Tangled

100 Clayton: Clashing Alphas

CLAYTON

Lucas’s voice booms through the room, frustration palpable in every syllable. The scouts cower under his scrutiny, and I can’t blame them. The Blackwood

leaders have proven more elusive than any of us anticipated.

I should be focused on the task at hand, strategizing our next move, but my mind drifts to Ava. Is she healing well? Has she found any measure of peace. after the trauma she’s endured?

Even though the mating bond didn’t take, my wolf and I feel bonded toward her. It’s one–sided and fragile, -but it consumes my thoughts. I long to see her, to offer comfort and support. But Lucas guards any

information about her whereabouts with a

possessiveness that borders on obsession.

I don’t blame him, but after a week of knowing nothing, the frustration is getting to me.

As the meeting concludes, Lucas and I make our way back to the alpha’s house. The promise of paperwork

100 Clayton: Clashing Alphas

and hacked computer files looms ahead, a necessary evil in our quest for answers. Yet, even as I try to

center my thoughts on the investigation, Ava’s face flickers through my mind.

I glance at Lucas, wondering how to broach the subject of contacting her. His jaw is set, eyes hard with determination. I know he sees me as a threat, a rival for Ava’s affections. And perhaps I am. Everything I feel toward her is undeniable, something I’ve never felt toward a woman before. It’s like a whisper of fate that I

can’t ignore.

And yet I’m not the one she’s fated for.

I don’t want to come between them, not if Ava has truly chosen Lucas. I respect her choices, her

autonomy.

that she hasn’t fully committed to him, that she hasn’t borne his mark, and that he doesn’t have hers, gives me

but the words die

Clashing Alphas

right moment to express my desire to see Ava without igniting Lucas’s

what’s our next move?” Lucas’s voice cuts through my reverie, his gaze

of my mind, focusing on the task at hand. “We’ve been over this a

know anything. Our best

wolves back.”

tumultuous process, to say the least. While many have embraced the change, seeking

along gender lines. The men, proud and stubborn, struggle to let go of their ties to Renard Blackwood.

Men were superior in the Blackwood pack. That is not true of Westwood, Aspen, or any of the surrounding

IT

Clayton: Clashing

equality.

men remain rogue, unsworn to

is expected to lie with her mate above all else, these she–wolves are breaking the mold. They gather their cubs

that would be unthinkable in most shifter communities. A female, leaving her mate behind to join a new pack? It goes against every tradition, every

keep several of their mates separated and under

ready to forge a new path for themselves and their young. I can only imagine the strength it takes,

his hands through his

out of nowhere he speaks.

Clayton: Clashing Alphas

to talk to

in my chest, a flicker of hope igniting before I can quash it. Guilt follows swiftly on its heels. I shouldn’t

mine.

I see you.” He meets my gaze, eyes flashing

swallow hard, unsure how to respond. The air between us is charged,

not bonded?” Lucas asks, his

lie, not about this. “I tried to mark her,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. “But it didn’t take.”

reaction is instantaneous. He lunges at me, a snarl ripping from his throat as his wolf takes over. I barely have time/to brace myself before he collides. with me

own wolf surges to the surface forcing a

Clayton Clashing

as we tumble across the ground in a tangle of fur and