The Alpha's Selkie Mate

Chapter 11

The scuffling noises outside soon became bangs, growing louder and louder, coming quicker than they once had. The light fixture above their heads, a naked bulb that was barely holding on as it was, wobbled after one particularly nasty impact. Rattling the walls, it turned the bulb on for a few seconds, raining dust down on their heads and shoulders.

They all looked at each other in confusion.

Fights weren’t uncommon in the pack; they were wolves wearing human skin after all. Given that the animal was never far from the surface, his people were often at the mercy of their bestial natures, with hormones and pheromones running rampant. Not to mention their strict hierarchical chains of dominance that ran through the pack.

But on the day after a celebration? That was practically unheard of. They were never more mellow than that.

Fuck, it was still early. Barely after eleven a.m. Hardly anyone should be up and about yet, let alone going at it in the hall. It was basically a public holiday.

Everyone was more than likely hung-over, asleep, or still in the middle of a s*x marathon.

So, what the hell? Whoever it was had clearly missed the damned memo. He hadn’t thought the day could get any worse.

Willow was the first to move, taking only one step towards the door with a hand outstretched before it exploded inwards in a rush of air and dust. The force nearly took the damned thing off its rusted hinges.

“Get your hands off me!”

Walker’s heart stuttered in his chest for a moment. Then it started to race, trying to climb up his throat and into his dry mouth.

It was her. Here. In his small, dark office.

The female from last night.

She was clasped tightly between the hulking figures of Ethan and Alexi, their fingers white where they dug into the flesh of her arms. Not that she even seemed to notice. But for him? Something about the sight set his teeth on edge and he had to fight the urge to rip their hands from her.

Everyone was too busy staring at her, naked as the day she was born as she fought against her captors – storm waves against a rocky outcrop - to notice that he was growling low in his throat, blunt nails scoring the top of his desk.

Fuck.

How long had he been doing that?

Walker fought for control of himself, clearing his throat. The wolf part of himself snarled, snapping at his control.

When he looked up from the nail marks on his desk top, Jackson was looking at him over his shoulder with a look of intense curiosity. The small smirk that stole over his face made Walker want to squirm in his seat, though he couldn’t figure out why.

Shaking himself off, Walker leaned back in his chair and turned his attention back to the female. She was kicking and twisting and hissing like a wildcat caught unawares in a snare.

He also shoved his hands down between his thighs, clamping them tight. Better to leave marks on himself than on the furniture.

The last thing he needed was Jackson being an ass about this.

“What’s going on here?” Willow demanded, darting forward to try and help her hunters out. The two males were struggling, pink and sweating, as they tried to wrestle with the stranger for control. It was like watching someone grapple an angry octopus. Willow was forced to fall back though when the female kicked out at her, both feet clearing the floor, teeth bared in warning.

“We found her trying to break into—” the female twisted and Alexi partially lost his grip on her. He howled when she drove her head forward, her forehead connecting with his nose.

The loud, squishy crunch turned Walker’s stomach.

“f**k,” Ethan snarled, moving to grab her by the scruff of her neck, only to find her whipping around and sinking her teeth into the flesh and webbing between his thumb and index finger.

“You little b***h—”

Alexi had recovered enough to grab her by the hair, wrenching her head straight back. It was the only thing that made her release her Pitbull grip. Blood ran in thick rivets down his face like a red beard of pure horror, dripping onto the back of her hair.

In doing so, he’d bared her vulnerable throat.

And exposed the small bruise over her pulse point.

“You little b***h—” Ethan looked between her and his hand, half disbelief, half unadulterated rage. His lip twitched as he pulled back his arm.

Gearing up for a punch.

Aiming right for her lovely face.

Before he could realize what it was that he was doing, Walker stood. “That. Is. Enough.” His voice vibrated with power, deeper and louder than it normally was.

Every werewolf in the room shivered, the chaos grinding to a halt.

He might not have been alpha for long, but it was there in his blood – power and right to dominance. There. Within reach. Just waiting to be called. Every muscle of every shifter in the room froze as though he’d cast them in ice.

Like they were stuck in time, powerless to do anything but obey the wolf in their blood.

Only Kiran and this female were unaffected.

It took her a moment to realize that the atmosphere in the room had shifted around her, but when she did, she stopped struggling, staring up at Ethan and Alexi. Confusion suffused her features. They had turned to living statues, grasping her but loosely.

Blood rolled freely down Alexi’s flushed face, but his eyes were glued on Walker. Same with Ethan, eyes hoovering around the collarbone. Anything higher would be a challenge against his authority.

The female darted out of their grasp.

Walker’s eyes followed her, watching as she backed herself into the corner of the room because they had blocked her exit. Crouched, ready to fight if she needed to. There was blood on her teeth, red on white.

White teeth.

The whites of her eyes.

He could see them as she looked around desperately, searching for an escape route.

But, short of throwing herself out of the window, they’d boxed her in.

It took everything in him to sit back down without ordering his people to move and let her go. He looked at her, saying, “You’re going to tell me what’s going on. Now.”

She flinched, her full mouth turning sullen as she turned to look at Walker with those big, liquid eyes. They were as black as the void.

In the light of day, he couldn’t deny anymore that her eyes were almost fully black, her pupils or irises so huge that there was very little visible sclera. Like she came from another world entirely. He had thought he’d been imagining that or misremembering, but no…

They stood out starkly against the pale expanse of her skin.

As though she’d never seen sunlight.

Beautiful.

And no less dangerous for it.

If he hadn’t seen her just break Alexi’s nose (or deck Jackson without even breaking a sweat) he would think her harmless, with a look like that. Anyone with less sense would see her crouching in the corner and assume she was s**t scared.

But Walker knew a predator when he saw one.

She’d fight her way through them all if she had to.

“We found her outside the building like this.” Ethan nodded at her nakedness when he finally shook off the stupor of Walker’s command.

His people weren’t prudes when it came to nudity. After all, they had to be naked when they changed form. Unless a wolf had enough clothes to be careless with them.

Few in the pack were that lucky.

However, it was unusual to see a female walking around fully nude.

“When we tried to bring her to you, she got violent. Alexi’s nose isn’t the only damage she did either.” Ethan hiked up his shirt to reveal angry, bleeding lines on his chest and abdomen. She'd never gouged clean through to the muscle.

Goddess willing, he wouldn't need antibiotics.

Willow whistled through her teeth. “It took the two of you to bring her in?”

Ethan nodded, a telltale flush in his cheeks.

The female was large, only a few inches shorter than Walker, in fact, with sleek legs and a toned stomach. Breasts a perfect handful, he couldn’t help but think about how she’d writhed when he’d had his mouth on them. The soft, mewling sounds she’d made in the back of her throat as she bit on her lips.

She’d been so soft, so yielding.

Nothing like now.

But still, she wasn't so large that it should have taken two of his best hunters to handle her.

"She's stronger than she looks," Alexi muttered, finally shaking off Walker's command enough to reach up and press his sleeve to his nose. It only made the mess on his face worse.

As betas and two of the pack’s top hunters, Ethan and Alexi were amongst the strongest the pack had to offer. If she could best them…

What the f**k was this female?

“Damn.” Willow looked at the female, eyes hard. There was a glint of grudging respect in her gaze though. “If you hadn’t just clocked one of mine, I might be impressed.”

“They laid hands on me first.”

Kiran leaned his hip against Walker’s desk. “So, you say.”

If Walker didn’t know any better, he would say that Kiran was thoroughly enjoying the chaos.

Willow gestured to Alexi to take his hands away from his nose before wrinkling her own.

“You need to get that seen to. Lilah’s in the morgue, she’ll be able to set it.” She gave him a rueful smile. “If you bang loud enough on the door, I’m sure you’ll get her attention.”

And her ire.

With a baleful look at the female still crowding the corner, Alexi left. Ethan was quick to follow.

“Is what they said true?” Walker asked the female.

“My pelt was stolen. I came to take it back.”

She notched her head higher, not an ounce of regret about her. Damn, in any other circumstance, that would have been a turn-on. This female was naked, lost, and without a friend to her name and still, she managed to carry herself like a queen.

Or a Luna, a small voice in the back of his head whispered.

He squashed that ridiculous thought immediately.

Or a shifter strong enough to tear her way through us if she needs to.

“Your pelt? What does that mean?” Walker asked with a shake of his head. “You injured one of my guys for what? A rug?”

It was Kiran that spoke. “The pelt is hers. Isn’t that right?” After a long pause, when she reluctantly nodded, he turned to look at Walker. “How familiar are you with European mythology?”

“Save me the lecture and just spit it out.”

“She’s a selkie. A shifter, of a kind.”

The f**k if he knew what that was. Walker’s brows scrunched, eyes flying between Kiran and this supposed selkie. “And this ‘pelt’ has something to do with it.”

“Everything to do with it.”

“Shut up,” the female hissed through bared teeth, showing a hint of an elongated canine that Walker had somehow missed before. He had known she wasn’t human the moment he’d set eyes on her, but he hadn’t noticed quite how bestial she was in the light of the moon.

It shouldn’t have turned him on as much as it did, that little peek of fang.

He scrubbed at his face, willing his rampant thoughts to behave. “What else?”

“They are sea folk that look like seals—” that explained the big black eyes then, “—and can shift by shedding their skin, their pelt. The stories tell tales most often about females coming ashore only to have their pelt hidden by a human man, forcing them to become their wives.”

“Stolen,” the female, words bitten off between her white teeth. “They were kidnapped against their will.”

Kiran looked at the female, face not giving anything away. “Yes.”

“And you think one of us,” Willow pointed at each of them in turn, “took it?”

The female blinked her huge, endless eyes slowly, following the movement of Willow’s finger. When her gaze landed on Jackson, who’d kept his mouth shut this entire time, legs still stretched out in front of him as though he was bored by this whole disastrous affair, her eyes narrowed.

Nostrils contracting to slits then flaring, the female growled low in her throat, reminding Walker of a cat getting ready to pounce.

If she’d had hackles, they most definitely would have been raised.

Slowly, Jackson turned to look at her, a smirk on his mouth. “Fancy meeting you here, sweetness.”

“You,” she breathed before snarling and launching herself at him.