In the Alpha’s Arms Novel

Never F*ck With Nyx

Shit. Shit. Shit. Lita’s heart pounded a mile a minute. They were screwed. Ren might have been able to take three men but three wolves? No one except a strong Alpha could probably take on those odds and even then, it would be a struggle. She watched as the other two began to shift as well.

Ren cursed, ducking a punch as his eyes flashed blue. He didn’t bother stripping before he was exploding into a brown wolf. Tattered scraps of clothing flew everywhere as men became animals. She flinched away when he snarled, wild and ferocious– their answers equally so.

This was bad… very bad, because once they were done with him, they’d be after her. And those were odds she was in no condition to overcome. Lita struggled to push back up to her feet, stumbling and light–headed, her human form battered and bruised.

In a flash, two had circled Ren, biting at him, backing him away from her. The third wolf peeled his green eyes away from the carnage to Lita, curling his lips away from his teeth. That strange heat built in her again. That stretching and pulling under the surface. She watched the saliva glint off his canines, the fur shimmering with droplets of rain, the cold, calculating gaze studying her in a way that was no longer human.

She couldn’t die like this. Wouldn’t.

He lunged, baring his teeth wide and her body just reacted, snapping and splitting itself apart until the roar that dragged from her chest was anything but human. Nyx. Her hands became paws, her body utterly animal and broad and fierce. She snarled using the full force of her Alpha wolf to knock her opponent back into the concrete, stunning him. The crowd gasped, everyone outside of the pit now motionless, mouths gaping.

Lita couldn’t even find the words to express how happy she was to feel her wolf, to let her out again. Her mind became a mess of tears and hope and heart–wrenching joy at the beauty of her wolf, at the strength, at her refusal to be tamed.

Everyone fair game? Nyx asked with a smile in her voice. She sounded tired, but whole… and pissed.

Everyone but the brown wolf.

Her red eyes found Ren, pinned, whimpering and scratching at the two wolves bearing down on his neck. Nyx clamped down on one of their back legs, dragging him away with a howl. Ren took the opportunity to surprise the remaining wolf, throwing him across the pit.

Meanwhile, Nyx’s claws sank into her opponent’s coat, pushing far enough that blood squirted up into her maw. That taste of blood, the salty, metallic tang was all she needed to lose it. She slashed a gash into his carotid and the world went red. She went for another fighter, this one still a man, and ripped him in two with her claws before he could even move.

Men turned from their fights, sighting her large black wolf and readying themselves to fight or flee. There would be no tapping, her blood drenched teeth said. Nyx tore through them all like bowling pins. Almost all of the remaining competition were body parts and screams and rivers of blood that turned the muddy water to paint at her paws. Thank god she didn’t eat anyone that Lita would have to throw up later.

Ren bounced back from his fight, helping her round up the last few fighters with enough strength to shift. Two wolves against six. And the odds felt good for once. Nyx was bloodthirsty and strong. She’d been training just as hard as Lita, if not harder and all the dead bodies in her wake should have been enough to prove her power.

“ENOUGH!!!” The roar sliced through everyone’s mind, everyone’s body. It was an Alpha tone. Maxim’s, she realized as Nyx followed everyone’s eyes to the cool, angry face of Cole’s father, “Everyone out of the pits.” The tone was violence and menacing ice.

He stared at her as if he knew her despite her being in wolf form. As if she had now confirmed every wayward suspicion he’d had, everything he had been told. She was an Alpha in her own right and now he understood why she was his son’s mate. Somehow, she wagered, that realization wouldn’t make him happy. It would likely make him more insane. Because she was still of ‘bad blood‘. She was still other, still less than him and less than what Cole deserved. And there was likely nothing about her that would change his opinion of that.

Nyx followed the other wolves out with a small hop up to the edge. How daunting it had seemed to Lita when she was in her human body. Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

“Shift,” he commanded and she felt that shiver of power up her spine. A command designed to force her to listen. Lita watched the other wolves shift immediately, as if their bodies reacted before their minds. The tone left little room for free will, she remembered. Her mother had used it on her countless times, had made her into a puppet. But she didn’t feel that overwhelming sensation any longer. It was no more than a suggestion to her and

she chose not to listen.

Ren stood beside her, panting and utterly bare as the day he was born. He was giving her a hard look, as if to say Don’t challenge him. She doubted he was looking out for her, more likely he didn’t want it to reflect badly on himself.

Lita didn’t want to challenge Maxim. Truthfully, she wanted to run. In her wolf form, she could certainly reach the outskirts of the packgrounds. She could certainly fight off a few tired guards. If she shifted, she’d never get away. Not now. Hell if she shifted, he’d probably kill her, probably poison her with the suppressive again. She couldn’t put Nyx away only to lose her again.

Never F*ck With Nyx

Maxim’s eyes glinted with wildness, flashing red. A warning for her to comply before things got worse. He shifted his gaze to Ren, “Where is the other?”

Ren shrugged, ‘Probably ran after he forced her in the pit.”

Maxim’s jaw visibly twitched, clicking and Nyx danced on her paws. To the outside it might have seemed like a nervous gesture but it was anything but. She was preparing to attack, preparing for Maxim to lose it.

We can’t win this fight, Lita muttered, emotion dragging through her.

ཇ་ཇཱ ྃ་༅་ཇོ་ཥཾ ཡཾ

They will try to separate us. We have to show force, Nyx growled, That sack of shit thinks we’re less than him. His wolf thinks we’re the dirt beneath his feet.

The bodies in the pit weren’t enough to prove we can hold our own?

Enough to show we’re dangerous. Not enough to prove our worth. Not that we owe any of them a damn thing.

What about defying his Alpha tone? Doesn’t that show our strength?

Yea, but we need a bit more. We need to ruffle their feathers. We need them to be afraid, not just shocked.

How?

Do you trust me?

When you ask it as a question like that… no, I really don’t, Lita laughed humorlessly, But I think I’m out of other options. Don’t get us killed, please. Wouldn’t dream of it, Nyx promised, the malicious joy dripping from her words like blood. She was going to enjoy whatever it was she planned to do.

Nyx moved her gaze away from Maxim, ignoring the fire in his eyes at her defiance, ignoring the whispers and tension of the women nearby. Sweeping her ruby eyes through the crowd gathered around them, she began looking, hunting for the man who had tried to make her bow. Who had tried to force her to beg. Who had tried to kill her like a coward.

Nyx spotted Chris behind Maxim, off to the side, glaring daggers as he tried to go unnoticed. She prowled closer, letting loose a rolling grumble in her chest that would have sent a human running. Pulling back her lips in a rattling snarl, she parted the crowd on her way to him. Maxim didn’t move at all, didn’t shift, didn’t drop his gaze from her slow–approach. Perhaps he understood she wasn’t foolish enough to attack him, perhaps he intended to show how un–phased he was. Perhaps he was just so confident in his own power, his own ability, that he didn’t dare let her startle him.

Either way she grew nearer and with each step, Chris grew paler. And paler. Brushing past Maxim, Nyx felt his skin tighten, felt the tension coiling around her like a vice. She didn’t even cut her eyes in his direction, as if she didn’t feel his threat. As if he was nothing to her. She was sure she would pay for it later but for now…

Chris backed up a step. Then another, “Don’t come any closer mutt…”

He was going to run in three… two… one… in a breath she was on him, pressing her full weight against his chest as she roared in his face. Chris shifted, pushing her back but she lunged again, snapping at his tail, his back. He bit her shoulder. She butted his head. Scratching at his hide, his face, Nyx maneuvered around him as if she were playing. As if his life was a game to her. His blue eyes studied her red ones and she saw the shiver go through him. He really hadn’t known what she was. Hadn’t suspected her power for a second. And it would cost him everything.

His wolf tackled her, rolling them a handful of times before she pinned him hard, her jaws locked around his throat. She could feel the rumble of his whimper in her mouth, taste his fear on her tongue as she clamped. Her eyes swiveled back to the crowd who hadn’t moved. They were frozen, utterly still as she waited to see if anyone would step forward for him. Maxim didn’t even turn his head, showing a bored, indifferent kind of face that hid every dark thought he probably had.

Ren watched though, a sliver of wrath in his eyes, the smallest tug of a smirk as he locked eyes with Chris.

And Nyx pulled, Slowly. So slowly she felt each tear of flesh under her canines, felt each shudder beneath her, heard his whimpers turn to loud, terrible keening. But she didn’t stop. Didn’t let her jaw slacken as she pulled her head away, taking his flesh with her. As she drew against that final stretching, she burned her gaze to the side of Maxim’s face. Watched him so strongly she knew it had to pierce his cold exterior. With a final, vicious rip she tore his throat so thoroughly it slipped through her teeth, making a wet sound against the grass.

Only then, when she was coated in blood, when the whole of the pack had seen that she could kill a high ranking wolf with her bare teeth, did she finally shift. Lita huffed, spitting at the iron taste in her mouth… and laughed.

Lita’s Love for the Alpha