Chapter 31
In the evening, it becomes clear that Jayden knows full well that Kira doesn’t think things are fine, because he invites Noel over to the house to babysit her.
He does so under the guise of Noel being bored and wanting someone to hang out with, and he even smacks the old television into life, but as soon as she sees Noel's jovial, fake smile when she appears at the door, Kira knows why he’s been summoned.
He brings food and handheld video games.
The worst part is that she doesn’t even have it in her to be mad at Jayden.
She’s so worried. When she catches him at the back door, one foot already out into the freezing night, her fingers close on his shirt, like she could hold him there forever.
Jayden turns and catches her hips to pull her in against him, pressing the softest kiss to her lips.
“I’ll be back before you know I’m gone. Try to have fun with Noel.”
Before he can turn away, Kira takes his face between her hands and kisses him again. She strokes her fingertips down over his lips, so aware of their softness.
Jayden’s face had always looked so much more vulnerable than his body.
Then she lets him go, because Jayden might be her boyfriend, but he’s still the pack Alpha, and this is pack business.
Whether she likes it or not.
She does not like it.
Kira humors Noel, or Jayden, or Noel and Jayden, for as long as she can.
She allows Noel to interrogate her on the finer points of her relationship with Jayden, and gives him what she hopes are satisfactory answers.
She watches the first segment of a TV show with him, relieved to discover that Jayden’s TV is, in fact, connected, but her mind is in the woods.
If she could only shift, she’s sure she could reach out and find Jayden’s wolf spirit out there, and she’d know he was safe.
“Noel?”
he hums his reply to her calling his name
“You were the Alpha, right, before Jayden shifted for the first time?” She starts, praying that this isn’t a sore spot for him.
Luckily, Noel just turns to her with raised eyebrows. “I was.”
“So you know everything about being the Alpha?”
“I wouldn’t say everything, but I know enough.”
Kira turns the television down.
“What happens if someone wants to challenge the Alpha?”
“Kira...” Noel starts, like he knows where this is going.
“Humour me.”
Noel sighs, but to her credit, he answers.
“It doesn’t happen often. To get to that stage you’ve got to have two physically strong Alphas in a pack, really strong. They both have to be big, and they both have to be dominant, and they both have to have enough backing within the pack that they think they can hold it together. There would be no point in a wolf challenging the existing Alpha, after all, if he or she is going to face resistance from the rest of the pack if they do win.”
For a moment, Kira feels a wave of relief, but then she remembers Ava, and Sam, and the young Hannah.
Jayden might have most of the pack on his side, but that doesn’t mean Liam has no supporters.
“Could they form some kind of breakaway pack, before the challenge?”
“It can happen like that,” Noel nods. “But you’d need either the most socially dominant members of the pack to take your side who could sway the others, or you’d need a majority. That’s rare. Liam has one friend and two kids trailing around after him,” he adds.
He doesn’t waste time pretending not to know what Kira is getting at.
“But that still makes four of them, and there are five of us. It’s not so far from balanced.”
“Jayden told me that you’re worried about this, and I want to tell you that you don’t need to be. Liam’s family have a long history in this town, he won’t risk being kicked out and shaming his whole family over one stupid grudge. He just needs to burn off some steam, have it out with Jayden in the woods. I'm sure they’re yelling at each other right now. In a month it’ll be forgotten. This kind of thing happens from time to time. We’re wolves. Our animal instincts make us forget ourselves sometimes.”
“Tell me more about the challenge.”
Noel sighs again. “The challenger has to fight the Alpha one on one. The fight doesn’t end until one of them submits.”
“What if neither of them submits?” Kira asks hesitantly.
“Then the fight goes on until well, until one of them is incapacitated.”
Kira is very glad that he doesn’t say dead, even though the word rings around his ears.
“I know that you all seem to think that Liam is all bark and no bite, but I’m not so sure. I have a bad feeling about him. Before I got here, I was the kind of person who wouldn’t have believed in bad feelings and all that kind of superstitious stuff, but I’m a werewolf and Jayden is my person. Who’s to say I can’t sense when someone is a threat to him? More than anyone else? I feel it in my gut, Noel.”
“Jayden asked me to make sure you didn’t go wandering in the woods,” he says, without missing a beat.
“And you’re a good friend, but you’re not my keeper.”
“He gave an order. Jayden doesn’t usually give orders.” Noel fiddles with his shirt sleeves, then drums his fingers on the side of the couch, eyes turned up to the ceiling in thought.
“But if you were to sneak out of the back door, unbeknownst to me, and I had no choice but to follow you into the woods to drag you back, then I suppose that wouldn’t officially be disobeying a command from my Alpha. Hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically,” Kira nods, her heart pounding.
Noel rolls his head back on the back of the couch and meets his eyes.
“Instincts matter. Bad feelings are important. Learning to trust them is an art. You wouldn’t make a bad Alpha, Kira.”
“I don’t want to be the Alpha,” she says, already slipping off her outer shirt so that she doesn’t have to worry about tearing it. He stumbles on his way to the kitchen, rushing too much. “I just want mine to come home safe to me.”