Elements Unbound by Lorie O'Clare

stared at the two werewolves who attacked each other ruthlessly.
    One of them would die tonight. The challenge wouldn’t end until a neck broke.
    Her heart forgot to beat. Chills attacked her skin so hard, rushing across her flesh while she hugged herself. The smell of blood filled the air. Pack members screamed, jumping out of the way while the two werewolves made the change, and brutally tore at each other with daggerlike teeth.
    The two werewolves were like a giant black mass, long, thick, shiny hair and white teeth, bodies rolling on the ground. Their growls curdled her blood. They screamed, lunged at each other, two ferocious creatures, large and deadly as they attacked and ripped at each other.
    She wanted to scream at all of them to be quiet. She fought not to jump from the rock and try to stop the fight. Bruno didn’t have to lead the pack. They would be happily mated even if he weren’t leader. She’d wanted him always. He’d made it more than clear that he wanted her. This didn’t have to happen.
    file://C:\Documents and Settings\Chrissy\My Documents\My Ebooks\ElementsUnbound\El...
    5/4/2006
    Elements Unbound
    Page 30 of 44
    “No,” she whimpered, knowing no one around her heard her. “No one has to die.”
    Everyone watched the fight. Tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. The deadly brutal screams from the two alpha werewolves made her skin crawl.
    And then a silence hushed the area. A soft breeze carried the smell of blood and sweat through the air.
    “What’s wrong?” Why had they stopped?
    She’d never been to a challenge before. Maybe there were rounds, or something. She jumped off the rock, ready to hurry to Bruno and beg him to reconsider. He didn’t need to risk his life, or someone else’s, for them to be happy.
    The breeze carried something else to her. Or maybe it came of its own volition. Satisfaction, complete and fulfilled. She didn’t smell it. She felt it. In her mind. Frozen where she stood, a cry on her lips that wouldn’t leave, she watched Bruno slowly take his human form. He straightened until he stood, and then threw his head back, his thick long, shiny, black hair flowing in the breeze behind him, and howled at the night sky over their pack leader’s dead body.
    He was cold. His thoughts mingled with hers. Sweat covered his human flesh, chilling him. And he was happy. Happier than he’d been when he’d fucked her. Warmth traveled through her when something else hit her. The silent promise that she’d be howling with that same happiness later that night. Need and desire hit her so hard she almost fell over.
    Looking around quickly, she hurried toward two of the younger bitches in her pack who sat on a blanket in the grass.
    “Please. I need your blanket,” she told them.
    She barely heard one of the older bitches snap at the young girls to honor their new queen bitch. Her head spun when the blanket was quickly thrust in her hands, and she almost stumbled over rocks as she hurried to Bruno.
    My queen bitch. His garbled voice tore into her thoughts. He hadn’t spoken. Her pussy throbbed and if he read anything in her brain at all it would have been gobbledygook.
    She shook out the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. Bruno smiled down at her, his hair tousled and messy. Blood and sweat trickled down his face. But the satisfaction, the intense domination that coursed inside him, made her straighten. He was her new pack leader—her mate.
    He gripped the blanket at his chest, and wrapped his other arm around her. His body was hot, damp, his heart pounding hard enough that it matched the throbbing that pulsed inside her. Slowly he moved them through the pack. Werewolves around them began howling, showing their respect and loyalty to their new pack leader. Females lowered their heads, acknowledging her new rank as queen bitch. She shivered, her legs quivering hard enough she almost couldn’t walk. If Bruno held her a bit tighter, keeping her steady, she