Free Feint of Heart by Aimee Easterling

Chapter 1
    "They're not even a proper team."
    I bared my teeth at the other alpha, daring him to put his money where his mouth was. And, as expected, the opposing shifter averted his eyes immediately, backing down in the face of my stronger alpha dominance.
    Of course, Price did have a point. My crew weighed in at the lower limit of allowable manpower since I'd taken only Wade and Fen along with me to All-Pack this year. We were supposed to be playing it safe and keeping a low profile at this first gathering we'd attended since Chief Wilder caught me in a bind two years prior. But the Winter Hunt had been too enticing to pass up.
    Plus, I trusted my team. Sure, Fen was just fourteen, all freckled cheeks and gangly limbs while two-legged. She hadn't felt comfortable stripping and turning wolf when the rest of us did, either.
    But I wasn't concerned about her foot-dragging. The kid would shift when she was good and ready. Because what the girl lacked in muscles, she more than made up for in sheer spunk. Personally, I thought our trio was unbeatable or I wouldn't have entered the contest in the first place.
    Twenty feet away, Chief Wilder turned his cold gaze in our direction, weighing Price's words. I itched to stare the grizzled old pack leader down, but he was both referee and bait in this rough-and-tumble game of skill and power. Oh, yeah, and he also held my personal debt in his iron fist. So I averted my eyes and hoped the overpowering alpha wouldn't call us out on the possible infraction.
    "Two boys and a halfie," Crazy Wilder intoned, a faint smirk widening his lips. "You think the three of you can catch me before the moon rises?"
    That was the goal, after all. Soon, Wilder would shift and lope away, a twenty-minute head start all that stood between the grizzled alpha and the best every other pack had to offer. If he could elude our pursuit until the tiny sliver of moon rose near the end of this cold, dark night, then Crazy Wilder would win bragging rights for another twelve months.
    The patriarch seemed confident of his success. And no wonder—Chief Wilder had eluded pursuit for as long as I could remember.
    But I was bound and determined to take the old alpha down. Because wouldn't the other pack leaders be forced to take me seriously enough to grant my petition for territorial rights if I trumped the strongest alpha of them all?
    In wolf form, I couldn't answer Crazy Wilder in words, of course. But I lifted my nose to the air and spread my nostrils. Beside me, Wade let out a small yip of excitement. Then Fen spoke for all three of us.
    "Of course we can catch you," the fourteen-year-old promised. Her voice was steady, but I could hear her fluttering heartbeat speed up as she faced down the meanest pack leader our region had to offer. "Or perhaps you want to disqualify our team because you're scared we'll win?"
    The other shifters—most wolf, a few human—had been rustling and whispering restlessly up until this point. But now every inhabitant of the field fell silent. Even the breeze that had been whipping up fallen leaves from beneath nearby trees stilled as Fen spoke.
    I tensed my muscles, ready to spring to the girl's defense. Chief Wilder was a volatile and arrogant shifter and my pack mate just might have gone too far this time.
    Not that I wouldn't have said the exact same thing had I been two-legged. Good job, Fen.
    Wilder glared hard at the halfie, clearly expecting her knees to tremble beneath her. But the girl continued to stand straight and tall, not backing down an inch.
    This was the half-breed's secret weapon—her wolf was the weakest on the field. The characteristic doesn't sound like a good deal, does it? But in the hands of someone possessing pure grit, a powerless wolf could be worked to her advantage. In fact, Fen had recently learned to stifle her beast long enough to be untouched by alpha dominance when in human form, a trick that made her appear more powerful than even our region's strongest