Free Ascension by Kelley Armstrong

want to be Alpha and Dominic seems to be backing Jeremy."
    Malcolm nodded. "Good boy. Now why would they—?"
    "Why would they want to challenge a potential Alpha?" I cut in, my brain racing ahead to fill in the blanks. "Because it’s as close to an Alpha as they can get. They can’t challenge Dominic. Even if they won, the Pack would hunt them down. But they could challenge an Alpha candidate. That’d be the next best thing, wouldn’t it?"
    "And an opportunity that doesn’t come around more than once or twice in a mutt’s life. If this stretches on much longer, we’ll have every mutt on the continent getting up the nerve to try his luck."
    I slumped into my seat. It would stretch on much longer. We all knew that. With Dominic showing no signs of giving up his position, this waiting game could continue for years. Years of having mutts on our doorstep, trespassing on our territory, threatening Jeremy.
    When I looked at Malcolm, I knew he’d read my thoughts in my face as clearly as if I’d said the words.
    "There is a way to stop it," he said. "If Jeremy tells Dominic he doesn’t want to be Alpha, he’d be out of the race. The mutts would hear about that, and they’d stop coming after him. Now, they’d still want to take a shot at me, but most of them know I don’t spend much time at home. So Stonehaven would be safe again. Jeremy would be safe again."
    Malcolm really needed to work on his finesse. I’d have to be a moron not to see through this ploy. Play on my fears for Jeremy, and I’d use my influence with Jeremy to persuade him to drop out of the Alpha race. Like I had any influence with Jeremy. He wasn’t even going to let me influence where I went to college.
    I said none of this to Malcolm. Instead, I nodded and he settled into his chair, smiling, pleased with his success. In a way, he had succeeded. I now realized that Jeremy was in danger, and would continue to be in danger as long as he was running for Alpha. So how would I deal with that? By removing the source of the danger. To do that, I didn’t need to persuade him not to challenge Malcolm for Alpha. As angry as I was with him right then, I still knew he’d make a good Alpha, and I planned to do everything in my power to make sure he got what I knew he wanted. No, what I had to do was stop the mutts from coming. But how?
     
    I told Malcolm I wanted to either meet up with Nick or catch a cab to the estate so that I didn’t return to the house with him, and worry Jeremy. The truth was, I wanted to get out of his company as quickly as possible, and I wanted time by myself to work on this problem.
    Malcolm dropped me off back where he’d picked me up. I started heading back toward the party. Once he’d driven out of sight, I resumed my aimless wandering. I’d figure out how to get to the estate later. For now, I needed to think.
    How could I get mutts to stop coming to Stonehaven? I had to do something to make them stay away. As I walked, I remembered Jeremy’s "riddle" to Antonio, his explanation for why he was letting Malcolm train me. If I was a good enough fighter, I wouldn’t need to fight. Not a riddle at all, but a logical fact, one that only now made sense. When you reached the top of your game, fewer and fewer people cared to take you on. Yes, mutts came to Stonehaven looking for a fight with Malcolm, the Pack’s top fighter. Yet mutts did the same to other Pack wolves, picking the one they thought was in their league.
    On average, fewer mutts came to Malcolm than to Antonio or Wally Santos, who were considered the next best fighters in the Pack. Most mutts aren’t suicidal—they challenge the best Pack wolf whom they think they have a shot at beating—and Malcolm was more than most cared to handle.
    Outside those few formal challenges, mutts almost never picked a fight with Malcolm. When a less experienced Pack wolf, like Stephen Santos, traveled, he always had to be careful. Technically mutts weren’t supposed to hold