I shrug.
Her beautiful brown eyes darken. “It’s a joke to you, isn’t it?”
She’s actually getting mad. I can feel it spark through the bond. Is she worried that there’s a scenario where I’d actually lose alpha rank? That I wouldn’t be able to protect her? That’s never gonna happen.
“I’m not going to lose rank.”
“That’s right. You won’t. You can do whatever you want, right?” Her jaw is so tight, her chin dimples. “But if he loses, maybe he has to sit with the maintenance crew.” She points over my shoulder at either Fallon or Conor. “Maybe he and his mate have to move to a lowland cabin. One that floods. Maybe his mate gets stuck on laundry detail with me and the other lone females, and then no one brings their pups over to play with hers anymore.”
Her anger grows hotter as she speaks. It’s surging, insistent.
“I’m not busting a fighter down to the maintenance crew because he loses one sparring match.”
“No, not one. But how many? Does he know?”
I don’t know. This is not how I planned this conversation to go.
Shit. I didn’t really plan this at all, did I?
“When we win, we eat. There has to be an incentive for hard work. Right?” That’s obvious, isn’t it?
“When we win,” she says, drawing out each word. “We eat. That’s not incentive enough?”
I huff a sigh. I want to tap the mat. She only sees things from her perspective. Sure, the reality of rank is harsh. But without discipline, without direction and motivation, you get Declan Kelly’s pack—the strong feed, and the weak are food.
She should inherently understand this.
And I can hear myself explaining it, and pissing her off even more. That’s not what I want.
I want my mate to respect me.
To stop fighting me, for fuck’s sake.
I guess there’s one way to make that happen. I can concede. My lips curl. Oh, yeah. I don’t think my scrappy mate would know what to do with a win.
I flash her a wide smile, and then I do something I’ve never done before.
I bare my throat.
Behind me, the grunts and idle conversation stop.
“What are you doing?” Una hisses under her breath.
I don’t answer. She knows.
“Get up.” She squirms in her chair, her gaze darting over my shoulder. “They’re staring.”
I bend my neck a little further. I’ve only ever done this before in nightmares when I was a pup. Feels strange.
It’s not humiliating, though. In fact, my cock is hard as hell.
“Una,” I say gently. I can hear her heartbeat. It’s tripping double time.
Her fingers reach out, tentative, trembling. She touches the place where my neck and shoulder meet, the place where—on her—my bite mark brands her smooth skin. My balls swell.
“You’re moon mad,” she whispers.
I twist to drop a kiss on the palm of the hand that touches me. “Want to go back to your nest?” I raise an eyebrow and wink.
She huffs and snatches her hand back to her lap. I laugh and hop to my feet. “That’s a ‘later’？”
“That’s a ‘no.’”
“Okay. Later.” I wink again just so the pink on her cheeks blossoms bigger. My mate is so beautiful. So delicate, and so ornery.
I stride off to the ring, chuckling.
“Who’s first?” I’m gonna drop every male in this gym to the mat in five seconds flat, settle their wolves, and then we can proceed with training.
It’s a bit embarrassing that I’m gonna do it with a huge hard on, but at least it’ll make it clear who’s highest ranked in this pack.
It’s the female stewing in the corner who can’t help but watch as I dispatch five males, including my beta, in quick succession in tented frickin’ pants.
She owns me, and that makes her the most powerful wolf in the five packs.
And I don’t think she has a clue.
I do convince Una to go back to our cabin before dinner, but she won’t get in her nest. She insists on sitting on the sofa like a guest.
It’s probably for the best. Her heat seems to have eased for the time being, and I need to feed her as much as possible before it comes on in full. It’s true that I don’t know much about a female’s heat, but I do know some. Males brag about how much weight their females lose in three or four days. Sometimes as much as ten or fifteen pounds.
Una’s healthy. She’s got decent padding on her thighs and belly, but because of her leg, she doesn’t have the best musculature. Muscle burns first, and I don’t want her to lose more than necessary.