Chapter Eleven
The last thing Dominic expected to hear through the earpiece on his cell phone was the accented, husky voice of Alex Rivers, the owner of Howling Bones Bar, screaming at him in English and Creek.
All he could make out was that three wolves were trashing his bar.
Alex, being a bear shifter and wanting no part in the pack drama, thought it best to call Dominic when things like this happened.
If his hunch was right, Hank was one of the wolves involved in the fight.
After their talk last night, the beta said he would make an effort to mediate first before dragging Dominic into any problem.
Dominic closed up the shop, hopped in his truck, and made his way down to Colonel Street.
It didn’t take him long to reach the bar, a former hardware store Alex had remodeled for the trade he knew best. The bear shifter didn’t cross his path often, but from what little he knew about his past, Alex was a master beer crafter and had been perfecting his brew since before Dominic’s first shift.
He could already hear the snarls and snapping of wood before parking the car. At least the front windows hadn’t been busted yet. All the liquor and cigarette advertisements were still in place, and the blue, crescent moon neon sign still shone in the noonday sun.
Ronan, Cole’s beta and deputy officer with the Tolstone police department, along with a few other cops, had created a barricade a safe distance from the windows to control the small crowd that had gathered to witness the fight.
The posters and tinted glass masked whatever mayhem was taking place behind those walls.
Lately, the fights began in homes or at least in open areas where they could be contained. This was the first brawl in a public setting, and Dominic was ready to pound these wolves into the dirt for causing a scene.
As casually as a man looking for a drink instead of a fight, the cops let Dominic edge his way past the barricade, and he strode inside the bar.
Alex stood behind the bar, more or less protecting the wall of glass liquor bottles and brass tap handles from being broken by the three wolves warring in the center of the bar.
Some tables and chairs had been saved before the fight began, pushed up and stacked against the walls.
Others lay demolished, splinters and bulks of mangled wood strewn across the floor, broken beyond recognition.
Alex looked to Dominic, his dark, Creek eyes full of hate for the pesky wolves. Possessing no dominance, bear shifters had something else. Intimidation, and lots of it. Dominic was immune and turned his attention to his pack.
Hank was in the thick of it, doing his best to keep one shifter from tearing apart the other while still maintaining control over himself.
Rick and Lincoln were the brawlers, and it looked like the former was ready to drop into a full shift at any moment.
Dominic could already see dark hair sprouting from his face and neck as fangs gnashed and claws swung for purchase in flesh.
Lincoln remained in full control. Not even his eyes glowed golden as he dodged the crazed, younger shifter. Lincoln always had excellent control.
Past the odor of tobacco smoke, beer, and thousands of different scents, the air inside the bar was filled with a suffocating smog of savage rage, the kind that had become all too consuming over the last week.
He could feel it seep into his very skin and course through his veins, inviting him into the chaos.
After what he just had to go through with Erica, Dominic would have gladly taken the bait to blow off some steam.
Once more, the pack interfered with his life, forcing him to put his new mate on hold.
How he would have loved to bash in a few skulls. But he had to admit that it was noble of Hank to step in and try to tear the two apart. He would have done better if he could refine his dominance enough to actually expel this fierce energy rather than add fuel to it like a grease fire.
As intoxicating as it was, Dominic snorted the addictive odor of violence to clear his head before he charged into the fight.
Through the mad flailing of limbs and tossing of heads, Dominic reached out and grabbed Rick by the back of the shoulder.
His unsheathed claws latched on to keep him still, and the younger shifter wailed in pain.
With one swift move, Dominic yanked Rick out of the fight and left Hank to deal with Lincoln.
He pinned Rick to the floor, flat on his stomach, so he couldn’t reach around to strike back at the Prime Alpha.
The scuffed and bloodstained floorboards snapped beneath the force of the tackle.
For a second that felt more like an hour, an eerie calm settled over the bar as Dominic radiated his dominance to quell the violence.
He didn’t have to growl or roar. He simply emitted that fierce essence that made him Prime Alpha, that same distinctive trademark passed down through the Beaumont line.
Every shifter in the bar breathed it in, and it cured every bit of poisoning aggression in their blood. Golden eyes faded, claws retracted, and all signs of the shift disappeared. Everything and everyone froze as Dominic made it clearly known that he was not pleased.
Rick looked at his alpha’s glare from the corner of his eye and let out a shrill, canine whine of apology, the only thing to break the silence.
Now that the offender was under control, Dominic slid a glance to his beta, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
Hank stood, Lincoln’s shirt collar knotted in his fist, but he had no answer. By the sheepish look on the less dominant shifter, Dominic knew that he wouldn’t confess whatever it was that started the fight either.
The Prime Alpha looked to Alex behind the bar, who would have seen and heard everything.
Alex might not have been a pack member and under his direct leadership, but he still respected Dominic as the Prime Alpha and a source of dependability.
The reclusive, antisocial nature of the bear shifters often made them volatile, untrustworthy, and could always be counted on to start trouble with another shifter.
Alex wasn’t that way and though Dominic didn’t know too much about him, he knew that he would tell the truth no matter how condemning it was for either Rick or Lincoln.
“Rick made a comment about Lincoln’s … inability to hold down a job. Lincoln threw the first punch.”
Dominic let out a guttural growl and snapped around to look at Lincoln, who was now visibly shaken.
Lincoln knew the penalty for starting a fight with another pack member in this town.
It didn’t matter if it was between him and a refugee or a shifter who took up permanent residence.
Fighting was prohibited, and one of Cole’s pack knew that just as well as Rick did.
“That loan you took from me to help fix your car?” Dominic snarled at Rick. “You can forget about it. You’ve been where Lincoln is. You’re just as guilty of asking for money when things are tight.”
“I know, I know,” whimpered the cowering shifter. “I was—”
Dominic picked him up and slammed him down harder into the floorboards to curtail whatever excuse he was about to give. “I don’t want to hear it! Any wages you get for the next week belong to the pack. Do you understand?”
Rick winced at the punishment but meekly nodded.
Dominic whipped around to Lincoln. “And you know better than to start a fight in broad daylight where the humans can see you. Hank and Cole were going to help you with job applications, but now, you’re on your own.”
Lincoln’s lips curled as if he’d snarl back in protest, but he thought better and kept his mouth shut.
Disciplining shifters had to be done carefully.
Their wounds could heal, but their pride and pocketbooks were open targets.
He remembered how his father would drive some shifters into the ground with this special brand of justice.
As a child, Dominic didn’t understand. But as an adult, with bills of his own and a pack to support, taking away money and independence from an obstinate shifter might have been, by far, the best method.
Exile was a last resort, but Dominic hoped he would never have to cast anyone out of Tolstone.
For some, that was a fate worse than death.
*
Erica kept her hands occupied as she readied the living room for the headshot appointment with Wyatt Ratner.
What she did to Dominic, everything she said, and the anger she had to fake, turned out to be more than she could bear.
When their eyes met, she nearly lost her resolve and would have done just about anything to feel his embrace one more time, to taste his lips, and let her hands explore everything she hadn’t been able to the night before.
She completely lost her reason for why she had to tell him to ease off.
Did it have to do with her mom? Her career?
Why did she feel like she had to say those things to him?
She was glad that the phone call interrupted them, otherwise, she might have burst into tears and taken back every hurtful remark.
This was a mess. A complete, utter fucking mess and she couldn’t dig her way out of it.
She wanted Dominic, plain and simple, and when he said all those sweet things about how he truly felt for her, Erica could have screamed.
His comment about meaning what he said came back to her, and she didn’t want any of it to be true.
It would have been so much easier to believe he was a liar and manipulating her, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it with her whole heart.
Why did she want these walls to stay up when he constantly scratched at the stone to make them come down again?