Endangered Species

“Please come in,” I said as I closed the door. “Can I offer you a drink? Something to eat? Oh, wait, I can’t. Your Alpha locked me in here without food or water, thinking I’d be more compliant when he returns to rape me.”

Her eyes glazed over slightly, then she got all apologetic on me. “That was our mistake. Delta Betty assumed you’d eaten before the Mating Lineup but didn’t verify. The kitchen will bring something to us shortly.”

I looked at her quizzically. “How do you know?”

She tapped the side of her head. “Mind link. It’s a kind of telepathy we can use in human or wolf form to talk to family or Pack members. It’s the ability to talk into someone’s head and for them to answer. If the bond is strong, you can even send feelings and images. Very handy.”

No shit. And VERY informative. “Did you just talk to Delta Betty?”

“Yes, and the head of the kitchen staff. I can speak to one, several, or all at once. We need it to communicate in wolf form, but we use it this way, too.”

Jesus. Communications are a critical part of warfare, and their innate abilities allowed them to speak to each other silently. As soon as one wolf spotted me trying to escape, they ALL would know. It made me wonder if I’d ever get away. I’d ask her many questions if Melanie wanted to be a chatty Cathy. “Please, sit down,” I told her. I sat down where I could reach the knife under the table without being seen. She sat opposite me, closer to the door. “I saw the picture of you with the Alpha on top of Mount Rainier,” I said.

“That was such a fun day! It was our last adventure before our parents died.”

Wait a second. “Our parents?”

“Yes. Hard to believe, but that big lug is my twin brother.” My jaw dropped at this; she seemed nice and friendly, while he had the personality of a badger. Looking closer, they both had the same black hair and sky-blue eyes.

“He’s like three times your size,” I said.

“I got the brains, and he got the brawn,” she said as she giggled. She stood up and went to the door just as a teenage girl arrived with a sandwich and a Coke. Melanie took the stuff and closed the door. “I ate on the way here, so I’m good,” she said as she set the food down.

“Oh? Where did you come from?”

“You don’t know?”

I looked at the sandwich; ham and swiss cheese with mustard. Not bad. “Assume I know nothing about your kind or this place. I was captured yesterday and processed through this morning. After the lineup where your naked brother poked me in the stomach with that big dick of his? I’ve been in here alone.”

She laughed. “I heard about that from some of the girls. You don’t know how disappointed I was that no one had it on video. I’d love a picture of him on his ass, holding his balls, with you calling him a pervert. I’d blow it up and put it in my office!”

“You don’t like Scary Naked Dick Sword?”

Melanie laughed out loud at that. “I love Cole, but he’s SO bossy and superior. Making him look at that picture every time he came in the room would keep him humble.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I have high hopes for you, Angela Summers. You’re exactly the kind of woman he needs and deserves. Luna was right to pair you two up. You have fire in your eyes, don’t take shit from anyone, and aren’t scared of him.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Oh, I’m scared of Cole. He’s fucking HUGE, mentally unbalanced, and ordered the deaths of thousands and the enslavement of hundreds. He marked me as a BREEDER, and I’m sure he intends to make good on that tonight when he rapes me. So, yeah, I’m scared. I can’t stop him from taking what he wants. I can’t bring back the people he’s killed or free the women he’s collected to be Pack sex slaves. What I can and will do is to make his life as uncomfortable as possible before he kills me. I’m pretty fucking good at that.”

She sat back in her chair and thought about that. “Cole will never hurt you, Angela. You are his mate. His wolf would never let him.”

“What do you mean? He threatened to kill me if I didn’t speak to him respectfully.”

“I know what he said to you, but he said that for the sake of the Pack. He hasn’t accepted you as his mate and Luna, so he cannot allow you to insult him in front of others. You are a team, leading together, always in sync. Discord among the leadership is bad for the Pack. You are military?”

“Yes. Midshipman First Class Angela Summers.”

“Then you know what I’m talking about, Angela. Cole Chapman is the Captain, and you are his Executive Officer. The Pack Betas are your department heads. In front of the crew, you are one. In private? You can chew his ass like a rawhide stick and make your feelings known.”

I finished my sandwich and sat back with my Coke. “You all talk of him being my mate, but I don’t understand. I didn’t even know werewolves existed until yesterday. Isn’t he supposed to have some hot wolf bitch instead of a human like me?”

“Oh, he’s been praying for one his whole life. And those bitches throw themselves at him, hoping to bag an Alpha.”

I bet. Cole was a male in his prime. If not for the circumstances, I’d want him. “I saw the picture and thought you were his girlfriend. Since he didn’t seem happy to meet me, I thought maybe he loved you and didn’t want me. Well, his dick wanted me. That thing sprang to attention like the Admiral just walked in.”

“And that was the first erection of his life, Angela.”

Coke snorting out your nose doesn’t feel good. I had to wipe off the table and compose myself before continuing the conversation. “Say what?”

“Werewolf sexuality revolves around mates. The Goddess Luna grants us a mate and imprints their unique scent into our brains. We believe our mates are our second halves, completing our souls to live together forever. When we reach sexual maturity, we start looking for that scent.”

“What does that have to do with hardons?”

“Male sexual arousal is connected in our brains to the scent of our mate. Everyone in the room knew you were the Alpha’s mate by his reaction; his manhood pointed you out in a crowd. The shock was in his lack of reaction when finding his mate.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied. “Cole was mad others hurt me, and he touched me and sniffed my neck. Then he sent me away.”

“Exactly. Most males would take off with their mate, claiming them with a bite on her shoulder as they make love for the first time. Some don’t even bother leaving the room first. Cole didn’t claim you, and that’s his damn fault, not yours. That boy is stubborn and elitist, and Luna boxed him in.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a line of thinking among our kind relating to ‘bloodline purity.’ Our father taught Cole that the power of an Alpha line comes from Alpha bloodlines on both sides.”

“Bloodlines?”

“Rank within a Pack is based on the strength of your wolf. The biggest, strongest, and fiercest wolves are Alphas. Betas are a level below them, and they report directly to the Alpha and run sections of the Pack for us. Below them are Deltas, Warriors, and the lowest rank, Omegas.”

“So your Pack position is set by birth?”

She nodded. “For the most part. You can train to move up or down a little, but never more than one rank either way. Very few wolves are Alpha wolves. Heredity allowed Cole to establish dominance over all the wolves in the Brinnon Pack when our parents died. It didn’t matter that Cole is twenty-four because his wolf is so strong.”

That made sense. Wild wolf packs had the same structure. “How do humans fit into this?”

“Luna knew that wolves would become inbred if they didn’t bring in new blood, so some mates are human. Maybe one in five mates are that way. The ‘purity’ movement sees that some offspring of a werewolf-human pairing are weaker than the parent wolf. Perhaps a Warrior wolf with a human mate gives Omega wolves, while an Omega parent has less dominant Omegas. They consider such half-breeds inferior to ‘pure’ wolves, especially at the higher Pack levels.”

Elitist bastards. Wolf packs weren’t the only ones to discount talent in favor of breeding. “Cole didn’t react well to learning he has a human mate.”

Melanie nodded. “It wasn’t what he expected, and it’s taking him a while to wrap his head around it.”

My mind went to another question. “Does your wolf have the same power?”

She nodded. “Dominance among wolves runs along the sexes. Cole is the most dominant male, and I am the most dominant female. When our Mom died, I had to step into the Pack Luna role. I’m responsible for the women, children, and day-to-day Pack operations like housing, food, and transportation.”

“And where do I fit in?”

“Luna wouldn’t have chosen you as his mate if you couldn’t do the job. When you complete the mating, and he makes you a werewolf, you’ll rule this Pack by his side. That will free me up to find my mate out there somewhere.”

I stared at her. “Your Goddess made a mistake. I want nothing to do with your brother or your kind.”

She laughed. “The Mating Pull doesn’t care what you want, Angela. It’s an irresistible attraction that will draw you together to complete the mating process. I can smell how your body reacts when we talk about him, and you’ve already felt its power.”

“How?”

“What did it feel like when he touched you?”

I thought back. “It was tingly, like a feather running down my body and right to my….” Fuck. He made me hot with a single touch, and it was still working.