Ironically enough, that wasn’t a sexist comment. If any of the parties involved had been human it would have constituted cause for a new feminist revolution, but when it came to Lupines, it all boiled down to physiology. Lupine males had evolved to be physiologically stronger than females, by a pretty hefty margin. There was no such thing as a fair fight between the Lupine sexes.
“All right. So what’s the situation right now?”
“Tate was supposed to be buried this morning, and according to the daughter, there were already two male pack members making noises about a challenge. One sounds like he’s just a cub, but the other one might bear watching. His name is Darin Major, and apparently he bucked for the beta job before Tate appointed his daughter. History’s only going to make things messier.”
Logan growled a little at the thought of the males calling a young female beta to an alpha challenge. There were just some things a Lupine didn’t do. Which was why females rarely became pack alpha or beta. Females mated with alphas and betas; they didn’t become them. “You want me to make sure the challengers let her live?”
Graham shook his head. “Noises aren’t the same thing as actual challenges. What I need you to do is go up to the clan center and assess the situation. Tate’s already been gone a couple of days, and if they buried him this morning, it may already be a moot point. As soon as he’s in the ground, the laws state that it’s open season on his job. The pack may already have a new alpha. But if the girl is still alive when you get up there, the situation gets a whole lot more interesting. I won’t take the pack away from an alpha that can do the job, no matter what is or isn’t between her legs. But if she can’t hold her pack, I need to know. White Paw is too close for me to let just any wolf take it over. I need someone stable and trustworthy heading that pack. If it’s not a Tate, I want an open challenge, and I’d have to oversee that myself to make sure the pack gets what it needs.”
“Is that what the girl asked for? For you to guarantee a clean challenge?”
“Not exactly.” Graham paused. “She asked for me to formally acknowledge her succession to alpha.”
Logan couldn’t help the eyebrow that shot up at that. “Does she think you saying, ‘Go for it, princess,’ would be enough to keep the challengers away?”
“It might scare off the weaker ones, and it surely couldn’t hurt. Having the backing of the regional alpha makes her a strong candidate to lead a local pack,” Graham pointed out, not with arrogance, but with the cool acknowledgment of the way the world worked. He was the highest-ranking alpha in the northeastern quadrant of the United States. He was stronger than almost every Lupine Logan had ever met. That was just the way things were.
But you’re just as strong, the voice in Logan’s hindbrain whispered. You could rule a region just as well as Winters.
Logan clenched his jaw and slammed a lid on the voice. Now was not the time. Now Graham was handing him a distraction on a silver platter, and damn if he wouldn’t grab that sucker like a lifeline and tow himself all the way back to sanity. Maybe someone else’s struggle for rank in her pack would keep him from worrying about his own need to lead.
“For how long?” Logan asked. “Even with your backing, it would take a female version of Genghis Khan to keep the title for more than a few months.”
“I know. Hell, every Lupine on earth knows that. True female alphas come along as often as three-headed wolves.” Graham shook his head. “I don’t want to see a female in alpha challenge, not when it could be prevented. I checked the records. It hasn’t happened in almost two hundred years for a damned good reason. The last woman who took a challenge ended up gang-raped and confined to her bed for nearly a month before she could even stand upright again. And she was widely acknowledged as the strongest female in five generations.” The snarl that passed over Graham’s face at that thought would have scared most people half to death. It just reminded Logan of why he considered this man his brother. “Tate’s daughter can’t be more than twenty-four or so, and I’ve never heard anyone but her own father mention her name. The chances that she’s strong enough to be alpha are slim to none. She’ll be like a rabbit in the lion’s den. If I can keep that from happening, I will. Or rather, you will.”
“Damn right.” Logan growled again and finally glanced down at the printed e-mail in his hand. “Provided someone hasn’t killed her already.”
“Right. Provided that.”
“So, if the girl is still alive, you also want me to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble while I scope out who’s likely to take Tate’s place?”
“Yeah.” Graham’s grim expression said he didn’t hold out much hope. But then again, neither did Logan. “And either way, I want you to keep an eye on the pack until the matter’s settled.”
Something about Graham’s tone made Logan look up and meet the other man’s gaze. He felt his mouth quirk in a reluctant smile. “What you want is to get me the hell out of your hair until I calm down, brother.”
“There is that.” Graham’s expression turned rueful. “Look, I don’t know how this is all going to play out, brother, but I’m hoping a week or two in the country will give you the space to settle your damned nerves or something. ’Cause you’re starting to get on mine.”
Logan clenched his teeth, drew a deep breath, and blew it out through his nose. “Hell, I’m starting to get on my own nerves. I don’t blame you for making me go stand in the corner.”
“It’s not like that. You’re the one I want handling this for me. Period. That would be true even if you were acting perfectly normal.”
“But I’m not.”
Graham didn’t answer, and Logan flipped him an obscene gesture on his way out the door. Just because Graham was right, didn’t mean Logan couldn’t call him a dick.
Two
Honor Tate bolted through the front door of her home and straight into the bathroom. There, she proceeded to throw up her breakfast, her lunch, and several of her internal organs. It didn’t help. The taste of blood in her mouth was strong and metallic. It should have been familiar. Instead, it was sickening—sweet and sticky—and it coated her tongue in a thick, persistent layer like an oil slick.
She clutched the rim of the toilet bowl and heaved again, so violently she almost missed the sound of footsteps padding across the wooden floor of the big cabin’s great room.
“Honor? Honor, are you okay?”
She bit back a moan, her fingers clenching, as another dizzy wave of nausea swept through her. Her cousin’s voice sounded as soft and concerned as always, and it was the next to last thing she felt like dealing with right now. She spat into the toilet, trying to rid herself of the taste of blood and bile.
“I’m fine, Joey.” As fine as a Lupine could be after chewing off the hand of one of her oldest friends and pretending to enjoy it. “I just wanted to wash off some of this grime.”
There was a pause, then she heard a soft question. “Why don’t you go upstairs, then? Take a proper shower? I can make you some dinner and bring you up a tray.”
The word “dinner” set her stomach racing toward the back of her throat, and she quickly shoved on the faucet full blast to mask the sound of more retching. Trembling violently, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and forced her voice to sound steady as a rock and calm as Sunday church. “Well, I was going to finish up delivering this week’s wood to the cabins on the lumber road…”
She let her voice trail off and crossed her fingers that her tenderhearted cousin Josephine would reply as she hoped.
“Don’t be silly. You’ve done enough today.” Joey’s voice sounded firm and soothing, and made Honor’s shoulders sag in relief. “Michael can finish the deliveries. You should take a shower and relax this evening. Or if you have to, work on the books. But stay in and get some rest. It’s been … a difficult few days.”
Honor stifled a laugh and flushed the toilet, grabbing a neatly folded towel from the bar beside the sink. A difficult few days? Why? Just because her previousl
y healthy, arrogant, indestructible father had died, she had inherited his position as alpha over the White Paw Lupine pack, and had fought three alpha challenges in the same number of days? Pshaw.
She cupped her hand to her mouth and rinsed away the last taste of bile. Then she wet one end of the towel and used it to wipe her pale, chalky face. Damn it, she looked like hell, and that was not the sort of face she could let anyone in the pack see. Not even Joey. If Honor was going to assume the title of alpha, she would need to act like an alpha at all times. Even when she felt more like a sniveling, whimpering puppy.
Even when she felt like crying.
Stuffing down those very dangerous thoughts, she draped the towel around her neck and used one hand to hold it to her face as if she were cleaning up, then reached for the doorknob with the other. One deep breath later, she stepped out into the great room with a false smile and the towel half concealing her face.
Joey stood just beside the door, her hands clasped nervously together, her brow wrinkled in concern. “I’m sorry it was Paul,” she said in that soft, come-down-from-the-ledge voice she thought was soothing. “I know how close you two always were.”
“Don’t be.” Honor forced her voice to sound casual as she turned and headed for the stairway. “If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. That’s just the way it goes.” As soon as she had her back to Joey, she let the towel drop and reached for the banister instead. She made a point to barely touch it rather than to clutch and lean against it the way she wanted to as she walked up to the second floor. “Go ahead and tell Michael to finish the wood deliveries. I’m going to go take that shower. Send up a tray whenever it’s ready.”
Her steps remained brisk and measured all the way down the hall to the master suite and did not vary until the door closed securely behind her. Then she leaned back against it, squeezed her eyes shut, and willed herself not to cry. Pallor she could handle with a little makeup, but red, puffy, bloodshot eyes would take a lot more effort to conceal than she felt capable of just now.
“Damn you, Dad.”
The curse had somehow become her mantra over the past three days. Damn him for dying, damn him for leaving her his business, his pack, and his problems all in one fell swoop, and damn him again just on general principle. The bastard deserved every extra second he spent in whatever passed for hell these days.
Pushing away from the door, Honor paused for a few seconds, swaying gently with the rush of fatigue and nerves that seemed to plague her constantly now. She could barely remember what it felt like to relax. And to think the fun of leading the pack was just beginning.
Wheeeeeeeeee!
She padded across the floor toward the bathroom, thinking that right now a shower sounded better than sex or chocolate. Or sex involving chocolate. The smell of blood and sweat and soil lingered on her skin and clothes, and she was pretty sure she carried enough small twigs and dried leaves in her hair for a decent fire. She doubted the ability of soap and hot water to make her feel clean, but at least it could get rid of the surface detritus.
Ignoring the cavernous room, looking even bigger now that it had been denuded of all her father’s personal possessions and the stamp of his decidedly masculine taste, she pushed into the bath and flipped on the lights. She turned on the shower and let the water heat while she stripped. Her clothes landed in the wastebasket rather than the hamper. She’d never be able to bring herself to wear them again, so why bother scrubbing out the stains?
When she stepped under the stinging spray, she hissed at the scalding temperature and felt her skin immediately heat to a rosy glow. She kept her eyes squeezed shut as the water sluiced off the worst of the blood and dirt, not wanting to see the water turn as pink as her skin as it circled down the drain. The steel fence she had erected to cage in the memories of this afternoon still had a few weak spots, and she couldn’t afford to encourage any escaping thoughts.
She lingered in the shower, scrubbing herself from head to toe with a loofah three times before she could stand the feel of her own skin. That’s when she opened her eyes and reached for the conditioner. She applied it liberally to the mess of knots and debris that passed for her hair and let the thick liquid ease everything free. When she couldn’t feel any more pieces of bark or clumps of mud, she rinsed and applied a generous handful of shampoo. She lathered, rinsed, and even repeated it twice before she could make herself stop. Then she conditioned again and turned off the shower.
Hesitating for a long moment on the bath mat, dripping water onto the porous rectangle, she contemplated grabbing a towel, but found herself heading for the bathtub instead. She still didn’t feel really clean, but the shower had done the best it could. Time to give the big Jacuzzi and her least favorite scented bath salts a shot.
She set the tub to fill, grateful for her father’s ridiculously large water heater, and wrapped a towel around her hair before dumping two huge handfuls of subtly spicy-floral salts into the tub and turning on the jets. She slipped in before the tub was full, leaning back against its sloped side, and left the water running until she was submerged up to her chin. Eventually, she used her foot to turn off the water and let the rumble of the jets lull her into a half-trance.
That was her first big mistake. As soon as her body began to relax from the pounding streams of water around her, her mind began to wander. And, of course, it went directly to the places she didn’t want it to go.
Damn Paul Clarke, anyway. Why had he needed to play the big man with her? Why now, just two days after she’d lowered her only surviving parent into a cold, dark grave? They’d been friends since they were whelped, for God’s sake. They’d spent their childhoods playing fetch and chase together, their teen years learning to hunt side by side. They’d even brought down their first deer together. She’d considered him a friend. So why the hell had he chosen today to challenge her for the leadership of the pack they both loved? What the hell had he been thinking?
That he could win.
The thought echoed in her head, mocking her with the simple fact that it was completely true. That was exactly why Paul had challenged her now, when stress clouded her thinking and grief slowed her reaction times. As the beta, second-in-command of her father’s pack, and a young Lupine in her prime, Honor should logically have been too much for him to take on. But as an unprepared and insecure new alpha—as a female alpha without any sort of extraordinary power—she had been ripe for a challenge. Three of them, as a matter of fact, so the one coming from Paul never should have surprised her.
But it did. It shocked her to her toes. She hadn’t known what to do at first. Not until it became clear that even if she didn’t want to take the challenge seriously, that’s exactly how he had meant it.
Deadly serious.
He had gone for her throat, and as tough and strong as Honor was, she couldn’t underestimate a male Lupine who outweighed her by a good fifty pounds and had several inches on her in reach. Her father had taught her that every challenge needed to be dealt with swiftly and decisively, and he had made sure she knew enough to make her moves count. If she couldn’t compete with strength and size, she could use speed and treachery and use them well. Her father had pounded that into her until it became instinct. He had preferred the traditional end to a challenge—death—something Honor hadn’t been able to do. She had held back at the last minute and taken Paul’s hand instead.
She hadn’t wanted to. She’d tried stopping at a pin, as she had with the first challenger, but as soon as she let up, Paul had attacked again. So she’d hamstringed him, thinking if he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t fight. But still he had come for her, launching himself toward her throat with his good hind leg, and suddenly there hadn’t been any other choice. It was his hand or his throat, and Honor had chosen his hand. He wouldn’t thank her for it, but at least her conscience would survive for another day.
She laughed at herself, not with humor so much as disbelief. Like she could afford a conscience. That item now counte
d as a luxury in her life. It would until the challenges stopped, and she knew exactly when that would happen.
When she died.
Or when the Silverback alpha came to Connecticut and formally acknowledged her as the White Paw alpha.
Right. I predict that will happen on the third Tuesday after he also names me High Queen of the Oompa Loompas.
Honor sighed again and reached up to turn the jets to a lower setting, no longer quite in the mood to be battered. At first, she had thought sending that letter to Graham Winters was the solution to her problems. The alpha of Manhattan’s legendary Silverback Clan commanded respect from just about every Lupine east of the Mississippi River, and, she suspected, from a few of those out West, too. She had only met him once, when she was nine, but she remembered him vividly. He’d been a handsome young man then, only a decade or so older than her, but worlds apart. He had known his place as alpha and lord over the Northeastern Clans. She’d heard he had a good heart, as well, and recently, rumors of his marriage to a human had circulated into her pack’s little corner of Connecticut. They said the regional alpha had a son now, another Winters cub to lead the Silverback Clan into the future.
Good thing someone’s future was secure.
Honor made a face and turned the tap with her toes to let more hot water flow into the tub. The temperature had dropped below scalding while she brooded over Paul. If she made a habit of this, she’d need to get a second job just to pay her water bills. The way things looked, Paul wouldn’t be the last childhood friend to try their luck against the new, female alpha. Not unless the Silverback Clan finally got around to answering its frickin’ e-mail.
She growled.
“Honor? Are you okay in there?”
Argh. What spawn of Hades gave Joey her sense of timing?
“I’m fine,” she called out. “Just enjoying a soak.”
“Oh.” A pause. “I brought you a supper tray. I made venison stew. And biscuits.”
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