She had the discipline and focus of someone who'd practiced her moves a thousand times. She had trained for tense situations; she had learned to put aside her fear.
Despite the fact that she'd humiliated him with a kick in the crotch, Vonn couldn't help but admire her bravery and determination.
Strike that…if he was honest, he found it hot as hell.
Vonn hadn't met too many omegas in his life, and none of them were as feisty—as dangerous—as Stacy. Until now, he'd thought that once her nature changed, she'd become cooperative, even subservient.
But the notion that she might stay as sharp, smart, and fierce as she'd been since he first laid eyes on her was an unexpected rush. What would that even be like? A fearless mate whose submission would have to be fought for and earned every single time?
Vonn's cock knew the answer. As fast as he'd gotten hard, Vonn knew that Stacy's surrender would be that much more satisfying if it was hard-won.
Defeating her at her own game would be far from easy. Vonn might not be light on his feet, and he didn't know shit about combat strategy, but he hadn't hunted for over a decade in the Boundarylands without learning a valuable lesson: each animal required a different approach. Brute force could bring down a buck, but you needed stealth to catch a rabbit.
"Put down the bag," Vonn told her in a voice that brooked no dissent while also moving slowly toward her. He put his hands up to show that he meant her no harm.
Briefly, he thought he'd succeeded when Stacy dropped the bag—but the faint smugness at the corner of her lips signaled otherwise.
Then Vonn saw what she was holding in her fists and realized he was too late. She'd found what she was looking for: two more of those fucking poison "pens" along with some other shit from the pack.
"Give me those," he demanded, his patience straining toward his breaking point.
She didn't bother to answer as she twisted the top off both pens. Their needles glinted in the sun. In a flash, Vonn's cautious strategy evaporated, and his instincts took over.
As Stacy brought both syringes down hard on either thigh, he attacked.
With her focus on the injections, for the first time, Stacy wasn't prepared. There was no last-minute dodge, no tripping or flipping or whatever the hell else she would have done to him. His hands arced through the air, smashing into hers and sending the pens flying along with everything else she had been holding.
He didn't have time to congratulate himself, though. His momentum had carried him several paces past her, and by the time he managed to stop and turn around, Stacy was frantically searching the ground.
Fuck.
There was no way of knowing just how much of that damn poison had already flooded her veins, but he'd be damned if he'd let her find any more. Before she could get her hands on the syringes again, he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her into the air.
With a warrior's cry, she arched her back and tried to kick him, no doubt aiming for his balls again, but Vonn had learned his lesson and held her away from his body so that all she managed was a few ineffectual glancing blows to his thighs.
It only took him a few seconds to find the bent syringes—still more than half full by the look of them—and quickly crush them under his boot.
The sound of cracking glass and twisting metal drained the fight out of her almost instantly. Stacy howled, a keening cry of despair. "You idiot. You don't know what you've done."
"I know exactly what I'm doing," Vonn muttered, setting her down now that he'd destroyed the threat. "I'm keeping you from doing any more damage to yourself with that shit."
Stacy gave him a bleak, hopeless look so at odds with the steely, calculating expression he was accustomed to that Vonn was taken aback. "Don't think this means you've won," she said, her voice barely more than a rasp. "I won't surrender. Did you really think that I would ever agree to be your prisoner for the rest of my life? That I'd ever allow you inside me?"
The revulsion on her face hurt a lot more than any kick to the balls ever would.
Ever since Vonn had stumbled into an awakening omega a few months back—heard her cries of ecstasy as she gave herself to her alpha, breathed in her ripening scent, felt her need rippling through the air—he'd been a man possessed. He went through his days on autopilot, never able to tear his mind completely from the hunger that had been ignited in him that night.
Vonn had never been a patient man. Long before he'd been changed forever by that encounter, he'd earned a reputation in the settlement for being a brother who liked his liquor strong and his women fast. Whatever Vonn wanted, he wanted it now.
But wasn't an asshole about it. There were enough of those already in the uplands—those brothers who didn't care who got hurt in the process of satisfying their appetites.
Vonn had no patience for them. An alpha who hurt others—alpha or beta, it made no difference—just because he could, was no brother of his. Life up here might be wild, but it wasn't without its code, which could be distilled down to 'respect and be respected.'
Vonn lived by that code, even when he was tested to the point of despair over these past two months, trying to keep his feral urgency under control. He'd even somehow managed to adhere to it during the last twelve hours with Stacy.
But there was only so far an alpha could be pushed before he hit his breaking point. And that point was now.
He didn’t have—had never had—any intention of making her his prisoner. Needing her to understand that, he pulled her close, flattening her against him, so he felt
