A heated glance passed between the two males, Hunter’s metaphorical hackles rising even as his fingers tightened around mine. “If our pack was involved—which it wasn’t—then I’d deal with the issue as alpha...” he began, only to be interrupted for a second time by his former mentor.
“But this isn’t an official pack, now is it?” Stormwinder said smoothly. “Not yet. So perhaps the help of an enforcer and a Tribunal member would be justified. Just to get you off on the right foot, of course.”
Around us, the last few members of our clan were drawing closer, intent upon joining ranks against the two courteous yet ill-intentioned invaders. Glen and Lia had been stacking newly split firewood at the edge of the yard, but now they drifted over to stand beside Lupe and the other bloodlings. Meanwhile, the trouble twins popped out of the tree line as if they’d been called.
And maybe I had alerted the other shifters to the potential danger. I didn’t like seeing my mate’s feelings stamped on by someone he used to think of as a friend. Meanwhile, our pack bond had become more visible to me lately, the lines of connection that bound us all together easier to tweak both intentionally or—as I now had done—subliminally. Glancing around at the alert but quiet pack members, I couldn’t help but feel lucky to have them standing by my side.
“Ah, the gang’s all here,” Stormwinder continued, taking in our enlarged audience. “Perfect timing. Now Grey can ask these fine folks what sort of alibi they have for the time when Silas Lerner’s ram was killed.”
“We were running as a pack,” Cinnamon answered, not waiting for the implied compulsion. The usually laid-back male bristled as he stepped forward to take point while wearing nothing but jeans and a baseball cap. The twin had likely been in lupine form when I tugged at his tether and hadn’t taken the time to pull on more clothes than absolutely necessary before grabbing his sister and running in our general direction.
Our pack is strong. The words might have been picked out of my own brain, but as Hunter met my gaze I realized the observation had originated from my life partner instead. And he was very much right. Our pack was strong. Stormwinder was going to make a fool of himself questioning our companions...and then I was going to enjoy laughing in the older gentleman’s face before I booted him off our newly claimed land once and for all.
“Yes, that sounds nice,” Stormwinder said agreeably. “But perhaps someone slipped off into the night while the others were intent upon the evening’s prey. Luckily, Grey here is able to pull forth the truth.”
Stormwinder’s fatherly benevolence grated on my nerves, but I still smirked into Hunter’s shoulder. The Tribunal member was so sure he had the noose wrapped around our necks and the box ready to kick out from beneath our feet. Wouldn’t he be surprised when his precious new enforcer hit us with a compulsion and came up empty?
Grey had hung back behind his boss ever since winning the recent battle of wills, but now the young enforcer obediently stepped forward and imbued his words with power. “Speak if you weren’t with the pack all of yesterday evening and night,” he intoned, the words sending a gust of wintry wind blasting up against our faces and slipping down our collars.
I shivered, glad my own inner wolf was resting off her argumentative streak of the day before. Because, technically, I hadn’t been running with the pack during the time in question. Instead, I’d collapsed onto the sofa at sunset, unable to so much as pry my eyes open for the rest of the night.
Equally technically, Grey’s compulsion should have forced me to reveal that fact, giving Stormwinder a fissure into which he could wedge his Tribunal justice. But I was a halfie. My piss-poor excuse for a wolf meant that everyone and his brother could bark my inner beast in line...and it also meant that even my human half could squash the wolf so thoroughly that alpha compulsions rolled off my pseudo-one-body back with ease.
Hunter’s fingers squeezed around mine again and I took my eyes off our aggressor long enough to meet my mate’s approving gaze. Yes, we’d once again wiggled out of that trap, all thanks to my half-breed nature. I’d have to remember to give my inner animal a resounding thank-you for evacuating from our shared consciousness at just the right moment. Once it’s safe again, I promised the emptiness in my belly, then we’ll shift and run.
“If that’s all...” I began. But someone else’s voice was struggling against itself to speak into the same lull. Someone whose wolf was more alert and who had been caught up in the trap that I’d so deftly sidestepped.
“I left the hunt early,” Lupe admitted at last, each word as sharp as a splinter of broken glass. “I came home alone. But I did not kill that effin’ sheep!”
Chapter 6
AS IF HE’D BEEN CONFIDENT of this outcome from the very beginning, Stormwinder’s face tightened into a predatory grin. In response, I held my breath, half expecting either the Tribunal member or the enforcer to shift into lupine form and slaughter my defenseless charge before our very eyes.
If they made the attempt, what could I do to stop them? Nothing, that’s what. Sure, I could order our pack mates to throw their bodies between the combatants and we’d likely save our friend’s skin...for the moment at least. But the law was on Stormwinder’s side. Here in outpack territory, non-clan-affiliated shifters like ourselves fell under the purview of any Tribunal member who might happen by.
And okay, sure—we could argue that killing a sheep was a minor infraction unsuited to Tribunal justice. But outing shifter-kind to the surrounding humans through careless disregard for property boundaries? That was definitely a death-sentence offense. Stormwinder could argue that he was merely plugging a leak when he snapped Lupe’s slender, young neck. No one outside our little pack would doubt him in the least.
So despite my best intentions to remain both smart and patient, I found myself stepping between the Tribunal member and my charge. “You...” I began.
But the older shifter stilled me with a heated glance before I could spit out more than a single word. “Don’t say anything you’ll later regret,” he murmured, almost too quietly for me to hear. Then, raising his voice and eying my mate, who had also stepped forward to hover just behind my left shoulder. “Not as much fun as you thought it would be to stand on the other side of the law, now is it, son?”
Rather than speaking, Hunter growled deep within his chest. The usually suave uber-alpha had gone pre-verbal in his rage, and I pressed my fingernails into his wrist in an effort to remind the bloodling that it was time to behave like a human being.
Because I now realized that slaughtering Lupe wasn’t Stormwinder’s primary goal at the present moment. Oh no. The Tribunal member couldn’t have cared less about a semi-rogue bloodling who might have lapsed and eaten a sheep while learning how to behave in polite shifter society.
But an uber-alpha who had been at Stormwinder’s beck and call for years on end only to throw it all away for a pretty face and a pack of outcasts? That pissed the older male off and offended his overblown sense of dignity. My muscles tensed as I became certain that Lupe was merely the bait Stormwinder planned to use to draw Hunter back into the fold.
Not gonna happen, I muttered silently. He’s mine now. And in response, I thought I saw a trace of two-legger humor soften my mate’s curled lips.
Before I could change gears, though, an unfamiliar voice broke in. “Should we look for evidence?” asked the Tribunal’s new enforcer, reminding us all of the ostensible reason for our standoff—the slaughtered ram. And when I turned to face Grey, I had a sudden vision of how Hunter had likely presented himself back when he first accepted Stormwinder’s offer of the seemingly perfect job.
Had my mate been equally starry-eyed and innocent, believing that his role was to protect the defenseless rather than to shore up the existing power of the already strong? And, in the end, would Stormwinder inflict the same deep emotional scars on the young uber-alpha before me as he had on my mate?
Which is, perhaps, why I stepped directly into what I later decided had been a c
arefully laid trap. “What a great idea, Grey,” I told the Tribunal enforcer. “Please, search our property to your heart’s content. We have nothing to hide.”
THE TRAILS THAT CUT through Wolf Landing’s forest were a maze for the uninitiated, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when Grey took the easy way out by simply refusing to follow them. Instead, after disrobing and shifting inside the limousine, the enforcer led us on a merry chase amid leafless trees following what I half believed was the scent trail of a deer in rut.
“Do you think his human brain is even awake enough to remember what he’s supposed to be hunting?” I panted an hour later as I bent over in an attempt to catch my breath. Barring Celia, who was holding down the fort back at the community house, everyone else had quickly donned four paws in an effort to keep up with the nimble enforcer. I was the only one resolutely plodding along on human feet, unwilling to risk my weak wolf in the face of the egotistical Stormwinder and the unknown quantity that was Grey.
Wolves streamed past my feet as I muttered complaints, but Hunter paused and shifted so he could pull me in to lean against his naked body. “Are you still feeling under the weather from last night?” he rumbled once the forest had become still and quiet around us once more. “I can take you home....”
“I’m really fine,” I said, reluctantly pulling away from my mate’s embrace in an effort to prove that I could stand on my own two feet. “I’m sorry I conked out on you yesterday....”
“Never apologize to me,” he snapped.
Good thing my wolf was sound asleep or I would have been hit with an entirely unnecessary compulsion. Instead of remarking on the faux pas, though, I just raised one eyebrow at my over-protective mate and waited for him to realize what he’d just done. After all, commanding your life partner to do your bidding was a big shifter no-no...at least between the two of us.
“I’m sorry,” Hunter growled after a moment, then he laughed aloud at the irony of his own words. Here he was telling me not to apologize and he’d been the one to throw around the S word.
“Never apologize to me,” I mimicked, unable to resist joining in the fun. Then, more seriously, “Do you think we made the right decision listing me as alpha on the territorial application?”
Rather than answering immediately, my mate nudged my chin upwards so he could peer more directly into my face. I was glad the rest of the pack was absent because I had a feeling my insecurities were writ large across my features, the long slog through the cold having torn through my defenses and left me ready to give someone else the lead.
After all, a raging blister yelled from my right heel while a niggling suspicion at the back of my mind told me that Stormwinder would do anything in his power to break apart our fledgling pack. No wonder I felt young, weak, and not quite up to the task at hand.
Even What Would Wolfie Do wasn’t cutting it today. Not when I was pretty sure Wolfie had never been this defenseless in the face of stronger wolves.
“We discussed this at the time,” Hunter said carefully, his words slow as if his wolf was speaking from behind his human skin. “You were the alpha from the beginning. This is your pack. Why would we choose anyone but you as our All-Pack representative?”
He really had no idea. No concept that I was slowing down the hunt now and might cause our one chance at official recognition to crash and burn. “I...” I began.
But then his lips stopped the further flow of words, his fingers skimming through hair and cupping scalp. Hard, firm, demanding. We are strong, his wolf told mine.
And with Hunter there beside me, I felt strong. So I relaxed into the moment, pressing up against his furnace of a body, reaching up around his neck to pull him in closer.
“Mmm,” Hunter hummed as his mouth opened subtly beneath mine, his mere proximity thawing my frozen nose and cheeks. Gloveless fingers that were nonetheless warm and dry from running slipped underneath my coat and skimmed across the bare skin of my belly. In response, I shivered, not from the cold but from sheer exhilaration of making contact with my mate.
As paws, those same fingers had recently been churning up the leaf litter while Hunter ran back and forth between and around our pack of wolves, always alert to ensure that no one lagged behind or fell into trouble. Now, the remnants of rich leaf-mold aroma clung to his clawless fingertips, mingling with Hunter’s own sassafras odor to morph our present winter sun into an evocative memory of rolling together across summer leaves.
Winter cold or no winter cold, I wouldn’t have minded replicating that particular episode. But duty called. “We need to keep an eye on Stormwinder,” I breathed, pulling away in order to speak but not quite willing to open my eyes and return to reality quite yet. Instead, my fingers crept south to take up residence on my mate’s firm butt and I felt his erection pressing up against the far-too-many layers of clothing that separated him from my bare skin.
Hunter’s forehead tapped against mine ever so gently and his breath crept across my cheek, promising pleasures both of us knew we couldn’t partake of just yet. “Grey led us across this exact same spot twice already,” he grumbled quietly. “We might as well stay put and they’ll be back here again sooner or later.”
I wanted so badly to melt. To forget our duties and simply embrace the moment of togetherness. But before I could decide whether Hunter was pulling my leg or whether he really was willing to let duty fall by the wayside in order to slake our lust, a shriek rang out through the chilled air.
“I didn’t!” my charge screamed, her voice abruptly cutting off as if muffled by a gag. Then: “Take your hands off her!” from my most steadfast underling Glen.
The balloon of warmth and pleasure that Hunter had built around the two of us abruptly popped. “Lupe’s cabin,” I said, guessing at the location even as I turned in the direction of the sound.
“Come as fast as you can,” Hunter agreed, falling down onto four paws. And as one unit, we took off at a run to defend our pack.
Chapter 7
THE LEG WAS GNAWED and bloody, but the cloven hoof at one end suggested it might have begun life as a ram...or perhaps as a goat or a deer. Most damning of all, the leg was located dead center in the heart of Wolf Landing, only a few feet away from Lupe’s cabin.
Still, despite gruesome evidence that the ram’s death had in fact been associated with our pack, I barely took the time to glance at the detached limb. How could I when the living were in danger of being turned into equally grisly cuts of meat?
“That’s not proof,” Hunter argued, easing toward my vanquished charge while ignoring Grey’s aggressive stance. The girl was clasped against the enforcer’s bare chest and her eyes were wild. No wonder since she could barely breathe with one of Grey’s broad palms cupping her mouth while the other iron arm clamped around her throat. Still, Lupe was holding it together...which was more than could be said about her captor.
Grey is furious. I picked up on the emotion even before peering closely enough to make out scratches and bruises representing Lupe’s ill-fated attempts at escape. Meanwhile, blood oozed from multiple bites marring Grey’s legs, proof positive that the whole pack had tried to rescue the teenager before backing off once their attacks failed to achieve the desired goal.
Yeah, the enforcer had every reason to be pissed. But that didn’t give him the right to damage defenseless kids in retaliation.
Hunter didn’t meet my eye as I eased forward, but I could feel his acknowledgment of my presence down our mate bond as he inched closer to the entangled pair of shifters. Meanwhile, twenty-one wolves with raised hackles ringed my mate as Glen, Lia, and Ginger continued to cluster around Stormwinder in two-legger form.
The female trouble twin had been speaking quietly and quickly into the older man’s ear ever since I entered the clearing, and now the breeze shifted to fling a wisp of words in my direction. “...call him off...” she demanded. But when I met Glen’s eyes, I only received a curt head shake by way of reply. No, the Tribunal member had no intention of preventin
g the catastrophe currently unfolding in our midst.
Well, at least they’re keeping the old coot busy, I thought, circling around in the opposite direction. While I’d been assessing the scene, Hunter had halted five feet away from the younger male, a decision that I couldn’t blame him for one bit. There was something about Grey’s eyes that suggested Stormwinder’s current protégé wasn’t entirely in his right mind, the expression on his face reminiscent of the recklessness Hunter had displayed when he first joined our newborn pack.
In Hunter’s case, that initial feral nature while finding his footing had mellowed into the aspect of a caring and attentive pack leader. But in Grey’s case, I had a sinking suspicion the bloodling’s rampant wolf would instead succumb to behavior all of us would soon come to regret.
So I clung to the tree line, counting on my mate to keep Grey’s attention fixated on the most obvious danger while I snuck up behind the two figures holding all of us in check. Before I’d traversed half the distance separating us, though, Grey spoke at last.
“You want to protect this pup?” he asked, the words gravelly and garbled as if his wolf was attempting to wield the man’s tongue without human assistance. Yep, the uber-alpha had dropped whatever pretense at humanity he might once have possessed. We’d need to use our instincts rather than our brains if we hoped to rescue Lupe from the jaws of the shifter who was quickly descending into the mind of a wild beast.
“She is a pup,” Hunter agreed, keeping his eyes averted in a submissive gesture that didn’t come at all naturally to the uber-alpha shifter. It hadn’t escaped my notice that my mate didn’t answer Grey’s actual question, but I hoped the enforcer wasn’t thinking rationally enough to make a similar connection. “She’s barely old enough to shift,” Hunter continued. “Young, stupid.”
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