Lucas
Fury pushed his luck again as our Cardinal.
Years. Years I have bowed to him and followed his orders, trying to fit into our pack with as little resistance as possible.
My Alpha rises with my jaguar, and I bristle, shoulders square as we size up against each other.
Normal human packs struggle enough with the power dynamics of having two Cardinals in one pack, let alone shifters of different species, and the stress brought about by our wilder instincts often causes flare-ups.
Such as what happened during dinner. For the first time since I joined this pack, I…
Played. Flicking sauce at Atlas in return was childish and petty, but his big grin stretched across his face and welcomed me.
I had nearly purred in front of them all.
Fury and Clay had been in deep conversation about the scent trails of Brynn’s pack passing close to the land, and we all knew that had to be dealt with before it turned into a full-on turf war.
And that’s how I ended up in the hallway, once more at odds with our pack leader over our Omega.
Fury’s heart gallops beneath my hand, the snarl rumbling in his chest, the hot puffs of breath as he bares his teeth at me.
Fuck I don’t want us to come to blows, but I won’t bow to him for something that we are both to blame for.
She is so flighty, and my Alpha pushes at the seams. He wants to go out and comfort her, wrap her up in her nest, and have her sunken on my knot until she can’t possibly pull away.
The way her sweet little pastel eyes had peered up at me yesterday when I asked her about spending the evening with me…
Her scent had bloomed, the citrus hints bright and cheery in the kitchen.
Despite my anger at the rest of the pack for forcing me into this situation, I have become comfortable with her in the space and the way she just fits between us all without issue.
It has only been two weeks, and she’s almost seamlessly integrated.
The spare seat at the dining table is hers, that part of the sofa, her suite on the top floor.
But it bothers me to watch her eye the exits when I enter the room, just because I don’t want to mate her right this second doesn’t mean I want to sink my claws into her.
Except I had, the bleeding marks on her hips and shoulders had taken a few days to close up, and they’d left scars.
Scars that made me feel guilty about marring her beautiful, pale skin.
I turn to Fury, still snarling away, “Fuck off, Anthony, I have had enough of your bad mood flexing your power, and scaring our Omega.”
Fury makes a sick sort of laugh, the disbelief catching him at my words, “Seriously, Lucas? Oh, now she’s our fucking Omega? You’ve been on our backs about her being here since the start, and treating her like she doesn’t exist! You don’t just get to decide that now!”
“Well, I am fucking sorry, I refuse to let my heart be torn out a third time!” The resounding thunder rumbling from my chest has the other three ducking back into the kitchen, and a sharp whine in the air.
Were it our Omega making the noise, I would have calmed, but Atlas’s submissive distress has little effect on the burning flame of frustration within me.
I’m being unreasonable, I know it. Fury is right, I have no claim to her, but oh, how her perfume lights my nerves in a way I haven’t felt in years.
My knot aches every time I hear her in the shower, singing horribly off-key but with the confidence I wish she showed at other times.
Muscles tense as I almost lunge at the other Alpha before we all hear it.
Ai meu Deus, it brings me crashing to my knees, the breath leaving my body like I’ve taken an arrow straight through my sternum.
It’s yearning, need, a howl wailing through the night like a siren call to every Alpha in the area.
My cock is pressed painfully against my tight boxer briefs, and my beast is fighting within me, his claws tearing at the edges of my mind, driving me delirious.
My own claws tear through my fingertips, flexing into the flooring as I try to inhale my packmates’ scents and ground myself in them.
Someone cries out, there’s heavy thumping.
My eyes rise from the gouges I am carving in the hardwood to see Fury taking a shifted Atlas to the floor, wrestling the giant gray and black wolf whilst battling his own shift.
Crimson fur spreads across the backs of his hands, his ears, and tail, already peeling from him as he scruffs the other wolf.
We haven’t seen our Cardinal in his half-form for a very long time.
Fur flows through me equally, clothes tearing as I yowl and reform, sheathing my claws and flattening my ears before shaking out my coat.
Pale paws pad across the carpet as I push at the front door, left open by our Omega only moments before.
Sharp barking sounds behind me as Atlas stills in our Cardinals hold, his tongue lolling from his mouth, tail making some whump-whumps as it wags against the wood.
Teddy will be furious; he’s only just cleaned the last batch of drool and fur from the house.
Fury calls for me, his voice softer now.
“She’s just rang the dinner bell for every unmated shifter in the county.
You need to find her, and do it quick. If her wolf is in full control, and she’s still calling for mates…
She might spike again. And she needs someone there who won’t bond her by accident like this idiot. ” Atlas whines in his grip, “do it.”
He is offering me something I have no right to.
The whole pack should participate in a mate hunt, taking our turns with her, claiming and bonding after we’ve proven our strength and stamina in a hunt.
My breath catches in my throat, and I huff a deep reply to him, slipping out into the darkening night to follow the prints torn across the gravel drive and the grass.
It’s not the first time I’ve caught her when she’s run, but I will be sinking more than my claws into her this time.
The air is cool and crisp with the beginnings of the winter chills, stars twinkling above us in the clear night as I begin tracking her.
Fury filled me in that it wasn’t just the wolf pack we are worried about, but he is so on edge from the bear he scented.
A bear like the one that had terrified the Omega at the auction facility.
Snarling, I unsheathe my claws and climb the first large tree next to the house, spraying bark and sticky sap across my belly that will clump later.
The thought barely deserves a second, with too much else running through my mind.
If the pack is following her, there's little I can do by myself, despite being a larger predator than a wolf. Brynns’ pack is at least seven Alphas strong, and without the backup of my own pack, I’d be a red mess in the dirt long before rescue would arrive, and they’d think nothing of bonding an unwilling Omega.
With luck, Fury can get Atlas under control to leave him at the house with the more vulnerable humans, whilst he helps me wrangle the wayward woman back under the safety of our roof.
Driving myself faster, I’m a blue or gold and black through the branches, keeping pace with the birds flitting through the leaves alongside me, crying out danger.
Flexing my claws, I tuck and bounce to the next tree, thankful for the thick, ancient branches in our woodlands, keeping me well above the sight and attack line of wolves.
I see now why Fury sent me first. I am much faster without detection…
And despite my dislike of admitting fault, I am far less useful in a fight than two massive, heavy Alpha wolves.
Against one or two maybe, but a cat's strengths lie in stalking and surprise, not an all-out fight.
Another mating howl calls through the night, tugging on my heart and cock as it all but drags me towards her, the branches creaking with every step of a heavy male jaguar.
So focused on the sounds around me, it is impossible to miss the horrifying moment when the other pack calls back, my tail lashing as I pick up the pace again, bounding along at breakneck speeds.
For the first time since I was a young boy, I curse being a cat, damned the lung capacity we lack compared to the canines.
Skye has probably lost me to the woodlands now, but I won’t give up yet.
Fury will probably be on my trail. Her thick rum scent soaks the air, prickling with awareness across my entire body like an electric current right from my tail to my whiskers.
There’s a sharp, tangy edge to her scent, the kind that only comes with a heat, and I can faintly smell wolves, too.
Not ideal. I'm going to have to ease the spike and be the first to take her out here in the dirt.
There’s a familiar howl from back home, Fury finally setting off to help, and the thought pushes me on. I won’t be alone for long. His immense power will be here, directed at the trespassers on our territory.
Ahead of me, curled on the ground and back in her human form again, is our Omega.
She’s curled up, sobbing and clutching her belly amidst the leaves.
Flooding my nostrils as I breathe her in, her scent is pained, calling to her Alphas to ease it, to fuck and fill and bite and bond.
The breeze just keeps blowing more to me, and my eyes drift shut, my mouth opening to taste it in the air.
Caralho, there’s a whole bouquet of scents on the wind, coming our way; we have to do this quickly.
Neither of us has the time to enjoy it properly, and I have no doubt that she’ll come on my knot, but I really should take the time to build her up.