Hungry Like a Wolf (22 page)

He could have tried to follow her scent trail, he supposed, but he didn’t know how much good that was likely to do him. Honor’s scent spread across most of the territory her pack held. As acting alpha, she had reason to go almost everywhere, so even the freshest bits of her scent could lead him in circles for hours. He had better things to do than chase his tail at the moment. Like ditching yet another phone call from his own persistent alpha.

Graham had called five times that day already, and it was only just after five
P.M.
Apparently becoming a mate and a father hadn’t taught the other male very much about patience, or about other Lupines not jumping every time he walked into a room or pushed the buttons on a phone. Logan, however, had nothing to say to him at the moment, so he let the call go once more to voice mail.

What was he supposed to tell Graham, anyway?

Oh, yeah, buddy, everything’s great. I’ve pretty much decided that while Honor has the intelligence, the drive, and the character to be alpha, she would never be able to whip this pack into shape the way it needs. Not after her father left it in such a shitstorm-shape of a mess.

Who should take her place? Well, none of these numbnuts, that’s for sure. There’s one kid who’ll probably make a decent beta in a few more years, you know, after he graduates from college and gets his damned hormones under control, but there aren’t any alphas around here, that’s for sure. As far as that goes, Honor stands head and shoulders above the lot of them.

What should you do? At this point, I’m not sure just setting fire to this whole territory wouldn’t be the smartest move you could make. The problems facing this pack will take years to sort out,
and
that’s provided you can find an alpha strong enough to take over, and charismatic enough to do it without making the entire pack hate his guts.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve discovered that Honor is my mate, so no one is allowed to kill her, okay? Okay.

Right. That would go over well, he was sure.

Logan needed a plan, not just one that would give him something to tell Graham, but one that would provide some sort of acceptable resolution to the matter of providing a permanent alpha for the White Paw Clan. Not to mention that it had to take care of all that and still manage to keep his mate alive and by his side. So, you know, no pressure.

He had been driving himself crazy trying to figure all of this out. Every time he thought he might be on to something, some complication would smack him in the face and force him to start over again. Like, he could just remove Honor from the situation. She was his mate now, so it would be perfectly in keeping with tradition if she left with him and moved to New York to join the Silverbacks—except that Logan knew he’d have to drag her away from her ancestral pack kicking and screaming, and he’d likely wake up missing his testicles the first time he let down his guard around her afterward. But maybe having a mate would take care of all that restlessness and discontent he’d been feeling before he left Manhattan. Maybe once Honor was with him, he could go back to being a beta and liking it. Provided she let him live.

Then he considered backing her claim as alpha—because she was, though he hated to admit it, the best of some bad choices—and helping her to defeat any challenges from within the pack. The problem there was that when the fur stopped flying, Logan would find himself as nothing more than his mate’s Sol, with no power to institute any of the changes he knew the pack would need to survive. Sure, he could suggest them to her privately, work behind the scenes to try to guide her into doing what was necessary, but Logan was not a behind-the-scenes sort of man. He was too used to doing what needed to be done and worrying about the consequences later. Plus, he knew already that his mate wouldn’t take kindly to the feeling of being manipulated and second-guessed, which could very well happen. If she began to think he was trying to rule the pack through her, it could end up ruining their relationship and still not fixing the pack.

Then there was the idea that the two of them could run away to join the circus and let the goddess-damned White Paw Clan just go fuck itself. At the moment, that last prospect appealed the most to him, but he figured his mate might have something to say against it. She was, after all, a stubborn little thing, and she had a lot more than he did invested in seeing this pack live on in perpetuity. He doubted he’d ever be able to convince her to abandon it.

The question remained, then, where did they go from here?

Logan contemplated that as he stripped off his shirt and prepared to go down to dinner. If his mate wasn’t waiting for him in the dining room, or at the very least in the eat-in kitchen, he
would
go out looking for her. Better to dress warmly now than to waste time changing clothes later.

A sharp
ta-ta-tap
at the bedroom window caught his attention.

Frowning, he looked over at the dark glass. His room was located at the back of the house on the second floor, and Logan couldn’t imagine it being invaded from the outside. Sure, werewolves could jump that high if they wanted to, but there would be nothing to land on with the window closed, and anyway, he couldn’t picture even his nosy questions having pissed anyone off enough for them to try attacking him. So where had the sound come from?

He crossed to the window, noting that the trees around the house were trimmed, and none of them stood near enough to the house for their branches to be tapping. Maybe he’d just imagined the sound.

Ta-tap. Ta-ta-tap.

It came agan.

Curious, Logan unlocked the window and pushed up the sash. He leaned out and looked around, at first seeing nothing. Then a cold splat of snow hit his cheek, followed closely by a small, stinging pebble, and he lowered his glance to the ground near the tree line. There, he spotted a small gray wolf with fur ranging from silver-white to dark, sooty charcoal standing and watching him. While he watched, the wolf turned her tail toward him and scratched her back paws on the ground with a hard, stiff-legged motion, tossing a small shower of snow, dirt, and pebbles up toward his window.

This time he ducked.

The wolf turned back to him, her tongue lolling out the side of her muzzle as if she laughed at him, and her ears pricked forward to indicate that all her attention focused on him. Her dark eyes shone in the moonlight, and the expression in them made identifying her easy.

Mouth beginning to curve into a smile, Logan leaned forward and rested one arm on the windowsill. “What is it, Lassie? What are you trying to tell me, girl? Is Timmy caught in the well?”

His mate responded with a sharp yip followed by a low growl. Apparently, she didn’t find him all that funny. The wolf threw her head back and gave a short, sharp howl, the sound carrying clearly on the cold night air and raising the hair on the back of Logan’s neck. His mate was lonely, and she wanted him with her. She didn’t have to ask twice.

He sprinted down the stairs wearing only his jeans and stripped those off in the mudroom just inside the back door. He didn’t particularly care if Honor’s cousin got a glimpse of his bare ass, but luckily, he didn’t run into her. Shifting, he launched himself through the flap on the dog door straight toward the spot where he’d just seen his mate. As soon as she spotted him, she turned tail and ran.

Logan didn’t mind. Wolves loved to play chase, and he could sense his mate’s laughter as she led him deeper into the forest and away from the areas where other members of the pack could be expected to congregate. If she wanted to get him alone, Logan was all for it.

When he pounced on her in a small clearing south of the meeting hall, he knew she had let him catch her. She yipped breathlessly and rolled around with him on the thick blanket of snow for a dizzying minute before she twisted as quick as an otter and sprinted back into the trees. His mate led him on a merry chase through miles of empty forest, and Logan felt his heart swell with joy and exuberance. This was a gift his mate gave to him, a time that wiped away all of the worries that had been weighing each of them down, when they could just enjoy each other, and the strength of the bond growing between them.

They played that way for more than an hour, running and chasing and catching and escaping from each other in the peaceful woods. When they grew hungry, they stalked and flushed an enormous wild turkey from a small thicket and shared the kill. Logan nosed all the tastiest bits toward his mate, not even worrying about whether or not he looked like a scene from
Lady and the Tramp
. After all, no one was around to see.

After dinner, Honor lured him into a game of hide-and-seek—more like hide-and-pounce, actually, since her tactic seemed to be to sneak off for high ground, then leap out at him the minute he got within range. Logan didn’t mind. Oh, he’d snarl at her, but she’d just laugh and dance away and look for a new hiding place.

They had left the main house less than an hour after sunset, with Honor leading the way gradually to the southwest. Instinct and the height of the moon he could glimpse occasionally through the trees told Logan it must now be close to midnight. He didn’t know about his playful mate, but his energy had begun to flag. After the last couple of restless nights—not to mention the stress that dogged his every waking moment—he knew the adrenaline of playing furry games with Honor wouldn’t be able to carry him much further. He needed to take a breather.

Just about the time when he was ready to abandon the games and begin looking for a secure place to rest, Logan followed his mate through a gap in the trees and into another small clearing. This one sat right on the lake, more like a postage-stamp-sized beach than a bare spot in the forest. Nestled up against the tree line he could see a tiny, one-room building clearly illuminated in the moonlight that glinted off the water and reflected in the glass of a single visible window. It had a brick chimney rising from the roof at the back, a tiny overhang above a single step, and a single door leading into darkness. The door stood slightly ajar, and the place appeared empty, but Logan still felt a surge of alarm when his mate dashed inside and disappeared. Immediately he launched himself after her, crossing the threshold on the heels of the fleet female before him.

The shack appeared just as small on the inside as it had from the outside. The chimney he’d spotted a minute ago led down to a large, open hearth that took up almost the entire back wall. To the right of the door a dry sink and a couple of built-in cabinets lined up beneath the window he’d noticed in his initial summary, and to the left, someone appeared to have built a platform bunk with storage underneath. It looked a bit larger than a single bed, but nowhere near as comfortable as the spacious king-sized one that he’d spotted previously in Honor’s bedroom. That didn’t stop his mate, though. She leaped up onto the mattress, surprising him when no dust cloud rose up around her. Come to think of it, he didn’t notice any other signs of neglect in the little cabin, either. No cobwebs hung in the corners, and the combination of moonlight streaming through the window and his own keen night vision told him the bin in the far corner held enough firewood for at least a full night’s heat. Without his fur, he might appreciate that a bit more.

Nothing else appeared to occupy the cabin. No shapes lurked in the corner, and his nose detected nothing but the sweet, musky smell of his mate. Before the scent could give him ideas, however, he turned back to find his mate completing a final circle and settling down amid a nest of blankets. She glanced at him and yawned, her pink tongue curling lazily, then tucked her muzzle up against her thigh and draped her tail daintily over the tip of her nose.

She looked adorable, like a little stuffed animal, and when she began to blink drowsily, Logan gave up the fight. Nosing the door closed, he waited for the latch to click, then padded the few short steps to the bedside. A quick gathering of muscles had him springing lightly up beside Honor and turning three circles of his own. Instinct, after all, was instinct.

With a mighty yawn and a low snort, Logan made a place for himself in the cloth nest, curling his larger body around Honor’s smaller form and tucking his muzzle affectionately against hers. One last sigh, deep and heartfelt, and he allowed himself to drift into sleep, his mate curled contentedly at his side.

*   *   *

Honor awoke some time later, lying still as memories of the night slowly began to seep back into her consciousness. Her body felt pleasantly tired, as if she’d recently finished a good workout, and for the first time in days, her mind appeared pleasantly blank. She was aware of some kind of dark cloud pushing on the edge of her consciousness, but she ignored it, pushing it aside. She didn’t want darkness right now, only this sweet, sleepy contentment that drifted along on the easy rhythm of her mate’s breathing.

She lay still for a while longer, but eventually, the sharp chill of the cabin began to nag at her. Sure, in her current form her fur and her mate’s shared body heat would keep her from freezing even if the temperature dropped another ten degrees, but the advantage of being a Lupine and not an ordinary wolf was opposable thumbs.

Well, opposable thumbs and matches.

Moving carefully so as not to disturb Logan, Honor slipped from the bed to stand on the cold wooden floor. On the callused pads of her paws the planks felt icy enough, but on the tender soles of her human feet, they made her curse softly. Wrapping her arms around herself to conserve every bit of body heat she could, she crossed quickly to the fireplace and struck a match to the pile of tinder and kindling she always left waiting for her next visit. When she left the shack, her last task would be to lay the beginnings of another fire for next time. It never hurt to be overprepared.

It took only seconds for the fire to catch, and within another ten minutes, she was adding real logs to the merrily crackling flames. Soon, the inside of the shack began to grow warmer, the benefit of her careful attention to the soundness of the structure and the building’s tiny footprint. A twelve-by-twelve room didn’t take much to heat.