Not
the Leader of the Pack
by Annabeth Leong
Blurb:
Rival alphas Juli Gunby
and Neil Statham want to tear each other apart — but will they do it in battle
or as mates?
When Juli Gunby left Missoula, Montana, she didn’t intend to
come back. Not to her exacting alpha werewolf father, and certainly not to Neil
Statham, the beta who rejected Juli’s girlish advances. Her father, as usual,
has other ideas, using his dying breath to pass pack leadership to his
daughter. Juli resolves to carry out her duty to her father and her pack, but
the one man she wants on her side has made himself her enemy.
After years of loyal service to the pack, Neil expects to
take over as alpha when his mentor dies. As good as it is to see Juli again, he
knows he can’t trust her. After all, she abandoned both him and the pack years
ago and never looked back. Neil determines to fight for his rightful position
in the pack, even if that means going up against a woman who fills him with an
overwhelming urge to mate every time she walks into the room.
Someone needs to lead, and the more Neil and Juli fight, the
more they attract interference from those who would control the pack and
destroy the ties between them.
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Excerpt:
"Juli. We're the only pack members who saw your father
pass that ring of leadership to you." He paused to allow the significance
to sink in, the bar noise around them rising to fill his silence. "You
have another life in Lewistown. You have a career. You've made it clear you're
not interested in this pack. We can say whatever we want about what took place
in that room. He could have passed the ring to me as far as anyone else knows.
No one would question that."
He would have kept talking, except that
Juli wrenched herself violently out of his grasp at that point. "Not
interested in this pack? We can say whatever we want?" He heard her just
fine over the music despite the new distance between them. In fact, he worried
who else had heard her mention the pack. And who else had seen that furry paw
she'd thrust into his face.
They both froze for a second, staring
at her latest lapse of control.
"Damn it." Juli's curse came
out more as a growl than as words.
"We need to get out of here,"
Neil said. "You just focus on staying cool." She knew better than to
argue with him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out, leaving their beers
behind. They could finish this conversation in his truck.
They ran for the truck like the rest of
the world was on fire, and slammed the doors behind them once they got there.
Juli writhed in her seat, gasping, her wolf form rippling just on the other
side of her skin. Neil panted in response. He didn't normally have trouble
controlling his shift, but with her beside him, so close, too much of him
wanted to meet her in a place of complete abandon. He wanted to run with her
under the moon, fight her for supremacy until neither cared who wound up on top
or on the bottom. Then, with one last vicious pounce, he wanted to surrender to
the merging of their bodies. He swallowed hard.
Stats. He ran through the winning World
Series teams for the last three decades. He tried to calculate his total career
RBIs. The stream of data calmed Neil down. He started the car. "I'm going
to drive us somewhere a little more private," he told Juli. "Just in
case."
"Back to the hospital."
"You're in no shape—"
"Back to the hospital." She
showed fangs. Neil didn't need that so soon after he'd regained his own
control. He stopped arguing and pressed the gas. They'd go somewhere. He just
needed to be driving so he had something to concentrate on besides the idea of
Juli giving herself up to the beast. He needed a really good reason to remain
in human form.
The truck's cab filled with her labored
breathing. Neil turned on the radio to distract himself from the sexual images
the sound called up for him. He'd always avoided being alone with her, afraid
to give even the appearance of impropriety. Right then, Neil wasn't sure if he
was grateful for the trouble he'd saved himself or sorry as hell for what he'd
missed. The instinctual attraction he felt for her was off the charts.
He got so caught in his reverie that
only Juli tugging at his sleeve alerted him that her struggles had become sobs.
"Neil, can you pull over?" Her voice sounded deflated. "I'm
sorry I insisted about the hospital. I'm not ready to go back there yet."
Her obvious misery immediately pierced
his sexual fog. Neil pulled the truck into a convenience store parking lot and
looked at her. "Do you want a minute? I can go get some water."
"No, it's okay." She
hesitated, chewing on her top lip. "I'm obviously way out of
control."
He watched her face carefully.
"About what I said in the bar... I didn't mean to offend you."
"You just think I don't care about
any of this."
"Well, do you?"
Her head snapped up and a bit of the
wolf flickered behind her eyes again. "How can you ask me that?"
Neil blew out a long breath. She wanted
him to make his case? He could do that. "You know being pack alpha doesn't
pay. What about your fancy job in Lewistown? The one that was so important you
couldn't come back here to visit your dad?"
She rubbed her eyes. "Can you try
to keep the venom out of this, Neil? Jeez, you're so bitter, you'd think I failed
to visit you." Bingo. But Juli continued speaking, oblivious.
"Gabriel's not going to like it if I resign. He talked a lot about
developing new talent when he hired me. But it's not like the Council can't run
without me. This was my father's last request. Besides, the pack probably needs
me more."
He swallowed, unable to believe she had
the nerve to say these things. "Maybe I'm underestimating how good you are
at walking away from things. Foolish of me, since I have personal
experience." Neil shook his head, uncertain if the anger surging through
him was directed at himself or at Juli. "The pack needs someone really
committed, Juli. Not someone who will leave again the next time it's
convenient."
She snapped her gaze to his, her eyes
widening with understanding. A wave of fear rushed through him. He'd revealed
too much of his personal feelings. They needed to decide about the pack first.
"You were the one who rejected me, Neil," Juli said, her voice so
soft he almost couldn't hear her. "All I did was move on."
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Not the Leader of the
Pack stands alone, but Annabeth has written in its world before.
She’d love to share the previous title, Not
His Territory, with current readers. If you’d like to participate, e-mail
proof of purchase of Not the Leader of
the Pack, such as an Amazon receipt, to annabeth dot leong at gmail dot com
and let her know your e-book format of choice. Annabeth will buy a copy of Not His Territory for the first 25
people who respond.
