Maloni hit her next. He slammed into her like a professional wrestler, knocking her to the earth and attempting to pin her beneath him. Allowing him to do so would doom her.
Honor squirmed like a freshly caught eel and managed to swing her back end free, giving herself the advantage of leverage. She shook hard and fast, while her rear paws dug into the earth and provided her with something solid to work against. The shaking kept Maloni from getting a good grip on the back of her neck, and bracing her back end meant that the minute he drew back to change his angle of attack, she was able to thrust herself to the side, out of his grasp.
He didn’t let go easily, however. He lashed out with a large paw and caught her on the side of the head.
For a minute, her ear rang on that side, and she stumbled, temporarily off balance. Her eye stung, and when she shook her head, a drop of blood clouded her vision. Maloni’s claws had been out. Honor might as well have engraved an invitation to the others.
Scott sprang forward, growling and snapping, a blur of motion and showy threats. He darted in, then retreated; danced to the side, and leaped forward again. He was trying to herd her. Honor knew what that meant.
She gathered her legs beneath her and jumped, carrying herself over Scott’s head just as she felt the rush of energy attacking from the rear.
Darin missed, his howl of rage echoing through the clearing, but Honor had bigger things to worry about. She had reduced her number of attackers from four to three, which was good for her, but she’d been clumsy, and she’d let herself be injured. Neither the slash on her shoulder or the claw mark on the side of her face was serious, but every wound weakened her, something she couldn’t afford while she remained outnumbered.
She had to be careful.
She knew her chances of living through this weren’t great, but she’d be damned if she didn’t take at least one more of them with her.
* * *
Logan had known what that sound meant the instant he heard it. He’d slept the day away while his mate’s pack prepared to slaughter her. The Howl had begun.
He raced through the forest at top speed, ignoring the insistent pain in his left shoulder. He knew he couldn’t cover ground as fast as he normally did, but he also knew the wound would already have begun to heal the minute he shifted. Now, it just had to hold up and help him reach his mate.
The sounds drifting toward him from the direction of the stone yard only served to confirm what that first group of howls had told him; the males had called for an Alpha Mating Rite. Honor currently faced at least three males intent on beating her into submission, raping her, and holding her captive for the rest of her life.
Logan would burn down this entire forest before he allowed that to happen.
He didn’t know these woods as well as a native, but the sounds of the battle currently being waged in the stone yard allowed him to ignore the trails and paths he occasionally crossed and move through the trees straight toward the ruckus. He didn’t have to waste time trying to remember the way, because the sound of his mate fighting for her life guided him like a satellite readout exactly where he needed to go.
He knew he was getting close to the stone yard not just from the volume of the battle sounds, but because he could begin to see the glow of firelight illuminating the space between the tree trunks. When he could finally see into the clearing of the ceremonial meeting place, his instincts urged him not to hesitate. His wolf smelled blood, some of it his mate’s blood, and it wanted death.
The man inside him, however, hauled hard on the reins of his self-control and urged him to assess the situation. The scent of Honor’s blood nearly disappeared under a much larger volume belonging to someone else. His mate might be injured, but it didn’t smell like it was serious. Someone else smelled like he was dead.
A surge of pride rushed through him, and Logan paused, hidden in the underbrush, to catch his breath. He could see into the clearing from here, and while tree trunks and branches obscured some of the view, he could make out enough to know that the situation looked just as he’d feared. His mate was surrounded by three much larger males and was holding them off like a modern-day Boadicea.
Then she maneuvered to the side and he caught a glimpse of the bloody wound on her shoulder. His control nearly snapped like a cheap pencil. Only the sight of a bloody lump of fur and flesh lying still a few feet away from her kept him sane. He hoped that was the asshole who had dared to lay a finger on Logan’s mate. That made four initial challengers, and Honor had already killed one.
That’s my girl.
His girl circled her attackers warily. She tried to keep all of them in sight, but with three against one, it was too easy for them to split up and divide her focus. While he watched, the gray one began to harry her, like a terrier with a rat, distracting her from the blond wolf behind her, who was preparing to pounce.
Before he could move, Honor detected the trap and sprang forward, which the gray wolf had not been expecting. She soared over his head, evading the blond’s attack and making him howl with rage. He and a wolf with dark, sooty fur converged on her like buzzards.
Logan had seen enough.
Damn the rules and damn tradition and damn the male chauvinists who had made them. That was Logan’s mate, and he would not stand by and watch her be destroyed.
He burst through the trees in a dark blur of motion, headed straight toward the closest of Honor’s challengers, the gray male she’d left behind, confused. Logan had the element of surprise on his side, and within a fraction of a second, he also had the back of the gray wolf’s neck between his teeth. Biting down powerfully and shaking like a wet dog, he broke the male’s neck with a snap and an echoing growl.
There went the element of surprise.
Actually, it accomplished one more thing; it drew the attention of every single Lupine in the clearing, including Honor’s two attackers. She used their distraction to dodge their concerted attack and put some distance between them.
Logan moved immediately to her side and nuzzled her gently. She answered his whine with a quick swipe of her tongue. She had bled, but her wounds weren’t serious. She would be fine.
But the battle wasn’t over.
A few feet away, the blond wolf began to twitch and grunt, a prelude to him rising on his back legs, growing four and a half feet, and taking the shape of the wolf-man of Hollywood legend. He had shifted into his were form, one that provided him with the basic, guttural power of speech.
“Violator!” the werewolf roared, his voice broken and rasping and unnatural to all but a Lupine ear. “No one but a challenger may enter the battle. Who is this interloper?”
Behind the blond, the other male began to shift as well, taking on the towering seven-foot musculature of a mature werewolf. Logan responded to the threatening gesture in kind. The bullet wound in his shoulder protested loudly, but he ignored it.
“She is my mate,” he snarled, the words hard to form with his face still bearing a pointed muzzle not designed for speech. “Touch her again and die.”
The darker male leaned forward and sniffed. “Silverback! You are no part of this pack. You have no rights here. Leave, or you will be slaughtered like a common trespasser.”
At his side, Honor shifted as well. Maybe she had been feeling left out? Now they all wore their were forms.
“If you attempt to harm my mate, I will tear out your throat, just like I tore out little Greggie’s,” she growled, her lip curling in contempt. “What’s wrong, Richard? Are you not such a big, bad wolf when the odds even out?”
The four of them faced off for a long, tense moment, waiting to see who would make the first move, but it was Hamish’s voice that broke the silence.
“Richard Maloni is correct,” the elder called out from his place atop the oak stump platform. “Only a member of the pack may participate in the Alpha Mating Rite. You have no authority here, Logan Hunter. You must step aside and allow the Rite to continue.”
Logan turned
on Hamish with a howl of rage. “I won’t stand by while another male attempts to claim my mate. She is mine!”
Shocked whispers began to rumble through the assembled pack members. Until that moment, they had remained still and silent while they watched the battle rage.
“As beta of the Silverback Clan, you should know that only a member of the pack in question can claim an unmated female alpha.”
“Then I renounce my ties to the Silverback alpha and petition for entry into the White Paw Clan.”
“He can’t do that,” Richard said, his rumbling were voice managing something like triumph. “No lone wolves can join the pack until the matter of the alpha has been settled.”
Honor gave a low growl. “Then let’s settle it,” she said, and took the dark male werewolf to the ground.
* * *
Chaos erupted.
The pack, seemingly jolted awake by the news that Honor had mated the inquisitive intruder from the Silverback Clan, now exploded in a cacophony of screams, shouts, and howls, none of which penetrated the fury clouding Honor’s mind. Fighting for her life had been one thing, but now that her mate’s life had been threatened—for the second time in twenty-four hours—Honor knew that threat had to die, and die quickly.
Her move had caught Maloni totally off guard. The battle had stopped for the discussion as if someone had hit the pause button, but he knew the rules just as well as Honor did—there were no breaks in a Mating Rite. Her attack might have been sneaky, but it was in no way illegal. Maloni should have kept his guard up.
She knew the surprise wouldn’t keep him down for long, so she had to make this fast. Even while she was moving through the air, she was lifting her legs so that she impacted him first with her heels against his chest. At the same time, she bent forward and grasped his head between her hands. Using his own momentum against him, she twisted her upper body hard to the side just before they hit the ground. She rolled away just after the sound of the second neck of the night snapping in two filled the clearing.
Honor staggered a little as she got to her feet. She had taken out the third challenger, but she had landed on her injured shoulder, tearing open what the shift to her were form had begun to heal and nearly wrenching the joint out of its socket. She was nearing the end of her strength, but only one challenger remained, and her mate had entered the fray and vowed to protect her. Maybe she really would live through the night.
She knew that Logan would do everything he could to protect her, no matter what the rules of the Mating Rite said. When he had claimed her as his mate, he had made a commitment to her, she realized, and he would honor that before everything else. If he had to tear her pack down to its foundations, he would do it in order to keep her safe. And Logan could do it, too. He was the strongest Lupine that Honor had ever met.
While the pack shifted and murmured around the edge of the clearing, Honor drew her shoulders back and began making her way to her mate’s side. She had started out this night determined to become alpha of the White Paw Clan, but it had just occurred to her that maybe she could become something even better, provided her mate agreed with her plan.
“Cheater!” Darin’s whining accusation interrupted her train of thought. “She attacked another wolf during his weakest moment. She had no honor! I demand an Alpha Challenge, here and now!”
Oh, come on, Honor thought. Was this guy serious?
Hamish shook his head. “You already called for an Alpha Mating Rite, Darin Major. You cannot have both. You can either finish what you have started, or you can show your belly to the female and acknowledge her as your alpha.”
“Actually, I believe that’s my decision,” a new voice said as a tall male figure stepped out of the forest and into the glow of the bonfire light. He had thick, dark hair, a frankly impressive physique, and absolutely no clothes on. The last bit was what marked him as Lupine.
Or a nudist, but in this neck of the woods in the middle of the winter, which sounded more likely?
“Graham!”
Logan said the name as if he’d just been punched in the stomach, which was about how Honor felt when she realized that the stranger in their midst was none other than the alpha of the Silverback Clan.
Logan quickly shifted back into his human form, and Honor followed suit. Into her birthday suit.
“What are you doing here?” Logan asked.
Graham Winters looked at his beta and curled his lip. “Three days. Three days of unreturned phone calls and unanswered voice mails, and you ask me what I’m doing here? I’m checking to make sure you’re not dead, you son of a bitch!” The alpha paused and peered at Logan’s shoulder. “Is that a fucking gunshot wound?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s getting better. A few more shifts, and I bet you won’t even notice it.”
Hamish cleared his throat. “Graham Winters,” he said, making certain his voice carried around the clearing. “Normally you would be welcomed to our territory by the alpha of the White Paw Clan, but I’m afraid you’ve caught us while that matter was being decided.”
“Is that right?” Graham continued to stare at Logan. “And here I thought that who should be alpha of this pack was what I had sent my beta to Connecticut to decide.”
“The right to be alpha is decided by a show of strength,” Darin interjected, reclaiming the attention of those who had frankly forgotten about him. “I’ve challenged Honor Tate to fight me for that right.”
“And I already explained to you, boy, that you can’t issue an Alpha Challenge after you already chose to invoke the Alpha Mating Rite. It’s one or the other.” Hamish scowled down at the whiny werewolf. “Either finish the Mating Rite battle, or acknowledge Honor as your alpha.”
“And this is where you came in,” Honor pointed out.
“This is also where I said that as alpha over this entire region, I am actually the one who decides who will be alpha,” Graham said, clearly forcing the words out through clenched teeth. “I’m just waiting for my beta to inform me of his decision in that matter.”
“No, I demand the challenge!”
Fed up at last, Honor threw her hands in the air and rounded on the repetitive troublemaker. “You just don’t get it, do you, Darin? The battle is over, but no one has officially won. Graham Winters is the overalpha of our pack, and he’s going to install the next White Paw alpha. If you don’t like it, feel free to leave, but if you don’t shut up about the damned challenge, I’d be happy to prove to you exactly why that next alpha is not going to be you. Understand?”
Darin surprised all of them, maybe even including himself, by throwing himself straight at Honor.
It wasn’t a fair fight, and unlike Honor’s earlier surprise attack, was completely against the rules. In human form, Honor lacked the weapons to fight back.
So Logan did it for her.
Shifting just the fingers of his right hand, Logan reached out and drew his claws in a bloody line across the werewolf’s abdomen. It was an impressive move, since only the most powerful alpha Lupines had the ability to selectively shift like that. If she hadn’t been busy shifting into her own were form, Honor might have taken a moment to stare in awe.
Darin spun away from the blow that had given Honor just enough time to level the playing field. Acting on pure instinct, she turned into his spin and used her own claws to open up the large arteries in his neck. He bled out into the slushy remains of the challenge circle.
“No! I won’t have it!”
The shrill cry took Honor by surprise, but not nearly as much as the small form of the woman who launched herself into the circle toward Logan, shifting as she went.
By the time she landed atop him, Joey Tate wore her were form, which was nearly six feet as opposed to her normal five feet three inches. Her body had bulked up with muscle and wore a covering of sandy-gray fur. Her face had elongated into a muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth; the claws at the ends of her fingers sliced cleanly through Logan’s skin and into the muscle beneath. He howled in sh
ock, but it was Honor who howled in rage.
Immediately she leaped for her cousin’s back, tearing her off the form of her fallen mate and wrestling the other female to the floor. Joey fought back fiercely, her usually dull green eyes glowing with the fire of madness. She squirmed like a serpent, wriggling out of Honor’s grasp and launching herself once again at Logan.
Honor roared in anger and grabbed her cousin by the ankle, her claws biting deep into the furry limb and drawing enough blood to mat the hair with sticky red fluid. Joey yelped in pain, but she didn’t turn away from her target. She lunged, and if Honor hadn’t pulled her up short by the grip on her ankle, she would have sunk her sharp teeth deeply into Logan’s human throat.
Dragging Joey away, Honor threw her several feet across the clearing and leaped atop her, securing the smaller Lupine’s hands beside her head, her powerful body pinning the woman’s legs as well. Joey might have been spurred on by some rage of her own, but she was really no match for an alpha female, and Honor held her easily.
A moment later, she found herself holding thin air as Joey shifted back into her human form and slipped out of her cousin’s grip to curl up in a fetal position and sob piteously.
“Not supposed to be this way,” she moaned, tugging at her disheveled hair and rocking back and forth. “Darin. Darin should be alpha. Then I’m Luna. I get to make the rules and that slut of a cousin gets to do what I tell her to do. That’s what’s supposed to happen.”
Stunned to her toes, Honor fell back onto her haunches, shifting as she went. She landed buck naked in the trampled slush, her bottom making an embarrassing squish on impact. She was too busy trying to fit the fragments of her reality back together to notice.
“Joey, what are you saying?” she asked. “Are you telling me that you and Darin conspired to take over the pack? What were you going to do? Were you planning to have him challenge me? Because I don’t know if you were watching what just happened here, but what Darin actually did was challenge for the chance to be my mate.”
“NO!” Joey screamed and launched herself at Honor. “No! Darin loves me! Not everyone in the world loves you better than me! Some of them love me better. Darin loves me better. He does!”
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