Hungry Like a Wolf

Ten

She still hadn’t figured that out an hour later, when they were separated, cleaned, and clothed, and sitting in her father’s office, eyeing each other warily. Well, her gaze remained wary. Logan’s had gone all wicked and focused again as he stared intently at her neck, waiting for her to turn her head so he could admire his handiwork.

Silence stretched between them for several long moments. Logan looked too self-satisfied to speak, and Honor wasn’t quite sure what to say. Were there rules of etiquette for handling this type of situation? Did Emily Post have a chapter on Postcoital Small Talk for the Modern Werewolf? If she didn’t, she really should.

Honor shifted in her seat and tried to ignore the raw, liquid feeling between her legs. As hard as he’d just taken her, she ought to be screaming at him to never lay another hand on her as long as he lived, and here she was trying to keep him from noticing how damned horny she still felt. Was that in Emily Post?

“You can relax, you know.” His drawling tone sounded sleepy and rough and sexy in the small cabin. Honor couldn’t suppress a shiver of reaction. “I’ll give you a couple of hours before I attack you again. I’m not entirely uncivilized.”

She drew a deep breath. “See … about that ‘again’ thing…”

He raised an eyebrow and settled into a deeper slouch. “You surely don’t intend to tell me, your mate, that I can’t touch you again, do you? You couldn’t be quite that foolish, honey. Tell me.”

She scowled. “You know, I really hate those casual endearments. Ones like ‘honey.’ It always makes me wonder if you just can’t remember my name.”

“Oh, I remember it. It just don’t think ‘Honor’ is something I can hear myself yelling out in a heated moment. It would be like yelling ‘Mother Teresa’ or something.”

She rolled her eyes. “Now that’s just nasty.”

“That’s what I thought. So you have two choices. You can have ‘honey,’ or you can have ‘Nora.’ Up to you.”

“Those are my only choices?”

He shrugged. “They are if ‘Honor’ is your only name.”

She grumbled and crossed her arms over her chest.

Logan cupped his hand to his ear and cocked his head to the side. “Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t quite catch it.”

“Honor Strength.” She bit it out like a particularly vile curse and then glared, as if it were his fault. It was actually her father’s, but if she could have a few minutes to think, she’d find a way to make it Logan’s fault. She’d put it on his tab.

He blinked. “Right. Those are your only choices.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then caught herself and shook her head. “And that is so not important right now. We have other things we need to discuss at the moment.”

“Not if those discussions are anything like the one you were about to start where you tell me I can’t touch my own mate anymore.”

“Do you honestly think that what we just did has changed anything?”

“I honestly do,” he snapped, eyes flashing gold. “I think it’s changed your status from my potential mate to my actual mate. You’re mine now, Honor, and don’t try to say anything different, because you gave yourself to me. If you’re feeling forgetful, try touching the back of your neck. It might jog your memory.”

Honor tried not to flinch at the vicious sarcasm of that remark. As if she needed to touch the mating mark to remember it was there. She damned well couldn’t forget it, and she damned well couldn’t stop calling herself ten kinds of fool for giving in to the instinct that had prompted her to let him put it there. She could chalk it up to the heat of the moment, or to her own heat, which was getting harder to control with every passing moment, but blaming either of those things wouldn’t change the fact that she’d allowed him to mark her. Just like it wouldn’t change the fact that the question still hanging over their heads remained a choice between true or false. A hot fuck and a mating mark hadn’t miraculously opened door number three.

Goddess, how she wished that it had, though. The wolf inside her had already begun to pace and whine in grief. It wanted to return the mating, to mark Logan as hers as surely and as visibly as she’d been marked by him. It wanted them to do whatever they had to, to run off to the woods, live in a cave, and get down to the serious business of making love and pups and a future together. Her human brain, though, knew that was impossible. She still had a pack to lead, or to die trying. Having a mate made not one iota of difference to that fact.

She steeled her expression and erected a wall around her cracking heart, all while the sounds of her wolf’s howl of despair echoed in her mind.

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” she told him, keeping her voice even and emotionless. She had practiced that a lot lately. “I haven’t forgotten your mark, just like I haven’t forgotten that I haven’t marked you in turn, or that I have no plans to do so. I also haven’t forgotten that I have a pack to run, and that you have a decision to make. Mate or no mate.”

His lip curled as he glared at her. “You insult me if you think that being my mate doesn’t mean that I would do anything and everything in my power to ensure your safety and your happiness. Damn you for thinking that poorly of me.”

“Oh, so you’ve made your decision, then?” Her tone taunted him, the impulse to share a little of her own pain impossible to deny. “You’ve suddenly developed a burning desire to go from being the second most powerful wolf in one of the most powerful packs in the country to being my hunky piece of arm candy? Terrific. You can start by taking off your shirt. If I’m going to keep you as my little boy toy, I’ll want everyone to see exactly what you’re good for.”

He crossed the desk in a single leap, spinning her chair to face him and bracing his hands on the arms, surrounding her with a looming shroud of furious, feral male. Honor choked back a gasp, but she couldn’t control the way her heartbeat took off like a scared rabbit in the face of a hunting wolf. For the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to be prey.

“Don’t push me, little alpha.” The words came out like a spray of heated gravel, dark and rough and potentially damaging. “If I go over the edge, I’ll take you with me.”

“And where will we go, Hunter, hm? Straight to hell?” Her fight-or-flight response had broken days ago. She had only one reaction left to threats now, the one that made her lip curl and her chin lift and her gaze lock defiantly with his. “I got here last week. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

For a long moment he continued to stare at her, and she watched as his eyes shifted until all traces of brown disappeared behind the glow of liquid gold. Part of her was hypnotized by the visible signs of his internal battle, recognizing his struggle for control in his changing eyes and the sound of the fabric of the chair ripping where his claws lengthened and sliced into the cloth-covered arms.

With a howl he tore his gaze from hers and jerked away, throwing his head back and howling at the ceiling, the sound echoing with fury and frustration in the small room. Hairs rose on her arms and the back of her neck, the skin there tingling and throbbing where his teeth had cut into flesh. Her throat clenched as she bit back the cry welling in her own chest. Her wolf would always respond to his this way. She knew it, and that made it even more important that she make sure she crushed any illusions he had of a future they could share. She needed him gone so she could mourn for their lost chances and learn to live with the pain of losing her mate, not to death, but to circumstance, whose deceptive blade cut even deeper.

Honor watched, bleeding inside, while her mate—the mate she could never claim—struggled for control. She saw his skin ripple as the magic of the change moved through him, saw his muscles tense and clench as he fought to hold on to his human form. She saw him grimace and watched his canine teeth lengthen and sharpen into vicious fangs. She saw fur begin to sprout from his cheeks and throat, and saw the minute he lost the battle against his wolf.

His head jerked to the side, golden wolf’s eyes pinning her to her seat, and the warning ripped from his throat even as his face began to stretch toward the shape of a muzzle.

“This isn’t over,” he growled, the words barely intelligible as he lost the ability to speak as a man. As he surrendered his manhood to the magic in his blood. “You … mine. Mate. Ever.”

Then the Logan shape was gone and a huge, dark wolf snarled at her once, spun toward the door, and disappeared into the woods, the tip of his tail flying behind him.

Honor had no idea how long she sat there, staring out the door, waiting for the blood from her heart to puddle on the floor beneath her chair. Of course, it never did, because all of her wounds were internal, metaphorical, the kind that couldn’t kill her, that could only make her wish she were dead.

She wasn’t, though. Honor Tate still lived, still ran the White Paw Clan, and still had to deal with the fact that no matter what her heart or her mind or her gut wanted for her future, the only future she had was the same one she’d been staring in the face for the last week: she would rule, she would lead, and she would lock her protesting psyche away behind a wall of solid steel so thick, not even a werewolf could make a dent in it.

She would go on.

Soon. Just as soon as she could find the will for it.

And so she sat in her chair and stared out into the woods where Logan had disappeared. She didn’t notice the time passing, or the afternoon shadows lengthening. She didn’t notice her stomach rumbling with hunger when she missed her second meal of the day, and she didn’t notice the cold that invaded the cabin through the open door, not even when her breath swirled around her head in a visible cloud of steam. She didn’t notice any of it until two figures stepped into the doorway and cut off her sight line.

Honor blinked. It took a moment for the change to register, for her sluggish mind to claw its way out of the numbing hole of depression and start working again. She didn’t want to think; there was too great a chance that thoughts would lead to more feelings, and more feelings only meant more pain.

She frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“At the moment? Freezing our tails off, same as you.” Her uncle Hamish stepped into the cabin, followed by another of the pack elders. Barney Andrews drew the door closed behind them. “Pete’s sake, Honor, if you want to just give money to the electric company, wouldn’t it be easier to write a damned check? Be a hell of a lot more comfortable. It’s so damned cold in here, I don’t even want to take my jacket off.”

“Maybe she was trying to let in some fresh air.” Barney took a deep breath and eyed Honor with speculation. “I’d say she definitely let in something.”

Honor turned to glare at the old man, baring her teeth.

“Down, girl,” Hamish advised, settling into a chair facing her desk and leaning back to study her. “Doesn’t do you any good to snap at a man for pointing out the obvious. We’re all pack here. It’s not like you can hide the smell of a new mating.”

“If that’s what you came here to talk about, you can turn around and walk right out the door again.”

Her uncle ignored the snarl. “It’s not, but it does have a thing or two to say to the matter.”

“Exactly what matter is that?”

“The one you can’t afford to not be thinking about, missy. You know, a little matter about how there’s a Howl scheduled for the day after tomorrow, one that could just decide not only whether you continue to lead this pack, but whether or not you continue to live. Ring any bells?”

Her mouth tightened, but she kept silent. It was that or say something she would likely regret. She’d done enough of that for a while now.

“It’s a serious matter,” Barney threw in, taking the other chair and fixing Honor with a gaze she felt certain he meant to be sobering. She found it more irritating. “One that was complicated enough before you threw caution to the wind and decided to mate with a wolf who isn’t even a member of this pack.”

That made Honor want to laugh. Yeah, as if she had “decided” anything about this fiasco. The only decision she could remember making since the day her father died was what it would take for her to be able to look herself in the mirror when she dragged her ass out of bed every morning. And just look at how well that one had worked out for her.

“Now’s not the time for casting blame.” Hamish frowned at the other man, and Barney subsided. Elder he might be, but Barney had always ranked below Hamish in the pack; he knew when to shut up.

“Oh, why the hell not?” Honor asked with a snort. “Sounds like just what I need to top off my day.”

“It’s not the time for self-pity, either. We’ve got plans to make, and important things to consider before the pack gathers.”

Honor sighed. “What’s to consider, Uncle Hamish? The pack will meet. I’ll claim the title of alpha. One or more of the stupider males in the pack will challenge me. Either I’ll win, or I’ll die. The pack will hunt together, and life will go on. You know, for everyone who’s not dead. I don’t see much room for negotiation there, unless you’ve thought of a way to force the Silverback to decide in my favor once I’ve won the challenges.”

“It’s not the challenges that I think you need to be worried about, sweetheart. There’re some stories flying around the pack this afternoon that say those males who were thinking of challenging you have changed their minds.”

“Well, isn’t that good news?” Honor asked, ignoring the uneasy feeling gathering at the base of her spine. “No challenges means my place as alpha is uncontested. That will have to count for something with the Silverback. It shows the pack has confidence in me.”

Barney snorted. “They aren’t giving up on the challenges because they’re behind you, little girl. They just think it would be more fun to fuck you than to kill you.”

Hamish’s big hand flew before Honor could blink, catching the other man square on the jaw. “I told you that as an elder, you had a right to consult with the alpha on the matter, Andrews, not that you could flap your damned jaw like the idiot you are.”

Barney winced and cradled his bruised chin, but he kept his mouth shut. He also lowered his gaze at the other man’s rumbled warning.

Honor didn’t intervene, but she did hold up a hand and fix her relative with a hard stare. “What is he talking about, Uncle Ham?”

Hamish sighed. “I might not like the way he blurted it out, Honor, but I can’t pretend that his words weren’t the truth. The males who’ve been planning to give you trouble at the Howl haven’t backed down from their plans, they’ve just shifted gears. Instead of challenging you for your place as alpha, they think they’re going to call for an Alpha Mating Rite.”

“What the hell is an Alpha Mating Rite?” Her mind went blank for a moment, and Honor had to search her memory to make sense of what she was hearing. It didn’t register at first, so it took a few seconds to dredge up a vague recollection of an obscure point of Lupine tradition. When she made the connection, she felt her heart stutter in shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Isn’t that when—”

She broke off, unable to complete the thought.

“It’s when an unmated female tries to take her place as alpha of the pack,” Hamish declared flatly. “Any males who question her ability to lead can call for either an Alpha Challenge, or an Alpha Mating Rite. If it’s the first option, the female has to fight her male challengers to the death; if she loses, the male who defeats her takes her place as alpha. If it’s the second, she has to fight until either the males are dead, or she loses; and if she loses, the winner gets to mate her and then he takes his place at her side as a second alpha. Now you have a female stuck spending her life with a male who already tried to kill her once and doesn’t have much of a reason to treat her as anything other than a whipping post, plus you have a pack with two alphas. History tells us that lasts just long enough to break the pack apart, but not so long that one of the alphas doesn’t end up dead after all.”

Honor swallowed against rising bile. “But that no longer applies to me,” she reasoned, fists clenching. “I have a mate. You know that. You scented the bond as soon as you walked in here.”

Her uncle shook his head. “What I scented was that a male had put his mark on you. The Silverback male. That’s not a full mate bond, and the males making trouble aren’t going to accept it. First off, because there’s no indication in the scent he left behind that you marked him back. And second, because Logan Hunter isn’t a member of this pack. Only a member can mate a female alpha. He’d have to petition to join the pack before your bond would be recognized, and if you think the morons gunning for you are gonna let that happen at this point in the game, you’re out of your pretty, stubborn head. They’d kill him to keep that from happening.”

“Logan could take on any male in this pack and win, even in his human form. With his hands tied behind his back.”

“What? You think they’re gonna come at him head-on? One at a time?” Hamish snorted. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what fairy tales you’ve been reading these days, but fair play has no part in games like this, not when an alpha position is part of the stakes. They’d take him together, if they thought that was the only way. Or better yet, they’d just put a bullet in him. No fuss, no muss. Then he’s out of the way, and the female alpha is still unmated. Only now, she’s too damned shook up to think straight. Makes her more vulnerable, easier to take down.”

The words struck like strands of a whip, cutting through her already pessimistic view of the future and leaving nothing but bleak, ragged shards. She struggled to breathe.

“They can’t do that,” she choked out, her throat threatening to close on a mix of anxiety and mindless fury. “I am alpha here. I won’t allow it.”

Hamish leaned forward in his seat. “I think you need to pay attention to some very important points, sweetheart. Ones that I came out here to remind you of. You’ve been acting like taking over for your daddy was a guaranteed home run. Sure, a couple of idiots tried to give you trouble, but the first one was too young and too dumb to pose a real threat, the second one underestimated you from the start, and Paul … well, he just didn’t have his heart in it. That boy’s been half in love with you for three quarters of his life. If you hadn’t taken his hand, he’d’ve gnawed it off himself when he realized he’d hurt you. But from here on out, things are different.

“First off, you need to wrap your mind around the idea that this Howl is not going to be some sort of rubber-stamp act where the only thing standing between you and making this job as alpha permanent is a few words from you and a round of applause from the crowd. A lot of the members of this pack respect you, sweetheart, but there are a few bad apples in every barrel, and the ones in yours are just crawling with worms. They are ready to kill or rape you if that’s what it takes to put you in your place.

“And second, you obviously need to brush up on your knowledge of Lupine traditions, or none of this would be coming as a surprise.” He shook his head at her. “You made this pack a good beta, Honor, and I doubt anyone telling the truth would be saying any different, but a female beta who’s the daughter of a strong, dominant alpha is a hell of a lot different from a female alpha who half the pack can remember seeing in diapers. Even those who respect you, those who like you, they might still have doubts about your ability to lead. You ought to know that Lupines are never wild about change, kid. Progressive thinking isn’t one of our strengths. You should remember that an unmated female alpha has never gone over well with our kind.”

Honor swore. “What did you really come here to say, then? That I should just give up and step aside and make way for a man to come forward and do my job for me? If that’s what you’ve been trying to tell me, uncle, just go ahead and say it. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

Hamish swore right back. “It doesn’t really sound like you can, Honor Strength. What part of what I’ve said sounded to you like I’d rather have some hotheaded, loudmouthed asshole for an alpha than you? Was it the part where I called them morons? Or later, where I compared them to wormy apples? Hell, girl, I’m on your side, but I’m trying to tell you, you need to open your eyes and see what’s coming for you. I know your daddy taught you never to walk into a challenge circle unprepared, but you’ve been walking around here like you’ve already won all the battles. Did you really think you could get away with it being that easy? That someone wouldn’t dig up all our oldest and ugliest traditions, no matter how you—or the rest of the pack, for that matter—really feel about them? Admittedly, the Alpha Mating Rite isn’t the prettiest of our legacies, but it exists, and I guarantee you it’s going to come up at this Howl.”

Not the prettiest of our legacies.

Now that was an understatement to end all understatements. As proud as Honor might be of her heritage at the best of times, the Mating Rite did not qualify as the best of times. It qualified as one of those times when it sucked to be a female in a culture where masculine traits like strength and speed and stubborn stupidity were valued above everything else. It qualified as something out of her worst nightmares.

“It’s archaic,” she felt compelled to point out, but the protest sounded weak even to her own ears. She knew her uncle was telling her the truth, and she knew she had no hope in hell of preventing the future he’d just described. “No one in their right mind could think we should still be carrying on a tradition of condoned rape in this day and age.”

“I hear that the Silverback Clan ran a mate hunt just last year,” Barney threw in, careful to keep his gaze from meeting those of the others. “The alpha and a bunch of other prime males chose mates that day, by running them down in Central Park and fucking them where they caught them. And these were city wolves. It might seem archaic when we talk about it, but I bet that when the males carried their mates out of the woods over their shoulders, it just seemed real.”

Honor shivered. Her arms wrapped around herself as if warding off the cold, but she still hadn’t noticed the ambient temperature. This chill came from the inside.

“This is the modern world,” she said. “Our females are allowed rights equal to those of the males in the pack. They get to vote on issues where the opinion of the pack is weighed. We educate them alongside the males. They live in a world outside their homes, have lives and careers of their own. They’re treated as equal members of our culture. And yet you say that when a female alpha calls a Howl to assume her rightful place at the head of the pack, that pack will refuse to grant her their obedience unless she has a mate to protect her in case she turns out to be too weak? That’s just frickin’ asinine!”

“It’s the truth,” Hamish said.

She pushed out of her chair to pace the length of the small room. She hated to be still when she needed to think. She had to pace and prowl and roam around. Lupines always thought best on their feet. “I don’t agree. I think that things are changing all around us, and it’s time this pack kept pace with the world we live in. We need to change, especially when this is the alternative some of our males come up with. We can’t keep clinging to the old ways like this, especially when the old ways are so entirely repulsive. I won’t let it happen.”

“You won’t have a choice.”

She stopped and met that assessment with a fierce glare, fists clenched on her hips, chin lifted high in the air. “I’m the alpha here, and I lead the pack. When I make a decision, it stands. If I say there will be no Mating Rite, there will be no Mating Rite.”

“If you say there will be no Mating Rite, there will be a riot,” Barney spat out.

Honor turned on the old man, prepared to rip him a new one, but her uncle moved slightly to the side, drawing her attention away.

“It’s not like you to kill the messenger, sweetheart,” Hamish said. “Don’t start picking fights with the man for speaking the truth. Saying no won’t change anything. The pack’s been working itself into a state since Ethan died. They’ve had too much time to be uncertain by now. You’ve been challenged repeatedly, and you may have won those battles, but everyone knows the war isn’t over. They know this Howl is big, and having the Silverback sniffing around and asking questions about you and the pack is only ratcheting up the tension. Everyone knows tomorrow night isn’t going to end without blood spilled, but most of them don’t want to see you dead. They’re hoping—I’m hoping—that you aren’t that stupid, but they won’t accept a decree from you that flies in the face of thousands of years of Lupine history and custom. Once you’ve established yourself, maybe, but not now. Now, you need to play the hand you’ll be dealt.”

“So what is it that you want me to do, uncle?” she demanded. “Go along with this stupid, bass-ackwards tradition and let myself be raped? Because I can’t do it. I’d sooner step aside and let the Silverback Clan name Bozo the Clown the alpha of this pack.”

“And you see? That’s why you need to start thinking this thing through.”

“What are you talking about?”

“About the fact that the male sent here by the Silverback Clan is now a great big variable in an already complicated equation.” Hamish braced his elbows on his spread knees and clasped his hands together between them. “Setting aside the fact that he’s already marked you for a minute, it hasn’t helped shut any mouths that Graham Winters felt it necessary to send one of his men here to judge your fitness to lead. It made some folks in the pack who had never questioned you taking over wonder if there might be something to the question.”

Honor swore. “I knew I should have kicked his sorry ass out of my territory before he had time to shut his damned car door.”

Her uncle raised a brow. “Right. Either way, it’s too late for that now. The cat’s out of the bag. Having him here has only made the Mating Rite more likely. You aren’t the only one who finds the thought of it hard to swallow, but having the Silverback question you will make it go down easier for quite a few of them. What really throws a wrench in the works is finding out that he’s marked you for his mate. That’s a hell of a thing to have happen right now.”

“You already told me it wouldn’t be any help. Since I haven’t marked him back, and he can’t put forward a claim to stop the mating hunt, what the hell good does he do me?”

“None. What he does for you doesn’t have a damn trace of good about it. He makes things worse.”

At that, something snapped in Honor’s chest. She threw back her head and laughed, loudly. She felt like a camel hauling straw when that one last blade drifted down onto her back, and the picture of herself as a were-camel only made her laugh harder. As did the look Barney Andrews threw her way. The man couldn’t have appeared more horrified if she’d stripped off her clothes and decided to dance a tarantella on top of her daddy’s desk.

That thought set her off again.

By the time she had to stop or quit breathing altogether, she was wiping tears from her eyes and clutching her aching belly.

“Goddess’ sake, Ham, she’s lost her damned mind,” Barney hissed, as if Honor couldn’t hear him, standing as she was less than five feet away from him. “Not that it doesn’t make the question of her fitness to lead a lot easier to answer, but what the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“Whew.” Honor blew out a deep breath and grabbed ahold of herself. The elder might be looking at her funny, but she recognized the laughter for what it was—a release from the vibrating knot of tension that had been winding tighter and tighter inside of her for days. Hell, maybe even years. “Don’t fit me for a straitjacket just yet, Barney. I haven’t gone off the deep end. Not yet anyway. But you’ve got to admit, at this point saying things have just gotten worse is like saying that when a man’s wife steals his truck to leave him, not only does she run over his dog, she mails him back the bill to get the fender fixed.”

That comparison didn’t seem to reassure him.

Shrugging, she turned back to her uncle. “Okay, Uncle Ham. Lay it on me. What’s the bottom line about Hunter’s impact on the situation? I won’t even question that he makes things worse, but what did you mean by it?”

Hamish nodded, looking unfazed by her outburst. Hell, the man had known her since her first breath; he’d seen her act crazier.

“Logan Hunter doesn’t just undermine your claim to be alpha,” he said, holding her gaze with his own, his age and her affection for him making it possible. “I said before that the males who want to move against you at the Howl, they won’t recognize him as your mate, not with the mark unreturned and him being the beta of another pack, but that doesn’t mean Hunter won’t want to stake his claim.” He pushed his upper body back up straight. “Now, I spoke to the boy, so I don’t think he’s dumb enough or mean enough to try to join in the rite, even if our males would let him, but he’s not going to just stand aside and let anyone try to hurt you, either. So my guess is, when the rite is declared and the first male steps up to challenge you, Hunter is going to try to take him down.”

Closing her eyes, Honor let her head fall back and sighed. Now she could see where this was going—straight to hell, just like everything else in her life. “And when he does that, it will set off all the other males. There really will be a riot. Anyone who doesn’t like me—or who just doesn’t like having an outsider interfering in pack business—is going to try to kill Logan. When the whole thing is over, I’m left with either half a pack, with the rest lying dead at the Silverback’s feet, or a dead Silverback and the beginnings of a war with the most powerful Lupine pack in the eastern United States.”

“That about sums it up.”

Honor was silent for a moment, just letting the irony of it all sink in. Here she stood, a female who didn’t even want to be alpha, faced with a situation that redefined the idea of a no-win scenario. She felt like she was trapped in an episode of Star Trek. She had no good choices, and no matter what choice she made, someone was going to die. It seemed like it would be a hell of a lot easier if that someone were her, but her stubborn pride wouldn’t allow it.

Finally, she blew out a breath and opened her eyes.

“So, what do you suggest I do?” she asked, her mouth twisting into a wry curve. “If I shift and start running now, I could be halfway to the Canadian border before moonrise on Saturday.”

Hamish returned the expression. “You’d never get that far. If the pack didn’t track you down, that mate of yours would.”

She shook her head. “We both know he can’t be my mate, uncle. There’s no way it can work. When this is over, if either one of us is still alive, we’ll be going our separate ways. I can’t leave the pack, and he can’t take orders from anyone but his own alpha. That’s just the way it is.”

“One step at a time, sweetheart. First, figure out a way to get through the weekend, then worry about your love life.”

“Right. Survival. Check.” She paused for several long seconds. “Any idea how to make that happen?”

“Not at the moment, but you’ve got forty-five hours left to figure it out.”

“Forty-five hours? Sure. Piece of cake.”

Or not.