Hungry Like a Wolf

Twelve

There was no rest for the wicked, nor apparently, for the werewolf needing to come up with a plan to save her own life, let alone the pack that apparently wanted to see her mated or dead. On Thursday night, Honor collapsed into her bed, mental and emotional exhaustion sending her spiraling immediately into sleep. Too bad it wasn’t a restful one. Plagued by dreams in which she found herself covered in the blood of those she considered family, or standing over the bloodied body of her mate, the night proved short and restless. When a fist pounded on the door just before dawn, it came almost as a relief.

“What is it?” she demanded hoarsely, sitting up and pushing a tangle of hair out of her eyes.

“We’ve got a fence down.” Max’s voice was easy to recognize, even through the thick panels of wood. “Moody’s cows are tramping through the gap to the northeast.”

Honor cursed.

While most Lupines much preferred the taste and entertainment value of wild game, when the spirit of a hunt was on them, they occasionally forgot to exercise their better judgment if confronted by the easy pickings of a domestic dairy cow. It kept the farmers happy to know that the “timber wolf” and “red wolf” populations on the supposed wildlife sanctuary next door to them stayed safely contained behind a stout ten-foot-high wooden fence.

Well, the fence had started out ten feet high and stout. As Honor stood looking down on it twenty minutes after the summons came, it resembled firewood waiting to be stacked. Someone had done a number on it.

Trouble had come, she heard, when said stout, ten-foot wooden fence wandered directly into the path of a bunch of rowdy teenagers who had decided to do a little cow-tipping and four-wheel mudding to entertain themselves. Their truck had spun out of control on the dirt road—barely more than a path, really—that bordered the fence line, and slammed sideways into the fence, which was already twenty years old and in need of repair. It had collapsed under the strain, and forty of the neighboring cows had stampeded through the opening, enlarging it quite a bit in the process.

“I smell you and a few of the others,” Honor said to Max, who stood close behind her, “but I’m giving you credit for being too smart for this shit. Inside the car, were the kids ours?”

If they had been, none of them would be driving for a while. Hell, none of them would be conscious for a while. Not after the smacks she planned to deliver upside their fool heads.

“No, it was a bunch of townies. Human kids. Tom Sergeant got a whiff of them when they peeled onto the main road trying to get home. He saw the damage to their truck. Definitely not ours.”

For which both Honor and the teenaged population of the pack could be grateful. The teenagers, because their asses would remain unbeaten, and Honor, because that was at least one thing she wouldn’t have to add to her already overcrowded plate. Although at this point, she probably wouldn’t even notice one more crisis. It could just get in line behind the others, and she’d deal with it in turn.

Hey, maybe that was a point in favor of not surviving tomorrow night. If she died during the challenges, someone else got to deal with all this shit. The prospect sounded almost appealing.

“All right.” She sighed, rolling up her sleeves both figuratively and literally. “Let’s get the cows back to Moody first. Get Henry and Jay on that. Animals are usually okay with them. You can help me sort through all this crap to see if there’s anything we can salvage. We need at least half a dozen usable posts. Then someone needs to go to town to the feed store and pick up some razor wire. It will have to do until I can order new material for a permanent replacement.

“Let’s get to work.”

It meant a lot of sweaty hours, clearing up all the broken timber and debris of the accident. Thankfully none of the kids had been hurt and the truck had been operational enough to limp back to town under its own steam, so she didn’t have to deal with the headache of injured humans or irate parents blaming her for their progeny’s stupidity. It all just came down to cleanup and repair. Until she could get the materials to replace that section of the barricade, they had to make do with what they had on hand. On the farmer’s side of the old fence, she and a handful of the pack dug temporary postholes and hammered in posts made up of scraps of the former fence. Then they’d strung and stapled razor wire to keep the cattle in their field.

Keeping curious Lupines out of said field would prove to be a sight more challenging.

The only effective barrier against wandering werewolves was a fence at least as high and strong as the one the truck had taken down, and that just wasn’t going to happen without time and the proper materials. Actually, even a fence that tall did more to soothe the farmers than it did to actually contain the Lupines. An adult werewolf could easily clear the ten-foot barrier with room to spare. But it did generally serve to make one think twice about leaving the pack’s territory, and that was its primary job.

This time, since she couldn’t rely on that job being done by wood and post, she would have to be a little more resourceful.

Wiping a dirt-streaked forearm across her brow, Honor stood in front of the temporary barrier and waved Max forward. The kid had proved to be a lot of help that morning. “Send everyone home and make sure no one like Moody wanders by.” And by “like Moody” she meant human. “I need to finish this off.”

Max nodded, quickly catching on to her plan. “You got it, boss. Just give me a second.”

Honor waited until she could scent that her workers had turned and headed back toward the pack’s main buildings, then she slipped deeper into the tree line. Stripping quickly in the cold air, she shifted into her wolf form. Then she walked along the perimeter of the patchwork-fenced area and marked the whole thing with her scent.

On the one hand, the smell of a mature female close to heat might end up drawing more males than it repelled, but the smell of an alpha was the important part of the equation. If she marked the barrier and therefore the field beyond as her private territory, then any members of the pack would know she meant, “This is mine. Stay away and don’t touch.” It would have to do until she could order wood and permanent posts for the new fence.

Shifting quickly back, she dressed and looked at her watch. It was nearly noon.

“Come back up to the house with me,” she said to Max. “Least I can do is feed you for helping out here. Joey can make you a sandwich, or something.”

“Uh, thanks, but no thanks, boss.” Max shook his head. “No offense, but I don’t think your cousin likes me very much. I’m sure my mom’s got food at home. I’ll grab something at her place.”

Honor sighed. “Don’t take it personally, Max. These days, Joey doesn’t seem to like anyone, really. Maybe my dad’s death hit her harder than she expected. He was kind of her last link to her own father. I barely remember Uncle Joe, but I do know he and Dad were a lot alike.”

Still, Max accepted the offer of a lift back to his mother’s cabin, and Honor swung the pickup in that direction before heading back to her own house. She climbed out of the truck slightly sore and extremely grubby, dreaming of nothing more than a nice hot shower. All thoughts of the upcoming Howl had been pushed to the back of her mind and locked away, at least for another few minutes. When she was clean, she’d think about that again. Maybe when she was clean, it wouldn’t seem like such an insurmountable obstacle. She just didn’t have the bandwidth for it yet. She barely had the bandwidth for a shower and lunch.

She climbed the stairs to the second floor, moving more like a ninety-year-old woman than a twenty-four-year-old Lupine, but she just felt battered. She knew enough to realize that at least half the sore muscles had less to do with wrestling barbed wire than with wrestling a male Lupine yesterday afternoon, but she didn’t mind those aches nearly as much. She knew very well they’d be gone within a couple more hours, and for now she almost savored the reminder … especially since she knew better than anyone that it might have been the last time she’d ever make love with the wolf who had mated her.

Honor shivered and found herself weaving a little as she padded down the hall to her bedroom. Her mental and emotional exhaustion just kept deepening, and while the end might be in sight—with the Howl coming up tomorrow—the type of end it had the potential to become made it look less like the light at the end of the tunnel and more like the oncoming train.

Who knew things would work out like this? she wondered as she turned on the shower and stripped while the water warmed. When she’d complained that this wasn’t a good time to find her mate, she hadn’t realized what a fine mate he would be, or how irresistible she would find him. She’d thought all those old pack legends about one perfect mate for each Lupine had been hogwash—romantic, but useless. And yet here she was, finding herself drawn to one man and one man only, not even able to picture touching another as long as she lived. She’d even found herself holding her breath at times while she and the five male members of her pack had been working on the fence. Their scents had been offensive to her, something she’d never experienced with any other Lupine who bathed. It was just weird.

She almost smiled as she stepped under the shower spray. Having a mate might have turned out to be very interesting, she decided. Provided, of course, that she could have kept him.

The stinging hot needles of water pounded down over her, rinsing away the worst of the debris and splinters and mud splatters. When she felt the nastiest grime sluice away, she reached for a washcloth and her soap and began lathering her skin. She lathered and rinsed twice, but the need to scrub off her skin had not reappeared since the day she’d bitten off Paul’s hand. It boggled her mind that the incident had happened only a couple of days ago. So much seemed to have happened since her father’s death. She felt as if she’d lived an extra lifetime in that one week.

She shampooed and rinsed her hair, leaving the conditioner in while she washed her face with a moisturizing cleanser. Being a werewolf didn’t excuse a girl from a skin-preserving regimen. When she was clean and rinsed, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in an enormous towel, using a smaller one to twist into a turban around her hair. She still had to moisturize, or all that nice clean skin of hers would end up dry and chalky before her hair even dried.

She nearly laughed at herself as she spread the milky cream into her legs. She’d always been a bit too much of a girly girl for a Lupine beta, not to mention an alpha. That might have been part of the reason why it took so long for her father to start paying her any attention. Before she’d begun fighting challenges, she’d been too busy playing with her dolls, and then later painting pretty pictures and decorating the dollhouse her nanny bought her to interest a man who lived and breathed the eternal combat of strength. What use did he have for a pretty little girl who preferred to make things rather than destroy them? Not much, as she’d found out.

As Honor had grown, she had developed into the sort of daughter her father could love, a woman who could challenge a grown male and win, who could bench-press a small bus and bite a hole through a sheet of stainless steel. She’d had to give up all of her more feminine hobbies and traits to please the man who refused to be pleased. The only thing of her own she had kept was her pottery, and it was the only area of her life where she truly felt at home and at peace. She didn’t feel it when playing alpha or beta, when managing the business or ordering people around. So why was she still doing those things, and why was she planning to fight for the right to continue doing them for the rest of her life?

The answer came easily, but not prettily. Pride. She was too much her father’s daughter in that one respect, too bloody proud to admit she’d been wrong her whole life in struggling to make someone else happy by doing things that made her miserable. How dumb did that make her?

Sighing, Honor unwrapped the towel from her head and combed through the mass of curls. She squeezed out all the excess water she could, then left it to dry naturally. Leaving her other towel on the floor in front of the sink for Joey to get later, she turned and padded silently back into her bedroom.

She stood in front of her closet for a long time, just staring blindly at the contents. It seemed like such an effort to reach in and grab a pair of jeans, a snug thermal pullover, a practical button-down shirt. And, sheesh, lacing up a pair of boots…? Just the thought of it exhausted her.

Hm, so maybe this was what burnout felt like?

Too bad she couldn’t afford the luxury.

A force of will had her tugging out an outfit and pulling it on. Whether any part of it matched any other, she neither knew nor cared. She was covered. As long as the law was satisfied, so was she.

Honor made her way down the stairs conscious of the silence surrounding her. The big house felt empty. She couldn’t sense her cousin moving around on one of her cleaning rampages, and her nose told her that her mate was nowhere within these walls. In fact, she smelled no one until she stepped into the kitchen at the same moment that her uncle came in through the back door.

He took one look at her and headed to the coffeepot. Pouring two steaming mugs, he handed one to her and raised the other to his lips.

Honor accepted it and opened the refrigerator for the cream.

“Heard you had a busy morning,” Hamish remarked.

Honor recapped the cream, put it away, and dropped a spoonful of sugar into her mug. A quick stir later, she sipped, nearly sighing with pleasure. Any morning that started without coffee made her want to cry. She hadn’t taken the time for a cup earlier. Now her day could really begin.

“Some kids from town came out here joyriding last night and took down a section of fence,” she said. “Max found it when he was out for a run and came to tell me about it. It took a few hours to get the cows back where they belonged and rig up something to keep them there until we can replace the fence. Of course, trying to dig postholes was bad enough today. It’s going to be a real bitch in a couple of weeks after the materials come in and the ground has had a chance to freeze even more solid.”

“Gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

Hamish eyed her. “So why are you standing around here, then?”

Honor blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t you have a few other things on your plate right about now?”

“I thought I’d finish my coffee first, but sure, Uncle Hamish. Just as soon as I’m done I’ll wave my sparkly magic wand and go fix everything. Thanks for the reminder.”

He chuckled, apparently unfazed by the dark look and rude gesture she threw in his direction. “Sweetheart, the day I see you wave a sparkly magic wand is the day I go vegetarian. I wasn’t criticizing. Fact is, I was suggesting that you need to get away and clear your head. The Howl is tomorrow night. If you waste today taking care of a thousand little chores that won’t spell the end of the world if they get missed, you won’t be doing yourself any favors. If you want to come up with a plan, you need to get away from the pack and do some thinking. If it were me, I’d hightail it so deep into the woods, the squirrels couldn’t find me, and then I’d do some thinking.”

Honor deflated like a popped balloon. “I’ve been doing nothing but think for a week now,” she admitted, “and so far it hasn’t gotten me anywhere but right back to where I started. I don’t know if I can figure this thing out, Uncle Ham. I’m not even sure I’ve got the energy to keep trying. Tomorrow night, half my pack is going to try to kill me, and the other half is going to be urging them on, and I don’t have a damned single idea about how I’m going to stop them.”

Hamish stepped forward and wrapped Honor in a hug, the kind of big, encompassing, comforting squeeze she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “That’s why you need to get away, Honor. I have faith in you, little girl, and I have faith that you’re going to figure out a way to beat this, but even if you come up with a plan worthy of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and the Duke of Wellington all rolled into one, it’s not going to do you any good if you drop from exhaustion before you can put it into action. You need rest, you need quiet, and you need the pack to stay the hell away from you for twenty-four hours. You hear me?”

Honor snorted against his chest, but hugged him back briefly and fiercely. “I hear you, old man, and I appreciate the advice. Now are you going to be the one to tell the pack that I ran away from home when they come up here or to the office looking for me?”

“It would serve them right if that was exactly what I told them. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll make sure Max and Joey know. Between the three of us, I’m sure we can put out enough DO NOT DISTURB signs to give you a nice little vacation. Now get out of here.”

Leaving her empty coffee cup in the sink, Honor took a deep breath and gave her uncle a small smile, the first one in days that felt like she meant it. Hell, maybe even in months.

“Thanks, Uncle Hamish. I really do appreciate this.”

Before he could finish telling her to shut up and scoot, Honor was out the back door and halfway into the woods. She knew exactly where she’d go for her little meditation, too. At the far southwestern edge of the pack’s territory, one arm of their miniature lake jutted out into the neighbor’s property, but behind that was an isolated little strip of land with an old shack that her father had never bothered to tear down. He didn’t think anyone would want a cabin out that far, and he’d likely been right, but for Honor it was a little piece of heaven. She’d worked in secret for an entire summer when she was sixteen making sure the roof didn’t leak, the walls were sound, the chimney drew, and the little hideaway held a stock of blankets and first-aid supplies. Every few months, she also replenished it with firewood and bottled water. None of the pack ever went near it, something she could verify by scent, and it was the only place in the clan’s territory where Honor ever felt like she could be herself. Maybe there, her head would clear enough for her to think.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding Honor that she’d missed breakfast, and she’d just walked away from a giant refrigerator filled with lunch possibilities. She never left food at the cabin, since attracting wildlife wouldn’t help keep the place clean and sound, so there was nothing there for her to eat, but she didn’t care. As soon as she got there, she planned to strip off her clothes and go for a nice long run. There would be plenty of game near the shack to satisfy her hunger, but what would really be satisfied was her soul. It might be nice to remember what that felt like.