WithHerHunger

by Lorie O'Clare

  She tried ignoring the sensation and hoped she sounded strong for her younger cousin. “Somewhere we can sleep without being disturbed.”

  Chapter Three

  Luther Alger wiped sweat off his brow and squinted at the afternoon sun. “I’m not used to this southern heat,” he complained good-naturedly.

  Sam Herrwulf rolled his eyes. “It’s probably in the seventies. You Cariboo need to get out of the mountains more.”

  The lunewulf had a deep, brusque laugh and a thick middle, showing he probably needed to run in the mountains more. Luther had no complaints to howl about the lumberyard owner.

  There had been only a few of them who’d survived the fires around Whitehorse, and that’s when the howling reached Rock Toubec. He was a Cariboo lunewulf who had purchased legally by human laws one of the largest ranches in this region. The land was just outside Prince George and he held a lot of power in Prince George, even with the lunewulf pack there. Before Toubec owned it, a female pack leader of the Prince George pack had owned it. Toubec made it clear all Cariboo and lunewulf were welcome to live, hunt and mate on his land. But they also had to work and earn their keep. Toubec got this job for Luther. It was a start.

  Luther helped finish loading lumber onto the forklift and shook his head at Herrwulf when he sauntered back over. “I’d run my entire life in the mountains if I could.”

  Sam nodded. “You and me both, male,” he agreed. “But a male runs a boring life without a good female by his side. And it’s the damndest thing about those females—they all seem to want a den to smell like them so they can breed and whelp pups.”

  “Someone say something about breeding?” Jaeger Alger asked, hopping out of the truck that would haul the lumber over to the part of town where they were building dens for all of the lunewulf. He wagged his eyebrows. “I’m always for breeding.”

  “You’re always for chasing any female,” Luther snarled.

  “And you aren’t?” Jaeger challenged.

  “Possibly, until I find the right one.”

  Jaeger tilted his head and sniffed the air. “Do you think you’ve found that female?”

  “You won’t be the first to know.” Luther kept his scent indifferent. The last thing he needed was hassled when they had work to do. Luther would always prefer being his own boss, but right now they had a lumberyard owner to impress. “But you will be the first tail I kick if you don’t keep working,” he snarled under his breath.

  “You’re going to sniff after that little lunewulf,” Jaeger said under his breath, not knowing when to drop it. “And I am working. Bring it on, Cariboo, if you think you can.”

  Luther’s younger cousin was always ready for a fight. Luther had kicked his ass every time the younger male had challenged him and would again right now too. Both Jaeger and Jarvis had snarled at him for still having the sweet little lunewulf’s scent on him. Here, in the middle of Prince George, a city predominantly of lunewulf, although there were humans around, wasn’t the place to knock his cousin into submission.

  He silenced his cousin with a look. Jaeger might be hotheaded but he’d never smelled stupid. Now wasn’t the time to discuss females. Luther sure as hell didn’t want the older lunewulf lumberyard owner sniffing in on the smell of one of his own kind on Luther. It wouldn’t go over well. Luther was a single male, at least for now.

  It had been two weeks since he’d fucked the daring little female. His cousins might have, but only because he’d allowed it. Their laws were cut-and-dried, no howling about it. That little lunewulf was his. He’d been keeping an eye on her from a distance. Once her pack was settled in, he would make his move.

  “If you two are going to fight,” Jarvis began under his breath as he stalked over from the other side of the forklift. “Let’s make it a good one so all of Prince George knows how the Algers rumble.”

  Luther turned on the older of his two cousins. “No one is going to smell any of the Algers right now,” he warned.

  Jarvis gave Luther an assessing once-over before glancing at his littermate. “I’d say it’s a bit too late for that,” he grinned.

  “The hell with both of you,” Luther grumbled, and turned toward the truck.

  Jarvis grabbed his arm. Luther glared at his cousin’s fingers wrapped around his forearm before looking at his face. Instead of angry, Jarvis smelled concerned.

  “You smell of that little female,” Jarvis whispered.

  “Worry about your own tail.”

  Jarvis raised one eyebrow but then shrugged. Loose blond curls tousled around his pensive gaze. “I’ll worry about yours too.”

  “We about ready?” Sam yelled, heading to his small truck parked in front of the work truck. “This will be the last load. Johann will be around, I’m sure, before the day is out to see how the dens look.”

  “There are at least six litters howling over who will be moving into the five that are done right now.” Jarvis smelled all business when he walked away from Luther toward the older lunewulf.

  Luther shoved his emotions deep enough inside him so they wouldn’t smell. He squinted at the sun. “Three more will be done before sundown,” he promised.

  Jaeger followed Luther to the truck. In spite of any inner turmoil the three of them ever had with each other, all of them were able to prevent outsiders from smelling their business. It was a survivor instinct they’d mastered at early ages. As well, it wasn’t the first time he and his cousins had built dens under pressure. It was the first time they weren’t building them for Cariboo though. Thankfully Sam didn’t know that, and living out on Toubec’s ranch gave him and his cousins freedom to run through Prince George without anyone sniffing their direction as if they shouldn’t be there.

  Luther was riding over to the site where the new dens were being built with Sam. Jaeger and Jarvis rode in the truck loaded with the wood. Luther strolled around Sam’s truck and glanced at the road as hairs prickled up his spine to his neck. An overwhelming sensation, smelling dangerously close to aggressive protectiveness, damn near stopped him in his tracks.

  A small, nondescript four-door drove down the street. It wasn’t the only car on the road. Luther didn’t notice any other car. He focused only on the blue-gray four-door and the two females in the front seat. With the passenger window down, and the young female lunewulf’s hair streaming in the breeze, her scent wrapped around him.

  She sensed him as he did her. There was no doubt in Luther’s mind. The four-door drove by and she turned her head, holding his gaze until it wasn’t possible for her to do so any longer. Luther grabbed the door handle and hopped into the truck next to Sam. If the older male didn’t pick up on the odd mixture of scents wrapped around Luther, then the male was a lost cause. Luther almost shook from the aggressive urge to sniff her out right now. Soon, damn soon, he would claim her in her flesh. If he didn’t, he would go mad with need for her.

  They ended up working past sundown. At least twenty males helped finish the last two dens scheduled to be made this week. A row of eight wooden dens lined the quiet, heavily wooded area part of Prince George, four on each side of the narrow road. They were spread out, allowing each litter who would live there privacy and room for cubs to run.

  Luther stood on the street staring at the four-door his little female had been in earlier. It was parked off the road, facing the first den on the road. He now knew exactly where she was. Luther started walking away from the males before he’d sniffed out how rational his actions were at the moment. Twenty lunewulf stood behind him and wouldn’t be too thrilled with a Cariboo entering a single female lunewulf’s den. With the pressure building inside him, Luther might be able to take all of them on if they tried to stop him.

  A pale blue Suburban turned the corner and passed the parked four-door. It slowed on the quiet road and stopped across from Luther. A male lunewulf got out and Luther stopped walking. The male walked up to Luther, smelling as if he’d recently showered. Luther doubted he smelled half as good, not that he cared.
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  “I’m Johann Rousseau.” The lunewulf male was a couple inches shorter than Luther but didn’t bother sizing Luther up the way most males did when they first met him.

  Luther looked down the street, as did Rousseau, when Jarvis and Jaeger walked up to join them.

  “You’re the three Cariboo staying out at Toubec’s ranch.” Rousseau didn’t make it a question.

  This was the pack leader of Prince George. The male smelled confident, relaxed and didn’t smell a bit cautious, nervous or overly righteous, standing among Cariboo lunewulf the way so many lunewulf did. For that, Luther respected him. That and the male ran a large pack during times of turmoil and welcomed more lunewulf and Cariboo.

  Rousseau glanced up the quiet street, nodding when Sam and a few of the other lunewulf joined them. “Sam,” he said, nodding to the older lunewulf. “I’m impressed as hell with these dens you’ve built in such little time.”

  “We had a good group of males doing the job.” The older lunewulf puffed out his chest and nodded at the males around him.

  Rousseau remained solemn. His scent was barely noticeable when he returned his attention to Luther, Jarvis and Jaeger.

  “You three now have permanent dens out at Toubec’s, and from the looks of these dens you’ve helped built here, the howling will be in your favor. I’m sure you’ll have steady work in Prince George.” Rousseau had just accepted them into his pack.

  Luther made eye contact with the pack leader, acknowledging the honor just given to all three of them. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m Luther Alger and these are my cousins Jarvis and Jaeger Alger.”

  “Welcome to the pack. My mate and I would like to have the three of you join us tonight for our evening kill. Come over in about an hour.” He nodded to Sam and the other lunewulf. “Everyone is welcome.”

  * * * * *

  Luther left his cousins at Toubec’s ranch with the two of them howling over who would find a female first that night. Toubec had quite a few Cariboo and lunewulf living and working on his huge spread. It wasn’t hard to find a ride into Prince George. Luther walked the blocks through town to the new dens. In the dark, he still saw the small structure he’d put his sweat and muscle into building. His little female lunewulf was inside that den. Luther smelled her even as he reached the front door and knocked.

  Mariah jumped at the sound of someone knocking. She smelled the male as she entered the living room and hesitated before reaching for the doorknob. Fucking tail, had she made the right choice after all?

  The den she and her cousin now shared was small with two bedrooms down the narrow hallway off the living room. Marcy had already left, taking off to run with other lunewulf, under the chaperone of two mated couples. Later they would meet at their new pack leader’s den for the evening kill.

  Marcy had wanted Mariah to run with her. The others had tried encouraging her to come. The thought of running under chaperone, being allowed to sniff around unmated males, then later arriving at their pack leader’s den so he could approve of them and any mild flirting he might smell, didn’t appeal to Mariah at all. It was stupid. She should have gone. But Mariah knew sniffing out a Cariboo wouldn’t meet with the pack leader’s approval.

  Mariah had enjoyed being alone in their new den. There were curtains hanging over the windows she’d closed once it was completely dark. Before that, she had stood outside on their small front porch, staring into the growing darkness, sniffing the cold night air. The smells would soon become familiar to her, the smell of the trees, the dens around her and the litters who would occupy them. For now though, Mariah focused on the smell of the fresh wood used for her den and the lingering scent of the males who had built it.

  Was it her imagination or did one of the smells fading as the breeze blew around her when she had stood outside smell of the Cariboo she’d fucked back in the mountains?

  Mariah remembered the Cariboo at the lumberyard. As she and the pack leader’s mate drove back from a furniture store on the edge of town, she had spotted him. He had been standing in the lumberyard, looking ready to spar with another Cariboo. Without knowing how, Mariah was positive which one was her Cariboo. She’d never seen him in his flesh before.

  There was only a moment to take him in before they drove by the yard. The male stood taller than any lunewulf male. The older lunewulf male nearby was proof of that, standing a good several inches shorter than her Cariboo. Mariah took in his broad muscular shoulders, the well-worn faded jeans that hugged long, powerful-looking legs, and fought not to smell aroused while sitting in the car. The Cariboo’s blond hair had slight red streaks. His hair was long, almost falling to his shoulders. Its tousled look only added to his wild appearance that she knew would match his personality.

  An overwhelming possessiveness had filled her. She’d suddenly felt a tightening deep inside her gut. It wasn’t the change taking over, as it sometimes had when she’d been an early teen and had still yet learned how to control her body. This had been something deeper, a quickening she hadn’t been able to explain. At the same time, tiny sensations had crawled up her spine, raising the small hairs there and on the back of her neck. Mariah had forced herself to look away, terrified of the pack leader’s mate response once she sniffed out these sudden strong emotions.

  She had to look again, and quickly, before they drove by and he was gone. When she had looked across the street once again, the Cariboo lunewulf male had been standing in the lumberyard, watching her. He had held her gaze captive until they had driven too far down the road for her to keep looking without completely turning around in her seat. Mariah hadn’t been able to pick up his scent, but somehow she knew.

  Now it all made sense. The times up in the mountain, in the meadow, when they had first arrived and she’d had uncanny sensations of being watched, Mariah had sworn her Cariboo male was nearby. When the group of lunewulf had complained about someone being near their kill, and when she and Marcy had run off on their own to sleep undisturbed the previous night, all those times he’d been watching. Now he had seen her in her human form. And Mariah had seen him. Her Cariboo was gorgeous as hell.

  In all her years, Mariah never would have believed she would pant over a Cariboo male. Her litter ran with honor. They had always held their heads high and had never given anyone in their litter reason to run with their tail between their legs. She was a proud lunewulf. Would it shun her cousin’s honor in this new pack if Mariah were suddenly to run publicly with a Cariboo lunewulf?

  Now, staring at her front door, Mariah’s hand trembled before she forced herself to wrap her fingers around the doorknob. Her cousin wasn’t here. Mariah was a grown female. Who she allowed to enter her own den was her own damn business.

  Nonetheless, her heart raced a mile a minute. She couldn’t slow her breathing. Mariah couldn’t take in a breath that wasn’t full of the male’s scent standing just on the other side of that door.

  “I can smell you, my little lunewulf female,” came a low growl.

  She didn’t jump at the sound of his voice, but Mariah tried swallowing and wasn’t able to perform the simple task. Her mouth was too dry. At the sound of his rich, masculine growl, the quickening she’d experienced earlier in the day returned. This time it swelled between her legs.

  Just lovely. The last thing Mariah wanted was to open the door smelling of lustful desire.

  “Just a minute,” she said, and was grateful her voice at least sounded normal.

  Mariah turned and paced the length of her small living room. She had placed the small wooden coffee table the furniture store had donated in front of the couch she had purchased with her debit card from her bank up in Whitehorse. It was all the furniture in her new living room. Not that she cared at the moment how presentable the den was. Mariah needed to get herself in order.

  Finally, managing at least to swallow and breathe normally, she pulled the door open.

  The next breath she took into her lungs was full of the male’s scent. Her Cariboo male! Except now
he stood before her, larger than life, in his human form. His faded blue jeans hugged thick, muscular legs. The boots he wore weren’t to give him height but probably more for practicality. And his T-shirt, a plain, pale blue shirt with nothing written on it, stretched over an incredibly muscular chest and arms so ripped they were each as thick as small trees. Mariah lifted her gaze and stared up into the eyes of the large Cariboo lunewulf filling her doorway.

  “Hello,” she murmured, hating how she suddenly smelled in awe, as if she were a drooling, lust-filled female thrilled this male would give her a moment of his attention.

  “Tell me your name,” he said in a low, gruff baritone.

  Even though his eyes had been silver before, the intense blue orbs devouring her now were so familiar it was as if she’d stared into them every day for the past two weeks. Which in a way she had—in her dreams every night as she’d enjoyed different ways she might make love to this male in her flesh.

  “Mariah Engel,” she told him, her voice barely a whisper.

  “I’m Luther Alger.”

  “Luther,” she whispered, voicing out loud the name of her Cariboo before he walked into her space.

  Which he did. Without asking if he could enter her den, Luther stepped inside, forcing Mariah to back up and closed her front door behind him.

  “Do you live here alone?” he asked, sniffing the air and taking in his surroundings.

  He didn’t simply acknowledge the furniture in the living room or where the small hallway might lead. Instead, Luther studied his surroundings with the scrutiny of a male laying claim to all around him. Mariah felt it more than sensed it. Luther focused on the windows and probably how far the door was behind him. This was a male used to fighting with fierce tooth and claw for all he possessed.

  “No. My cousin Marcy and I share this den. She’s already left for a run then the kill at the pack leader’s den. I was going to leave soon.”