This is power. This is what woman was created for. Men only thought they were in control, but let a woman flash some tits or spread her legs, and she ruled absolute. Men are tools to be used to get what I want. Thank you, Momma, for teaching me that truth.
Ashley let her body work its magic while her mind plotted her next step. Wesley had once more proven himself a liability. Worse, he was slipping the leash she had on him.
How dare he strike me! Not even Laurie Bell had dared raise a hand to her, and her mother thought Ashley was as worthless as the father who’d spawned her. But soon Laurie Bell would have to eat her words. Ashley would show her mother how important she was. The whole idea of sleeping your way to the top would work.
Wesley would get rid of the alpha’s mate. Ashley would then be honor bound to turn him in, resulting in instant death for the man. In his grief Rory would turn to her, and if not, Michael would make a great alpha. Ashley was sure she could convince him to take her as his mate, making her alpha-fem. And once she was the alpha’s mate, she’d rub her mother’s nose in the fact that her worthless daughter had managed to achieve the one thing Laurie Bell had always wanted.
Wesley hit a spot that jerked her out of her contemplation. Fully engaged, she put all thought of plotting aside and focused on reaching orgasm. When fulfillment was obtained and their breathing had calmed, Ashley said in a low voice, “Michael said I’ll be allowed back in the house on Tuesdays and Fridays to clean. Give me a week to let the alpha’s mate get comfortable with me; then I’ll get you into the house.”
Actually it was Caleb who’d told her, but Wesley didn’t need to know she hadn’t learned anything important from her visits with Michael.
“A week? That will be perfect. Gives me time to set up things on my end,” Wesley said. “Speaking of cleaning, when are you coming back to my place?”
“I’ll come Monday, same time as normal.”
“Good.” He stood and gazed down at her. “I’ll let myself out.”
“Be careful. If you’re seen…” She let the warning trail off.
“I know the consequences,” he muttered. “I’ll be careful.
He went to the door, cracked it open, and looked out, then with a quick wave, was gone.
It had been a scorcher of a day. Even now, as long shadows faded to night, humidity hung in the air like a moist blanket. In deference to the heat, Ashley wore a thin, dark blue tank with spaghetti straps that bared her belly button, and a faded pair of denim short cutoffs.
It had been two weeks since the incident with Wesley. Two long, frustrating weeks and she was no closer to her goal of being top bitch. She inwardly cursed her lack of progress as she made her way to the pack’s gathering place, deep in the woods in the state park.
The alpha, or rather his bitch, Ashley thought bitterly, had finally allowed her to come and clean, but only on Tuesdays and Friday at the time she designated. No more coming and going whenever it pleased her, and she was restricted to the first-floor common areas like she was some criminal who couldn’t be trusted around the alpha’s personal items.
Ashley could have made this new schedule work to her advantage, except every time she arrived at the house, the alpha had also been present, hovering over his mate. Seemed she suffered from a severe case of morning sickness, and it left her incapacitated. Weak! This was what happened when an inferior human was allowed to mate with one of their kind. Their puny bodies couldn’t handle it. The woman couldn’t even shift. She deserved killing.
A trio of voices called out, “Hello, Ashley,”
She waved in greeting, pasting a bright, fake smile on her face.
As she got closer to the meeting place, she ran into more pack members. It was the night of their quarterly howl, when the Sparrowhawks came together to run and socialize as a pack. The first thirty minutes or so was devoted to pack business. Then the floor opened for members to share news or bring issues to their leaders’ attention.
As a rule, howl attendance wasn’t mandatory, but no one missed if it could be helped, afraid they’d miss the latest news. From the many faces she’d seen, tonight would be no exception. Their pack was small compared to others, less than one hundred total. When Ashley arrived at the clearing, a quick scan showed a little over half of their numbers were present. More were arriving by the minute.
Another glance revealed the alpha, his bitch, Caleb, and Michael had yet to arrive. Wesley and the other elders were huddled in a group, talking among themselves as normal. There were other groupings as well. Some families stood together. The young, unmated males gathered in a small group, casting the occasional lascivious glance at the unmated females, who stood in another group. Ashley went and joined the unmated females.
The mood was jovial. Numerous conversations, the occasional burst of laughter, and called-out greetings filled the night. Wolves were social creatures by nature, and there was nothing like a run with fellow pack mates at night while the moon rode high in the sky. The ability to shed their human skins and run as the animals they really were. That was something Rory’s human mate would never know.
Full dark had fallen. The muted glow of the moon shone on the clearing as the humidity gave way to a layer of fog hovering over the treetops and no breeze of which to speak. Deep in conversation with a female adolescent she was particularly fond of, Ashley was slow to note the change of atmosphere. Little by little there was a beat of stunned silence, then a wave of hushed whispers.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Who’s that?”
“Is that Wolfe?”
“…alpha…Raven pack…”
“…pregnant mate…”
“Kian, my God, haven’t seen him since…”
“Thought he’d left…”
The alpha had arrived, and he wasn’t alone. Rory strode into the center of the clearing. Behind him was the human. But it was the ones who followed that caused the uproar. Kian, his black hair unbound, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that clung to delineated muscles that did nothing to hide his feral nature, trailed close—almost protectively—after the human female.
Ashley was so rattled by Kian’s seldom-seen appearance, she barely noted Caleb and Michael bringing up the rear. Rory took his place on the mound, in the center with the human female to his immediate left and Kian on his right. Caleb and Michael took guard position in front of the alpha pair at the base of the small rise.
Then Ashley noticed the other four. A mixed-race, pregnant female stood next to Shay. Hovering possessively on her left…was that Alex Wolfe, the Raven pack’s alpha? No wonder the pack was uneasy.
While Ashley was still recovering from the combined shocks, Shannon strode into the clearing with a tall man with dark hair, a goatee, and the face and body of a Playboy model less than a step behind, his hand at the small of her back proclaiming his ownership. Shannon walked to Kian and stood beside him, with the male to her right.
Rory made no move to quiet the group. He let the conversations continue until gradually, silence fell. Then his voice rang out. “As you know, from the time I became alpha, I’ve made changes in an effort to pull this pack into the twenty-first century. Many of our old ways were outdated. Some downright illegal. If we’re to thrive and grow in this new world of instant messaging, camera phones, and global networking via the Internet, we have to change.”
He paused, looked around at each group assembled before him. His gaze lingered briefly on the elders before returning to the rest of the pack. “Some welcomed the changes as long overdue. Others”—again his gaze went to the elders—“fought me tooth and claw, even as they benefited from the very changes initiated.”