Una is a single female. In the Quarry Pack, that makes her the bottom of the hierarchy. When she was young, she was so badly injured that she was left with a lame leg that drags when she walks. No healthy male is going to want to mate her, so she resigns herself to singlehood and works on way to make lives of the other unmated females better.
Killian leads the Quarry Pack and he's a hard brute. If a packmate breaks the rules, if he doesn't work hard enough, if he shows weakness -- he's dirt. Killian is fearless, unrelenting, and merciless. But not as bad as his father. When Killian's father was alpha, it was the worst example of Darwinism in action: the pack lived off the land, only eating what they could catch. Females' role was to be barefoot and pregnant; seen, not heard; and ready 'to present' when a man needed to scratch that itch. The basement of the pack lodge was where his father kept his harem and really bad things happened there.
But, under Killian, the pack's strength has been channeled into the MMA circuit, and this translates into prize money for things like gas and electricity. Quarry Pack is ruled by strength, not blood. Any male can challenge for rank at any time. Theoretically, Killian could have to fight every day to keep the lead, but he doesn't because he cannot be beat. It's a fact. Besides having the biggest wolf in the Five Packs, Killian's a flip-shifter. He can change from skin to fur and back again whenever he wants, without effort, in the blink of an eye. It's an unbeatable advantage.
Not everyone is happy with the new rules but Killain's not very sympathetic to their whining. When they complain about "back in the day" ...You know, "back in the day" b*****s presented on command. None of this mating-for-life b******t. "Back in the day" the alpha put down defective wolves. For their own good. Killian's typical reponse is things like What the h*** do they miss about living in caves, s*****g in the woods, and freezing in winter?
The action really begins the night that Una finally goes into heat for the first time. The pack eats together in the lodge, with the unmated females serving everyone and the men sparring for entertainment in the center of the room. (Already you can tell that this is a festival of male toxicity.) An A-roster groupie decides she's going to give Killian a lap dance and Una's wolf is not having it. Una can't help but go and declare that he's her mate (and the woman needs to step off!). The groupie responds, Una loses the fight, Killian scoffs at her claim (he'd know if he had a mate, right?) and he orders his second to get rid of her. The second dumps her, naked, out in the alley by the trash. This rejection and humiliation cuts deep, and after a good cry, Una decides Killian can go take a long walk off a short pier.
Abertha, the local witch, saves Una when she’s in the throes (and pain) of her unsatisfied heat by pulling out her mating bond. (Did I mention that Una’s pissed at her mate?)
“It was humiliating… He asked what I'd done to earn the rank I claimed.” …Abertha snorts. “For all that Killian Kelly's 1000 times smarter than his father was, he still knows nothing. He's going to learn, though. Or maybe I should say ‘remember’.” (Nice bit of foreshadowing.)
But, since they are mates, the incident (and Una) gets under Killian's skin and, in spite of himself (he blame his wolf), he starts seeking Una out.
So, yeah, I’ve considered Una a lot, but never in a sexual way. She’s damaged. It’d have been wrong. My wolf doesn’t see her as off limits. He’s getting playful, and he’s not watching his strength like he should… He slumps right across her legs, and she shrieks, reaches up, and whacks him upside the head. I freeze. He doesn't even snarl. He plops back and rests his head on his paws, making eyes at her, a trite whine in the back of his throat. And then when she reaches out to pet him again, he lunges up and slobbers on her face again. He loves her shrieks. He thinks this is the best stuff ever. And she's smiling. Maybe I’d be to…. This whole interaction is blowing my mind.
Once he gets confirmation from Abertha that she’s his mate (Abertha isn’t too happy that he threw away his mate and needs her confirmation instead of taking Una’s word for it), Killian starts to feel that urge to take care of her. Una doesn’t make it easy. He takes her to his cabin/their den and she won’t enter because of the smell. (The stink of too many females.) When he has Cheryl (the alpha female by default) clean out the cabin, Una still won’t enter because now it stinks of Cheryl, so he ends up deep cleaning everything himself and getting all new furniture that he brings in the house himself (so the stink of the unmated males doesn’t turn her off.)
Una also has the gumption to tell him ‘no’:
“You can't stand in the doorway forever.” She casts me a dark look. “Yeah. You're right. I'm going out on the porch. If I stay in here, I'm going to throw up.” And she turns on her heel and does just that. She turns her back on her alpha. Me. No one does that. No one. Even my father never walked away from me. He was too good a fighter to make that kind of mistake. And here's Una, giving me her back at every opportunity. My lips quirk up. She knows I won't hurt her. Maybe not consciously, but something inside her – maybe her wolf – recognizes that in our pack of two, she outranks the hell out of me. If she ever realizes the power that gives her, I'm f****d. But I can't bring myself to mind.
As the story unfolds, the absolute douchenozzle that Killian has acted like is revealed to be façade he adopted to reign in the men of the pack. (Part of it is Killian just being an idiot, but it’s never been because of negligence or selfishness.) Once Una’s in his life, he starts to realize how he’s been running things hasn’t quite been interpreted the way he meant them to be. Steps to protect the unmated females have been interpreted as the women’s lack of status. The unmated female’s cabin was put across camp from the unmated males’ cabins, upwind from Killian’s cabin (so that he can smell if anyone ventures there who doesn’t belong) in the path of 2 patrols. Their jobs mean they’re never alone (vulnerable). With Una’s urging (verbal and non-verbal), women can finally have cell phones and television. They can travel into town, instead of being sequestered on pack land.
It’s revealed that when they were young, Una was helping watch baby Mari. Mari’s father, Fane, was drunk and tried to kill Mari because she was “No child of mine.” Una got in between Mari and Fane’s foot. He probably would have killed them both, but Killian heard her scream, shifted for the first time and his wolf killed Fane. To protect Killian from becoming a target before he was big enough to win challenges, Killian’s father let everyone think he was the one who did the killing and Abertha took the memory of the event from both of them.
As Una starts to assert herself, Killian realizes that he didn’t go far enough with his reforms, because too much of the ‘women as second-class citizens’ stuck around. In Killian’s father’s time, it was different. Lone females had to attach themselves to someone to get fed, a sympathetic mated pair or a male. Or males. That would’ve been worse. But that doesn’t make how things are now good. Una gets Killian to change meals to a buffet. Instead of A-roster eating first, it’s the elders, then pups and females, with males last (Like you’re getting on a life raft.)
Before it’s all over, the old guard discontents try to have a coup (which includes inviting Last Pack onto their territory to help them fight – with the unmated female as the payment). Killian quickly puts the coup down. (That’s right – just Killian.) Una keeps him from killing all the stupid young wolves that were swayed into going along. I can't let this happen to my pack. For good or ill, this is my family. We rise and fall together, and that's a lot harder, and a lot messier, than it sounds. I have to stop my mate from slaughtering a dozen misguided males who don't want my friends and I have phones. Because they're going to change period we're going to make them. We're not leaving them behind.
“They took you,” he says to me. “Because the Byrnes poisoned their minds.” He sneers at the young males surrounding him… “If these s****s were worth a damn, they wouldn't be so weak minded that a bitter old f*** and a B-roster wannabe could convince them that females are the reason they can't win a fight.” Killian spares a glance over his shoulder at the gathered males. “And don't think it's escaped my attention that all of you have been losing your bouts. Ever bother to think that it's because instead of hustling you spent all your time b******* about how messed up things are nowadays?” He snorts in derision. “You want me to spare these pieces of s***?” “Yes.” “Why?” It's so hard to say. The idea is new in my head. I struggle for a moment to find the words. “Because you're the alpha. And I'm your mate. This is my pack. They're my pack. Even the d***a***s.”
Wells does a good job of creating characters you root for. Wells redeems a guy who you initially aren’t disposed to like (I mean, he’s a king on his throne with women throwing themselves at him, giving him lap dances). There’s growth on both sides of our mated pair and the end result is an adorable alpha pair (if you can use that word to describe Killian – I mean, he’s a hardcore, take-no-prisoners, I-eat-the-utensils-for-the-iron kind of guy).
From almost the beginning, Killian knows who’s the boss: She owns me, and that makes her the most powerful wolf in the five packs. And I don't think she has a clue. By the end of the book, Una knows it, too: Handling Killian Kelly isn't magic. It's all tenacity, and ability to ignore nonsense, and the willingness to tell him no a few times a day for his own good. It turns out I'm pretty good at all of those things. Along the way, it’s pretty fun. So I give it a 4 out of 5 stars.
Note: this is a shifter book with some sexy times, so just be warned. I can’t speak to the quality of the sexy times – since I skip those parts – but they’re there and thankfully, they’re not just thrown in for smutty gratuity’s sake.
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