My Mate from the Forbidden Pack

Chapter 4: Diplomacy and a Secret

AJ's POV

The big wolf, Aldris, shifted out of wolf form and spread his arms wide. He was holding me hostage, and he had my pack dead to rights.

“I've got your boy!" He called out, again with the booming voice. “Tell me who you are and I'll let him go."

Even though my neck was held in the clamped jaws of an adversary, I still found time to hate this guy.

The largest of my pack stepped forward. It was Van, who was our leader only because he was the least-low ranking among us in the pack hierarchy. So he did the leader thing and also shifted out of wolf form, to engage in interpack diplomacy. Thanks Van for stepping up to the plate on that one.

I just, wished he would have been more helpful about it.

“He isn't our boy," he said. “But he sure ain't yours! Let him go!"

Whelp. That hurt.

“You aren't in charge here, dog. Who's your Alpha? Why are you trespassing on our land?"

Van growled. “I don't have to answer to you!"

Aldris laughed, and spoke to the wolf whose jaw I was getting well acquainted with. “Hey Storm, how's our white boy doing back there? You wanna give him a little squeeze for me?"

It didn't take the pack sense to tell that, even though they didn't care for me much, my packmates all spiked with concern when Aldris said that. My own concern also spiked, of course. It shot through the roof when this Storm actually did close down on my neck.

Things had escalated. I had gone from just being a hostage, and effectively bound in place, to now having a knife against my throat. Only, instead of a knife, it was the closing teeth of a predator much larger than me. Sure, Storm hadn't drawn any blood yet. But I was starting to fear for my life.

“Please," I said, though it came out as only a whisper between the tight clench I was in. “I'm too young to—"

“Shut him up." Aldris said.

Then a great many things happened. I'll try to list them in order.

Storm, who had me in a death grip between his jaws, started to obey. Whether the intent was to hurt me, or outright kill me, I couldn't know. But I do know that the painful hold I was in got worse. Then, it got sharper.

I yelped when I felt wolf fangs pierce my skin.

Then I saw a flash of midnight. Maxx roared, breaking through whatever barrier had held him in place just moments ago. While he had barreled into Aldris when he defended me earlier, this time Maxx took a different approach. He bit into Storm hard enough that I was ejected from his closing-in fangs. Now that I was free, Maxx threw his packmate across the clearing.

Maxx bellowed through his pack link. “LEAVE THE LITTLE ONE FOR ME!"

I couldn't handle how attractive that was to me. To measure whether or not the experience had been worth it, I raised a paw to my neck to measure how deep Storm's fangs had pierced. It looked worse than it was, because the deep red was so contrasted with my fur. But while it was deep, there wasn't that much of it.

I was fine. And in return, I had the greatest defender a guy could ask for. He could throw a shifter across a clearing for me, and he was handsome to boot.

Only, I realized that I was fawning over my mate, even while a battle had burst out around me.

Storm flew threw the air, landing directly onto a member from my pack. Tensions had already been high, what with a shifter territory dispute and all. So one of my packmates getting knocked over was more than enough to send everyone over the edge. Someone on my side tackled Storm on the ground. Someone on Maxx's side rushed in to Storm's defense.

The clearing broke into all out war.

“AJ, get out of here!" Maxx shouted at me. I wish I could say that I listened, but in all honesty I was terrified. It marked the first time in my life I hadn't run away. But it wasn't the fight around me which made me afraid to leave. I was worried that if I left, that if I ran away right now—I was worried I might run to a place my Maxx would be unable to follow.

It was an esoteric thought for a battleground. Thankfully, but also unfortunately, I didn't have to dwell on it for very long. Maxx had been worried about me. I had been worried about Maxx. But between the two of us, we hadn't found enough brain power to be worried about Storm.

The large gray wolf burst out of his side of the brawl. I saw him clash with my mate in slow motion. It confirmed to me that I was much more worried about my midnight wolf in all this commotion, much more than I was concerned for myself.

I wanted to help him. Instead of running away, for the first time in my life I wanted to fight.

I just hoped Storm wouldn't mind, what with him being twice my size.