I wake up despite not wanting to. Peeking out, I see dark gloom, deep shadows, and one of those human angel-people standing in a pool of bright light.

"Do you think that I should wear lavender or ivory?" Bailey asks me, holding up her angel-wear.

"No," I mutter, turning over and pulling my blanket over my head. My she-wolf stares at me, shocked at my behavior toward her luna, but I know for a fact that it's not even five in the morning. I wake up at five-thirty and my body knows the difference.

"Ili," Bailey sing-songs, "my party is tonight. Wakey-wakey, before the other girls show up to get ready."

I bolt upright like she smacked me across the face. "Your party," I repeat dumbly, "is tonight. Tonight tonight."

"It is indeed," says Bailey.

"So..." I roll over, futilely seeking the edge of the bed. "Why is it so far away? "Does it really take hours and hours to get ready? I didn't peg you as a twelve-hour prep kinda girl."

"Conner is in negotiations early this morning," Bailey says quietly. "Some alpha from Kentucky whose misogyny makes the Grim look like a twenty-first-century Renaissance man, so I am not invited to participate and now I'm pouting."

I snort at the idea of Beta Teague even faintly resembling a modern feminist, then snicker again at the thought of Bailey pouting. "He's not that bad," I find myself defending Braxton's dad weakly as I finally reach the edge of the bed.

"It's strange," Bailey mused as she tosses the greyish-blue dress over my desk chair, "that even today 'might makes right' in a wolf pack, and the instinctive power and physical strength of a wolf is all that matters."

I think of that alpha female spot with pure regret flashing through my bones. My she-wolf is in full-on pout mode, curled up with her nose tucked under her paws and her eyes only half-open. "Yeah. Do you... um... do you think you have an alpha female chosen?" I ask hesitantly.

Bailey frowns. She walks over and sits down on the bed next to me. "No. I won't choose yet. Uncle Alex is presenting the candidates tonight. They are supposed to come up on stage and swear their fealty to me as their luna."

My she-wolf flops over. Our frustration burns in my gut. "Who are the candidates?" I ask her. "Maybe I can help pick?"

Bailey shrugs, picking at the covers. "I don't really like any of them," she murmurs. "They look straight through me. One of them was trying to flirt with Conner the other day. Another of them-" she cuts off her own words.

"Has already 'flirted' with Conner?" I finish her thought.

My luna's eyes grow colder than I've ever seen them. "You're talking about Georgina?"

My she-wolf curls up. Luna is scary. I nod in agreement with my she-wolf and answer Bailey's question at the same time.

"She waited for Conner to be at his most vulnerable and pounced," Bailey snaps. "She violated him and she's on the damn shortlist of candidates."

"I'm sorry," I breathe out, feeling as though I've been sucker-punched. I never thought of it that way. No one thinks about our strong alphason as being a victim, but the way Bailey put it... It's true, isn't it? Oh, goddess. That's sick. I swallow thickly.

Bailey watches me with knowing eyes. "Wolves," she mutters. "You need to stop placing all of your men on a pedestal and refusing to see the strength in your women. Even this," she waves a hand in the air as if to encompass every piece of our pack, "choosing an alpha female as if that physical piece is all that matters."

"But," I say slowly, "it is important. It's to protect you from Challenges."

"Why can't Conner or one of the dozen men he forces to follow me everywhere do it? Humans have bodyguards, why do I need this person?" she vents. "Let me ask you this; because no one has a good answer. What happens if an alpha female loses? What if I get into a fight and lose?"

"Traditionally..." I start to say. Then I stop abruptly. Traditionally, the deposed luna would die and the new female would step into her place, even going so far as to mate to the alpha. I curl up, perched on the side of the bed next to my luna, but even her body heat can't keep me warm. "But, that practice died out so long ago..." I mutter.

"Right, so really what would happen is that the women in ClearHowl would be split. Some would still respect me and any authority I have. The others would want me gone. And then Conner has to deal with it and now Conner doesn't even have-" she cuts herself off again.

"A Beta," I whisper into my knees. "He doesn't have a Beta."

"Something has to change," Bailey says firmly.

I look at my luna and smile weakly, "you already are our change."

Bailey is nothing if not modest, beyond intelligent, and frighteningly practical. "Change is necessary even if it's not welcome. Just look at this fiasco," she nods to her ever-present MacBook where she keeps her secrets. "Fertility is something that plagues wolfpacks all over the world. Sure, making a full Claim increases the chances of pregnancy, and humans and witches can become pregnant without a mate bond, but what about all the others? Miscarriages and stillborn deaths are nearly triple what they are for humans. And," she muses, "witches have girls over eighty-five percent of the time. Eight-five percent. That's amazing. Wolves are nearly seventy percent male. It's problematic. I don't have enough information to ascertain the percentages of wolves and witches," she continues absently as her hands drift to her computer. "I know that Beta Rique and his mate, Miranda, have all girls so far, though."

"It's unusual for witches and wolves to mate," I blurt out before she goes too far down her rabbit hole.

Bailey shakes herself out of her genius-daze and hums softly, "while it is true that one person can cause change, it is statistically more successful when an entire community demands it."

I sit up straight and swing my legs over the side of my bed. "OK. Then we change things. Ideas?"

"I'm working on it," she muses. "But today has to be dedicated to this." She holds up the two dress choices again.

"The ivory," I tell her. "The other is more of a blue-grey than a lavender, anyway."

The grey-blue dress gets tossed towards me. "Good. Because this one is yours."

---

We show the Brat the hole we've made in the fence. He is suitably impressed by our ingenuity. We have not had idle hands during the long days sitting on this rock. The fence was already curled up, cut along the weaker weave of metal to fit over the outcropping of the cliffside. A weakness in the design of this place that we will exploit to escape and find our mate.

"That's smart," the Brat comments under his breath as we slowly slide under the gap where we whittled away the earth until we could fit through. We silently move through the forest, tucked close to the ground, using the noise of the nighttime woods to hide our movements from the patrolling wolves.

The other female is close. We can feel it, like a sick, viscous, sludge in our heart, then our gut, that moves lower to our groin as we get closer to her. A week ago we would expel it from our body with force. We know we deserve the discomfort, the pain, as we inch farther away from our prison. The other female poisoned our heart and it will take time to leech it from our body.

Our mate deserves to have our body clean of filth.

"Georgie must have done something right for once," the Brat huffs out. His voice is so low it's not even a whisper. It will not carry past our ears. "I don't scent a recent patrol on this path."

We shake our head in disagreement, the movement so slight that even the leaves inches under us don't move. We hold up two fingers and let our aching gut take us toward the other female. Pointing, we show the Brat what we mean.

The other female has poisoned the patrol. He smells of fucking and drugs, but he's alive. He is lying under some brush, unconscious. The Brat places two of his fingers on the wolf's pulse beating slowly in his throat. A look of relief crosses the Brat's face. "All good," he mouths towards us.

We continue, sensing our target is on the move. She is going to the glen, the little meadow in the wood, far up into the mountains, that we would sneak to when our head was clouded with her foul scent and our heart was weak and foolish.

We stand when we are far away from the patrolling wolves, ears pricked for an outcry. The other female should have hidden the patrolling wolf in a better way. She is not careful. We were not careful, before, and it is a harsh lesson to learn. Grey eyes staring at us in disdain or worse, with no emotion at all, have taught us our place more efficiently than a whipping could.

"She's up here," the Brat says grimly.

"Correct, Brat," We answer in the same low tone.

"You're an asshole, you feral fuckup," he mutters other insults under his breath. We ignore him. He has grown on us like a wart on our ass. Itchy but intriguing. He has Marked our mate, but we do not want his blood coating our teeth. His fate and ours is for our mate to decide.

The Brat shifts onto paws. He is a large male, dark in color. We think, perhaps, he doesn't want to speak to the other female. She is almost here.

"Sean," the other female breathes, smiling happily through her tears.

"Not here," we grunt, fixing our human face into a soft expression that is at odds with the rot in our gut.

The other nods and turns, leading us. We do not like that. She belongs under our paws, below us, but we allow it. The patrolling wolves are too close. Her screams would be heard.

Our fingers tingle with the urge to carve the other female's yellow hair from her scalp. To watch her eyes open in astonishment and horror when she realizes that we are not her male any longer. That we do not want her alive. Still, the desire to watch the life fade from her eyes presses on our spine. Our mouth waters. The foul stench of her lifeblood would wash away the sick in our gut.

Fuck.

I push my wolf back and he allows it, but only because he knows I can't cage him again. I let him have room to plot with me. We want the same thing.

A memory flashes in my memory. My hands tangled tight in Georgina's hair while I pound her ass. Bile surges, fast and hard up my throat. I swallow it down silently and force another image into my head. The blond hair coming away in my claws tinged red at the roots from Georgina's blood. Sweet fucking daydream.

My claws on my fingertips click together and Braxton growls a low, wordless warning. I push that other image away and replace it with one of my favorites; Iliana, spread under me, her grey eyes locked on mine, wide and needy and so fucking innocent as I debauch her virgin body.

Braxton glides past me and snaps his canines toward my hard-on threateningly.

"Does he have to be so loud?" Georgina hisses.

"Hush, Brat," I mutter to the utterly silent wolf at my side, because the wart itches and it's fun, not because Braxton is actually being noisy. The wolf doesn't respond, but the fur on his back spikes in anger.

"I had Marianne seduce Todd," Georgina brags. "He's so easy to fool, the dumbass," she tells us as we go deeper in the woods, past the first line of patrol. We are heading north, farther away from the main body of the pack and Iliana. We can lope back after we've hidden our trail from any scouts.

"Another ten minutes," I tell Braxton in a near-soundless whisper. A shiver goes through his shaggy body. If Georgina turns around at this moment, she'll know something is up just from the glint of anticipation in Braxton's eyes.

Ten minutes pass too slowly. When we are finally at the glen Georgina and I used to meet at it feels like a lifetime has passed.

She turns, her blue eyes shining, her lips curving upward.

"Make sure no one followed us," I tell Braxton. Then I let my wolf back to the front of my mind. It's his show. I owe him this moment.

Ugly Other. Her heart is hideous.

"Sean, I brought a pack for traveling for them. Iliana should be attending the party tonight. It's perfect, really, everyone will be distracted by the human luna," she rolls her eyes. "He can easily abduct the little whore."

"Mmm," we hum in pleasure as our claws sink into the other's scalp. She screams. We cut it off with a fist to her mouth. Blood spurts. Her entire head bleeds and bleeds. From her mouth, from her nose, from her head. Red pours and pours until her blue eyes are blinded by her life running out of her veins.

We hobble her next. There is no escape tonight. Sharp claws cut into the tough tendons at her ankles. The right breaks more easily. She always did favor her left side. A weakness we tried to train out of her when the feet of us was so foolish and blind.

We grab the bag she packed and upend it as she clutches her face and head, sobbing pathetically.

"Damn, dude." The Brat is back on feet, staring at the other female in disgust.

We find a shirt and rip it into pieces.

"Ah, we may want clothes?" the Brat points out.

"It is pup's clothes," we inform him. He picks up a pair of pants and scoffs at the sobbing female on the ground.

"You are a real fucking bitch, Georgie. Seriously, you provided your sister with nothing but crap?" The Brat pauses as we tie the pieces of the shirt together to fashion a rope. "Although, you were encouraging me to fucking kidnap her, so fuck you anyway, yeah?"

We lean down and tie the bloody stumps of her feet together. "Why are you doing this?" she slurs. Ignoring her stupid question, we haul her over to the tree carved with a heart and the initials 'G & S.'

While the other female watches, we slash the initials until nothing remains. Then, we tie her to the tree, her swollen face staring at us in horror just like our dream.

We step back as the other sobs, "I love you, Sean! What's wrong with you!" Screaming, she begins to vomit her secrets. "We had everything worked out! You were going to reject her! You stopped taking your medicine, didn't you? You don't understand, Sean! He's dangerous, your wolf." She suddenly finds the Brat, standing behind me. "Braxton, he's insane. His wolf is insane. You don't understand how dangerous he is."

"I think I do, actually," Braxton says mildly. "This is a fair example of insanity. Justifiable," he muses thoughtfully, "but crazy."

"How did you provide my human with drugs?" we ask her.

Silence falls over the glade, broken only by the other female's harsh breathing through her broken nose. Reaching out, I rip another chunk of hair from her scalp. Her renewed screams make our head ache, so we punch her in the stomach to stop the noise.

"How did you provide the drugs? Where did they come from?"

"The lab," she spits out blood as she snarls at me. "You know that!"

We pause. We did not know, but maybe she told us and we forgot? "What is in the drugs?"

She glares at us mutinously. We tear a slice of her ear off with the next hank of piss-yellow hair.

She doesn't scream this time, only cries harder. Disappointing. "What are they?"

"Wolf suppressants, just like you wanted. He's crazy. He's crazy," she whispers over and over.

"Who made the suppressants?" the Brat asks, his voice sharp.

The other weeps as she answers, "the lab made them for the experimental wolves."

"You'll have to explain that a little more clearly. He's a bit slow, this dude," the Brat says, pointing his thumb at me. "Feral," he shrugs.

"Human babies born of wolf pairings. Abominations with no wolves," the Other sneers.

"So they were given suppressants?" the Brat asks doubtfully. "You mean they had wolves and were suppressed?"

"No. They weren't born with wolves. They were wrong, broken, so the drugs made their wolves emerge. Then they were crazy, so they had to develop suppressants." The other glares at me before talking to the Brat again, "just like his wolf. It's crazed and can't be trusted."

"We are a true wolf," we say. The Brat is choking behind me, looking horrified, mumbling about crazy scientists and cruelty towards human pups.

The other female scoffs. "You're still crazed. A hybrid, a bastard human-born. Your wolf is an unnatural freak and my Sean knows that!" She smiles, bloody and jagged, "just yesterday he told me he loves me. You're just a mutt, but my Sean loves me."

We contemplate the other female. Our feet seethe in loathing for the other female. He spits and rages toward his former lover, towards the female that he was foolish for. His shame burns so hot that we push him back, but gently. He did not mean to shut us out for so long. He was only a pup when the other female and her mother sank her poison into his veins.

"I wouldn't poke the beast," the Brat says from behind me. "I mean, there isn't a mirror, but have you seen your hair? Won't take much to set him off."

"As long as I'm alive, Sean will belong to me," she hisses. "He will love me. We've had years together!" Her bloody spittal covers our chest. We look down and trace the blood with our fingertips.

Our hand reaches for the other's throat. It's a relief to let our claws out. Wicked, dark black, already covered in grime and blood. Our mouth waters with anticipation. When we bring our mate the Other's head, she will know she is first for us.

Brat's hard arm at our throat stops us. It is a hold we recognize, but can't break. He is good at it.

The sudden light is blinding.

"Hold off, cabrón," a deep, commanding voice with a slight accent orders.

"Shit," the Brat hisses.

We snarl, furious and being denied our prey.