48. Nyx
48
Nyx
“Negotiations are over with,” the alpha sneers at me. “Either you give us the rights to expand our territory, or we’ll come across your borders and take every last female you’ve got trapped behind your walls over to ours, where we’ll enjoy them properly.”
Behind me, Wren lets out a low growl.
As much as I’d like to wipe that ridiculous confidence off of this alpha’s face, I’m also aware that unfortunately we are severely outnumbered. Normally, that wouldn’t really matter—Wren and I together can take down an entire army of enforcers by ourselves.
The problem is that this pack alpha currently has two of my packmates who were on patrol, guarded behind them. Ripping through the line to get to them would be easy enough. Getting to them before their throats are slit? Less likely.
My tongue finds the back of one of my lip rings, using it as a distraction while running my eyes over the pack surrounding us.
Pack Archeron has always been a problem—a pain in the ass, if you will. For as long as I’ve been king, they’ve constantly liked being a thorn in my side. For what reason other than to simply piss me off? Who knows.
At this point, I don’t really care what their original goal was. It’s now become an inconvenience to deal with them.
“We are at an impasse,” I say.
“Bullshit,” the pack alpha growls at me. “Give me the land, Calloway.”
“No.”
He snarls again, stepping forward close to the line. My eyes flit down to his foot. Just as he’s about to cross it, one of his packmates pulls him back.
“We should talk this out,” she says, clearly upset that this situation has devolved into what it has. A pity I’ll have to kill her along with the rest of them. She at least seems to have a somewhat good head on her shoulders.
“Enough,” he snaps at her, ripping his arm away. “This ends now.”
Deftly, I move to the left, letting Wren launch himself at the alpha right when he crosses over into our territory. The alpha lets out a garbled scream, pissed to have been met with a solid body hauling him down onto the ground before he could shift and attack me.
Shifting myself, I bounce between the other pack members of Archeron, dodging the swipes of their claws and their snapping jaws. My own forces join with me, tackling whoever misses me and taking them down to the ground before anything else can be done.
Both of my packmates who were captured, Bria and Andrei, have shifted as well and are now fighting both enforcers who were the ones to tag them in the first place. I meet them both with force, slamming into one of the enforcers hard enough to send him crumpling to the ground.
The feeling is quite satisfying.
Run I tell them both, jerking back toward our packlines before sinking my teeth around the enforcer’s neck.
He struggles under me, flailing his limbs hard as I bite down and lock my jaw. Out of the corner of my eye, I see both of my packmates hesitate to leave me, and the rest of our pack, behind. They aren’t fighters by any means. Dragging them into this mess is only going to get them hurt.
Thankfully, they have some sense to them and finally take off for our town, most likely to alert more enforcers.
This “meeting” or what could barely be counted as one, is just outside of our borders—which I’d done intentionally.
With Archeron’s insistence that I somehow magically owe them more land since the recent shuffling of territories, I knew that whatever negotiations they were going to be bringing to the table would be absolute nonsense.
Their pack alpha has always been selfish, reminding me much of Raine’s.
Raine.
Now there is a female who knows how to get under my skin without even trying to. Her innocence is her biggest charm, though.
When the shifter under me finally stops moving, I let go and toss him aside. My mouth is tangy with blood that drips down my jowls and onto the hard ground beneath my paws. Without warning, something heavy knocks into me, tackling me to the ground.
Judging by the scent, it’s Archeron’s pack alpha. His teeth snap at me, trying to get in a good bite while I wiggle under him. Too bad I can’t remember his name, or else I’d be challenging him to a real fight without the rest of the chaos around me.
A fight between alphas, or rather, a duel.
I doubt he’d play honorably though.
Truth be told, neither would I.
Kicking him off me while simultaneously digging my nails straight through his chest, I’m satisfied when he lets out a yelp and the smell fills my nose. My nails are sticky from the blood and fur mixing together, making it a bit hard to roll over and get up onto my feet.
The alpha snarls at me, his ears flattening back onto his head.
He lunges again, but this time, another one of his packmates tackles me from behind.
Playing dirty, how annoying.