by Mary Hughes
Mason snorted. “Woods paths are nothing but curves.” He chomped the last of his sandwich, brushed off his hands and stood. “Better get back to practicing then. Sounds like you’ll need it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You want false reassurance, go to an iota. Beta’s job is to give you a swift kick in the butt.”
“How about a swift job of the dishes?” She pointed.
“Love to, but you’ll need the space for practice.” He grinned and left.
By the time dusk rolled around she was exhausted, actually a good thing. Too tired to care which leg went where, things naturally fell into place.
Mr. Kibbles, with a strange rumble—a purr?—coming from his throat, head-butted her flank, the animal equivalent of a knuckle bump, and trotted out.
She was also hungry again but didn’t eat. Hungry was good, right? It’d add fire and focus to the hunt. She might even be able to catch something small and furry…kill it…eat it…okay, maybe she’d go out for a cheeseburger after instead.
As the sky darkened, Sophia, tired but somewhat more confident, climbed back into her skin. Scant minutes after sunset, Noah strode into the kitchen.
For a moment all she could see were his golden eyes, the hard planes of his face, the black hair curling around his ears. He was more handsome to her than ever.
He seized her by her upper arms and gazed deep into her eyes. His were filled with concern for her. “You don’t have to do this.”
“What happens if I don’t? Can you do this Challenge Hunt solo?”
His jaw clenched. “I won’t lie to you. It’d be…difficult.”
The growl underscoring “difficult” clued her in that it would be difficult the way brain spasm migraines were “uncomfortable”. “Noah, I’ve been practicing. I’ll do fine. Well, as long as I don’t have to kill…to eat…yeah.”
He blew air. “Let me see you change.”
That part at least was easy. She mentally touched the white enamel wolf and pushed outside her skin. Lolling at Noah, she sat on her wolf butt.
What hit the floor was not just her furred hips but something big and oval and puffy.
Her rump shot up, her feet scrabbling to get under her. She raised her tail and sniffed…damn, was she in heat?
She looked up at Noah and she must have looked shocked even for a wolf.
He looked…wistful. He stroked her head, gently. “You’re as beautiful a wolf as you are a human, Sophia.”
He thought she was beautiful. She needed to kiss him. She retracted into her skin, turning human under his hand. He stepped back as she extended vertically. He must have wanted her with equal need because when she was fully human but still slightly unfocused, he cupped her nape and pulled her in for a gentle but thorough kiss.
Her lips were starting to buzz and her heart to hammer when he stepped back. “If we’re going to do this, it has to be now. Mason, Jayden!”
Two wolves trotted into the kitchen. One was dark gray with tan markings and Mason’s big chocolate eyes. The other was black with black eyes.
The black wolf took a big sniff of the estrogen-filled kitchen and grinned at her.
She grinned back, all teeth. “Fuck you, Jayden.”
The wolf only grinned wider.
“You two.” Noah’s tone was straight-up alpha. He pointed at both wolves, though his eye was on the black. “You will guard Sophia and keep her safe. If she has even a broken toenail at the end of this, I will hurt you badly.”
The Jayden wolf yipped.
“If I’m dead after the hunt, then I’ll come back and haunt you.”
“Dead?” She blinked at him, a sudden tingle of fear running down her middle. “What do you mean, dead? It’s a hunt, not a fight. You can’t die. How could you die?”
Noah filled his lungs with air, pumping his chest huge; he let it out slowly. “Sophia. Sweetheart. In the woods, there’s no safety net.”
“But surely with the whole pack there…?”
He took her face in his hands. “Most of the able adults are off earning a living. Some are at home with young pups. Aside from the four of us and Ivan’s group, it’ll be a few dozen docile females, elderly males and teenage males.”
“Then can’t we hunt…I don’t know, squirrels and rabbits? Smaller things that can’t hurt us?”
“The purpose of a Challenge Hunt is to prove I can feed the pack.” He met her gaze steadily. “So the bigger the better. A deer if we can.”
She swallowed hard. “Don’t deer have those big pokey things on their heads?”
He smiled. “It’s okay. Antlers don’t harden until fall. I’ll aim for the nose or the rump to avoid the worst of the pokes.” His smile disappeared. “Sophia, if we’re doing this—if you’re doing this with me—we have to go now.”
Put that way, she had no choice. She put on her shoes and they went. Noah drove a big SUV, Sophia sitting beside him. If her heart hadn’t been pounding like a tympani, it would have been almost nice. As he drove, she put her phone on vibrate. She didn’t want any distractions.
At the repair shop, Sophia shifted. Almost immediately her gaze found Noah’s.
His expression was pensive. He sighed, unusual in such a self-contained, still man. “You really are quite beautiful, Sophia.”
Her heart swelled.
Then he closed his eyes and…just rearranged. His black hair ran down his body like rapidly laying overlapping roof shingles. His limbs flowed like cream, forward and down. His face extended, ears sliding up.
In scant seconds a huge black wolf stood in his place.
She’d seen his wolf before but that was when her head was cracking open and he was under siege. Now she looked her fill.
He was sleek and muscled, his haunches roped and his chest deep. He stood easily four, four and a half feet at his withers and must have been his full six three from head to hip. Since the average natural wolf stood two to three feet tall and was no longer than five feet, and since the average shifter was only a little larger than that, he towered over them all.
His fur was solid black except for a few dark gray markings on his face and one wolf-shaped blaze on his chest. The gold of his eyes glowed even brighter from within his black mask.
Every hormone in her body exploded. The scent of her estrus was so strong she stopped breathing. Her wolf would have been perfectly happy to jump him right there. Thank goodness for the human in her who knew that, besides having places to go, they had witnesses—and that those witnesses were fully capable of laughing their fool heads off.
Sure enough, when Noah’s first act was to come nuzzle and lick her, behind them was the explosive rasp of a wolfy cough.
Noah shot Jayden a glare. Jayden lolled. Even Mason whuffled, like a muffled laugh. It completely broke the mood.
Noah gave Mason a barked command. Mason managed to stop whuffling long enough to press his snout against a wolf-high spot on the wall, activating an almost invisible door. Noah led the way out. The door closed behind them.
They walked single-file, Noah trotting in the lead with his tail held high, Mason in the cleanup position. They followed a trail cutting through the field abutting the back of the store. It wound its way through tall grass toward a smattering of stunted trees and thistles and shrubs at the edge of the forest.
They entered the woods. Gradually the trees got taller, the trail narrower. Soon the path became little more than a few broken twigs to the naked eye.
But to the nose…Sophia put her head down and snuffled. Scent blazed, shouting that this was an often-used way for the pack. She was traveling through the most amazing odors. Wildflowers and grass, but she also caught the powdery scent of moths and the bitter tang of bugs and whiffs of stuff she hadn’t even known had scents. In her constant nose-turning she tripped a couple times, until Jayden s
niggered. Then she snapped her jaw shut and paid attention to where she was going.
But when they passed a well-marked oak, she nearly turned inside out, caught by the sheer complexity of smell. Stale bitterness was overlaid with a fresh, virile scent she identified as Noah’s. Instinctively she knew this was a signpost for the pack’s sacred territory, marked by their alpha. Other animals came here only at their own risk.
There in the clearing, the pack awaited them—or what was left of it.
Noah had said there’d be the traitorous five plus cowed women, youth and elderly. But Sophia had processed that information with her human brain, not her wolf.
The reek coming off the anti-alphas was abnormally strong. The others smelled tragically less than they should have.
Arcane Animal Husbandry said it was the scent-producing glands on their tails, less in the females and elderly because their tails were tucked. Their bodies and ears slumped even more than the submissiveness of followers would call for.
This was subservience, from abasement and fear.
Her wolf flared with fury. The females, hope of future generations, and the elder wolves, who should have been revered for their age and wisdom, were scared and cowed while those anti-alpha idiots who had strength and not much else were preening and prancing like alphas.
She growled low in her throat.
The low-ranking wolves heard, abuse probably having attuned them to every nuance. Their heads came up, their eyes wide on her, a combination of wolf and human surprise.
One of the idiots finally saw her. Big, dark gray, with mean little eyes and markings like a skull on his chest. Ah yes, Ivan. He said, Who is she?
Well, he hadn’t really said it. But his meaning was clear enough through a combination of posture, ear-flagging, teeth-baring, growling, and sort of mental push on a group wavelength.
Noah snarled. When all attention was on him, he urged Sophia forward with his muzzle to stand before them all. Then he used the gland on the top side of his tail to release pheromones onto her. Arcane Animal Husbandry told her this was standard animal behavior, an alpha identifying that which was his. He’d have done it to every member of his pack when he’d become alpha.
Experiencing it, it seemed less like “behavior” and more like high ritual.
Mason trotted in front of her, tail waving like a royal standard. Hail our queen. He turned to her and bowed over one bent foreleg.
Clyde! A smaller maize-colored wolf danced on delicate paws. You said I’d be queen.
Bonnie was smaller as a wolf than Sophia had expected. She felt statuesque, almost regal in comparison. She stood taller, her tail unfurling and waving slightly.
Bonnie’s ears went straight up and she bared her teeth at Sophia. Sophia didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she did know Bonnie wasn’t happy. Lolz. Sophia’s tail only waved harder.
A cold nose poked Sophia’s rear. She tucked tail and whipped around to confront Ivan. What the fuck, she tried to say, but all that came out was a low growl. Or maybe that was Noah.
Ivan’s back stiffened in surprise. She’s fertile.
She’s our queen, Mason said. Jayden, in a low undertone, added, Dumbshit. Mason continued, Of course she’s fertile.
I’m not fertile. I’m not your queen. Again nothing came out but a low burr from Sophia’s throat, this one closer to a whimper than a growl.
Bonnie caught it. She looked down her nose at Sophia, the long muzzle making her disdain even more effective than a human. Is our queen dumb?
Clyde made a hiccupping growl. A snicker, not as human as Jayden’s but insulting all the same. Ivan joined in, and Killer, then Marlowe following his brother’s lead. Sophia realized belatedly that Attila was nowhere to be smelled.
Enough! Noah braced large on his four paws, his raised coat making him even bigger, and gave them all a golden glare. Let’s get this done.
Let us, oh great king? Ivan’s words were servile but his tone was just short of rude. A true Challenge Hunt belongs to the king and queen alone.
Noah’s eyes narrowed to slits, his lips peeled back to expose gleaming fangs; his low dangerous growl could have flayed the bark off trees. Sophia didn’t need words to get that. He wasn’t happy at all.
Jayden nudged her flank. He’s going to tell them all to stuff it. Somehow he’d found a wavelength apart from the common band, his words clearer than the general mental push. They need him as alpha. Do something. Stop him.
How? The word was as lost in her brain as all the others. She raised her eyebrows and popped her eyes instead. Hopefully the “What do I do, since I can’t speak?” was clear enough.
Meanwhile Noah was barking, This is bullshit. I’m not risking my mate because you’ve got a hard-on for me. I’m abdicat—
“All right, listen up, wolfies!” Sophia shifted to human so fast her hair burned. “Enough arguing, not enough hunting. Let’s get going.” She stalked away, shedding her humanity as she went.
She strode through a stunned silence. Hesitantly, several of the pack made almost reverent bows.
Stars and moon. Apparently quick shifting was a strength indicator to weres.
Then Bonnie yipped. Our queen is blind to the customs as well as dumb. We must howl first, for the good fortune of the hunt.
Sophia bristled and turned to give Bonnie a good glare. If she made that dumb comment one more time she was so getting a rolled-up newspaper whacked across the nose.
Noah growled, ears up and fangs exposed. Sophia readied herself for another quick shift but he only said, Fine. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it.
His voice raised in a strong howl. One by one, the others entered until it was a chorus. It was beyond eerie.
It went on long enough to get on Sophia’s nerves. She waited, voiceless, feeling left out, feeling truly dumb.
But then she thought, hey, they were the ones howling before setting off on a hunt. Didn’t that warn the prey? That was dumber than a sack of hammers.
Enough already. Sophia got off her haunches and set out. The others could follow or not.
Chapter Twenty
The howls died. Sophia smelled wolves trailing her but she refused to look, knowing her authority was already shaky.
Then she caught Bonnie’s peeved push. How the hell does our queen know where she’s going when she’s not a real wolf?
Sophia got a surge of pleasure. Yeah, maybe not a real wolf and not even a hunter, but she was human with a brain and she knew where she was going. She knew where the deer hung out from past summers shining them—a kids-up-north thing.
She headed toward the Big Field.
Or at least where she thought the Big Field was. Some of the landmarks had changed over the years, and others looked different from a few feet lower down. Her strides became tentative.
Each snicker from Ivan goaded her. Each “poor dumb queen” from Bonnie rankled. Sophia started trotting, then running.
When they hit the clearing, Noah caught up to Sophia and ran beside her.
Joy sang through her, the deep, intrinsic pleasure of being alive and of running with her mate and her pack. She lengthened her stride, outdistanced even Noah.
She saw the gray stag first, warily emerging from the far copse. Instinct ripped through her, surging with unholy glee. She rode atop it, veering after the tall, muscular animal. He bolted, but too late. She gained steadily. She was a yard behind the stag when he whirled.
She got a faceful of antlers. Not hardened yet, but the starlight lancing through trees glinted dangerously off twelve very sharp points. She clamped on the brakes, skidding stiff-legged in the turf.
Sophia, no! With a powerful leap, Noah surged over her head. She sucked in a breath. Would he land on the creature’s deadly rack?
At the last minute he tucked his paws into his body, clearing the stag’s crown
with inches to spare, and landed on its withers. He spun, opened powerful jaws and clamped onto its spine. A crunch later, the huge stag fell to its knees. Sophia froze. With a gasp, the stag went onto its side. Its last breath went out of it in a rattle.
The rest of the pack caught up. In the general excitement, Killer edged into the darkest shadows behind Noah, where a dark human shape appeared. Attila?
Something went from human hand to wolf mouth.
Then the pack boiled between Sophia and the stag, and for an instant she couldn’t see Noah or Killer.
Her blood froze. When the pack thinned, Killer had sidled up to Noah. Stray starlight glinted off something clenched in Killer’s teeth.
A blade. She burst with a shot of fear.
Noah, she cried, but still nothing came out. She sprang desperately toward him—just as Killer jabbed his muzzle into Noah’s flank.
Noah’s ears jerked back and he skipped away with a yip.
Sophia landed beside Killer. She snapped at him and snarled. Killer danced back.
A soft whuffle distracted her. Noah’s stiff legs and pulled-back ears said something was very wrong. Immediately she went to him and sniffed his flank, where Killer had jabbed. She got a noseful of deer stench—and hot copper. She whined as blood welled up through his thick black fur and trickled down his coat.
How did this happen? Mason demanded.
Killer said, The stag’s antlers must have stabbed him. If he’d held a knife in his mouth, he’d tossed it away, and Attila had grabbed it up. She didn’t smell it or see it now.
Not antlers, Sophia tried to say, still stupidly mute, so shook her head in a vigorous no. Noah had cleared the buck’s crown like a bird.
No one paid attention.
Shift, Noah, Jayden said. That should heal it.
Noah shifted. It was fast, but Sophia knew how instantly he’d done it before. Worse, he stifled a gasp and pressed a hand to his shirt-covered side. Intense pain crossed his face, suppressed so quickly she almost thought she’d imagined it.
She slid nearer. He lifted his hand barely an inch and stared at it. Blood smeared his palm and darkened his shirt underneath. Only he and Sophia saw it.
