Juli couldn’t handle losing that this month. She needed to remember her father, and to honor him. She needed to find the places in the nearby woods where his scent still lingered.
Aside from that personal concern, practical matters dictated her swearing in be held in human form. By Council law, challenges issued took place on the next full moon. The situation with the pack had grown so volatile that Juli didn’t think challenges to her authority could wait a full month. Holding the event tonight meant any issues would be resolved soon—in two days when the moon finally reached its peak.
Her hands ached, longing to become claws, to resolve these considerations in the only way that truly made sense to her. She pulled her fingers tight against her palm and followed Heather to the center of the rock circle.
The ceremony began with each werewolf in attendance sniffing for Juli’s scent— supposedly to ensure the pack would recognize its new leader. As the Lewistown officials went through the motions, shame flushed through Juli. She felt the emptiness of using stand-ins keenly. This and all the traditional observances that followed had grown up among werewolves over the years as a first step toward bonding a new alpha with the pack. Like many ancient practices, they contained a physical intimacy rarely experienced in modern human society. Participants sank their noses into each other’s hair and stroked the lines of each other’s palms. Performing these actions this way, with werewolves she wasn’t going to lead, transformed what would have been a meaningful ceremony into the sham and mockery it was.
By the time Heather spoke the last set of ritual words, Juli’s face burned and her stomach churned. She could barely provide the proper responses, much less lift her head to look anyone in the eye.
The ceremony concluded, Juli needed to perform her first duty as the pack’s new alpha, namely, sit at the center of the circle to receive visits from members of the pack. Under normal circumstances, this would provide a chance for pack and alpha to get to know each other yet more deeply, without the constraints of ritual dictating what should be said or how long it ought to take. But none of the Lewistown officials came forward to speak with her, of course, since they had no need of her leadership or advice. Juli sat on a smooth, flat river rock, drew her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her shins.
She toyed with the leather ring her father had pushed onto her finger. What would he do in this situation? Was she truly honoring his wishes, or had she already gotten things terribly wrong in her dealings with Neil? She wanted to ask him so many things about the pack and how he thought about them, how he led them. More than anything, she wanted to ask about him. She knew a thousand details about the things he’d liked and what he’d done and said, but now that he’d gone, Juli wasn’t sure if she’d actually known who he was or how he felt. That ignorance mingled with the night’s humiliation to make her feel small, lost, and young, especially while sitting in the middle of the circle that had supposedly lifted her to a new height of authority within the werewolf hierarchy.
Juli fought desperately to hold back tears, not to mention the ever-present shift waiting just below the surface.
Then she caught that scent again, of leather and dirt, wet grass and red thread. No mistaking it this time. Neil. She caught her breath and slowly uncoiled herself. She wanted to greet him with as much confidence as possible. Her gaze scanned the night.
Water sloshed in the river to the left. The top of Neil’s head broke the surface. He rose up and onto the riverbank, dressed in swimming trunks and a soaked T-shirt that clung to every muscle in his torso. She had scented him earlier—he must have been waiting and watching all this time from the other bank of the river. He tossed unruly locks from his eyes and found Juli immediately. He stared right into her.
Juli shivered. The wolf within her wanted to howl, whimper, and moan from the power of his gaze alone. She resisted the urge, needing to hold herself together and receive him as befitted an alpha.
Behind him, others emerged from the water—Sarah Edmond in the front, and then the rest of the pack, one by one. Juli blinked and stared, but held her body tall. Her chin lifted and her eyes fixed on a spot just above Neil’s right shoulder. Looking straight at him seemed impossible, but she’d give up too much power if she allowed her gaze to drop to his feet the way she wanted.
Had they all come to declare their rebellion against the Werewolf Council here and now, at the most embarrassing time possible for Juli? Her heart pounded. She wanted to believe Neil intended something else. Without a clue of how to behave toward him, she turned to ritual for comfort, holding out her fingertips in the gesture proper for an alpha.
Neil strode gracefully ever closer, his steps so careful and elegant that he passed over stones and driftwood without disturbing them, and without the slightest hitch in his stride. If Juli hadn’t held her breath, he would have taken it away. Her nostrils flared and her muscles tensed from resisting the sensations he called forth from her body.
The Lewistown investigators stepped aside to allow Neil to enter the rock circle, though they barred the way for the rest of the pack. Tradition dictated werewolves enter one at a time until they recognized Juli’s position.
Neil approached Juli, his face impossible to read by the dim light of the moon. She continued to hold out her fingers, bracing herself for the possibility that he would slap them aside or otherwise insult her.
Instead, he dropped to all fours before her without hesitation and sniffed Juli’s fingertips. Cold drops of water beaded on his nose, but Juli didn’t care. She nearly choked with emotion as he allowed her to mark him by drawing her fingernails lightly over the skin to either side of his throat. Then he licked at the back of her hand and a different sensation flooded her body. She wanted to fling herself into the mud at his side and lick him right back.
Neil finished the traditional observance, then sat back on his heels. A smile dawned over Juli’s face. She didn’t know what had changed his mind, but he’d come to recognize her and brought the entire pack with him. “Neil,” she began, but before she could say anything else, he held up a hand.
“Let the others come in first. This needs to be done properly.” He rolled gracefully to his feet and took a place along the perimeter of the circle. The Lewistown officials made way for Sarah Edmond next. The older woman repeated Neil’s actions without hesitation. Juli could not have said whether the awe that filled her chest as the ceremony continued came from the pack’s recognition or from the knowledge that Neil had led them here.
When all twenty-three members of the pack had paid respects and gone to stand with the Lewistown officials along the edges of the circle, Juli resumed her seated position on the flat rock at its center. She didn’t know why they hadn’t come in time for the official ceremony, but she didn’t need to make an issue of that. They had come, and now that they had accepted each other as pack and alpha, Juli could get about the business of serving them as befitted a good leader.
To start, she knew to give credit where credit was due. She smiled at Neil and motioned him forward. But her pleased, magnanimous mood slipped when he stopped out of range of personal conversation and turned to face away from her. Whatever he had to say, he planned to say it to the pack, not to her.
“Let it be known that I challenge Juli Gunby for the position of pack alpha, and request the contest be held on the night of the full moon, two days from now, at a mutually agreed location.”
Juli’s jaw slackened. Plenty of times during the investigation, she’d goaded Neil to challenge her this way if he didn’t like the idea of her as alpha. It was better for the pack that he’d finally decided to fight her through this tradition, rather than through an appeal to the Council. Now that the moment had come, however, it felt like the bottom had dropped out of her stomach.
She’d been happy to talk tough to Neil, but staring at his broad back while he spoke the formal, ancient words of his challenge, she remembered just how big he was as a wolf. In human form, she nearly matched him,
but when Juli shifted, she changed into a surprisingly small, ruddy little thing, almost as though she took after her father as a human, but her lithe, petite mother as a werewolf. Her father had made her fight him in play on full-moon nights more than once, but Juli had never fought a true, fully shifted battle. Neil had successfully defended her father from challenges from all directions for years. She possessed no resources for this, and no helpful experience.
She’d been so caught up battling with him and thinking about her father’s wishes that she’d forgotten to consider her own skills, and her own ability to deal with challenges that might arise. On some level, Juli supposed, she’d always believed Neil would come around. How could he not, after what happened between them that night in Dragon Hollow? With Neil at her side as beta, she would have been confident in facing any challenge that could be brought, by Jesse Hoak or otherwise. Against Neil, without Neil’s support—it made her feel more lost than she wanted to admit.
Still, when Neil turned back to Juli and it was her turn to speak ritual words, she had no choice but to accept. Honor demanded it. She could not refuse or wriggle away mere moments after swearing to bear the first responsibility for the defense of the pack.
She and Neil stepped closer and closer until they stood toe to toe. Her breath heaved and her body came alive as her nerves twitched with the memory of his touch. She needed to focus on the challenge at hand, on the prospect of fighting him, but her skin burned for an entirely different reason, hot and sensitive in response to his proximity.
Juli wanted to collapse against his chest, to breathe his breath, but she could not. She would not prove herself as weak as he considered her to be. Lifting her chin, she looked up into Neil’s pale brown eyes. “We will meet again at the full moon, in two days’ time,” she promised, speaking to the pack at large as much as to the man before her.
A faint smile ghosted over his face. “We’ll meet at home tomorrow night at eight, then go out to scout locations,” he said. Juli heard nothing else that night.
Chapter Eight
Neil sat in the living room waiting for Juli. He could still smell that witch from Lewistown all over the upholstery. He hoped that whatever happened, Juli wouldn’t go back there. If Heather Compton served as an example of the consummate product of the Werewolf Council’s policies, Juli would be wise to stay far away.
He heard her truck pull up outside the house, then smelled the woman herself a moment later. Sarah Edmond’s words banged around within him. All that talk of mating and instinct had gotten into his blood, it seemed. His inner wolf surged to the surface the moment he even thought of Juli’s name lately, and her scent caused even more of a reaction.
She came closer and opened the door, and it hit him full out. He could not close himself off from his awareness of Juli. Fur rose from his skin, and the wild parts of him demanded release. Neil took a deep breath and tried to coexist with it. What if Sarah Edmond had been right? If all this were natural? The idea gave him relief. He felt strangely relaxed as Juli entered the room, despite his total and undeniable arousal.
Juli gave a short, stiff nod by way of greeting. She stayed near the doorway, as if afraid to get closer to him. He wondered if she could feel him the way he could her. Her body sang to his. He vibrated with it.
“How was your day?” Neil asked, his face heating when his voice cracked into a growl.
Her forehead creased in concern. “Are you doing okay, Neil?”
He knew what she meant. She wanted to know how well he would control himself. He couldn’t speak for the urges spilling out of him, but he could answer the truly important question. “I’m not going to shift and fight you until the proper time tomorrow night, Juli. The rest is... personal.”
She nodded, wincing with sympathy. “It’s still coming over me at odd moments. I guess a lot of it has to do with my father, but some of it...” She trailed off and avoided his eyes. “I think some of it’s about something else.”
He recalled Sarah Edmond’s claim that two werewolves about to mate normally experienced this effect, and wondered if the old woman had spoken to Juli the same way she had to him.
A shake of his head failed to clear his mind. If he didn’t get his mind off mating, he’d never be able to get in the truck with her, let alone make it through scouting for challenge locations. “How’s the job search going?”
“Great. Dr. LaMont recommended an office that can use me.”
“That was nice of him.”
“He said he’d do the same for any member of the pack.”
With that, all that hung between them rose to the surface again. “So you’re really not going back to Lewistown,” Neil said. Wild hope pumped through his heart, disrupting his equilibrium again.
“I’m not going to lose, Neil.” Juli’s voice came out quiet, but extremely determined.
He blinked, uncertain of how to ask more about her intentions without offending her again and making things worse between them. To cover his confusion, Neil hauled himself to his feet. “My truck or yours?”
“No offense, but I think mine’s a little more reliable.”
He winced, but nodded. As soon as he followed her out to her truck, he realized what a terrible mistake he’d made letting her choose. He hadn’t been in her truck before, and so he hadn’t realized how much every piece of it would smell like her. The earthy scent of her embraced him as he took his seat, warm and inviting and guaranteed to drive him absolutely mad. He rolled his window down as soon as she started the car and prayed he could hold on to his sanity.
“Where to?” Juli asked.
“Let’s start at the head of the Kim Williams trail.”
“Isn’t that paved?”
“It gets wilder when you get farther out. They’ve seen mountain lions out there.”
She smirked. “I guess that’s badass enough for us then.”
A heavy silence rose between them as she drove. Finally, Juli cleared her throat. “Neil, I’m glad you decided to challenge me the traditional way.”
“If the Lewistown investigators had quoted one more regulation at me, they’d have had to force-feed me lycanthropy suppressants. Nothing short of that would have stopped the shift.”
She grinned, then admitted, “I was right there with you.”
Surprised, he peered at her. “I assumed you were used to it, after working with them and all.”
She shrugged. Her eyes remained fixed on the road, making it too easy for him to stare at the curve of her neck and slope of her jaw, both strong and graceful. “Forensics is different. You have to be precise, but it’s for a clear reason. There’s a way that getting your lab work done right is like sinking your teeth into something just the right way. It doesn’t feel like the life is being regulated out of you.”
“How did you talk to any of them?”
Her voice turned sheepish. “I really didn’t. Let me put it this way. People will notice my lab bench is open, and my landlord is going to need to find someone else to pay rent for the apartment I was living in. Other than that, there isn’t anyone who’s even going to notice I’ve moved back home.”
“Sounds lonely.”
Juli shrugged. “It was.”
“Why didn’t you come home sooner?”
“Do we have to keep going over this?”
“Yes, because I still don’t understand.”
She rubbed the corner of her eye. “I felt like I didn’t have a place here. Sure, Daddy called and asked me to visit, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted with me. Were we going to clean something together? He was an awesome dad when I was a little girl, really fun, and always taking me with him on errands. He made me feel important, like I was the sidekick to all of his alpha stuff. And he always had time to stop for a hot dog. Then, after my mother got political and left, he sort of fell apart for a while. I guess he needed a sidekick who could actually help him lead the pack, and that wasn’t his little girl.” She glanced over at Neil quickly, but it happened too fast f
or him to catch her eye. “You really helped him, Neil, and I was happy about that. I just didn’t know where to stand anymore, once you were always at his side.”
A pang burst through Neil. Darrow Gunby had been a mentor, but he’d never intended to gain a father figure at someone else’s expense. “Juli, I didn’t—”
“I’m not finished.” She took a deep breath. “There was also you. After you said you weren’t interested in me... I couldn’t see how I would ever move on if you were there in front of me every day. I had to get away, or I’d have embarrassed myself moping and mooning.”
“When you never spoke to me again, I assumed whatever you felt about me hadn’t lasted very long.”
She gave a little laugh. “Don’t I wish.”
Neil’s entire body came alive. “You’re saying you still have feelings.”
“I thought I made my feelings pretty clear at Dragon Hollow. Both times.”
“Juli—” He wanted to ask her to pull over. Right then, he didn’t care if he shifted the moment he touched her. He needed her far too much to wait for any reason.
“You’re challenging me tomorrow. Remember? I think these questions should probably wait until we see how that works out. Otherwise, we’ll just fight about it some more.”
She sounded cool, but he saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest. If she felt the way he did, Neil wondered how she could resist at all. Her fingers drummed on her steering wheel. The sexually charged silence between them obviously made her uncomfortable.
“Let’s focus on finding where to hold this challenge, Neil. Please.”
“Of course. We’ll do that first.”
“No, not first. That’s what we’re doing tonight. Nothing else. I can’t handle another incident where you remind me how you feel.”
The bitter tone of her voice pulled him up short. Had he ever made it clear how he felt about her, even to himself? In Neil’s mind, Juli inspired an alluring sequence of desires and fantasies. Plenty were sexual, but he sometimes imagined how it would be to spend his life with her, the way Will Edmond had done with Sarah.
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