Shelly Laurenston: Pack Challenge

“Excuse me, honey.” Casey grabbed Sara by her jacket and hauled her up and off the bed. Sara spilled water on the floor as she stumbled out of the way. Casey sat on the bed beside Marrec. “Oh, you poor, baby. Are you okay?”

The room grew quiet. Even Angelina and Miki weren’t speaking. They were too stunned. But they did take several steps back. The whole thing was feeling a lot more dangerous than it probably was. Sara wasn’t ready to take on Casey and Sara knew it.

Zach watched his woman take a deep breath and place the empty water cup down on a nearby table. She turned away from Casey and stared down at her sneaker-covered feet.

He saw the struggle on her face. Knew what she wanted to do. And knew what she could handle. He expected her to walk away. And she didn’t let him down. She walked away…for about five feet. Then with a snarl, she spun back around and grabbed Casey from behind. One hand in the woman’s hair, the other grabbing the denim jacket she wore. She snatched her off the bed and slammed her, face first, into the wall. She yanked her back, leaving a splash of blood on the white paint, and slammed her again. Then she threw her. Across the room and out the door, an arc of blood slashing across Marrec’s bed. Zach heard Casey hit the wall with a sickening thud.

Sara was about to go after her when Miki and Angelina, not Pack and not knowing better, jumped in front of her.

“Hey! Hey!” Miki pushed her friend back. “Sara, NO!”

Sara halted in her tracks. She looked at her friends as if debating whether to tear their throats out or not. Instead she took a deep breath and looked over their heads to Zach. He shifted his eyes to the rest of the Pack females and, to his growing pride, Sara picked up on it immediately. Her head snapped around and she nailed the four other women with one look. “What are you bitches looking at?” She snarled.

Zach watched them all look at the floor, the door, the ceiling. They looked at everything but Sara. He bit back a smile and thought about mounting her right there in front of everybody.

That’s when Miki grabbed Sara’s jacket and dragged the woman from the room. Angelina following after them.

Once gone, Yates went over to see the damage on his woman. They all knew his time as Alpha Male was now over. And the man looked relieved.

Conall shook his head, “Your woman is a major bitch.”

Zach grinned, “Isn’t she, though?”

Sara let Miki drag her out the hospital and around the back. Eventually stopping in the doctors’ parking lot, the forest behind them. She was letting her do it . Sara couldn’t quite believe how strong she had gotten in just a few days.

Miki finally released her, “What is going on with you?!” She snapped.

Sara looked at her friends. Tired and worn from worry over Marrec, they wouldn’t be up to hearing the truth. Hell, even Angelina was wearing sneakers and sweats. So what was Sara supposed to say? Apparently I’m Pack now and I was exerting my dominance. You wouldn’t understand . That would play well. These pushy, tiresome, sometimes psychotic women were her best friends. They had been there when no one else had. She didn’t want to lose them, and she knew that if she told them the truth she’d lose them forever. Wouldn’t she?

“Nothing. I’m fine.” Boy that was lame.

Angelina and Miki exchanged glances. Sara had a feeling whatever they were about to say to her was something that had already been discussed between the two of them. Angelina leaned back against an expensive car with MD plates and smiled. “Miki and I were reminiscing last night. And I forgot how much my grandmother hated when I went over to your house. At the time, I just couldn’t understand why because she liked you so much. So I asked her. And she said it was because your grandmother was lobo del diablo . Roughly translated, ‘devil wolf.’ I just figured it was my grandmother’s way of calling Lynette a bitch because of the Church Bake Sale Incident of 1984. But it wasn’t that, was it?”

Sara, staring down at her feet, shook her head. She just couldn’t face her friends. Instead she studied her feet and marveled at how big they were. She wondered what they would look like furry.

“You’ve gotten really strong.” Miki noted, “You threw that blond chick around the hospital room like a rag doll. Which, by the way, was so many levels of cool.”

“And that growling thing you’ve been doing lately,” from Angelina.

“And the snarling,” Miki continued.

“Bottom line is,” Angelina finished, “Maybe they’re not werewolves. But they’re not quite human, are they?” The women locked eyes. “And neither are you?”

Sara scratched the back of her neck and looked down at her feet again, “I… uh…”

“Why don’t you just tell her? Tell her what you are.”

The three friends spun around at the sound of a strange voice. It was the man she’d shot at the night before. And, as before, his three friends were with him. All golden and beautiful. And so cold that Sara felt her stomach drop. Why, oh, why hadn’t she killed them?

“Hello, pretty. Now, why don’t you be a good little puppy and come with us.”

“She’s not going anywhere with you.” Miki moved to step in front of Sara, but one of the men backhanded her. She flew across the hood of a car, landing on the other side.

There was a brief moment of silence as Sara and Angelina looked over at their fallen friend. Then they slowly turned back to face the four men standing in front of them.

“Angelina?”

“Yes, Sara?”

Sara was staring straight at the leader. Their eyes locked, “Go.” She bit out, just as she punched the man closest to her in the groin.

Angelina turned and ran; sliding over the hood of a car and charging flat out back to the hospital.

Sara charged off into the woods. Hoping, praying, that they would be more obsessed with getting her then going after Angelina.

She couldn’t hear them, but she could smell them. If they shifted she probably didn’t stand a chance. She was pretty sure she was slower as human. And she had no idea how to change to anything. So she ran. And she prayed. Prayed her Pack would come for her before it was too late.

TOC

Zach had smelled them as soon as they had hit the parking lot. He, Marrec, and both their Packs were already out the door of the hospital when Angelina ran into them. Silently, panic and fear for her friend coming off her in waves, she grabbed Zach by the hand and dragged him to where she had last seen Sara.

He caught her scent immediately and within seconds had shifted and took off into the woods, shaking his clothes off as he went. His Pack right behind him.

At first, the bastard cats didn’t shift. They couldn’t taunt and terrify her as cats. Only men could do that. Besides, he could still smell the human. But then, they must have realized that she was a lot faster and stronger than they had expected. About two miles from the hospital, they changed. And Zach knew that it wouldn’t be long before they caught up with her. Before they killed her.

Soon he figured out where she was heading. Home. She was going home. To where she felt safe. To where she had guns.

Good girl , he thought. Anything she could do at this point to buy him time.

Sara knew as soon as they had shifted, but she kept moving. If she had a moment to think, she would be marveling at the fact that she hadn’t run since her attack when she was 8. And now she had run almost 5 miles and felt—no, she knew— that she could go another 20. But they were gaining on her. She had been right. They were much faster once they shifted.