THE ALPHA’S PRIDE
Blood Bonded, 1
Deidre Huesmann
Copyright © 2017
Chapter One
“Go ahead, my dear. Pick any weapon you like.”
The shifter’s voice sent prickles up Val’s spine. Like ice flowing upriver, like the sun cooling the soil, it was uncanny. Smooth, calm, collected.
Deadly.
Val scarcely dared to take her eyes off the man. If fear didn’t pump adrenaline through her veins, she might have taken notice of his lean, corded build. If her pulse didn’t beat like a snare drum, she might have admired the way the late summer’s sun caressed his blond hair. If cold sweat didn’t ooze out of every pore on her face, she might have smiled back, just to see if the cocky smirk could transform into something softer, sweeter.
Those things were noted, but filed as unimportant. What mattered was the unnatural sharpness to his teeth. The way his eyes held flecks of gold, a tell-tale sign of a shifter. The weapons strewn at his feet, ranging from a pipe to a butcher’s knife to a shotgun. The confidence in his stance. The murderous light that sparked off the gold flecks in his gaze like slabs of metal smashing together.
What mattered was that this was a game to him, and a literal life-and-death situation for her.
The green of his gaze could have been earthy and gentle, but the shifter gold turned it sinister. Val didn’t know this man from Adam. She didn’t recognize him, had never seen him before, or even heard a description of him whispered through the streets.
She didn’t need to know any of that to understand the game.
Val chanced a glance at the weapons again. The shotgun was closest to his muddy steel-toed boots. Not a smart option—the closer she got, the quicker she’d die. The butcher knife sticking out of the grass was no good, too short-range and gruesome even if she was lucky enough to get a strike in. The pipe would be even worse, but it also put the most distance between them if she dove for it.
The shifter’s grin widened. “You do realize it matters little if you want to play. The game is set, the match is ready, and we will settle a score before the sun falls.”
“What score?” Val cursed her voice for coming out dry and raspy.
One of his golden eyebrows cocked. “Who deserves to be higher on the food chain, of course.”
Val swore. It had been a monumentally stupid idea to go camping in Muir Forest. This place was rapidly becoming shifter territory, and she’d known she wasn’t welcome. But that stupid brashness had taken over. She wasn’t your average woman. She was experienced. She could handle a simple camping trip on the outskirts. No shifter would bother her.
Well, great work, Val-a-dal. He’s bothering you, all right, and he’s going to bother you right to bloody pieces.
“Come on, now,” drawled the ‘shifter. “I’m being a good sport as it is. Don’t try my patience.”
She swallowed the bile stinging her throat. “Remind me the rules one more time?” If she could keep him talking, maybe he’d show some sort of weakness. A crack in his confidence, a slip of the tongue, perhaps even reveal what kind of shifter he was. That would help immensely. Wolf shifters were weak to silver, bears to lead, and hawks to gold. He clearly wasn’t a rabbit or deer, given the attitude. Only the strongest predator shifters were weak to naturally occurring elements, while the rest could be killed by typical human means.
He folded his arms over his chest. The black tee hugged his torso so tight that it revealed creases of his ripped abdomen. “One last time, woman.”
Woman? Val seethed. The butcher knife suddenly looked quite appealing.
“You choose a weapon.” His boot nudged the shotgun. Val wondered if there were any live rounds in it. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, if the deadliest weapon was little more than a bludgeoning tool? “You can attack or run. First swing or two-minute head start. If you wound me, you win. If I kill you, I win. Pretty simple.”
God damn it, he was confident. Why couldn’t a man this sure of himself want to do anything to her but rip out her throat?
The shifter narrowed his gold-flecked eyes. “Choose. Or I’ll choose for you.”
He’d hardly finished his sentence before Val moved. But she didn’t dive for the shotgun, knife, or even the pipe. Instead, she darted to the left.
She couldn’t fight him. There was no way. He was stronger and had already gotten the jump on her once. Fighting wasn’t an option. She had to run—and she needed to get the jump on him.
Sticker bushes whipped Val with their thin, thorny arms as she put more distance between herself and the shifter’s laughter. No matter the brush, she jumped over or tore through if it was lower than her knees. Her legs stung from shallow cuts—shorts had seemed a smart choice in this heat, but were doing her no favors now—and her calves burned. Flashes of fading purple infringed on her vision as her ponytail lashed at her flushed cheeks.
She’d been on the track team in high school, one of their top five runners. She still enjoyed jogging, especially early in the morning when her cozy neighborhood was at its quietest and people weren’t quite awake enough to go to work. When nobody bothered her and she could be at one with the outside elements.
All of that had been on flat land, though. At most, some slight hills with a few cracks in the sidewalk. A mad dash through Muir Forest was very different.
This was also the shifter’s turf. She couldn’t run forever. Val wondered if he was actually giving her the full two-minutes’ head start.
Chest heaving and sweat coiling down her back, she started to slow and take in her surroundings. Here the evergreen trees were thick and tall, creating a semi-canopy that did little to block the late afternoon sun. Heat twined around her in stifling humidity. All was silent, with nary a bird’s song to be heard.
Not a good sign. The prey knew a predator was in their midst.
Val kicked through clusters of ferns until she noticed a yew tree with wide, low-hanging branches. Not bothering to be quiet—likely, the shifter had a good sense of smell anyway—she grasped the nearest branch and tugged hard. Sturdy. Firm. She could climb this.
A harsh exhale whooshed past her lips as she pulled herself up. Maybe her defined muscles turned off men, but they did her an enormous favor here. Not for the first time, she was grateful for her daily workout routines. She grasped another branch, and another, using the same ones for footholds.
She paused several feet up to listen. Her ears were sharp … for a human. If this shifter was of canine breed, she was screwed.
The woods remained so quiet that she heard a stream gently bubble from afar. It was at least a quarter mile to her left, the same one she’d fished from the night before.
Why the shit couldn’t he have played his stupid game yesterday?
Val shook her head, incredulous with herself. She was going to die if he caught her, and she was upset he hadn’t picked a better day?
“Mom’s right,” she muttered under her breath. “I should’ve been born a lion shifter.” Rumor in the city was that the lion shifters held illegal battle tournaments. To bear scars and broken bones were a source of pride with them.
Heh. Pride. Because they’re lions.
She sighed.
I’ve already lost it.
Hefting her butt onto a branch, Val grasped another one overhead for support. She peered down. No sign of the bloodthirsty shifter, though that wasn’t saying much.
She mentally ran through her options. Depending on the type of shifter he was, she could take him. Gorilla shifters were some of the deadliest in the area, not because they were inherently aggressive, but because once they snapped they were truly gone. They were almost always enormous in height and build, even in their human form—or “vermin” form, as many shifters called it. There was no doubt this shifter on her tail was one of the more aggressive breeds, but the build alone made her doubt he was a gorilla. Too bad, because while violent, they were also slow and that could have been used to her advantage. A tiger or panther was more likely, perhaps even a wolf. If so, she could use her upper body strength to her benefit.
Aside from track, boxing had always intrigued Val. Not that she could join the high school team, thanks to the “good ol’ boys” club, but practicing in the garage with her elder brother and a sack of sand had given her some decent skill. Against another human, she could be deadly.
Against a shifter, well, she might have a fighting cha—
The snap of a twig underfoot yanked her from her musings. Her shoulders tightened. The branch snapped off the tree. She teetered precariously before balancing herself with her other hand. The wood in her palm exuded sticky sap, a stinging-sweet odor that roiled her stomach. Part of the branch looked like it had been splintered for a while.
Idiot, she thought furiously. You grabbed a broken one. If the shifter had heard, he now had a better chance of pinpointing her whereabouts.
“Woman,” a male voice called. “Don’t tell me you’re hiding. I can’t stand hide-and-seek.”
Her jaw clenched.
“The last human female who ran from me tried to claim she was in heat and not in peak condition because of it,” he warned. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see him, but the voice came somewhere from the northeast. He only crept closer, which sent a cold sweat along her body. “Didn’t work so well for her, and it won’t work for you, either.”
In heat … does this idiot not know what a period is? They’re not the same thing!
“Woman!”
Holy shit, I’m going to kick his teeth in.
Val drew the quietest breath of her life—and finally saw him.
He stepped out from behind an enormous tree, the sun turning his hair into a golden halo. It completely juxtaposed the hunger in his expression, the slight curl of his mouth that spoke volumes of his wicked intents. Even from where she sat, she noticed the cut of muscle in his arms, the equally straight and lax confidence of his posture. His eyes scanned the ground ahead of him.
He wasn’t looking up. He stared dead ahead, to the east of her, and walked with frightening silence. Not even the grass rustled in his wake. Soon he paused almost directly beneath her. It was a good ten-foot drop. If she did this wrong, she’d break her neck.
If she did nothing and he saw her, he’d break her neck.
Val closed her eyes, said a quick prayer in her head, and jumped.