A Pack of Lies and the Alpha Wolf

Chapter 1

Kieran Holt

The weekend farmers’ market in downtown Cedar Run, Arkansas, is usually my favorite part of the week.

Our pack always runs at least a dozen booths and tables, with various pack members selling herbal remedies, magically charged runes, teas, and other magic concoctions.

Shifters from all across Arkansas, and surrounding states, come to our market.

I’m sitting at a table in the large canvas tent that’s set up in the Shadowpine pack’s section, holding a mug of excellent mulled cider that I just bought from a Moonstone family.

The Moonstone pack’s specialty is agriculture.

I’m looking forward to food, beer, and frivolity.

And I’m not going to deal with this today.

Olivia Crowley is being a thorn in my paw.

She’s called dozens of times over the past few weeks.

Six times today. And now, she’s apparently here in Cedar Run, blowing up our pack secretary’s cell phone. “Tell her I said no.” I scowl at Teresa. “Is that hard to understand? Break it down into words of one syllable for her. Wolf. Say. No.”

I know I’m a hardass, and not particularly pleasant to work for. That’s kind of the brand, though, when you’re the Alpha and you’ve got dozens of family clans in your pack that rely on you for – well, everything.

Teresa gulps. “I will tell her. Again. She’s just very persistent.”

“Oh, brother dear, what seems to be the problem?” My twin sister Amaryllis has just entered the tent, along with our younger sister Rose, and our cousin Bram.

Amaryllis and Rose settle into the seats next to me, holding frosty glasses of lemonade.

Bram remains standing, his gaze sweeping the tent.

Always listening, always watching. He’s the sentinel for our pack, chief of security.

I start to answer and she holds up her hand. “No, no, let me guess. It’s one of your persistent female fans from that last inter-pack gathering you went to, isn’t it? You have no idea how many DMs I’ve been getting from girls who suddenly want to be my best friend because they saw you there.”

“Gross!” Rose yells. She’s seventeen; she thinks everything we do is gross.

“Well, I am pretty adorable,” I say dryly. I take a long swig of cider.

“We are, aren’t we?” Amaryllis grins at me.

“And humble,” Bram snorts, with an amused shake of his head.

“I’m the cute one here.” Rose flips her dark hair out of her face and rakes us with a scornful look. “You’re both too old to be adorable. Way too old. Waaaay too old. ‘Moses autographed your copy of the Bible’ old.”

“I think we get the point,” Amaryllis says with amusement.

“Are you sure? Because I could go on.” Rose narrows her eyes at her.

Rose is just cranky because I told her that no, she can not attend next month’s inter-pack gathering in Colorado, with or without a chaperone. Those gatherings are for business networking, and for hunting for a mate outside of your own pack.

And my sister’s got no interest in business networking.

My little baby sister is not old enough to look for a mate. Ever.

Why? Because I said so.

However, I’m not surprised that women are trying to track me down after last month’s meeting. It’s no secret that the Holt family’s looks, which run to high cheekbones, full lips, and storm-gray eyes, tend to snag attention. Other than the beard, my sisters and I share the same features.

“Anyway, no, it’s not a female fan. It’s Olivia, the older sister of the guy we sent away last month.” I drain half of my mug of cider in one long, sweet-cinnamon swallow.

Amaryllis’ expression grows serious. She is our pack’s strongest healer. Several of our female cousins are also healers; it runs in the female line of our family. Rose is a fair-to-middling healer and an excellent potion apothecary.

“That boy who couldn’t shift?” Amaryllis says. I nod. He’d come to us saying we were his last resort. Our best healers examined him.

Well, most of our best healers – just not my sister.

I have strict rules about that. I don’t break them for anyone.

She doesn’t work on anyone outside our pack, and even then, if she’s doing more than routine healing, she has to check with me first. I have reasons for that, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the Alpha; what I say goes.

Anyway, our other healers didn’t have a clue what to do.

He was an absolute anomaly. Born to a shifter family in Montana, and when puberty hit, and all his friends were having their first shifts…

he didn’t. Everyone assumed he was a late bloomer.

They kept waiting…and waiting… He’s 18 now. He’s never shifted.

He came to us with all of his and his sister’s savings, because we’re not just shifters, we’re mages.

Like all mages, we were born with a unique genetic ability to draw power from the ley lines.

Our pack, due to a genetic mutation and also living on a strong confluence of ley lines, has more mages than most. We have truth mages, healers, herb mages who can amplify the healing powers of common herbs, and our Alpha line, including me, tends towards telekinesis.

“Maybe I could have at least examined him.” Amaryllis frowns.

I shake my head. “If you found something that you even thought you might be able to heal, you’d want to do everything you could to fix it, even if it drained you to the point of…

well. It would drive you crazy not to do it.

We did everything we could,” I tell my sister. She takes a thoughtful sip of lemonade.

Outside, country music twangs, barely heard over the hum of the crowds. “I wonder if we could have done more. For starters, I would like to know if he had any wolf at all in him. If so, I actually had an idea-”

I cut her off. “We had other things on our minds.”

We’ve had some flare-ups with the Frostbanes, who are increasingly acting as if they want a pack war.

She had to heal some of our pack members who were severely injured in a fight, and it had drained her to the point of exhaustion for a week.

We’re also negotiating sales of our herbal cures to several other packs in bordering states.

We’ve always got pack business going on.

She’s still side-eyeing me. I think of reminding her that we gave Stephen Crowley his money back and a nice meal for the road before we sent him on his way, when we had no legal obligation to do either, but I’m the Alpha. I don’t have to justify anything.

“The hair on your arms is standing up,” she informs me. I frown. She’s right. My heartbeat is accelerating; my fangs are itching to descend.

She gives me a puzzled look and twists around in her chair, her gaze sweeping the tent. “Something’s bothering you, but it’s not bothering me. Odd.”

“Frostbane douchewads walking by the tent?” I murmur. Bram straightens up, his eyes sparking with interest.

“Fight?” he suggests hopefully, flexing his hands.

I shake my head at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re basically Dax, but with a sense of humor?”

“Nobody who wants to keep breathing.” He grins fiercely.

Dax is the Sentinel for the Moonstone pack, the leader of their security detail. Even though he’s got a new mate, he’s still got a giant stick up his ass at all times and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him smile. And it’s always been for his mate.

And the Frostbanes aren’t the reason why my body is doing strange things right now.

There’s no reason why they would be here.

This tent is where we store our supplies for the market.

There’s nothing back here for them. They may be agitating to start a pack war, but they wouldn’t do it over something as stupid as blustering into our tent.

Amaryllis takes a sip of her lemonade, her brows furrowed in concentration as she tries to puzzle out what’s affecting me. Rose’s gaze sweeps the tent, her gaze quizzical.

The tent flap flies open and a tall brunette woman barrels in, denim-blue eyes blazing with fury. Her hair is intensely brown with golden streaks in it, and an involuntary image pops in my head – me, tangling my hands in those silken strands. Now where the hell did that come from?

I do a quick survey of our intruder. She's wearing a loose white peasant blouse, dark slacks, and boots, and a leather cross body bag. Her fist is clenching the bag strap so tightly her knuckles are white.

Without meaning to, I lean in to catch a whiff of her. She smells like burnt sugar and clove smoke.

“Are you Kieran freaking Holt?” she demands. “You are, aren’t you? I can see it from the arrogant smirk on your stupid face.”

“Excuse me?” Teresa gasps, looking horrified. “Nobody talks to the Alpha that way!”

Rose coughs on her lemonade, laughing so hard her eyes water. “I don’t think she thinks you’re adorable.” She smirks at me.

Inside me, my wolf springs to life with a howl. A hot desire rushes through me. Everything else seems to fade, sound and intensity dimming, as all of my focus is drawn forcefully to her.

My cider mug shoots into the air and then comes crashing down, shattering. Cider splatters everywhere.

Amaryllis stares at me, eyes widening. She and Bram exchange alarmed glances. I have never, ever lost control of my telekinesis.

The woman is so angry she doesn't even react. "I just want you to know that you are an absolute bastard, and you've ruined my brother's life."

So, this is Olivia Crowley.

She glares at me. "And whatever magic you're trying to work on me right now? Knock it off, you son of a bitch. "

I know what magic she's talking about. I know why my body’s reacting so strongly. Because this fierce, furious, glorious woman is my fated mate.