"Arlis please don't, just let it go. Nobody needs to fight—" He wasn't listening so I just stopped talking.

He popped his knuckles and then his neck, ignoring every word I said. "Electra, what are the odds of me winning?" He didn't actually care, he thought he could win. I could tell by his cocky attitude, it poured through even when he spoke.

She scoffed loudly. "I think you should be asking how likely you go Rogue." She muttered and then ran a hand through her perfect hair, letting it fall into a natural waterfall. "I think you can kick his ass." She didn't sound convincing.

"Please stop encouraging him." I tried, unpleasantly to no avail.

He smiled at Electra. "You think?"

"Guys." I tried to get their attention but it didn't work out that way. They either weren't paying attention or didn't care what I had to say and were ignoring me.

She nodded and punched his shoulder. "Oh yeah, definitely." She still didn't sound too sure.

"HEY! ALPHA BARRON!" I screamed at the top of my lungs and he jolted, turning to me.

Finally I had his attention. "You don't call me that." He snapped.

I deflated and closed my eyes to take a deep breath. "Men." I muttered and fixed my shirt. "Please don't fight him." I said evenly, a straight face.

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "I will listen to you a lot of the time but trust me... I know what's best." He growled lightly.

I sighed and nodded, taking a cautious step back. I knew there was no way out of this. He wanted it to happen, and nothing I said or did would make him change his mind.

But... maybe I didn't have to change his mind. They always talked about how their wolves had a separate mind. Maybe I just had to change his wolf's idea. Is that how this worked?

I looked around for a moment, noticing the crowd that grew by the minute. Everyone it seemed was here. All except Sam of course who was drug off, not being let to see the terrible scene in front of him.

I closed my eyes and looked deep down inside me, wanting to contact my own wolf. They said I was getting closer and closer to her.

I took a deep breath but all I could smell was the anger radiating off of Arlis, the pure animalistic beast ravaging inside him.

That gave me an idea. The only time I remember him being more mad is when I cut him off from... well me. So I did the only perfectly illogical thing.

As Seymour stepped out, I stripped off my shirt and threw it at Arlis, hitting his head.

Arlis turned madly around and locked eyes with me. "Wha— why is your shirt off!?" He snapped, his attention taken completely away from Seymour.

I huffed out. "Come on, pup, I know you don't hate it."

The entire crowd was watching us and never before had I felt so vulnerable and open than I did in that moment. I don't think I would ever feel that naked. Even though the only thing I was missing was my shirt.

His mouth twitched. "Seriously Kate? Put your shirt o—"

"No." I said sternly and began taking my shoes off, kicking them off my feet and into the dirt.

He raised his eyebrows at me. "No?" He asked incredulously. "We are in public, put your shirt back on."

I shook my head like a child and slipped my socks off. I unbuttoned my jeans. "Come get me." I smirked, taking a step back. "You know you want to."

He tilted his head. "Very much but I can't, I'm busy." He was on the verge of leaving, I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in the way his hands clenched and his breathing fastened while his view skimmed my body.

I shrugged. "Fine." I did something I never thought I'd do in public. I stripped my pants off. "But your—"

He was walking towards me while Seymour looked worried behind him. He didn't even seem to notice the situation.

"Not letting you strip in public." He finished.

I held my chin up high as I walked backwards. "You'll let me do whatever the hell I want." The words were foreign and strange on my tongue, a dangerous flirtation that the normal me would never have said.

I reached my hands back and unsnapped my bra, holding it close to me loosely, the clasps hanging limply at my sides.

Bless the color red. It wasn't anything fancy, red was just a nice color. But he seemed to think so too.

He snarled and then I realized... this is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever tried to get away with. In fact, it even beats the time I tried to play basketball with a fever and a pair of roller-skates. Long story short I broke my arm and had to go stay at the hospital for a week.

But this... this was insane and I felt like an idiot. I felt like how all those companies that rejected Harry Potter must feel. I felt like... like... like my brain was going to jump out of my head just to smack me.

"What did you just say?" He asked and I knew I caught him. He was focused on me and me only.

I smirked deviously at him. "I said, 'I'll do whatever the hell I want.' In fact, I'll do whatever and whoever I want. If that's how you want to play."

The loud roar that he gave off wasn't human nor animalistic. It was a level of anger I think God himself might've been frightened of.

I dropped my hand and cupped my face as I jumped and then realized... my bra fell. Why do I find myself in these positions?

I peeked between my fingers and saw nothing but Arlis's shoulder as he brought me to his chest, covering mine.

The ground fell from under me, and I screeched as Arlis through me over his shoulder.

"What the— PUT ME DOWN!" I yelled, smacking his back.

"I've been beat up to the point of my spine breaking. Honey, you hitting my back is getting you nowhere." He said and I did the next best thing I could think of.

I ran my hand under his shirt and he... well he liked it at first. And then I tickled him.

Suddenly he was laughing and trying harder than he should have been to keep me up. I slid down his chest until my head was at his belly button and his arms were holding my feet, my yells echoing through the sky.

He groaned as he walked forward, trying to hold me up.

"This isn't helping you at all, I'm marking you I hope you know that."

I widened my eyes as his words took their tole on me, my heart beating faster than any hummingbirds and my body suddenly going colder than any Eskimo's.

"Wha— what if I say no!? If you don't listen it'll be... it'll be ra—"

I was caught off guard as I suddenly heard the door opening and my body flopped lazily onto the couch.

He leaned over me, his eyes peering into mine like hot coal or sharp rocks on the edge of a shoreline. "Do you want to say no?" He kissed under my jawline, sending fire down my body. "Come on, Kadelyn." The way he said my name reminded me of a thousand symphonies, a band of angels singing my name in a crescendo of love and depth. "Tell me you don't want it and I'll stop." I felt his teeth nip at my neck and I clenched my toes together.

I could stop him. Tell him no. I could push him off, and away. I could also play back, be marked.

His hand ran down my sides, coming to a stop at my hip bone, his palm pressing at just the right pressure. His lips hovered over mine so closely that when he said, "You're forever mine." I felt his lips touch mine lightly.

But at the same moment, just a flicker of a second, I was mad. "I'm not property." I said defiantly. If I was going to let him do this, then he needed to understand that he had to relax.

He smirked and with a slightly tilted head he said, "You're mine. And I'm yours, all in the same. If anything..." He kissed my neck slowly and I arched off the couch in the slightest, barely enough to even be noticed. I felt it, the ache, the need, the want. It got stronger with every second. "If you're not my equal, then you're above me."

That's what I needed to hear. "Do it." I said breathlessly. "Im rea—"

I sucked in a deep breath as something sharp yet so close to a drug broke my skin just above my collar bone, my body fully pushed up into his. I moaned out his name, closing my eyes.

He pulled back suddenly and looked up, his eyes a dark brown, even darker than normal.

I lifted my hand up to touch the mark but Arlis caught it quickly, holding it in his hand. "No." He whispered. "You can't touch it."

He let go of my hand and instead of touching my neck, I touched his.

He winced and then quickly tried to cover it up with a smile. "One day." He whispered.

I leaned up and kissed his neck. "You winced. Why is that?" I asked.

Instead of answering me, he kissed my cheek. "Don't worry about it." He smiled softly, not much of a smile at all.

"Ah!" I yelled and he widened his eyes like saucers.

I felt my gums rip, and I screamed as my teeth felt like they were being ripped out.

"Kate!" Arlis yelled and I barely registered it as he got off the couch and leaned in front of me, his hands touching my cheeks. "Wha— canines." He said and I screamed again as he opened my mouth, sighing.

It was like someone was hammering my teeth out one by one. My head was exploding in pain, my mouth the source of all my problems.

Something fell and hit the floor, a tooth. Arlis picked it up and set it on the table. "You just have to ride it out. It only happens once."

I gripped his shirt as one more fell out. I put my hand to my mouth to stop it, to do something. I jumped up as I felt two sharp teeth touch my skin.

I ran to the bathroom, my vision blurry from tears. I peered into the mirror and what I saw would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

My face was red, not just the color, but with blood. Blood leaked down my chin, and over my cheeks where Arlis had opened my mouth.

I noticed the circle on my neck, a large deep purple circle with stray blood from a wound that already healed.

I screamed as another tooth fell out, a sharper tooth replacing it. I sank to the ground, crying and screaming as teeth fell, replaced with something inhuman.

I slid even lower, my stomach stretching across the cold bathroom tile. My body was shaking and shuddering. I gripped at the rug, grasping it tightly as pain flowed through me like blood or oxygen.

"Put this in your mouth." I looked up through my torture to see Arlis handing me an ice pack, a solemn look spread across his face as well as disappointment.

I grabbed it weakly and put it between my bloody teeth. I bit into it, my screams cutting through the air like a knife.

***

I looked into the mirror and shook my head. I went through the teeth falling out process twice. Once with my regular teeth and once with the canine teeth that had grown in.

I now had the teeth I normally did. However, they didn't have the little chip in them like I remember there being. And they were whiter, only the healthy amount of tinted yellow.

"Will I have to go through that every time?" I asked looking to Arlis sadly. "Because if I do, I'm sorry... I can't do this."

He closed his eyes and shook his head at me. "No. You don't."

I faced him and saw that his eyes weren't on my teeth that I had been looking at for the past ten minutes, but instead on my neck.

"How does it even work?" I asked. "Why aren't there teeth all over the territory?"

He snapped his eyes up to mine. "Yes your teeth fall out every time you shift and yes they are replaced. But they... disintegrate... disappear... I don't know. Same way we turn into wolves, does anybody really know how that happens? Don't worry though, you don't feel it."

He smirked and took a step closer to me. He placed his hand on my mark and set his forehead against mine. "I would've taken you both ways if your canines hadn't of come out."

I stepped back. "Okay then..." I trailed off. "Why did they come out?"

He frowned. "You wanted to mark me back." He answered flatly. "And since your wolf is so close..."

What else could I do? What was I capable of?

"Want to know why being a werewolf is ten times better than the other supernaturals?" He asked randomly, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom.

I shrugged. Because werewolves didn't drink blood or feed on humans? Did they....?

"Being a werewolf... it gives you time to adjust. You start to wobble around and learn some things and then BAM you become a werewolf on your twentieth birthday, on the plus side you can already kind of control yourself." I thought he was done but then he took a deep breath and paused. "It's not like that for the others. The Hunters don't get stronger, faster, or more resilient until they're twenty and it comes all at once. It's just suddenly there. Same with Hunteds, but there's is worse because all of a sudden, they need blood. An urge they didn't have before."

"Do Hunters have to go through a painful transition?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No... that's why werewolves are also the worst supernatural. Because ours is the most painful." He sighed lightly and licked his lips, taking a deep breath. "There's something about the change you have to know. Something I haven't told you. Kadelyn you have to—"

The door to the house burst open before I learned the oh-so-valuable information. I winced. "Tell me what it is. Just real fast." I said.

"Alpha Barron, I apologize profusely for barging in like this. I know it isn't—"

"What is it Mr. Weiss" Arlis asked and, who I realized was Leif's dad, Timothy, jumped at the roughness of his voice.

Mr. Weiss closed his eyes, almost as if to calm himself. "Seymour Hall has accepted your retreat as a surrender. Based on Pack Laws, you forfeit ownership of the Pack and relieve all power to him."

Arlis narrowed us eyes. "Not if I fucking kill him."

I grabbed his arm. "Just... fight him back. I'm sorry I didn't—"

"You didn't know? Yeah I figured. I told you I knew best and you still got to the part of me you know I couldn't control. Thanks Kate." He threw his hands up. "I can't fight him back without his permission and he'll never give me that."

I sunk into myself and took a step back. It's not my fault I didn't know the Pack laws. "It's not my fault you can't control your sex drive." I regretted it the instant it left my mouth.

"CANT CONTROL IT? I've been controlling it. If I couldn't, I would have taken you already. Do you understand the need? The pressure I'm under? You are my mate and I feel EVERYTHING heightened." He was fuming at this point, his eyes red and angry. "It's not my fault you couldn't climb a tree and get away from a couple wolves. You should've never been bit."  He scoffed at me. "I thought you were Luna material but maybe not."

I couldn't lie and say his words didn't affect me. They made me rethink this entire thing. I stepped up to him, his height towering over mine but I still felt much more threatening. "First of all buddy, you haven't taught me anything so really it's your fault I'm not a good Luna. Second of all mate, I don't care what I did or didn't do the night I got bit, I'm here now and there's no changing that. And obviously I'm not the only one bad at their job Alpha Barr— oh wait... I can't say that any more. Last of all, you are being a moody, immature, child. Go take a flea bath because obviously the bugs in your brain have infected your personality." I growled lowly, a sound I had never made before. I wanted to freak out, I mean I was but only on the inside.

I saw the flicker of a smirk before his anger covered it up.

I turned to walk away, feeling proud along with hurt from my own words, but he grabbed my arm strongly with his hand. "The only thing infecting my personality is you." He looked me up and down. "You shouldn't talk to me that way." He drawled.

I held my chin up. "Hate to break it to you Barron, but I meant what I said earlier. I will do whatever the hell I want." With that, I tore my arm from his grasp.

I walked to the bathroom and slammed the door, leaning against it and sliding to the ground. I didn't cry, I didn't need to. People argued. We weren't over. But my breathing became uneven. I was losing my own battle.

He was right. That's what hurt the most. He was right. I wasn't cut out for this.

"Alpha, are you really going to... kill him?" Timothy asked, his voice muffled from the shut door and my soft cries. I lied to myself, I was going to cry. Because just like Constance said, that's all I ever do.

"Yes." Moments later the front door slammed.