Sighing, Honor unwrapped the towel from her head and combed through the mass of curls. She squeezed out all the excess water she could, then left it to dry naturally. Leaving her other towel on the floor in front of the sink for Joey to get later, she turned and padded silently back into her bedroom.
She stood in front of her closet for a long time, just staring blindly at the contents. It seemed like such an effort to reach in and grab a pair of jeans, a snug thermal pullover, a practical button-down shirt. And, sheesh, lacing up a pair of boots…? Just the thought of it exhausted her.
Hm, so maybe this was what burnout felt like?
Too bad she couldn’t afford the luxury.
A force of will had her tugging out an outfit and pulling it on. Whether any part of it matched any other, she neither knew nor cared. She was covered. As long as the law was satisfied, so was she.
Honor made her way down the stairs conscious of the silence surrounding her. The big house felt empty. She couldn’t sense her cousin moving around on one of her cleaning rampages, and her nose told her that her mate was nowhere within these walls. In fact, she smelled no one until she stepped into the kitchen at the same moment that her uncle came in through the back door.
He took one look at her and headed to the coffeepot. Pouring two steaming mugs, he handed one to her and raised the other to his lips.
Honor accepted it and opened the refrigerator for the cream.
“Heard you had a busy morning,” Hamish remarked.
Honor recapped the cream, put it away, and dropped a spoonful of sugar into her mug. A quick stir later, she sipped, nearly sighing with pleasure. Any morning that started without coffee made her want to cry. She hadn’t taken the time for a cup earlier. Now her day could really begin.
“Some kids from town came out here joyriding last night and took down a section of fence,” she said. “Max found it when he was out for a run and came to tell me about it. It took a few hours to get the cows back where they belonged and rig up something to keep them there until we can replace the fence. Of course, trying to dig postholes was bad enough today. It’s going to be a real bitch in a couple of weeks after the materials come in and the ground has had a chance to freeze even more solid.”
“Gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Hamish eyed her. “So why are you standing around here, then?”
Honor blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t you have a few other things on your plate right about now?”
“I thought I’d finish my coffee first, but sure, Uncle Hamish. Just as soon as I’m done I’ll wave my sparkly magic wand and go fix everything. Thanks for the reminder.”
He chuckled, apparently unfazed by the dark look and rude gesture she threw in his direction. “Sweetheart, the day I see you wave a sparkly magic wand is the day I go vegetarian. I wasn’t criticizing. Fact is, I was suggesting that you need to get away and clear your head. The Howl is tomorrow night. If you waste today taking care of a thousand little chores that won’t spell the end of the world if they get missed, you won’t be doing yourself any favors. If you want to come up with a plan, you need to get away from the pack and do some thinking. If it were me, I’d hightail it so deep into the woods, the squirrels couldn’t find me, and then I’d do some thinking.”
Honor deflated like a popped balloon. “I’ve been doing nothing but think for a week now,” she admitted, “and so far it hasn’t gotten me anywhere but right back to where I started. I don’t know if I can figure this thing out, Uncle Ham. I’m not even sure I’ve got the energy to keep trying. Tomorrow night, half my pack is going to try to kill me, and the other half is going to be urging them on, and I don’t have a damned single idea about how I’m going to stop them.”
Hamish stepped forward and wrapped Honor in a hug, the kind of big, encompassing, comforting squeeze she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “That’s why you need to get away, Honor. I have faith in you, little girl, and I have faith that you’re going to figure out a way to beat this, but even if you come up with a plan worthy of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and the Duke of Wellington all rolled into one, it’s not going to do you any good if you drop from exhaustion before you can put it into action. You need rest, you need quiet, and you need the pack to stay the hell away from you for twenty-four hours. You hear me?”
Honor snorted against his chest, but hugged him back briefly and fiercely. “I hear you, old man, and I appreciate the advice. Now are you going to be the one to tell the pack that I ran away from home when they come up here or to the office looking for me?”
“It would serve them right if that was exactly what I told them. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll make sure Max and Joey know. Between the three of us, I’m sure we can put out enough DO NOT DISTURB signs to give you a nice little vacation. Now get out of here.”
Leaving her empty coffee cup in the sink, Honor took a deep breath and gave her uncle a small smile, the first one in days that felt like she meant it. Hell, maybe even in months.
“Thanks, Uncle Hamish. I really do appreciate this.”
Before he could finish telling her to shut up and scoot, Honor was out the back door and halfway into the woods. She knew exactly where she’d go for her little meditation, too. At the far southwestern edge of the pack’s territory, one arm of their miniature lake jutted out into the neighbor’s property, but behind that was an isolated little strip of land with an old shack that her father had never bothered to tear down. He didn’t think anyone would want a cabin out that far, and he’d likely been right, but for Honor it was a little piece of heaven. She’d worked in secret for an entire summer when she was sixteen making sure the roof didn’t leak, the walls were sound, the chimney drew, and the little hideaway held a stock of blankets and first-aid supplies. Every few months, she also replenished it with firewood and bottled water. None of the pack ever went near it, something she could verify by scent, and it was the only place in the clan’s territory where Honor ever felt like she could be herself. Maybe there, her head would clear enough for her to think.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding Honor that she’d missed breakfast, and she’d just walked away from a giant refrigerator filled with lunch possibilities. She never left food at the cabin, since attracting wildlife wouldn’t help keep the place clean and sound, so there was nothing there for her to eat, but she didn’t care. As soon as she got there, she planned to strip off her clothes and go for a nice long run. There would be plenty of game near the shack to satisfy her hunger, but what would really be satisfied was her soul. It might be nice to remember what that felt like.
Thirteen
Logan found himself storming up to his bedroom on Friday evening in a piss-poor mood. Again. It seemed like he’d suffered from piss-poor moods just about every hour that he’d spent among the White Paw Clan, so it didn’t surprise him that he had another one currently digging a pickaxe into the headache brewing behind his eyes.
It didn’t help his mood that he’d seen neither hide nor hair of his erstwhile mate since their altercation yesterday afternoon. Last night, of course, he’d spent half the night roaming around the forest taking his aggression out on bunny rabbits, but Honor had been gone from the house before he woke up in the morning, and he hadn’t run into her even once during the day. His hours furthering his education about the state of the pack had provided him with neither any reassurance as to their state of general organizational health, nor a single mate sighting. He’d wondered if she was deliberately avoiding him, but when he’d asked casually about her, none of the other pack members seemed to have spotted her, either. He heard all about her early-morning foray into fence-building, but she hadn’t turned up all afternoon. He’d even gone back to her office, only to find the small cabin dark and empty. No fresh tracks led up to the door, either. It was as if his mate had vanished.
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.
Hungry Like a Wolf Page 17
