“Look, I know this is a tradition for Lupines, but it’s really not something I can even conceive of. I mean, the whole idea is half a step from terrifying. And by that, I mean half a step more than terrifying.”
Annie nodded. “I’m sure it is, for a human. I mean, you’re a woman to begin with, which makes you by definition weaker than a male, and then when you add the fact that you’re human to the equation and our men are easily ten or twenty times stronger than a non-Lupine—”
Missy groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“Annie,” Samantha snapped. “You are not helping.”
The scientist blushed like a teenager. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Luna, you have nothing to be afraid of. Our alpha will protect you. You’ll never be in danger. There is no chance of one of the other males catching you. Graham would kill them before they touched you.”
Somehow, Missy’s nerves demanded a little more soothing than the other woman’s hand patting her knee. “And what if something goes wrong? What if Graham gets hurt or distracted? What happens then?”
“It won’t happen,” Samantha repeated. “The alpha will not allow it.”
Missy’s laugh strangled on her frustration. “I don’t think Fate particularly cares what Graham will ‘allow.’ Luck isn’t something that’s going to show its belly just because Graham plays big bad wolf.”
Samantha blinked at that. Her brows furrowed, and she looked over at Annie, confusion plainly written on her face. Missy just shook her head to realize that these women honestly couldn’t fathom the idea of a person, a being, or an idea that wouldn’t bow its head before the Silverback Alpha.
Annie shrugged, as if to indicate she didn’t know what the Luna was yammering on about, either, and turned back to Missy.
“But Luna,” she explained, with the slow deliberation math teachers used when dealing with dense seven-year-olds, “the alpha will protect you. You just have to trust him.”
Trust a man whose sanity she was beginning to doubt?
“Sure,” Missy muttered. “Right. No problem.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Missy hurried across the street and kept her ass to the wall until Graham put a hand at her back to push her forward.
“Come on,” he growled. “We’re running late. The hunt will start any minute.”
“Well, excuse me for trying not to flash the whole island,” she muttered, letting him herd her down the empty path into the quiet park. “This outfit you gave me to wear is ridiculous.”
“It offers ease of movement. Did you want to be running from the pack in heels and a miniskirt?”
“How much worse could that be than skintight spandex and biker boots?” Missy griped. “I feel like a cross between a Hell’s Angel and a go-go dancer. What’s wrong with jeans and a good pair of sneakers?”
“They don’t give me nearly as good a view of your ass.” He punctuated his comment with a theatrical leer and a light smack to her bottom. It wasn’t enough to make her flinch, but when his hand lingered to cup and squeeze, she did shoot him a dirty look.
“Why am I not surprised that’s the real answer?”
Graham grinned and continued to lead them deeper into the park while Missy tried to ignore the nervous fluttering in her stomach. She would have called it butterflies except that the damned things were breeding like rabbits, and no matter what clever pop psychology technique she used to try to calm them down, nothing worked. In the end, she just had to grit her teeth and bear it. After a few minutes, Graham led the way off the path altogether and pulled her through the trees into a thickly wooded area.
About the only thing she could see in the pitch-blackness was the glowing light of his eyes, and those didn’t quite cast enough of a glare to light her path. She had to resort to clinging to Graham’s side and stepping very carefully to avoid tripping over roots and rocks. For his part, Graham steadied her when she needed it, but he pushed her relentlessly forward all the while. She felt a little like the helpless blonde in a B movie, which didn’t do much for her mood.
“Where the heck does this hunt happen?” she demanded after another ten minutes of scrambling over boulders and between tree trunks. She hadn’t known there were this many trees on Manhattan, let alone that Graham would expect her to climb over them all. “We must be practically in Albany by now.”
“Sh! Look.”
Mr. Monosyllabic pointed through the next stretch of trees and urged Missy in that direction. At first she thought it was another werewolf thing, but after a couple of blinks and some furious staring, she thought she could make out a cluster of orange firelights in the distance.
“Is that it?”
Graham nodded and nudged her forward. “And they’re almost ready to start. Hurry.”
She decided not to mention she’d been hurrying for the last hour, ever since Graham pounded on the door to the bathroom where she’d been dressing and told her to move her sexy ass. Those were his words, not hers, and they’d been the only things to stop her from slamming the door on his toes. He did seem rather fond of her behind, after all, and Missy could appreciate a man with good taste.
As they strode forward and the trees began to thin in preparation for a clearing, Missy could make out the glow of some sort of lamps and a big ol’ bonfire about thirty feet ahead of them. It was a wonder the FDNY hadn’t swarmed all over the Lupines like bees at a flower show. When she and Graham got close to the tree line, he tugged her to a halt.
“Remember what we talked about?” he asked, his eyes green and glowing in his serious face.
“Of course.” How could she have forgotten? Her “mate” had lectured her on the finer points of her behavior tonight for at least forty-five minutes. “I stay close to you and keep Samantha and Annie nearby just in case. I keep still until the hunt starts and don’t stare directly into anyone’s eyes but don’t look down, either, or they’ll think I’m submissive. Don’t crowd anyone too close, and don’t get offended if someone tries to sniff me. Remember that the wolves are people, too, and I should keep my mouth shut unless I have something of earth-shattering importance to relate. Oh, and when the hunt starts, I should run like hell directly north.”
She finished the litany with her hands crossed primly in front of her and her eyebrows hovering somewhere around her hairline.
Graham stared at her for a few seconds, then gave a curt nod. “Good enough,” he growled. “Let’s go.”
He tugged her wrist so hard she almost went flying. He muttered an apology, but Missy couldn’t be sure how much attention he paid to it, since he never bothered to slow down.
As they got closer to the pack gathering, she could feel a new sort of tense energy building inside him. Every step seemed to make him wilder, more feral, less civilized. His body temperature shot up until the touch of his bare hand on her arm felt like a heating pad had been laid directly on her skin. It was bearable but decidedly hot. She shivered.
When they stepped out of the concealing shadows of the woods, she fought to keep that shiver from turning to a shudder. Everywhere she looked, the clearing was filled with werewolves, more Lupines than she had ever thought she’d see. The animal forms ranged in size and color from small, red-gray wolves the size of coyotes to some big, black monsters she swore were the size of Shetland ponies. Luckily for her nerves, not everyone was in wolf form.
Normal, human-looking pack members milled about the clearing or stood in groups, talking in a disconcerting mix of words and growls, yips and snarls. This went beyond Twilight Zone and straight to the Sci Fi Channel, especially when a small group stepped out of the tree line on the other side of the large bonfire. Missy had to blink three times before her eyes agreed to filter what she was seeing to her brain, which only grudgingly translated it into understandable terms.
These guys were werewolves.
Real werewolves. Not just Lupines, who looked like humans and could even behave like them when the situation warranted. Not even Lupines in wolf
form, who looked like they could step right into an Animal Planet special and make themselves at home. These werewolves were about as hairy as wolf forms, but the resemblance ended there.
Four of them traveled in their own small pack, each walking on two legs that bent in the wrong direction. Their knees arched out behind them, making them look permanently coiled and ready to spring. Missy couldn’t tell their colors until they stepped close enough to the bonfire for the flames to illuminate their fur, and then she was almost sorry they had.
One had a coat the mottled char gray color of wood ash that faded to dirty gray-white on his chest and belly. Fascinated, she followed the color changes until the fur shortened to a plush, velvety-looking pelt that covered but couldn’t conceal the lycanthrope’s heavy and very human genitalia. Her eyes shot back to his—he was very definitely male—face and stayed there, and she made darn sure not to look lower than the sternum on any of his friends.
Two of the others had the red-gray, coyote color she’d already noticed looked most common among the wolf forms present, and the last werewolf sported a light brown pelt flecked with black and gray, like the brindled greyhound Missy’s downstairs neighbor had rescued from a racetrack last year. Judging by the snarl that curled the brown lycanthrope’s muzzle, though, she doubted he had much in common with the friendly and mild-mannered Turtle.
Missy opened her mouth to ask a question but snapped it shut again when Graham dropped his grip on her arm and stepped forward out of the shadows that concealed them. Surprised, she scrambled after him. No way did she plan to be alone in this clearing, thank you very much.
Still looking more like a GQ cover model than the Terror of Central Park, Graham strode across the carpet of moss and leaves and into the bonfire light. Hurrying to keep pace with his ground-eating stride, Missy followed until he stopped near the same pile of jumbled boulders where the werewolves had paused.
“Curtis,” she heard him growl.
The brown lycanthrope stepped forward, and Missy got her first close-up view of a Lupine in wereform. He was covered from head to foot in a coat of coarse, thick fur, though it seemed to grow thicker at his back, neck, and upper chest, like the ruff of a real wolf. And as she’d noted on the gray werewolf, it shortened to a velvety pile on Curtis’s abdomen and stomach. She made a point of skirting away from looking at his sex and moved right along to areas less likely to freak her out.
He stood upright like a man, but his legs were the hind legs of an enormous wolf, with feet like a dog’s paws, only a whole lot bigger. His arms were long and thickly muscled, with vaguely human hands that were tipped with lethal, curving claws. His head looked almost completely canine, with neat triangular ears and a long, pointed muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth. Missy couldn’t vouch for the sharpness of those teeth, but she decided to go with her instincts on that one. They certainly looked razor sharp.
She stood beside Graham, kept about a half step behind him, and decided she really didn’t need to be any closer to any of the lycanthropes. Her view was fine from right where she was. In fact, it might be better from Nebraska. She stifled the urge to go see.
“You’re being very impolite, Cousin,” Graham said, his voice low and rough and so menacing, Missy shivered even though he wasn’t talking to her.
The brown lycanthrope swung his head in their direction and snarled. Muscles clenched to keep from recoiling; Missy blinked and almost missed the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. One minute she stood looking at the lycanthrope Graham called Cousin, and the next, reality shifted, leaving behind a man where the werewolf had been. The man had hair the same brindled-brown color of the werewolf’s fur and eyes the same yellow-gold.
He also stood there stark naked.
“Not impolite,” the lycanthrope said with a sneer, “just impatient. It’s been too long since the last hunt.”
“Hunts are a dying tradition. Our females seem to prefer to choose their mates in a more modern fashion.”
“A more human fashion. I, for one, hardly call that progress.”
“But then, it isn’t your call to make.”
Missy kept one ear on the conversation—if you could call their verbal sparring match a conversation—but both her eyes were locked on the other three lycanthropes. As she watched, that same shift happened. The three forms blurred around the edges. Their features and outlines faded and became indistinct.
She saw movement and a sort of rippling wave, and then everything came back into focus and the werewolves were suddenly men. Naked men. The transformation had her so fascinated, she barely stopped herself from demanding they do it again.
“If you don’t want to lead our pack in the ways of our people, then don’t be surprised if someone else does, Cousin,” Curtis snapped, pulling Missy’s attention back to the matter before her.
She heard the growl before she felt the movement and well before she saw anything, because there really wasn’t anything to see. It all happened so fast, she doubted film could have caught it, but suddenly Graham wasn’t just growling at his cousin; he had his hand wrapped around Curtis’s throat while the other man’s toes dangled three inches off the ground. Instead of shouting or struggling, Curtis laughed.
“I haven’t challenged you,” he pointed out, his voice hoarse and rasping but clear. “It wouldn’t do much for your reputation if the Silverback Alpha killed a member of his own pack without provocation, would it?”
Missy saw Graham’s jaw clench and saw the first hint of fang flash between his lips when he spoke.
“Oh, I’ve been provoked,” he snarled, “and I know just who’s behind it all, too. Did you think I wouldn’t notice a gamma in my own pack calling a Howl in the Silverback name? Did you think I wouldn’t care about an unscheduled and unauthorized matehunt in the middle of my territory?” Graham tossed his cousin aside as if touching the other man’s skin had contaminated him. “I am still alpha of this clan, Cousin, and I know precisely what you’re trying to do.”
Curtis landed on his feet in a coiled crouch and sneered up at his clearly stronger cousin. “You may know, but you can’t stop me,” he taunted. “Not unless you can produce a cub before next week, Cousin. I thought I was doing you a favor. After all, if you can manage to catch a female tonight, you have an entire week to hope she comes into heat so you can fuck her for that pup you need so badly.”
Missy snarled this time, before Graham even got the chance. She wasn’t sure where the sound came from, just that it ripped out from between her lips as she took an instinctual step forward.
Curtis’s head snapped around, his feral yellow eyes fixing on Missy and narrowing to menacing slits.
“Well, what have we here?” he growled, taking a prowling step toward her. “What’s this, Cousin? Some new prey for us? She’s pretty enough, in that totally ordinary way some women have, but she smells . . . human.” His mouth twisted, and he reached for her but touched only air.
Graham leapt in front of Missy, forcing her back a few steps and facing his cousin with his lip curled and his fang-like teeth bared.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” he ordered. “She’s mine.”
“Yours?”
Missy watched Curtis’s expression twist and contort as if he’d scented something foul, and her own eyes narrowed.
The Lupine took a step toward her, and Graham snapped at him.
“Stay away,” he commanded, his eyes flashing hot and angry in the near darkness. “I don’t want you anywhere near her.”
Curtis offered them a look of wounded innocence so insincere it appeared plastic. “But I don’t mean anyone any harm, Cousin. I’m simply curious. It’s not often a human is offered up to us on one of our hunts. I do hope she doesn’t get too badly hurt. Some of our males can get a bit . . . rough, in all the excitement.” He bared his teeth, but no one watching could have called it a smile. “I’d hate to see her pretty skin torn off.”
“No one will touch her.”
“Ah-ah. Now who’s bein
g rude?” Curtis chided. “You know the terms of the hunt as well as I do. She belongs to whoever is strong enough and fast enough to catch her.”
Missy opened her mouth for a truly unladylike retort, but her attention strayed when a wave of excitement so intense even she could feel it rippled through the crowd. Samantha and Annie appeared on either side of her, each clad in a Cooper Union sweatshirt, comfortable jeans, and tennis shoes. Missy shot Graham a dirty look.
“The moon is almost up,” Annie said. “When it breaks over the tree line, the hunt will be on.”
“Stay close,” Samantha murmured, leaning down a little to speak directly into Missy’s ear. “That rat, Curtis, has something planned. I can feel it.”
“I believe you. Trust me. I’m not about to go wandering off by myself. I promise.”
Missy eyed Curtis suspiciously while he and Graham continued to snarl at each other, even though she no longer understood a word either one said. They’d gone from English to Lupine and now communicated with grunts, growls, snarls, yips, and barks. Samantha and Annie seemed to know what they were saying, but neither one bothered to fill Missy in. She couldn’t decide whether or not she minded.
“I see he’s got Larry, Moe, and Curly with him,” Annie said, her disdain clear as she nodded at the three Lupines who had accompanied Curtis.
“Greg, Marco, and Paul,” Samantha clarified, her eyes also fixing scornfully on the trio. “They’re Curtis’s right-hand idiots.”
“Um, I think idiot number three heard that,” Missy said as the man pointed them out to his friends. He detached himself from the small group and swaggered toward the women.
“And what are you supposed to be?” Paul sneered. “The human’s bodyguards?”
In human form, he stood maybe five-ten, with an indifferent physique and strawberry blonde hair. Missy remembered his wereform had been at least six inches taller and about a hundred pounds of muscle more imposing. She raked a deliberately dismissive glance up and down his frame, pausing to give an extra sneer at his unimpressive, semi-erect cock. He snarled.
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