Hungry Like a Wolf (17 page)

“Oh, so you’ve made your decision, then?” Her tone taunted him, the impulse to share a little of her own pain impossible to deny. “You’ve suddenly developed a burning desire to go from being the second most powerful wolf in one of the most powerful packs in the country to being my hunky piece of arm candy? Terrific. You can start by taking off your shirt. If I’m going to keep you as my little boy toy, I’ll want everyone to see exactly what you’re good for.”

He crossed the desk in a single leap, spinning her chair to face him and bracing his hands on the arms, surrounding her with a looming shroud of furious, feral male. Honor choked back a gasp, but she couldn’t control the way her heartbeat took off like a scared rabbit in the face of a hunting wolf. For the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to be prey.

“Don’t push me, little alpha.” The words came out like a spray of heated gravel, dark and rough and potentially damaging. “If I go over the edge, I’ll take you with me.”

“And where will we go, Hunter, hm? Straight to hell?” Her fight-or-flight response had broken days ago. She had only one reaction left to threats now, the one that made her lip curl and her chin lift and her gaze lock defiantly with his. “I got here last week. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

For a long moment he continued to stare at her, and she watched as his eyes shifted until all traces of brown disappeared behind the glow of liquid gold. Part of her was hypnotized by the visible signs of his internal battle, recognizing his struggle for control in his changing eyes and the sound of the fabric of the chair ripping where his claws lengthened and sliced into the cloth-covered arms.

With a howl he tore his gaze from hers and jerked away, throwing his head back and howling at the ceiling, the sound echoing with fury and frustration in the small room. Hairs rose on her arms and the back of her neck, the skin there tingling and throbbing where his teeth had cut into flesh. Her throat clenched as she bit back the cry welling in her own chest. Her wolf would always respond to his this way. She knew it, and that made it even more important that she make sure she crushed any illusions he had of a future they could share. She needed him gone so she could mourn for their lost chances and learn to live with the pain of losing her mate, not to death, but to circumstance, whose deceptive blade cut even deeper.

Honor watched, bleeding inside, while her mate—the mate she could never claim—struggled for control. She saw his skin ripple as the magic of the change moved through him, saw his muscles tense and clench as he fought to hold on to his human form. She saw him grimace and watched his canine teeth lengthen and sharpen into vicious fangs. She saw fur begin to sprout from his cheeks and throat, and saw the minute he lost the battle against his wolf.

His head jerked to the side, golden wolf’s eyes pinning her to her seat, and the warning ripped from his throat even as his face began to stretch toward the shape of a muzzle.

“This isn’t over,” he growled, the words barely intelligible as he lost the ability to speak as a man. As he surrendered his manhood to the magic in his blood. “You … mine. Mate. Ever.”

Then the Logan shape was gone and a huge, dark wolf snarled at her once, spun toward the door, and disappeared into the woods, the tip of his tail flying behind him.

*   *   *

Honor had no idea how long she sat there, staring out the door, waiting for the blood from her heart to puddle on the floor beneath her chair. Of course, it never did, because all of her wounds were internal, metaphorical, the kind that couldn’t kill her, that could only make her wish she were dead.

She wasn’t, though. Honor Tate still lived, still ran the White Paw Clan, and still had to deal with the fact that no matter what her heart or her mind or her gut wanted for her future, the only future she had was the same one she’d been staring in the face for the last week: she would rule, she would lead, and she would lock her protesting psyche away behind a wall of solid steel so thick, not even a werewolf could make a dent in it.

She would go on.

Soon. Just as soon as she could find the will for it.

And so she sat in her chair and stared out into the woods where Logan had disappeared. She didn’t notice the time passing, or the afternoon shadows lengthening. She didn’t notice her stomach rumbling with hunger when she missed her second meal of the day, and she didn’t notice the cold that invaded the cabin through the open door, not even when her breath swirled around her head in a visible cloud of steam. She didn’t notice any of it until two figures stepped into the doorway and cut off her sight line.

Honor blinked. It took a moment for the change to register, for her sluggish mind to claw its way out of the numbing hole of depression and start working again. She didn’t want to think; there was too great a chance that thoughts would lead to more feelings, and more feelings only meant more pain.

She frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“At the moment? Freezing our tails off, same as you.” Her uncle Hamish stepped into the cabin, followed by another of the pack elders. Barney Andrews drew the door closed behind them. “Pete’s sake, Honor, if you want to just give money to the electric company, wouldn’t it be easier to write a damned check? Be a hell of a lot more comfortable. It’s so damned cold in here, I don’t even want to take my jacket off.”

“Maybe she was trying to let in some fresh air.” Barney took a deep breath and eyed Honor with speculation. “I’d say she definitely let in something.”

Honor turned to glare at the old man, baring her teeth.

“Down, girl,” Hamish advised, settling into a chair facing her desk and leaning back to study her. “Doesn’t do you any good to snap at a man for pointing out the obvious. We’re all pack here. It’s not like you can hide the smell of a new mating.”

“If that’s what you came here to talk about, you can turn around and walk right out the door again.”

Her uncle ignored the snarl. “It’s not, but it does have a thing or two to say to the matter.”

“Exactly what matter is that?”

“The one you can’t afford to not be thinking about, missy. You know, a little matter about how there’s a Howl scheduled for the day after tomorrow, one that could just decide not only whether you continue to lead this pack, but whether or not you continue to live. Ring any bells?”

Her mouth tightened, but she kept silent. It was that or say something she would likely regret. She’d done enough of that for a while now.

“It’s a serious matter,” Barney threw in, taking the other chair and fixing Honor with a gaze she felt certain he meant to be sobering. She found it more irritating. “One that was complicated enough before you threw caution to the wind and decided to mate with a wolf who isn’t even a member of this pack.”

That made Honor want to laugh. Yeah, as if she had “decided” anything about this fiasco. The only decision she could remember making since the day her father died was what it would take for her to be able to look herself in the mirror when she dragged her ass out of bed every morning. And just look at how well that one had worked out for her.

“Now’s not the time for casting blame.” Hamish frowned at the other man, and Barney subsided. Elder he might be, but Barney had always ranked below Hamish in the pack; he knew when to shut up.

“Oh, why the hell not?” Honor asked with a snort. “Sounds like just what I need to top off my day.”

“It’s not the time for self-pity, either. We’ve got plans to make, and important things to consider before the pack gathers.”

Honor sighed. “What’s to consider, Uncle Hamish? The pack will meet. I’ll claim the title of alpha. One or more of the stupider males in the pack will challenge me. Either I’ll win, or I’ll die. The pack will hunt together, and life will go on. You know, for everyone who’s not dead. I don’t see much room for negotiation there, unless you’ve thought of a way to force the Silverback to decide in my favor once I’ve won the challenges.”

“It’s not the challenges that I think you need to be worried about, sweetheart. There’re some stories flying around the pack this afternoon that say those males who were thinking of challenging you have changed their minds.”

“Well, isn’t that good news?” Honor asked, ignoring the uneasy feeling gathering at the base of her spine. “No challenges means my place as alpha is uncontested. That will have to count for something with the Silverback. It shows the pack has confidence in me.”

Barney snorted. “They aren’t giving up on the challenges because they’re behind you, little girl. They just think it would be more fun to fuck you than to kill you.”

Hamish’s big hand flew before Honor could blink, catching the other man square on the jaw. “I told you that as an elder, you had a right to consult with the alpha on the matter, Andrews, not that you could flap your damned jaw like the idiot you are.”

Barney winced and cradled his bruised chin, but he kept his mouth shut. He also lowered his gaze at the other man’s rumbled warning.

Honor didn’t intervene, but she did hold up a hand and fix her relative with a hard stare. “What is he talking about, Uncle Ham?”

Hamish sighed. “I might not like the way he blurted it out, Honor, but I can’t pretend that his words weren’t the truth. The males who’ve been planning to give you trouble at the Howl haven’t backed down from their plans, they’ve just shifted gears. Instead of challenging you for your place as alpha, they think they’re going to call for an Alpha Mating Rite.”

“What the hell is an Alpha Mating Rite?” Her mind went blank for a moment, and Honor had to search her memory to make sense of what she was hearing. It didn’t register at first, so it took a few seconds to dredge up a vague recollection of an obscure point of Lupine tradition. When she made the connection, she felt her heart stutter in shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Isn’t that when—”

She broke off, unable to complete the thought.

“It’s when an unmated female tries to take her place as alpha of the pack,” Hamish declared flatly. “Any males who question her ability to lead can call for either an Alpha Challenge, or an Alpha Mating Rite. If it’s the first option, the female has to fight her male challengers to the death; if she loses, the male who defeats her takes her place as alpha. If it’s the second, she has to fight until either the males are dead, or she loses; and if she loses, the winner gets to mate her and then he takes his place at her side as a second alpha. Now you have a female stuck spending her life with a male who already tried to kill her once and doesn’t have much of a reason to treat her as anything other than a whipping post, plus you have a pack with two alphas. History tells us that lasts just long enough to break the pack apart, but not so long that one of the alphas doesn’t end up dead after all.”

Honor swallowed against rising bile. “But that no longer applies to me,” she reasoned, fists clenching. “I have a mate. You know that. You scented the bond as soon as you walked in here.”

Her uncle shook his head. “What I scented was that a male had put his mark on you. The Silverback male. That’s not a full mate bond, and the males making trouble aren’t going to accept it. First off, because there’s no indication in the scent he left behind that you marked him back. And second, because Logan Hunter isn’t a member of this pack. Only a member can mate a female alpha. He’d have to petition to join the pack before your bond would be recognized, and if you think the morons gunning for you are gonna let that happen at this point in the game, you’re out of your pretty, stubborn head. They’d kill him to keep that from happening.”

“Logan could take on any male in this pack and win, even in his human form. With his hands tied behind his back.”

“What? You think they’re gonna come at him head-on? One at a time?” Hamish snorted. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what fairy tales you’ve been reading these days, but fair play has no part in games like this, not when an alpha position is part of the stakes. They’d take him together, if they thought that was the only way. Or better yet, they’d just put a bullet in him. No fuss, no muss. Then he’s out of the way, and the female alpha is still unmated. Only now, she’s too damned shook up to think straight. Makes her more vulnerable, easier to take down.”

The words struck like strands of a whip, cutting through her already pessimistic view of the future and leaving nothing but bleak, ragged shards. She struggled to breathe.

“They can’t do that,” she choked out, her throat threatening to close on a mix of anxiety and mindless fury. “I am
alpha
here. I won’t allow it.”

Hamish leaned forward in his seat. “I think you need to pay attention to some very important points, sweetheart. Ones that I came out here to remind you of. You’ve been acting like taking over for your daddy was a guaranteed home run. Sure, a couple of idiots tried to give you trouble, but the first one was too young and too dumb to pose a real threat, the second one underestimated you from the start, and Paul … well, he just didn’t have his heart in it. That boy’s been half in love with you for three quarters of his life. If you hadn’t taken his hand, he’d’ve gnawed it off himself when he realized he’d hurt you. But from here on out, things are different.

“First off, you need to wrap your mind around the idea that this Howl is not going to be some sort of rubber-stamp act where the only thing standing between you and making this job as alpha permanent is a few words from you and a round of applause from the crowd. A lot of the members of this pack respect you, sweetheart, but there are a few bad apples in every barrel, and the ones in yours are just crawling with worms. They
are
ready to kill or rape you if that’s what it takes to put you in your place.

“And second, you obviously need to brush up on your knowledge of Lupine traditions, or none of this would be coming as a surprise.” He shook his head at her. “You made this pack a good beta, Honor, and I doubt anyone telling the truth would be saying any different, but a female beta who’s the daughter of a strong, dominant alpha is a hell of a lot different from a female alpha who half the pack can remember seeing in diapers. Even those who respect you, those who like you, they might still have doubts about your ability to lead. You ought to know that Lupines are never wild about change, kid. Progressive thinking isn’t one of our strengths. You should remember that an unmated female alpha has never gone over well with our kind.”