She straightened, watching the werewolves exchange quiet words. Even the bartenders stopped what they were doing and gave wary heed to the two large werewolves who quite possibly might not wait until midnight to start the challenge. It wouldn’t be the first time a fight broke out in the
locanda
.
Alpha males often didn’t get along. Put a bit of whiskey in them, and you were guaranteed a few broken tables and chairs before the night ended.
A glass shattered to the floor, their pack leader’s voice booming through the room.
“You fucking little punk! It takes more than brute strength to lead a pack.”
Once his roar had terrified Renee. Her heart pounded and she sniffed the air, while fighting through too many emotions to pin down Bruno’s.
Freddy actually jumped over the bar counter. “Not in my
locanda
,” he yelled, running toward the two werewolves and jumping between them.
Their pack leader growled at him, looking for a moment like he’d send him flying. Bruno, however, stood tall and calm—almost too calm. Like the unnerving calm and silence before a deadly tropical storm. Muscles bulged over his entire body though. His clothes looked ready to split and tear from him.
And his teeth bulged against his lips. Renee didn’t have to climb into his mind to know he fought the change. Hell, her insides quivered with anticipation, anxious for the challenge—anxious for it to end and to enjoy the hot sex that would happen afterward.
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“More than one cub will be conceived tonight,” Anna whispered from behind her.
Renee’s insides almost exploded as she thought how rough and demanding Bruno would be after the fight. She hurried to put up her mental wall, keep the bitches around her from smelling the lust that seeped from her pores. Her pussy swelled, eager and excited to take her werewolf in her arms, love him and fuck him until they both howled.
Would he take her in the field after the challenge? He’d be sweaty, bloody, and wound so tight he’d be almost violent. Or would he give the pack attention first, howl with the werewolves, keep her close, her body tingling in anticipation, until they were alone. Possible scenarios almost had her teetering with dizzy need. She gripped the side of the bar, relying on its real hardness to keep her thoughts at bay and stop herself from coming as she stood there watching him.
* * * * *
It wasn’t until later that evening, when the pack began assembling outside town at the old ruins that marked where communal runs often started, that Renee caught sight of her sire. His old truck rumbled over the uneven ground, and she watched him climb out and her mother get out on the other side.
Quite a few pack members already lingered in the dark rocky area. Old ruins reached for the inky black sky, as if pointing toward a place free of all the worries and stress that surrounded each one of them. Their strong, age-old strength seemed to soothe her, and she focused on the old formation, before glancing again in the direction of her parents.
Surprisingly, her sire didn’t approach her. Instead, he exchanged a few words with Giovanni. Her mother stood quietly behind her mate, and glanced toward Renee. She wore her black hair piled high on her head as she always did. In simple jeans and a sweatshirt, her mother had never been a bitch who stood out. She was quiet, reserved, the perfect mate. And the kind of mate her sire hoped his daughter would be. Renee smiled at her mother, and the smile was returned. Warm and reassuring, the softly spoken bitch who’d raised her offered her silent support. That warmth filled Renee. She had her Mom’s blessing. Her sire’s would come in time, even faster once Bruno was pack leader. She loved the werewolf who’d raised her but knew he viewed the strength of a werewolf on what he had to offer. That would never change in him.
Cars pulled in, parking at different angles. Pack members moved around her. Renee heard the whispers.
They tickled her ears and put butterflies in her stomach. As she’d guessed, the pack grapevine was as strong as ever. Right along with the buzz of the challenge, word was out that they’d have a new queen bitch within the hour.
Apparently everyone had confidence in Bruno winning.
Large rocks stuck up from the ground. Cubs began climbing them, fighting among themselves.
Renee ignored them, glancing over to where Bruno stood with werewolves surrounding them. Already he had his shirt off, the glowing moonlight accentuating the rippled hardness of his chest. The file://C:\Documents and Settings\Chrissy\My Documents\My Ebooks\ElementsUnbound\El...
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werewolves growled and laughed, taking potshots at each other, and wrestling to the ground.
Energy sparked in the air. Adrenaline, excitement and waves of testosterone charged the area around them. It made her skin prickle.
Blood would be drawn. A life would be lost. It was the way of their world. They were as violent as they were compassionate. Traditions laid out for them centuries before would be honored tonight. Renee clasped her hands behind her back, lowering her head while quietly wishing the best for the souls that would leave this Earth, and for the souls who would lead the pack. The wind blew around her, lifting her hair off her back. For a moment the earth trembled under her feet, not strong, and it was over so quickly she might have believed it never happened. But she knew—understood. The elements were on her side—there for her—for them. For her and Bruno.
Without notice, their pack leader bounded through the crowd. He charged into Bruno, screaming obscenities that were garbled due to his half-changed body.
Renee almost jumped out of her skin. She opened her eyes, lifting her head barely in time to see the older werewolf lunge at Bruno. “Shit. Isn’t he supposed to wait until it starts?” she asked no one in particular.
“Pack leader says when it starts.” One of the older woman who’d washed her scrapes and pulled her out of trees more than once as a cub, put her hand on Renee’s shoulder and pulled her back toward the rocks.
Renee’s stomach jumped into her throat. Not fair! What if Bruno wasn’t ready? She’d never thought of her pack leader as a cheat. He was an old man, but he hadn’t ever treated anyone unfairly.
Yet now he bulldozed into Bruno, knocking him off his feet. Howls tore through the night while werewolves scattered and the two of them rolled over the uneven ground.
Renee sat down on cold stone, barely noticing it chill her ass through her thin dress. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs, and stared at the two werewolves who attacked each other ruthlessly.
One of them would die tonight. The challenge wouldn’t end until a neck broke.
Her heart forgot to beat. Chills attacked her skin so hard, rushing across her flesh while she hugged herself. The smell of blood filled the air. Pack members screamed, jumping out of the way while the two werewolves made the change, and brutally tore at each other with daggerlike teeth.
The two werewolves were like a giant black mass, long, thick, shiny hair and white teeth, bodies rolling on the ground. Their growls curdled her blood. They screamed, lunged at each other, two ferocious creatures, large and deadly as they attacked and ripped at each other.
She wanted to scream at all of them to be quiet. She fought not to jump from the rock and try to stop the fight. Bruno didn’t have to lead the pack. They would be happily mated even if he weren’t leader. She’d wanted him always. He’d made it more than clear that he wanted her. This didn’t have to happen.
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“No,” she whimpered, knowing no one around her heard her. “No one has to die.”
Everyone watched the fight. Tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. The deadly brutal screams from the two alpha werewolves made her skin crawl.
And then a silence hushed the area. A soft breeze carried the smell of blood and sweat through the air.
“What’s wrong?” Why had they stopped?
She’d never been to a challenge before. Maybe there were rounds, or something. She jumped off the rock, ready to hurry to Bruno and beg him to reconsider. He didn’t need to risk his life, or someone else’s, for them to be happy.
The breeze carried something else to her. Or maybe it came of its own volition. Satisfaction, complete and fulfilled. She didn’t smell it. She felt it. In her mind. Frozen where she stood, a cry on her lips that wouldn’t leave, she watched Bruno slowly take his human form. He straightened until he stood, and then threw his head back, his thick long, shiny, black hair flowing in the breeze behind him, and howled at the night sky over their pack leader’s dead body.
He was cold. His thoughts mingled with hers. Sweat covered his human flesh, chilling him. And he was happy. Happier than he’d been when he’d fucked her. Warmth traveled through her when something else hit her. The silent promise that she’d be howling with that same happiness later that night. Need and desire hit her so hard she almost fell over.
Looking around quickly, she hurried toward two of the younger bitches in her pack who sat on a blanket in the grass.
“Please. I need your blanket,” she told them.
She barely heard one of the older bitches snap at the young girls to honor their new queen bitch. Her head spun when the blanket was quickly thrust in her hands, and she almost stumbled over rocks as she hurried to Bruno.
My queen bitch.
His garbled voice tore into her thoughts. He hadn’t spoken. Her pussy throbbed and if he read anything in her brain at all it would have been gobbledygook.
She shook out the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. Bruno smiled down at her, his hair tousled and messy. Blood and sweat trickled down his face. But the satisfaction, the intense domination that coursed inside him, made her straighten. He was her new pack leader—her mate.
He gripped the blanket at his chest, and wrapped his other arm around her. His body was hot, damp, his heart pounding hard enough that it matched the throbbing that pulsed inside her. Slowly he moved them through the pack. Werewolves around them began howling, showing their respect and loyalty to their new pack leader. Females lowered their heads, acknowledging her new rank as queen bitch. She shivered, her legs quivering hard enough she almost couldn’t walk. If Bruno held her a bit tighter, keeping her steady, she didn’t notice. His thoughts flooded through her mind, like a fast roaring river, file://C:\Documents and Settings\Chrissy\My Documents\My Ebooks\ElementsUnbound\El...
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bombarding her with sexual promises he’d fulfill later.
Every inch of you, every hole, will be claimed and completely satisfied.
He let that thought float in her head, her stomach twisting in knots as she ached to disappear with him right now, and at the same time thought of running to a safer haven. She didn’t realize they stood in front of her parents until Bruno paused and straightened. It took a minute to make her legs work when he let go of her and shook her sire’s hand.
The pack leader didn’t ask permission from a sire to take his daughter. And damn it if her sire didn’t look like he beamed with pride. Renee met her mother’s gaze. Tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks and she grabbed Renee, hugging her fiercely while whispering how proud she was—as if Renee had done all the work in achieving this moment.
There would be time later at the official ceremony to chat with all the bitches. Bruno put his arm around her again, leading her toward the edge of the clearing where his motorcycle waited among all the cars and trucks of the pack.
“Wait,” she whispered when she spotted an older woman at the edge of the crowd.
Standing alone, her hands clasped in front of her as she held her head high, Renee couldn’t stop the tears as she approached the only queen bitch she’d known her entire life. How many times had this woman been there for her? As a cub with scraped knees, or a young teenager, confused with too many hormones surging through her. Juanita had been a pillar all the women in the pack could lean on. And she stood now, alone, tormented, her mate dead and her rank stripped from her.
Renee swallowed the lump in her throat when Juanita’s pain wrapped around her. But the tears streamed down her cheeks nonetheless when she moved from Bruno’s grasp and walked past the other pack members toward the older woman.
Without hesitation, Juanita opened her arms, pulling Renee into her plump arms. Juanita didn’t hold back her pain. Her ample body shook as emotions tore through her and she clung to Renee as though suddenly the older bitch was the cub.
“May you have as many wonderful years as I did before this happens to you,” Juanita whispered.
Renee knew her blessing was heartfelt and sincere. Juanita upheld the laws of the pack, was an example to everyone her entire life. Even in mourning, with her sudden widow status, she remained strong and accepting of their ways.
“You will be cared for and honored always,” Renee promised her.
Juanita nodded, letting her hands fall to her side, and then graciously lowered her head honoring her new queen bitch.
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Bruno opened the door to his den. He wasn’t even sure what time it was, but the entire pack would sleep late the next day. They’d drunk and heard the loyalty promised to them from every pack member until he’d been able to sneak his mate out of Freddie’s
locanda
. His cock had raged with need all the way home.
Now, watching her look around his quiet and simple home, she found it lacking. He sensed her reaction, knew she wondered how the two of them would make a den out of his small one-room quarters.