“You should have stopped the wolf!” she shrieked, and pulled away, glaring up at me. “I told Jade you were cold. I told her to stay away from you. I was right. You’re just like all the alphas before you.” She pulled her arm back and swung at me, open handed. I caught her wrist tightly in my grip.

“Marcy,” I snapped, my patience wearing thin. “Don’t think you can talk to me like this just because you are dating a member of my pack.” She struggled, trying to jerk her hand away, but I held onto her wrist firmly and looked at Trevor. “Take her. I don’t want to see her again.”

“Aidan, Jade wants her here,” Trevor said, refusing to look at me. He stepped up to us and wrapped his arm around Marcy’s stomach, pulling her away.

Fury spiked through me and I hated it. I hated giving orders and using my alpha status to get what I wanted. I loathed demanding things from the pack and forcing them to submit. I hated my father for doing it, and I hated myself just as much. But this pack was just too screwed up. They didn’t listen when I asked nicely. And now Jade, the wolf I intended to make sure won the challenges and become my mate, was aiding to their disobedience. That damn girl is going to be the death of me.

“I don’t really care what Jade wants,” I said, seething. I let my scent roll off me, and Trevor started to tremble under the weight of it.

“I’ll take her to her room,” he said with a desperate note in his voice. “You won’t even know she’s here.” He still wouldn’t look at me as he started to drag Marcy away and up the stairs. She shouted at me through a garbled mess of tears that I couldn’t even begin to decipher.

When he reached the top, he looked back in my direction, his eyes fixed on the floor at my feet. “Aidan, please stop.” His voice was like gravel grating under tires. “She’s just as much my alpha as you are. Don’t make me pick one of you.” He turned on shaky legs, with Marcy still crying in his arms, and disappeared down the hallway.

I gritted my teeth for a long moment. I’d never seen anything like this. Never. How in the hell was Jade able to dig into Trevor so quickly? She wasn’t branded. She didn’t have the extra power that came with the alpha’s imprint. Her scent was strong, but without accepting the position, it was still bearable. I cursed myself for letting Trevor stay with her, waiting for her to shift. His loyalty was shifting, just as Erika’s had, and I didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs, counting them, up and down, attempting to relax my nerves. It wasn’t working. My fists clenched and unclenched, seemingly on their own, and each second that passed, my skin grew hotter and my blood boiled further. “Dominic!” I shouted.

Dominic was out of Jade’s bedroom and standing in front of me in a flash. Surprising relief washed over me at his quick response; at least it did until he said, “Just go, Aidan.”

I laughed. It sounded cruel even to my own ears. “I’m going to see her, Dom.” I took the first step, and he grabbed my bicep, yanking me back from the stairs and pulling me into the kitchen. He stopped in front of the stove and turned on the fan, before glancing at me. When he did, I figured I looked just as pissed off as I felt, because he skittered back a few steps.

“She doesn’t understand what’s happening,” he whispered. “She thinks we allowed the attack.”

I shot him a cold glare and through gritted teeth said, “You should have told her to submit once she walked out of the house. You were supposed to guide her. You’re the one who asked to help her.” I was already regretting letting him. I thought he got it. I thought he’d tell her what to do; clearly, I was wrong.

“I did tell her. Dammit, Aidan! You’re such a jackass! You can smell it. She’s an alpha. It’s in her scent. Her inner-wolf will only submit to you if yours submits to her.” Dominic’s voice rose with each word until he was flat out yelling in my face.

I wanted to punch him. Just haul off and punch him. Somehow, and I really don’t know how, I held the urge back. “She has to prove herself for that, and so far, she hasn’t.”

“She took down another challenger,” Dominic said, as if that was proof enough.

I shrugged. “There’s still two more.”

He looked at me then, as if I was an idiot, and an even bigger fool, and said a little helplessly, “She just wanted to play.”

~ JADE ~

I could hear him. Aidan was whispering. I couldn’t make out the conversation, but the sound of his deep voice made me shiver. I shouldn’t have been able to hear the notes of his voice. He was downstairs, and my bedroom door was sealed tightly. But his voice wasn’t the only thing that found me. His scent, musky and powerful, wrapped around me.

I sat on my bed, watching the last of the scars on my hip fade away to nothing. By the time I finished showering and scrubbing my body clean of blood, my wounds had closed. It had only been thirty minutes. Thirty freakin’ minutes since that wolf attacked me, and the marks were already gone. I didn’t know whether I wanted to pass out, hyperventilate, or jump around. My senses were hyperaware of everything around me, and it was terrifying and exciting and a little sickening. I had never had so much energy before, and I didn’t know what to do with it all.

Aidan’s voice rose and fell as he argued with Dominic. He was beyond mad. I could hear it in his growled murmurs and smell its heat in the air. It was almost like the scent of hot pavement as the first drops of rain fell, except stronger. Each time it got louder, my body shuddered with a mix of pleasure and spine-tingling fear. My inner-wolf was doing back flips in my stomach. One second my skin was burning with desire for him and the next, my inner-wolf was cringing and begging me to lie down at his feet.

I wanted my dad. I wanted to talk to him. I needed to hear the reassurance in his voice. He always knew the right thing to say, and since Dominic wasn’t explaining anything that made sense, I thought maybe, just maybe, Dad would know what was happening to me. He’d been involved with the pack for as long as I could remember, and knew a lot about how they worked. I had been dialing his number for the last five minutes, and each time I called, it went straight to voicemail.

The front door slammed, and footsteps pounded up the stairs. I pulled my blankets up around me, listening to the scuffling as Aidan, and his amazing scent, made his way down the hallway. It was weird knowing instinctively who was walking on the other side of the walls, but I did. I could feel his presence in my bones. With each step closer to my room, my heartbeat quickened. My bedroom door squeaked open, and he stepped into my room, closing it behind him.

He was wearing black jeans that sat low on his hips, and a snug black T-shirt that showed off the ripples of his abs. He had toned up since I first met him; all of his muscles were more defined, not as soft looking. He leaned against the bedroom door and folded his arms over his chest, flexing his biceps as he did. His eyes were yellow as they looked me over and my breath caught in my throat. The man was perfect and completely flawed, and I loved it all. I wasn’t sure if that made me stupid or crazy, but either way, right then, I knew I needed serious help. Was this how all werewolves felt when they were in the presence of an alpha? I wondered, as my eyes drifted over him. I tried reminding myself that he let this happen to me, but it was useless. Each time the thought passed through my mind, my inner-wolf growled as if it was trying to banish it.

“Jade, let’s go.” His voice was sharp and I jumped to my feet without an ounce of hesitation, my tangled mess of blankets falling to the floor.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him, and right then, I was glad for it. I watched as he took a step toward me. His eyes travelled down my neck, along the strap of my tank top, and then they paused on my cleavage for far too long, before he glanced down at my skimpy pajama bottoms, and took in my bare legs. If I hadn’t been watching him so closely, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. His nearness, his scent, it all screamed power and authority and it was fogging my brain.

I snapped out of it in a rush, grabbed a pillow, and whipped it at him. “Get out!” I shouted, as he batted the pillow away and it dropped to the floor.

He frowned. “I’m not asking, Jade.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I snapped. I grabbed the pile of blankets and dropped back into bed, pulling them around me.

Aidan took up his post again, leaning against the door. “It’s Tuesday. You have school.”

His scent thickened, and a soft glow, an outline of what looked to be the letter ‘A,’ lit up on his chest, shining white through his shirt. My skin buzzed, my inner-wolf pressed against my chest, and my throat tightened.

I got up. I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to get closer to him. That power. It was unbelievable. It rolled off of him in waves of delirious heat. It was as if I floated across my room. I barely felt my feet touch the floor. I stood in front of him for a second before I couldn’t hold back any longer. I lifted my hand and traced the glowing ‘A’ on his chest.

The sensation was like nothing I had ever felt before. My finger lit up as soon as it connected with what felt like a raised scar beneath his shirt, glowing with the same white light. It sparked and heated my entire body. I shuddered with pleasure. The unbelievable power … authority … command … I wanted it. It called to me. It was like a little whisper in my ear telling me to take it. Claim it — him — as my own.

Aidan’s hand snaked around my wrist and pulled my hand away from his chest. “Jade, focus. You need to get dressed. We’re going to be late.”

“Seriously?” I asked a little breathlessly, still staring at his chest. I lifted my other hand, wanting to touch it again, and he quickly snagged it. “You’re worried about my education, but you’ll let one of your wolves attack me. What’s wrong with you?”

“You missed yesterday,” he said dryly, pushing me back a step and holding me at arm’s length. “I promised your parents you wouldn’t miss any more. Get dressed. You’re going.”