the fire pit she’d been working on the morning after Logan’s arrival. She took that as her cue.
Drawing in a single slow, deep breath, Honor closed her eyes and let the magic flow through her. When she opened them again, it was to step forward and climb atop the remains of the oak tree.
All talking stopped when the first Lupine spotted her. Honor knew she would be hard to miss. Not only was she standing in the spot reserved for the alpha of the White Paw, she was standing before her pack, tall and bare, her pale skin glowing in the light of the swiftly rising moon and the leaping, flickering flames. The nudity was the least of her concerns. Before long, the entire pack would be naked, because clothing never fared well during a shift. Being naked was natural for a Lupine; being a female alpha was not.
Well, fuck that, Honor thought as she lifted her chin and opened her mouth to speak.
“Brothers and sisters.” She spoke clearly, lifting her voice to be heard even at the far edges of the stone yard. She was done with hiding, done with being doubted. She was alpha now, and her pack would listen. “Tonight we gather beneath the moon to mourn the passing of our leader. Ethan Tate led this pack with strength and courage for nearly four decades and for that we honor him. Raise your voices for our fallen brother!”
Throwing back her head, Honor opened her mouth and let her wolf sound the call. Sharp and mournful, her howl rose into the clear night sky, followed soon after by another, then another, then another, until the entire pack sang a Lupine dirge in memory of her father.
When the last note died, Honor opened her eyes and let the golden light of her beast shine out over the pack, reflecting the bright glow of the bonfire.
“And now,” she said, her voice low and rumbling as if a growl struggled somewhere in her chest to be released, “let us do as Ethan Tate would do and move our pack forward into the future.”
She paused for a second and caught her uncle’s eye, drawing deeply of his supportive strength. Max, too, watched her with calm dedication. She could do this, Honor told herself. She had to do this, because there was no one else.
“I, Honor Tate, the last surviving member of the alpha bloodline of the White Paw Clan, take for myself the place of alpha. This title is mine. This pack is mine. This territory is mine. Let anyone who would protest come forward and feel my wrath.”
That, as the stories would one day say, was when all hell broke loose.
Logan fought in silence, struggling with all his strength against an enormous weight that pressed him down into a dark, suffocating fog. His limbs felt like granite and moving them even the slightest bit took every ounce of his strength. Something pinned him down, but he knew, he
Consciousness returned on a rush of magic, not the kind that tickled just beneath his skin in the split second before his change, but that kind that rushed forth from a hundred Lupine throats, all raised to the sky in a flurry of song. A pack was calling. It wasn’t precisely his pack, but it felt almost the same. It felt like they were calling out for something; it felt like they were calling him.
He sat up like a coiled-spring snake bursting from a can of nuts. Adrenaline coursed through his system, making his heart pump hard and fast and leaving him gasping. He felt as if he’d been underwater for too long, and now he sucked air frantically into oxygen-starved lungs. Wide-eyed, he took in his surroundings—the rough, bare walls, the spartan bunk, the moonlight shining in through the single window. For a moment, he felt panic rising. He had no idea where he was. Then Honor’s face appeared in his mind, and the memories came rushing back.
Racing through the woods. Honor leading him to the cabin. Waking up to the mind-blowing sensation of her mouth on his flesh. Mating. Their argument. The gunshot.
His right hand flew to his injured left shoulder, feeling the rough texture of gauze beneath his fingertips. Clearly, his mate had stayed with him long enough to bandage his wound, so where was she now? Why had she left? Had she gone for help? That seemed a bit like overkill, given that she would know he’d begin recovering quickly the minute he woke enough to shift.
The still night air shattered under the impact of a Lupine battle cry, at least three—maybe four—males joining together to howl out their intent to kill. What followed was the most bone-chilling sound Logan had ever heard. A single female howled back, her call a lonely symphony of rage and violence and farewell.
Before the last note had sounded, a huge dark shape flung itself through the door of the cabin and into the woods, leaving behind nothing but a splintered panel of wood and a bloodstained bandage, glowing white and black in the silvery light of the moon.
Astonishment failed to overtake Honor when her four challengers stepped forward. Each man wore an identical expression of smirking arrogance, and each one stared at some point south of her face when they stopped a few feet in front of the oak stump to issue their challenge. They had their backs to the fire, but that didn’t keep Honor from reading their expressions.
“I protest your claim, little girl.” Darin spoke first, typically. He was neither the strongest, nor the most dominant male in his little group, but that didn’t stop him from having the biggest mouth. “But I’ve got in mind to feel something a whole lot more interesting than your wrath, baby.”
His leer would have been comical if it hadn’t made Honor long so desperately for a shower. She said nothing, letting her curled lip and rumbling growl speak for her.
“I protest.” Greg Carpenter stepped forward next, followed closely by Richard Maloni, the man whose face she hadn’t seen earlier.
“Me, too,” Maloni added eloquently.
“I protest, bitch.” Peter Scott managed to combine his own leer with what Honor guessed was supposed to be a sneer. The mating of the two expressions ended up looking something like what she pictured on the faces of first-trimester pregnant women who’d been force-fed rancid sauerkraut, then taken for a rough-weather sailing trip.
“Your protests have been acknowledged,” Hamish said, stepping up onto the stump beside his niece. It was the responsibility of the pack elders to ensure that any challenges were heard and settled according to pack law. “As this is an alpha challenge presented to a female claimant, you have the right to a choice of methods. You may select either—”
“We claim the option of the Alpha Mating Rite.” Darin looked at Hamish and grinned with taunting menace. “Don’t waste our time, old man. We’re ready to get down to business. We got bitches to fuck.”
“I hope you don’t mind the cold,” Honor snarled, “because you’ll have to kill me and hump my corpse, Major. I wouldn’t let you near me any other way.”
Darin spat something vicious, but it was drowned out by the growls and barks of the other males. The crowd at the edges of the stone yard had gone eerily silent as the pack awaited the outcome of the challenges.
“Save your energy for the challenge circle,” Hamish snapped. “You all know the parameters of the challenge. An Alpha Mating Rite has been called. Having failed to win the unanimous support of the pack, the unmated female claimant must now accept her strongest male challenger as her mate. There will be no quarter given. If the female is defeated while more than one challenger still stands, the remaining males fight to the surrender or to the death for the right to mate her.
“Do you all understand?”
“I understand that your ass is mine, little girl,” Darin threatened, licking his chops as he stared at her exposed breasts.
“You’ll be dead before you touch it.”
Hamish extended his hand high overhead and raised his voice to be heard over the growing chorus of growls and snarls. “Let the Mating Rite begin!”
His hand dropped, the male challengers surged forward, uttering battle cries, and Honor flung herself into the fray with a fierce howl, shifting in the air like a molten gray nightmare.
Sixteen
