All Chapters of The Tyrant alpha: Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

“‘I’m as dedicated to your well-being as much as any other in this pack.’” I echo his words back to him, and for the first time since the shitty scenario went down, I reach for the bond. I don’t even tug. I find it and follow it until I know he can feel me because I feel him. “I’m not any other shifter in this pack.”I’m not making a claim. I’m stating a fact.He doesn’t recoil. He doesn’t freeze or try to shake me loose. He lets me explore.And I’m no longer interested in arguing about why I can’t trust him. I’m too into this. It’s like I’m in a huge dark space, and I’m here, and my wolf is here—obviously since we’re indivisible—but there’s someone else, too. A being apart from us.I can’t see or hear or know him like my wolf. He’s transmitting on a different frequency, but I can tune in and catch pieces of him.He’s more of a mess than I am. You’d never tell by how he’s standing, hard as a marble statue, but he’s balanced on a razor’s edge.He wants to touch me. More than that. He w

5CADOCIn my dreams, my wolf is gnawing his way out of my skin. I wake up to the fourth morning of Derwyn throwing rocks at me. My jacket’s frozen to the rusty siding of Rosie’s trailer and my left foot is dangling in the ice-cold marsh water, the shoe soaked.Eyes still crusted shut with sleep or frost or both, I catch a pebble mid-air and pitch it back at Derwyn. There’s a satisfying whine when it hits him.“You told me to wake you up at five,” he says.“Lower your voice.”I blink and squint. The sun hasn’t even cleared the foothills. Derwyn is poking his head around the corner of the trailer. Rosie’s still asleep. When she’s knocked out, the bond is a steady hum. I can almost ignore it.I swing upright, and draw my legs up to the ledge. Every joint cracks. There’s a crick in my neck. I can’t feel my feet.“It’s five,” Derwyn whispers at the top of his lungs.I fumble for a pebble that missed me, and even though my fingers are numb, I manage to wing him in the shoulder.“I’ll just

Killian won’t indulge the idea that he’s wrong. He’s like my father in that way.Killian’s in the ring when Seth and I make our way into the old but immaculate gym he refurbished to train his fighters. He’s sparring with his second Tye. Tye’s even prettier than Seth. They hate each other.There are a few other males lifting weights. A short-haired female in an oversized T-shirt is working out with the speed bag in the corner. Now that’s new. Females visit the gym from time to time, and Killian likes his female to hang out, although she’s not here today, but I’ve never seen one training.Tye’s wolf snaps at me as I approach. I ignore him. Killian’s the only Quarry Pack male I can’t beat. He’s the flip-shifter.“What up, Collins?” Killian grins at me, ducking and dodging Tye’s lightning-fast jabs. Both males have barely worked up a sweat. “You sleep in? Gotta get breakfast in bed, get your nails done before you come on over?”I’m not that late. He’s just a dick.I go warm up on a heavy

He rips through bones and muscle, crashing into the world, his paws hitting the frozen ground mid-leap, his claws hacking furrows as he races into the field toward the woods.6ROSIEI’m foraging in G17, trying to ignore Derwyn, trying not to be annoyed that he’s been following me all day and done nothing but talk on his phone, piss upwind, and ask me “are you almost done yet” more times than my nieces when I’m in the bathroom. I’m trying—and failing.It’s cold outside, but I’m sweating. I’m hungry but nauseous. I want to be alone, but I want Cadoc, and I hate that I want him here. I want to knock myself out with a frying pan like a cartoon character. I’d settle for drinking myself unconscious, but I can hardly keep water down.If Derwyn says, “How ‘bout this? You looking for this?” and points to a piece of human litter one more time, I’m going to shift and sit on him until he’s a pancake.I’m kneeling in a thicket of low shrubs, combing gently with my fingers and calling on all the

Cadoc’s wolf is a sentry. A sculpture.After a while, as the shadows lengthen and the crepuscular animals get their burst of twilight energy, the awkwardness wears away. Cadoc’s wolf begins to feel less like an interloper and more like when you find something unexpected and rare in a familiar place. Mushrooms in a hollow log. An egg in a nest.He keeps watch while I search for treasure, and it seems fitting that he’s doing it, as if he’s slipped into his proper role.I’d call it biology, but Cadoc’s wolf isn’t behaving like an animal reacting to his mate. He’s maintaining his distance, and there’s no aggression in his stance. It’s not our bond making this feel right, either. The connection is pretty much inert at the moment.If he weren’t Cadoc Collins, and I wasn’t a scavenger, I’d almost say we were making friends. It kind of reminds me of when Nia and I were pups. She first glommed onto me when I became Abertha’s apprentice. Nia thought she could get something out of it, so she’d m