Shelly Laurenston: Pack Challenge

Sara sighed and shifted on her bed, trying to ease the pain in her right leg. Honestly, the things she put up with. They were really lucky she loved them both so much. Otherwise, she might have killed them by now.

All this waiting was making her a bit crazy. It was giving her time to think. To worry. Her leg had been getting worse the past couple of months and she didn’t know why. It never fully healed after she and her father had been attacked, although to the naked eye it simply looked like a badly healed wound. That’s why she had been drinking the other night. It was the only thing that truly dulled the pain and her brain. It had become a constant challenge for her to battle the voices that told her nothing was right. Her body wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Her life was a mess. Although it didn’t seem messy. Boring maybe. She didn’t exactly live on the wild side. That night of drinking was about as wild as she got, and the only thing that she remembered doing was kissing a stranger. A really gorgeous stranger. He had the thickest neck, and those beautiful hazel eyes that just seemed to… Sara shifted again. This time not from the pain in her legs but the throbbing between them.

This was ridiculous. She was a nice girl. Not a whore. All men treated her with the utmost respect or they were cruel about her scars. There was no in between. They either treated her like a princess or treated her like freak. He treated her like she was hot. But she wasn’t the “hot friend.” She was the sensible friend. Angelina was the hot friend. She was the reason guys became friends with Sara in the hopes that she would fix them up with her. Angelina wore designer clothes and expensive high-heeled shoes. She was the only woman Sara knew who would come to Skelly’s on Goth night wearing a champagne-colored dress—her “signature color,” as she called it—matching heels, and a purse.

Miki was the brilliant, super-cute friend. She was the one that could diffuse the bomb in 30 seconds with bubble gum, toothpaste, and a binder clip while still looking cute in a belly shirt. Miki was working on her third master’s degree because she thought the whole “PhD thing” was so overplayed. Miki was the one in high school who hadn’t been able to use a computer or phone for three years “as per court order” and knew all the M.O.s of serial killers from the 20 thcentury because every woman should know the warning signs of a serial killer. “What if you’re dating one,” she’d always ask with a smile, just before giving some gruesome detail or two about some murderer.

And then there was Sara. Reliable, dependable Sara. She was like the Golden Retriever of the group. She was always the “good buddy” or the “little sister.” She was never the “piece of ass.” And after 28 years she had learned to accept that fate. She accepted it like the pain in her leg and the scar on her face. It was there and it was who she was. Might as well just deal with it.

But then he came along. Zach. She thought she had dreamed that kiss. That amazing freakin’ kiss. Part of her wished she had. The reality of it was getting a little too much to bear. It was stressful. She had been drunk. Drunk-Sara was fun. Drunk-Sara set things on fire. Drunk-Sara grabbed groping men by the balls and squeezed until they passed out. There was no way Golden Retriever Sara could compete with Drunk-Sara. And Drunk-Sara was a liability. She didn’t remember much about the night besides the kiss. But she was almost positive someone had grabbed her while on the way to the bathroom. And it was the beautiful man that had saved her. And for some unknown reason she was obsessed with his teeth. She just couldn’t remember why.

Sara sighed. She could still hear her friends yelling. Something about a thong and how she wasn’t a slut… unlike some people.

Sara scooted off the bed and stormed into the living room. No use yelling at her friends. Then it would be three crazy women yelling. Instead, she went to her stereo system and turned on some loud techno music from a DJ in Germany.

Miki and Angelina continued to yell for another minute, until they realized they couldn’t hear themselves much less each other. They turned to stare at Sara. When she was certain she had their full attention, she turned the music down, but not off.

“Are you two done?”

“She started it,” Angelina complained.

“ I started it?” Miki snapped.

“That’s it!” Sara yelled. She walked to her kitchen and grabbed three beers from the refrigerator. “Here.” She handed one each to her friends. “You two bitches are making me nuts.” Sara opened the ice cold can and took a swig. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what I wear.” She stated again after swallowing, “I don’t have a chance in hell with a guy like that.”

Sara went to her front door, determined to sit on her porch and enjoy the cool night. But Miki’s cutting voice caused her to trip on the doorframe and stumble outside, “If we had left the store, he would have fucked you on the counter.”

Zach’s body was concealed behind trees as he watched Sara’s house. “I want you at her house,” Yates had ordered after he’d argued. “Make sure she doesn’t have any more surprise visits.”

He hated babysitting duty and Yates knew it. But he put up with it… for now. Because everyone knew, clearly even Yates, that Zach would be making a move to be Pack leader. He knew he was ready. And he wanted it. He was just waiting for the right time to move. He loved Yates like a brother, but the man was getting weak. It wasn’t age either. It was his woman. Casey was tough, but she was toxic. She was too human for the role. Wanting power. Her primary concern, no matter what she said, was not the Pack. But her standing within it. The females put up with her, but he could tell that wouldn’t last much longer. His sister, who had been traveling for about a year, had a good shot at Alpha Female, but he wasn’t sure she even wanted it or would leave Europe to come get it.

That’s why Casey’s recent foray into the past was an obvious tactic to keep him busy and out of the way. She never cared about Bruce Morrighan’s missing offspring before. They all knew she had been taken by her grandmother after the brutal killing of the girl’s father. And although Casey thought she could keep Zach away for weeks “monitoring the girl,” as she put it, they never expected the Pride to actually be hunting the woman. Finish off the job they had started so long ago. But Pride females were notoriously patient. They had probably known where Morrighan’s offspring was for years, but no one, absolutely no one , would even think about going up against Lynette Redwolf.

Why? Because the bitch was crazy.

A Native American and a shapeshifter, Lynette had rejected both early on. Instead she’d tried to become a “normal woman.” She buried the Beast and stayed human. The fact that she’d come from a long line of shape-shifting shamans apparently meant nothing to her.

And her plan had been to raise her daughter the same. She had big plans for Kylie Redwolf. But Kylie figured out what she was by the time she was fourteen. At eighteen, she met her mate and Sara’s father, Bruce Morrighan. His family dated back to the 16 thCentury. A tough Scottish clan of wolves that had done some serious damage to the land before they’d gained some control over their need to kill. Like Zach, Bruce was born and raised as part of the Magnus Pack. It was the only world he’d ever known. Until he met Kylie. Their mating was supposedly one for the record books. Their passion scorching the Colorado Mountains were they found each other. Bruce on a camping trip. Kylie trying to escape her controlling mother by working as a waitress in a local diner. Once they were marked and mated, the couple seemed to become more wolf than human. Staying in wolf form for days on end, they slept, hunted, and lived the majority of their lives as wolves. When they had Sara, the Pack’s feeling was that she was certainly going to be Alpha female one day.