Chapter 9

She woke to the sound of old wood groaning in the hallways and voices pitched low, arguing just beyond her door. Light, too bright to be real, stabbed through slats in the window; the world outside sparkled with hoarfrost, but inside, the scent of wolf was so thick it clung to her skin. Elena uncoiled from the center of the bed—her bed, now—and padded naked to the battered dresser, where someone (probably Damon, for the drama) had left her a new T-shirt stenciled with an oversized wolf skull.

She did not bother to dress. She was past pretending.

The door opened with a huff, and in came Kallie, the pack’s least-worst gossip, eyes flicking from the slash marks on Elena’s neck to the new bruises, to the place where her thigh caked with dried come. Kallie’s lips parted, but Elena just raised one brow, daring her to make it a thing.

“You’re wanted in the main hall,” Kallie managed, voice wobbling.

“Of course I am,” Elena said, and swept past, her body a living challenge.

The air in the main hall was electric; the triplets stood in a phalanx, eyes on her, the rest of the pack arrayed in chaotic clusters. The air hissed with anticipation—and all of it aimed at her. In the place of the high table, the Eldest had set up three leather chairs, and Elena, striding in, took the center, ignoring the ruckus this caused among the older generation.

It was an inquisition, thinly disguised as business.

“We need to talk about succession,” someone said—Marta, the old crone with a face like a strip-mined hillside.

“Do we?” Elena shot back, drawing her knees up and tucking them close so her cunt flashed a neat, aggressive wink to the front row. “Enlighten me, Marta.”

The crone blanched, but pressed on, “No woman has ever led the pack. Even if you… mated the Alphas, it’s not—” She stopped, grasping for a word that could hold both threat and disgust.

“Legal?” Elena smiled wide, baring teeth. “I’ve read the Charter. There’s not a thing in it about lady-wolves being less than. You just never had one that could win.”

A murmur of approval, raw and unfiltered, swept the room—especially from the youngest, who’d seen her run, seen her bare-fanged and berserk at the moon.

Donovan rose, a tower in dark denim, voice low but deadly: “If you want a fight, challenge her.” He looked around, daring any takers. No one moved.

“She’s not even full wolf,” Marta tried—but now she sounded afraid.

Elena met her gaze, slow-blinked. “I never was. I’m more than.” She let the final word drop like a stone on ice.

The rest of the Elders slumped back, reassessing. The pack’s center of gravity was shifting, and everyone could feel it, even the humans packed at the edges and eavesdropping from the kitchen.

After, as wolves and hangers-on retreated to drinking, gaming, and the lazy violence of pack life, Elena cornered the triplets in their den.

Damon bent her backwards over the scarred kitchen table, teeth nipping every inch of exposed skin. Devin planted her face against the glass fridge, paws braced on either side, and fucked her so deep she lost track of where her body ended and his began. Donovan—brooding and careful despite all his words—slipped one hand around her throat and fingered her until she shrieked, not in pain, but in victory, marking the walls with a howl right out of legend.

She made them say it, made them swear with fingers and tongue and cock that she was theirs, forever, that no one would ever lock her up again.

And when the dawn found her, sitting on the porch with cold air biting her nipples and a raw new world spreading out in front of her, she laughed, because there was nothing left to be afraid of.

Except what she might want next.