Rise of the Female Alpha by Jasmine White Page A

you have energy after hunting that stag all night?” she said with a bit too much sarcasm.
    Kane’s hand shot out and his fingers latched onto a swath of her curly reddish-brown hair. He yanked her head back at a painful angle and snarled down at her. “Maybe you need a reminder of who you’re talking to?”
    “I’m sorry, Kane,” she whimpered, partly from the pain, and partly because she knew she needed to put on a good show in front of one of his hunters. “I’m just concerned for my alpha’s well being after risking his life to feed us.”
    His grip relaxed, and Sienna blinked away the unavoidable tears that had been triggered by the sting of almost having a chunk of her hair ripped from her scalp. The warning was clear that she needed to keep her big mouth shut, and that her position in this pack was only as secure as Kane’s need for her. If he decided to banish her from the pack for even the slightest of reasons, there wasn’t a wolf she knew who would reach out to help her.
    Sienna gritted her teeth and set about preparing the poultice for her alpha’s wound. She knew that the quicker she finished caring for his injuries, the quicker he’d be gone from her cabin, and in that moment she could think of nothing she wanted more.
     
    Meat from the stag sizzled and popped over the cooking fire later that night. Wolves young and old sat around the fire on blankets or some of the wooden benches that had been carved and placed long ago. Some of the young pups wrestled and ran between the legs of the adults, and a group of girls giggled and pointed at boys too young to realize that they were already being eyed as potential mates.
    Sienna sat on the edge of the feast. She picked at her food and watched the girls and boys with their awkward games of love and lust. It was a world she’d never felt a part of, and something inside her still envied those young girls with their skinny bodies and their smooth straight hair. Sienna had gone from an awkward runt to a fully formed woman practically over night, and her hips were just a little too shapely, and her boobs a little too big for any of the males to pay much attention to her. While they might fight over one of the lithe and fragile females, bringing them gifts and trying to win their attention, they only every came to visit Sienna when they’d had a bit too much to drink or when they wanted to fuck and move on.
    Perhaps that’s why she was so nervous when Roald came to sit beside her. He’d only recently been accepted into the pack, and after his years of running as a lone wolf, Sienna could sense something in him that she easily identified with. He knew what it was like to be on the outside of things, and she thought maybe he saw that in her too.
    “ How come you’re not with the other females?” he asked. He reached out and plucked a small piece of meat from her plate, popped it in his mouth, and smiled at her in a way that made her stomach flutter a little.
    “ I feel more comfortable here,” she said shyly. “All they do is talk about their mates and gossip. It’s not really my thing.”
    “ You don’t have a mate yet? How old are you?”
    “ I’m twenty-two,” she answered. It was getting to be a little old to still be unattached, but she didn’t really care what other people thought about her. She’d gotten over that a long time ago. She’d had to in order to survive life in the pack.
    “ Still young,” he said.
    Sienna blushed and mumbled something unintelligible in response. She felt completely out of her element.
    “I think I might grab some of that stag before it’s all gone.” He rose to his feet and looked down at her, his strong jaw outlined in the firelight. “Will you be here when I get back?”
    Sienna nodded dumbly, trying to think of something cute to say but failing miserably. Instead, she just watched as he went off in search of a plate and some food. Her eyes followed him around the fire, watching his strong body move