Lucky's Girl by William Holloway Read Free Book Online Page B

wild with rage. The alpha female of that tribe, the one who had mauled her, the one who had made her a rogue, the one who’d left her barren, was there too. She stood beside the alpha male of the tribe, a big grey with a luxurious white belly of fur. They were seven in total, the alpha male and female, three younger females and two young males, the pups somewhere in the woods behind them.
    The second tribe was larger, with two big females and one large male. Blackie recognized them as well, particularly the females. They’d chased her away after finding her scavenging one of their deer kills. She had been starving and badly injured, her wounds only just beginning to close. She’d gone north after being mauled and exiled, wandering into their territory. She was very lucky to have escaped with her life. After that she went east, then south, attracted by the garbage cans outside the Rev’s house.
    When they’d discovered her they’d left raw hamburger for her the next night. She spent several weeks eating leftovers from the church out of a bowl left at the edge of the tree line. This gave her the time to heal, to explore, to bring that first house cat to the base of the enormous white pine on the small island in the lake.
    When it had happened, she hadn’t been able to account for her behavior. It had nothing to do with survival, nothing to do with the scent on the wind, only with the unmistakable knowing that there was a pack to be had, a place that would finally be her home. Her territory. That she would be alpha, never starving or being driven away again.
    She’d swum with the struggling cat in her jaws, breaking its neck with a quick twist, and then laid it, twitching and crying out at the base of the big white pine. It was an odd tree, gnarled and misshapen, with a smell of death about it. But she wasn’t afraid. She’d torn the cat open, spilling its blood across the exposed roots and then she’d known .
    She would be alpha and all would cower before her in submission and then, when all the tribes had been vanquished, she would take a mate .
    And now, here they were before her. Haughty, defiant, uncomprehending, unaware their new queen was seconds away from taking her throne.
    They didn’t know that she knew.
    She knew that the alpha female of the first tribe, the one who’d savaged her and driven her away, was half-blind on her left side, with no peripheral vision. She knew the alpha female of the second tribe had a weak foreleg. She could run in a straight line and leap to one side, but not to the other.
    Her pack stood behind her, too deep in the shadows for the other packs to see. She didn’t want to give away the game. She commanded them with a short bark and a growl to stay back, to not reveal their unbelievable strength until she willed it. She walked forward into the glade, brazen, ears up, giving no sign of alarm – and no sign of submission.
    The enemy female alpha’s growling became a cacophony of fury. They were drawn here out of hate for what had grown in their midst. The bitch they had exiled had become an alpha herself, her pack all rogue males. No females, no pups, united by something unnatural. To them, death was natural and normal, they were killers, but what stood before them was an abomination, an inversion of nature, a corruption that must be torn apart lest its shadow spread.
    Blackie walked out into the glade for all to see. Pure black, blue eyes boring holes into her enemies. She did not look away. She looked straight into the eyes of the one who had made her barren. She was a coiled missile of steely muscle but remained calm, giving no appearance of alarm. The alpha females became stupid with rage, too angry to think, too willing to join a fight they didn’t know was not in their favor.
    She tilted back her head and barked the simple challenge to the one who had harmed her, the one racing across the field like a growling meteor of silver fur and bared fangs. Blackie did not move,