Stranger Yet

Chapter 4: Tiernan

Chapter 4

(At the Long Tail pack house)

"Who the fuck was that and what the HELL happened back there?" Tiernan was livid. His blue eyes were barely visible through his lids and they kept flicking between his two betas. Not only had the female intruder been, well, intruding on their territory, she had also whipped his female beta's ass completely and had knocked even himself down at least once. It was not only humiliating, it was infuriating!

There were three of them, and she still hadn't been overpowered. She was a threat- one they needed to eradicate as soon as possible.

They intended to track her in the morning but until then, he couldn't stop fuming about it.

"Well," his beta female, Ally pondered, twirling her blonde hair around her finger absentmindedly, "I have to admit, she taught us a valuable lesson about being cocky. Before she kicked my ass, I had thought we had her." Ally shrugged nonchalantly, and put her hands in her lap.

"She got you good, huh, babe?" Brandon said, quietly. "My vision went red. She's extremely lucky she left when she did." He clenched and un-clenched his fists a few times, remembering the other female attacking his mate.

Ally pinched her face up and tilted her head. "She wasn't going to kill me, you know?" Her irritation with her mate's dramatics obvious, "She just... Pinned me down and stared into my eyes. She was telling me to submit. She just wanted me to submit. And I actually... I don't know. I think I like her. She smelled... Right?" Ally looked around. Both of the men sitting next to her stared at her as if she was nuts. "I don't know how else to explain it. I just know, okay?" she flung her hands out palms up. Tiernan and Brandon continued to stare at her with varying levels of disgust.

"UGH. For having all these extra senses, you boys still don't know how to use them, do you?" She rolled her eyes and explained again. "She smelled strong and powerful, like a leader... Like a GOOD leader. She put me in place, and once it was done, my wolf and I accepted that fully. Sorry to disappoint."

Before they could say anything about what she had suggested, she got up off the couch in the large family room and stretched out. "Well, I think I had better get to bed if we are going to track her down tomorrow. I have a feeling its going to be close to a fifty mile walk tomorrow if that wolf lives near town, and I don't want to be exhausted. Are you coming Brandon?"

He smiled at her, "In a moment, sweetness."

After Ally had went down the long hall to her room, the men continued theorizing about the large black she-wolf. "Where do you think she came from? I mean, where's her family? The closest pack to us is 100 miles North of us. And she wasn't headed north. There wasn't any of her of her scent coming from that way either." Brandon noted.

"I don't know. She really did look like one of them Canadian wolves." Tiernan shook his head and raked his hands through his hair, thinking. "But there is a pack East of here, though it'd be quite a trek to get there from here. Either way, a wars been coming this way for ages... It's barely been kept in check all this time... If she's here, someone somewhere is overstepping, and we need to figure it out before they get to comfortable. If another pack is moving in, we need to let them know that this is OURS, and that it IS NOT okay to come over without communication." Brandon grunted in agreement, "The humans are already suspicious enough with just our pack here."

"You aren't wrong about that. That family slaughtered on the Canadian border last year has me on edge... Humans don't trust anything they don't understand. I liked it better when they had all forgotten about our existence. But I guess, on the bright side, at least we haven't seen anything like that within 200 miles of us in, what? 12, 13 years? We just have to keep our noses clean. Stay out of trouble." Brandon smile. "Hard as that is for you."

Tiernan grunted, ignoring his friend's last statement. "It's definitely got me riled up. That's partly why I'm so worried about this new wolf. You know these fucking humans never act on their own. What if she's leading them to us?"

Tiernan's face twisted up in pain. He couldn't bear the thought of his family getting torn to bits because he had failed to stop a lone wolf roaming in his territory, no matter how "good" his beta felt about her and no matter how tantalizing her fragrance was.

"Hey man, don't stress it. We are going to find her. Her scent is still there and will be for quite some time. We will follow it tomorrow and we can find out for sure. Okay?" Brandon patted his friends' shoulder, and gave him a crooked smile. "Well, my ladies calling for me, so I best be off to bed now. And I think you ought to do the same."

Tiernan nodded at his friend and his beta. "Thanks. I think you're right." They both stood up, and parted ways. Tiernan wandered to his room on the other side of the living room, opposite of the hall where his betas' room was.

The placement of their rooms had been strategic. Everyone was safer if the strongest of the pack were downstairs, and if they weren't in the same corner of the house.

He felt like he wasn't doing enough to keep his pack safe. He considered all the things he was doing wrong, and all the things he'd done right. His father, with the pack's approval, had given him leadership the year before, but he was starting to doubt his capabilities. Was 20 too young to take on the responsibilities he had inherited? He hadn't thought so before, but now he couldn't help but question himself. How could he protect the pack when he couldn't handle one single rogue or outsider? She shouldn't have ever been able to get the upper hand like she had. He tried not to continue thinking about his faults, but it proved to be difficult.

He prepared for bed and tried to sleep. It took a couple of hours of counting sheep, but when he finally slipped into the world of the sleeping, he dreamed of a strong, powerful woman, with curly black hair, beautiful full lips, and green eyes full of light and laughter. And in his dream those green eyes looked only for him.

He had never seen a woman with a resemblance to this one. His heart rate picked up. In his subconscious, he tried to tell himself that she wasn't real; that she was merely a dream. But his wolf wouldn't hear it. So throughout the night, the mysterious woman held him captive.