She was going to have to kill him.

That was all there was to it. She was going to have to smother him whilst he slept or spike his Scotch with arsenic, because Professor Nick-bloody-Cutter was about to drive her stark...raving...mad. Jenny was used to dealing with Alphas. Really, she was. She had to be, growing up around them. Nobody knew why, but Alphas were nearly always male, just like Omegas were nearly always female. It hadn't been proved yet, but geneticists thought that the genes which determined one's permutation were sex-linked. Males had a higher chance of inheriting the Alpha gene. Only one in every 300 or so Alphas were female. And lucky her, she'd drawn that stick. So, yes, she was used to dealing with Alphas, having grown up proving boys and men alike that just because she was a woman didn't mean she was any less of an Alpha than they were.

But Cutter was the first one she'd ever wanted to strangle with her bare hands, manicure be damned.

It wasn't that he was sexist – most of the time, anyways – or that he refused to acknowledge her as an Alpha – she'd had that happen more than once, Alphas refusing to acknowledge the fact that she was as dominant as they were. It was that he did acknowledge her. Oh, he acknowledged her, and Christ, did he enjoy pushing her buttons. She had observed dominance games before. It was something all Alphas did when they first met, usually subconsciously, trying to see just who was more dominant, but this was the first time that she'd ever taken part in them. Cutter apparently had made a sport out of teasing her, prodding until she snapped at him, and then he'd just sort of smile like it was amusing to see her growl.

The rest of the team, she got on just fine with. Abby, Connor, and Sarah, they were perfectly okay with her. There'd been some testing the first few days, but that was natural. She was a new Alpha on their turf, and each had to know limits with the other. Stephen, surprisingly, wasn't too difficult either. He was another Alpha, which surprised her, considering how close he worked with Cutter – Alpha males didn't exactly play nice – but she understood soon that they were a cooperating pair, an uncommon occurrence between two Alphas, but not entirely unheard of. He and Cutter argued at times, but they shared dominance of the team between them, in different ways. Cutter was the provider, the one who guided and led, and Stephen was the protector, enforcing Cutter's orders and keeping the others in line. She didn't understand how she could get along so well with Stephen, yet ten minutes with Cutter had her contemplating murder.

The final straw came when they were at the Blue Sky amusement park, when they met the Beta breeding guard dogs. Cutter had started to spin some half-arsed lie, and she'd calmly and smoothly stepped in. She wasn't above using her looks to get her way – a female Alpha in a predominantly male Alpha world, she used every bloody asset she had – but it was Cutter's response to it that finally pushed her just a hair too far.

"You're a flirt," he replied.

Jenny arched an eyebrow at him. "Excuse me?"

"You, you were flirting with him."

"It's not like you were doing much better," she fired back.

"No, I don't have the eyelashes for it."

That was it. Stuff professionalism and stuff politeness. Jenny swung around and punched him square in the jaw. He staggered back a step, a dabble of blood at the corner of his mouth; if he hadn't been an Alpha, she'd have broken his jaw. Before he could recover, though, she hooked one foot around his ankle, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved hard at the same time she pulled his foot out from under him, landing him on the ground. In an instant, she shoved back against his chest, hands tight on his biceps as she planted one knee on his chest, holding him to the ground on his back. She growled low in her throat, digging her nails sharply into his arms as she glared down at him. In less than a minute, she had him in a position of submission to her. Everything about her tone and stance said, I am Alpha. Obey.

Cutter stared up at her for wide eyes for only a split second, but then he grabbed her waist and twisted sharply beneath her, throwing her off-balance. In the split second, he rolled them over so now she was on her back, and he had her arms held down to the grass, leaning his weight on her so she couldn't throw him off as he'd done. Still, she kept growling, showing her teeth and refusing to yield. She was not about to let this stubborn, scruffy, irritating, maverick, Scottish git of a professor get the better of her. And she wasn't entirely above playing dirty, either. She brought her knee up sharply, not hitting him directly in the crotch but close enough for it to still really hurt. He let out a strangled sound, rearing back; Jenny squirmed out of his grip and twisted to her feet, glaring at him angrily. "I've had it up to here with you, Cutter, I really have!" she snapped. "I've been letting it slide as a matter of professional courtesy, but no more!" It wasn't a direct challenge; she wasn't stupid. She couldn't take him in a proper fight. But it was a warning that she wouldn't hesitate to shove when he pushed.

He gazed at her a moment longer, expression unreadable, but then the corner of his mouth curved up in a smile, blue eyes glittering with mischievous humour. He walked off towards the Hilux with that little smile still playing at his lips. Jenny gaped after him.

Son of a bitch, he'd wanted her to challenge him! The bastard had done that on purpose!

Jenny spent a moment brushing the bits of grass off her clothes, forcing herself to breathe deeply and calmly, reigning in her temper so she wouldn't throttle him whens he got back in the Hilux. She didn't know what bloody game Nick Cutter was playing, but she knew for damned sure that she wasn't going to let him win.

He had messed with the wrong Alpha.