I was pretty surprised to see the whole family at the breakfast table before 4 a.m.
"So much for you oversleeping and missing your fight, goddess." Killion put a plate of pancakes in front of me.
Mum sighed deeply at that.
"I want pancakes in cute shapes like stars and hearts and rabbits," I told Killion.
"These are moon-shaped pancakes," Killion told me without missing a beat. He put a glass of cold orange juice in front of me.
"Wow, Killion, is this my last meal or something?"
"Go back to sleep, Sam. Your dad can handle it," Mum said. "I can't believe that Gamma! I'm going to give him a piece of my mind."
"No, I want to eat pancakes," I told her. The pancakes were magic. There was a layer of Nutella hidden inside.
Savy was happily eating them too.
"Why are you awake?" I asked her.
"It's probably the only chance for me to watch a dog fight," she cackled.
"How about you tag me in, goddess?" Killion asked me.
I shook my head. "Then he'll just call you another one of my boyfriends."
{Beta approaches}
There was a knock on the back door—two knocks. Two familiar knocks, so I knew that the person who would open the door next wasn't Beta Lucas.
"Good morning," Harvey greeted.
"Harvey! Didn't I tell you to go home with your dad?" I asked.
"Alpha Kingsley opened the packhouse guestrooms for us to stay at last night," Harvey explained. "There is already a large crowd on the lawn."
I got up. "Okay, let's go."
I didn't wait for my betas or stop to put on a coat. I heard Mum tell Savy, "Bring Sam's coat with you."
My betas were quick to follow at my heels. The moment I stepped off the porch of my house, Ben and Jonah showed up too.
"I don't think this is a good idea. That Gamma Endo is a mad fighter," Jonah told me.
"Shut up, Jonah," Ben growled.
"I'll be fine," I said.
At the packhouse lawn, there was really a crowd. Gamma Endo was cracking his neck. He looked like he had just woken up. Seeing me, he said, "How about I go easy on you, Princess, and fight one of your boyfriends instead?"
"They are not my boyfriends. When I get a boyfriend, you're welcome to fight him. Until then, don't misunderstand my betas and gammas." I smiled widely. My wolf was rearing to go. The fight had started!
I didn't actually know how these fights worked.
"So, how does this work?" I asked. "Do we just attack? Or are there rules?"
Everyone looked way more worried than they should be.
"This is a challenge at the alpha. It is a fight to death or inability to continue," Beta Lucas informed me.
"Oh, that sounds serious. Man, Gamma Endo, you really got yourself in hot soup!" I exclaimed, shrugging my shoulders carelessly.
No, I didn't go mad. I was pretending to be a fight dog. I think last night's dream influenced me more than I should let it. If I were a fight dog, I was going to be the cool and sassy type.
"Don't worry, Gamma. I won't kill you. But you must remember to give me what I want when I win," I said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Killion was the first to catch on. I was riling up the crowd and my opponent.
"Oh no, Gamma, been there, done that." He winked at Gamma Endo. "Be prepared to be beaten like a dog."
Gamma Endo looked confused.
"Okay, let's go!" I said. "Hurry, let's settle this before I have to go to school."
"You could also just withdraw," Gamma Endo sneered.
"No way. There is something I want from you," I told him. "If I win, you must give it to me."
Now everyone was listening to the drama. Hahaha. Okay, let's fight already! My hair shimmered with excitement. Fight, fight, fight! Oooo… My wolfie liked to fight.
I threw a careless punch. It caught Gamma Endo by surprise, but he blocked it easily. "Is that what your trainers taught you, Princess?"
Don't insult my trainers, Gamma. But aloud, I just laughed. "Yeah, I totally punch like a girl. I also kick like a girl too."
I did a nice little roundhouse kick, which Gamma Endo caught. He didn't let go, though. He was going to throw me! Yes! This kind of basic drill—the problem with it was that it was so drilled into us that we do it by reflex. Without thinking… So I knew Gamma Endo wasn't thinking hard. I followed through the drill, and he actually threw me by habit. I landed perfectly because I was also drilled the same way. We probably used the same drill exercises—oh, the weakness of over-drilled warriors!
"Be careful, Gamma!" Jonah shouted.
"It's a trap!" Ben added.
"Who's side are you on?" I yelled back, grinning at my trusty Ben and Jonah. Better than the ice cream. We had played too many games together for them not to have caught on that I had something afoot. Of course, they wanted a piece of the action, even if it was just shouting from the sidelines.
"Yours," Ben shouted back. "But we were just feeling sorry for the Gamma."
"He's old!" added Jonah. "Don't break too many of his bones."
What? That was like the dumbest, least catchy one-liners ever.
Gamma Endo growled. He was starting to have second thoughts… I laughed at him. "Hurry, Gamma, your turn. Ignore those guys. They're just playing you." Just telling it like it was.
Harvey was smiling, his usual wry smile, just leaning back on a pillar on the packhouse porch watching. He was posing. He wanted Gamma Endo to see him completely relaxed and confident of my win, and it worked.
Gamma Endo decided to take this fight a little more seriously. "Enough playing around, Princess. Show me what you got."
Gamma Endo's wolf was on the surface. We had unnerved him.
But I still had to fight him, which was actually the fun part for my wolfie.
"Okay, but don't chicken out, okay, Gamma? Whatever happens, you need to fight with everything you've got or it won't be fun."
"Enough with the pretty talk, Princess. The fight starts now!" Gamma Endo growled and propelled himself forward.
Wrong, Gamma. The fight had started long ago.
By now, I had accumulated enough wolf power to pretty much nuke the pack town.
Naturally, I didn't hold back.
I sped forward to meet the Gamma, releasing my dominance like an explosive cloud. He froze at that. But even just a split second was enough. Okay, Wolfie, with one punch!
He was open for a moment, but he reacted fast, tilting himself so my punch would not hit anything vital. So much for my one-punch technique. Okay, I'm just making it up, but I didn't want to do the basic drills. I knew he would know all the counters to them the way Flynn always took me down easily. The only way I could win was to not follow those drill patterns.
Wolfie was out for blood. I think watching the cage fights last night made her bloodthirsty. I released control for her to tilt away as well so that my punch wouldn't land and slow my momentum.
And then I kicked once and then twice, flipping backward à la Rebel. I see, my Wolfie was a fan too, huh? Wolfie landed me, and I took control.
Normally, wolves were unable to switch controls so seamlessly, but never forget, I had been practicing my Dad's merging technique for years.
Once I had landed, I darted forward again, not giving the larger man a chance to regain his balance. He was strong, and from his last evasion, he was fast too.
And something more—he was precise.
Unlike me, I had been spewing alpha dominance nonstop since the first cloud.
Well, I was strong, I could afford to.
At this rate, I wouldn't be able to keep up this level of wolf power for long, not in this human form.
Gamma Endo, on the other hand, was very precise about each exertion. Skill-wise, he should have won.
But this was not a battlefield—it was a cage fight. And I was going to win simply by pure alpha power.
Gamma Endo needed to know that I was the alpha, not just because of my cute looks. Hahaha.
Power makes me delirious.
{Gamma attacks}
Oh, and what was he doing so far?
Oh, s***. Wolfie wasn't joking, and maybe I should stop messing around too.
I dropped down to the ground just in time to avoid the Gamma. The Gamma was a large man, and any hit he made would have caused damage.
While ducking, I saw an opening and was tempted to kick him where it would really hurt, but I resisted the urge and just slid out of his immediate range instead.
I was trying to prove I was a worthy alpha here. Kicking him there would have been a cheap shot.
Gamma Endo was breathing hard now. He had missed. And he was seriously trying. Good.
But I needed to end the match.
It was long enough as it was.
I had to pull out all the stops.
If I wanted men like Gamma Endo to accept me as alpha, I needed to do this… And mostly I just wanted to try it just once… hahaha.
My hair flared up wildly. This was Dragon Ball in real life!
Okay, admittedly, I've never read Dragon Ball… But I've seen the memes.
Now to end this—let's do the one-punch again.
With one punch!
Go!
My Wolfie sped forward.
I felt the strength surging through me.
And then I punched. It was a lucky shot.
Gamma Endo was just turning around to face me. He hadn't counted on my alpha speed burst.
He didn't know the level of merging I had with my wolf.
There was a sound at impact.
I smelled blood.
Gamma Endo flew back and tumbled across the ground, digging a trench through the snow with his body.
There was blood on my hand. It was my blood. Oops.
I might have busted a few veins.
There was silence.
Gamma Endo remained motionless on the ground.
It had started snowing.
No one moved.
My arm was hurt in every joint, my hand was bleeding, the red liquid dripping onto the white snow.
Still silence.
Then I realized my alpha dominance was still on. Oops, my bad.
I released the dominance, and the static air stirred in the breeze.
Suddenly it was like everyone was waking up, shaking off the snow that had accumulated while they had watched the fight. But it was also like they were hesitating, like they wanted to respond to the fight but didn't know how.
I guess it had to be a shock to them that their future alpha was such a monster.
I shrugged.
I didn't know I was such a monster either. But I was the alpha. Alphas never show uncertainty.
"Someone go check on the Gamma," I said finally.
A few people ran over. One of them called out, "He's alive!"
"Of course he's alive… I only punched him once." I kept my voice calm. I looked up at the lightening sky. The clouds had parted to reveal the glow of the low-hanging moon.
My phone chimed.
ZARA
~ Don't forget to bring the food for home ec today.
Oh yeah, we were baking cupcakes today. Mrs. Martinez had sent a reminder to our class yesterday to bring decorative ingredients for the toppings.
I returned the phone to my pocket. "I have to go to school. When he wakes up, tell him the thing I want him to give me is his loyalty."
I was about to just go home, take my shower, and get my butt to school…
And then Killion suddenly shouted, "Our loyalty to the alpha princess! Yo!"
He repeated it again, punching his fist in the air, "Our loyalty to the alpha princess! Yo!"
"Yo!" I saw Harvey, Ben, Jonah punch their fists up in the air along with a number of the younger guys.
The older wolves looked bewildered.
"Once more, guys! Our loyalty to the alpha princess!" Killion wasn't about to let it go. He punched his fist in the air.
"YO!" The response now was loud and immediate.
I saw that Beta Lucas and Gamma Harry had joined in.
They were smiling like idiots.
"Last chance, everyone!" Killion punched his fist in the air.
I heard a chorus shout out with him, "Our loyalty to the alpha princess!"
"YO!"
It resounded like everyone shouted at once, fists punched in the air, there were whoops and cheers and howling and laughing and jumping and hugging. And a whole lot more people than we started with. They spilled out over the lawn and into the streets. They were hanging around the treelines and the neighboring lawns… It almost looked like the whole pack showed up.
Suddenly I was being hugged—by Savy, and Mum, and then Dad just bear-hugging all of us.
My betas and gammas came over to give their congratulations.
Even Nix came up with the first decent smile I had ever seen him wear. "Congrats, Princess. That was… really something."
Mum was crying, from what I didn't know.
"I'm so happy for you, Sam," Mum said.
I guess school can wait.