My hope did the proverbial swirl down the crapper. Walter apparently didn’t know what to do either as he stood in blank surprise while Pam kissed his cheek, smiling. “Give me twenty minutes to change,” she said, then sashayed out.

I looked at Jenks. Shit. This was not what I had planned.

Fourteen

Little sun made it past the fragile spring leaves, and I shivered. It is the cold, I thought, not the rank smell of ash and emptied bowels or the people joining the noisy throng in twos and threes. And it wasn’t that Jenks had his hands cuffed before him. And it couldn’t be from the air of a festival growing as everyone gathered to see me get mauled. No, it had to be from the chill May afternoon.

“Yeah, right,” I whispered, forcing my hands from my elbows and rocking to my toes to loosen my muscles. The scent of old smoke was strong from the nearby fire pit, almost hiding the rising odor of musk. I had a feeling they would’ve lit the bonfire to add to the travesty if it had been later. As it was, the people in fatigues and little caps were arranging themselves in small knots in one corner. Across the clearing, the street Weres in their baggy, colorful clothes were more cool as they portrayed an indifference that was fake but effective nonetheless. Between them was the third group, wearing slacks and dresses. They were quietly laughing at the guys in fatigues, but were clearly wary of the rougher, wild cannons the street Weres made with their show of jewelry and loud voices. The excited chatter was getting on my nerves.

Under it was the sensation of gathering power. It tickled through me, and my expression blanked as I slowly recognized the unfamiliar feeling. With thoughts of the fiasco at Mrs. Bryant’s running through me, I opened my mind’s eye to see the surrounding Weres’ auras. My gut twisted as they swam into view.

Crap on toast, I thought, glancing worriedly at Jenks. All three packs had the same sheen of brown rimming their auras. Most Weres had an outermost haze reflecting the predominant color of their male alphas, and the chance that all three alpha males on the island had brown auras was slim. They were bound into a round under one Were. Damn it, this wasn’t fair!

And the bond was strong too, I realized as I scanned the compound for a way out of this. Strong enough to sense, as it hadn’t been at David’s intervention, which didn’t bode well for the upcoming alpha contest. Listening to the jeers and chatter around me, I couldn’t help but feel as if the extra strength came from the subordinate members joining it.

Walter wasn’t an especially powerful alpha, and I wasn’t vain enough to think that they had done this just to see me get torn apart. I was getting the sensation that they had been bound to a common goal for weeks, maybe. Days, at the least.