Chapter One
Most of the marks on Kele’s flesh consisted of fresh scratches and bites, but a few had already begun to scar. Badges of authority, as her parents referred to them, but to her, the wounds meant she’d finally become a true wolf shifter. No more being the little healer who couldn’t change to feral form. Pack life revolved around dominance and Kele’s whole future depended on this challenge.
She faced the most dominant female hunter of the Payami pack and crouched low within the challenge circle. For the last seven months, all she’d done was win challenges, recover, and climb pack hierarchy.
Tegrathe stood three hands taller, which gave her a better reach. As they circled each other, an unfamiliar silence filled their mountain den, as if the whole pack held its breath. Tegrathe favored her left leg—an old knee injury, according to Kele’s mother. Tegrathe might be bigger and more experienced, but Kele was younger and had more to lose.
So much more.
Claws extended, Kele stopped pacing and held her ground. Outside the challenge ring, civil law was enforced by their alpha—her father. Once inside the circle, they changed, and feral laws took over. Only the strong survived, and if either one of them wanted to live, then the loser had to forfeit the fight by leaving the circle, or by dying.
Kele lunged and tore into Tegrathe’s right shoulder with her claws. The muscle below her opponent’s fur parted without resistance. Like it or not, Kele wasn’t leaving this circle unless she won.
She would be alpha female of this pack one day like her foremothers before her. Their rule spanned six generations and nobody would stand in her way.
Back and forth, she and Tegrathe exchanged strikes, revealing each other’s weaknesses until their limbs tangled and canines clashed. Blood trickled over Kele’s claws and muddied the challenge circle floor.
The pack exploded into cheers so loud the only evidence that Kele growled was the vibration in her chest. Tegrathe kept her close so she could use her superior strength to control Kele’s attacks, but like every other opponent Kele had challenged, she had clearly forgotten that Kele’s mother had trained her since birth. She had learned to fight in only her weak civil form against her mother’s stronger feral beast. These painful lessons taught her cunning and to use her small stature to her advantage.
Kele allowed Tegrathe to pull her dangerously close. She even let her sink her claws into Kele’s back, and howled from the sharp pain like a mewling pup. But she never lost sight of Tegrathe’s left knee.
“You should have stayed a healer.” Tegrathe spat out the last word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. She had always had a cruel streak and it didn’t surprise Kele when Tegrathe’s next bite was aimed at her throat. Tegrathe wasn’t playing. She truly saw Kele as a threat…and there was no greater compliment.
Kele went limp and set Tegrathe off balance so the strike hit the top of her hard head instead of ripping out her windpipe. Sliding from Tegrathe’s grip, she hit the dirt floor and didn’t let that lame leg out of her sight.
Tegrathe stumbled back and caught her balance.
Without a second thought, Kele bent her legs and kicked the side of Tegrathe’s weak knee. A satisfying sharp snap followed her contact. Shifters fought with tooth and claw. Not many bothered to learn combat in civil form that used the power behind the body’s motion. She’d spent the last twenty years trapped in a civil body and that knowledge gave her an advantage.
Kele rose to her feet and waited for Tegrathe to crawl out of the circle. The other hunter’s leg would heal in a few weeks. It would give her time to adjust to the shift of power within the hunters now that Kele had bested her.
Tegrathe panted, glaring in her direction. “Get it over with.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I’m not stepping out of this ring.” Tegrathe crawled toward her, every movement evidently causing her great discomfort.
Stepping back, Kele scanned the surrounding pack for her parents and met her father’s stare.
He frowned and firmly pointed at his feet, which meant to stand her ground.
She slid her gaze to the injured shifter. Challenges rarely led to someone dying. If they allowed such practices, there would hardly be anyone left in the pack. Only ascending challenges to become an alpha were to the death, because no one with an alpha spirit would ever leave the ring. Oh, by the Goddess. “Tegrathe.” Her name came out as a whispered plea.
Tegrathe was the dominant female hunter—only Kele’s mother outranked her—and she really wouldn’t leave this ring. Not alive, anyway. It was in her nature since she carried alpha instincts. Just as Kele did. That another female in the pack dared dream of being the Payami alpha hadn’t crossed Kele’s mind.
No wonder every able body—aside from the pups—had shown up to this challenge. Why hadn’t her parents warned her?
Kele’s gaze darted to them again. They stood by the edge of the ring side by side: tall, strong and proud. Her vision sizzled. How dare they test her so publically?
Burning pain sliced over her shins as Tegrathe ran her claws over the thin hide covering her leg bone, causing Kele to jump back reflexively once more. She landed with her heels just outside the ring’s boundaries. The roar of the crowd shook the hollow mountain walls as they celebrated Tegrathe’s win. Her mate raced inside the ring to support her injured side so Tegrathe could walk out of the ring triumphant.
Kele remained rooted on the edge of the challenge circle, still in feral form, her white fur a mess of clotted blood and saliva. She panted. What had just happened?
The pack paraded toward the den’s living area. There were calls for wine and someone struck up a beat on the drums. Not a single person made eye contact or offered her a word of encouragement. They wouldn’t. It was rude to comfort the loser.
Loser. That stung more than she’d thought it could.
She faced the ring and discovered her parents had stayed behind—the alpha female and male of the Payami. She flinched. Their disappointment seared her to the soul. Was it really that shameful to hesitate before slaughtering a packmate? Tegrathe had been one of the few shifters who would play with her when they’d been pups. Was she supposed to ignore the fact that the female would leave behind a loving mate and their children?
The ache within her chest grew until it hurt to breathe. Kele pointed a bloody claw at her mother. “You set me up to fail. Why?” Her voice didn’t shake for once when faced with her alpha’s displeasure.
Her mother, Chaska, crossed the ring, her midnight hair a tangled storm around her head. She tossed Kele’s clothes at her feet. “Shift and get dressed. You should attend to Tegrathe’s injured leg, healer.” To add insult, Chaska turned her back on Kele, as if she wasn’t a threat, and she left.
“I don’t recall advising you to challenge Tegrathe.” Inali, her father, waited as she shifted to civil form and dressed. She was still learning not to blush when forced to be nude in front of others. Unlike other shifter children, she hadn’t learned her trigger emotion to shift to feral form until a few months ago. Others had grown up shifting and dressing in front of each other. She hadn’t.
“I don’t recall you advising me on anything,” she shouted. “Only Mother seems interested in me, now that I can fight the challenges she can only dream about. How am I supposed to learn about becoming alpha if you won’t help teach me?”
“One doesn’t learn to become alpha, Kele. It’s not like healing. I have no books for you to read or lessons to give.”
Part of Kele’s feral side still had hold on her, and she snarled at him like an animal.
He approached her. Each step hinted at the commanding beast under his skin. Her father sent shock waves of alpha attitude without trying. It oozed from his pores like magic. “You’re lucky no one was around to witness that. I would have had to put you to the ground for being so aggressive.” He smoothed some of her pale hair from her face. “What did you learn today?”
She inhaled. He smelled of stone and dust and power. It soothed her frayed nerves. “That I’m a fool.”
“Besides that.”
Staring at the ring, she pictured Tegrathe on the ground, crawling toward her, gravely injured. She glanced down at the cuts across her shins—cuts that Tegrathe had given her even though the hunter hadn’t been able to stand. Tegrathe wouldn’t give in. She would have died first. “I didn’t want to kill her.”
“And?”
Blood rushed from her head and weakened her knees. “She would have killed me before accepting a loss.” She clutched her father’s hand. “Is that the difference? I should be ready to kill before ever losing? Is that what makes her better than me?”
He stroked her hair, the same pale shade of yellow as his. “Yes.”
Kele jerked from his touch. “She would have sacrificed her life and left behind a family just to be more dominant than me.”
His laugh was sharp. “You sound surprised. This challenge would have cost her the pack’s respect. If you truly want to lead shifters, Kele, you have to be willing to kill for them at any cost. The pack doesn’t value weakness.”
“And mercy is a weakness?” She wanted to pull out her hair. All these confused thoughts were Peder’s fault. He seeded his Apisi ideas in her mind with his endless letters of poetic words and idealistic fancies. Who would have known only a few short months ago he couldn’t even read? But the letters had stopped and her heart lay shattered. She focused on her place within the pack and the future her parents planned for her instead of her own dreams.
“Of course it’s weakness within the challenge ring.” He shook his head as if confused by her question. “Challenges hardly ever come to killing. Thankfully, today’s didn’t.” He stroked her hair. “As the alpha, I would have been forced to celebrate Tegrathe’s win if she had killed you, but my heart would have died along with my only child.” In a rare moment of affection, he kissed her forehead. “Be wiser next time. I can’t bear the thought of putting you in the ground.” He held her gaze with his intense blue eyes. “And neither could your mother.”
Kele rolled her eyes. “She seemed heartbroken at the thought.”
“She was. Trust me. Have you ever seen her yell at any loser after a challenge?” He chucked her under the chin. “Your timing to pick this challenge could have been better. Did you do it on purpose so your mother would be at her worst?”
“No.” She didn’t want to think about today. Maybe that’s why she’d run into this foolish challenge—so she could deny that her time as an unmated female was running out. Dying in the ring didn’t seem like such a terrible fate now.
Her father strode toward the noise of celebration. Most challenges went unnoticed, but apparently she’d struck a nerve within the pack by facing Tegrathe. The pack seemed thrilled by Kele’s loss. The thought of her as dominant hunter must have struck fear in all their hearts. How would they feel when she tried for alpha in the far future? At least she had some time to work on their respect.
She gave a disheartened laugh before following her father. Years of studying the art of healing had guaranteed her place within the pack, but now she could actually shift and fulfill her dream. If she wanted to become alpha, she’d have to be willing to kill.
Her father continued to the pack gathering room in the center of the den.
She spied Tegrathe’s oldest son standing outside the room entrance.
He hurried toward her and knelt at her feet, a sign of submission, though he’d been a hunter for at least a year now. The gesture more than raised her eyebrows since she’d lost the challenge and her place in the hierarchy just dropped lower than his.
“Kele, will you still tend my mother’s injuries?”
“Of course, I will.” That was another thing to consider next time she challenged someone. The more she hurt them, the more work she would create for herself afterwards in healing. Maybe she should consider finding an apprentice. “Show me where she is.” It had better not be in the center of the celebration. She couldn’t think of anything more degrading than having to heal Tegrathe in front of the whole pack after a sound public defeat.
The young male hurried away from the gathering room and toward the family caves on the second level.
She eyed him and thought him young, yet she wasn’t more than two winters older. After this year’s events with Susan—and Peder—she felt much older. She ignored the dull ache in her chest. Her parents would hate everything about Peder if they knew he existed. Just the thought of Chaska and Peder meeting sent a shiver down her spine. It didn’t matter. He hadn’t replied to her letters in five months. He had obviously found another to keep him warm during the winter.
The spring sun shone through the hollow mountaintop and lit their way. The den had three levels along the walls of the mountain, with stairs carved into the ancient rock shelves. Each level had multiple bridges to make travel quicker. Tegrathe’s son led her over one of these to his family’s home.
Inside, she found Tegrathe lying on a pile of thick cushions. A thin sheen of sweat covered her skin as she panted.
Kele knelt at her side. “I have to examine your leg.”
“You broke it.”
“Very observant.” Kele lifted the hem of Tegrathe’s dress and studied her handiwork. It appeared as if she’d broken the lower bones just below the knee. “You’re lucky I broke it here. If I had aimed higher and broken the thicker bone in your thigh, I would have lamed you bad enough you couldn’t hunt anymore.”
The more dominant female’s eyes went wide. “You aimed lower on purpose?”
She nodded. “It was my intention to rise in the pack. Not to destroy your life. The pack can’t afford to lose you as a hunter. I’ll have to gather a few things to ease your pain and create a splint. By summer, you should be healed.”
“I guess I won’t be able to attend your mating ceremony tomorrow.”
Kele grimaced. “Maybe I should have let you break my leg instead.”
Tegrathe relaxed into the cushions a little more. “I wouldn’t have stopped at just breaking a bone. I would have killed you.”
“That might have been a better fate.”
“You never know. This Yaundeeshaw hunter might turn out to be a sex god like Ahote.” After a long moment of silence, Tegrathe gave her a weak smile. “Thank you.”
For the second time that day, Kele did a slow blink of confusion. “For mating a stranger?” She should check Tegrathe for a head injury.
“No, you could have killed me. You had a choice.” She tapped her chest over her heart in a sign of admiration. “You don’t always have to win a challenge to gain respect. Sometimes, that’s worth more than dominance. Now go get your medicine before this pain makes me vomit all over my new cushions, Hunter Kele.”
Something tight inside her gut loosened and a heavy weight eased off her shoulders. Kele nodded to her as an equal. “Yes, Hunter Tegrathe.”