you and giving you mind-blowing sex at least twice a day.” She shrugged and smiled. “I had it all worked out.”
Logan was shaking his head before she made it to “idiot,” and he didn’t stop when she did. “No. You don’t understand.” He met her eyes, this time, his own golden ones soft and warm like aged whiskey. “I have it all worked out. I’m going to tell Graham that I’m resigning my place as his beta and leaving the Silverback Clan. I’m going to move up to Connecticut, because this place is your home, and these folks are your family. We have to live here. You’ll run the pack and I’ll take care of the things you don’t have the stomach to do, and we’d get to be together, being madly in love and having mind-blowing sex at least three or four times a day. It’s a great plan. I had it all worked out.”
“Did either of you even consider sharing either of these lamebrained plans with me?” Graham bit out.
The honk of a car horn prevented them from answering.
Honor, Logan, and Hamish—along with the entirety of the pack, Honor presumed—all turned to look for the source of the noise, but Graham just closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and groaned. A dark-colored SUV pulled to a stop along the rough trail that led down from the house, and the driver’s-side door popped open to reveal a small blond woman with ample curves and a sweet expression on her pretty face.
“Well, he’s obviously alive and well, Graham,” the woman said, smiling at Logan. “So why didn’t you come back to the house and get me?”
“Missy, why would I come back to the house to get you when I specifically told you to turn the truck around and get you and Roarke safely back to the city?”
The Silverback alpha sounded as if he’d asked this sort of question before and didn’t expect to like the answer.
This time, he didn’t get an answer at all. The woman just turned to Honor and smiled.
“Hello. I assume you are the new alpha of the White Paw Clan. I bring greetings from your cousins in Manhattan, the Silverback Clan. My name is Melissa Winters, but I hope you will agree to call me Missy.” She offered the formal greeting, and gestured to the glowering male next to her. “Graham, of course, is my mate.”
The mate in question sighed. “We were in the middle of discussing who would be alpha of this pack when you interrupted us, Missy. And by the way, where’s the baby?”
“Roarke the Wreck is in the car, of course, still strapped into his car seat, and hopefully sleeping like a lamb. For a change. Now what was this about still not knowing who should be alpha?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t know,” Graham growled, “I just said we were still discussing it.”
“What is there to discuss?”
“I was just telling Graham that I would be leaving the pack and moving here to Connecticut,” Logan said calmly. “I’m resigning my position as beta, because Honor is my mate, and my place is by her side. As her Sol.”
Honor stared at Logan for a long minute. Her mind had been well and truly boggled. This man, this amazing man she’d fallen in love with faster than a lightning strike, was willing to give up his entire life. To make himself submissive to her for the rest of his days, just because he thought it would make her happy. The very idea made her so happy she almost cried. “But you can’t do it,” she told him.
Logan scowled at her. “Why not?”
“Because it would make me miserable.” Honor laughed, feeling honestly happy and free for the first time in years. “I don’t want to be the alpha. I never did. That’s why I came up with my plan. Being beta was all well and good, but alpha is too much. It’s too much responsibility. It takes too much time. It doesn’t leave any of me left for the things I love doing, like running in the woods and having mind-blowing sex.” She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “My plan is much better. I leave the White Paw clan and move to Manhattan with you. It allows for me to not be alpha, you to be with your friends, and still leaves lots of time for the mind-blowing sex.”
“Clearly a well-thought-out plan.” Missy laughed.
Graham cleared his throat. “But I have a better one.”
Heads all around the clearing turned to look at the Silverback alpha.
Missy’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think they need another plan, Graham. It sounds like they have the situation all worked out.”
“Not to my satisfaction,” he replied. “It’s not that I dislike the spirit of Honor’s plan. I just feel it fails to address a couple of key points. Namely, that the White Paw Clan would continue to lack an alpha, which I would then have to appoint. And also that if Logan has to spend one more week reporting to me—or to anyone at all, I’m pretty sure—he’s going to end up hurting someone. I’d just as soon it not wind up being me.”
Logan frowned. “What are you talking about? I have never been anything but loyal to you, brother. You ought to know that.”
“Oh, I know it. I’ve never doubted it, but somewhere along the line I’ve lost the right to ask loyalty of you, brother.” Graham held up a hand when Logan would have protested. “Shut up and listen, because if you find this news surprising, you’re even dumber than I’ve always said you were. You’ve outgrown your place in the Silverback Clan, Logan Hunter. You can no longer be beta to anyone. Which is part of why your plan sucked. You’re alpha, brother, and it’s time you took your place at the head of a pack.”
Logan shook his head. “No. I won’t. I’m not challenging you, Graham. It’s never going to happen, so just —”
Honor smiled and smacked Logan hard across the chest. She had a feeling she knew what was coming, and Logan was right—his idea was better. “You really are dumber than he’s always said you were. Logan, shut up for a minute and listen to what the man is telling you.”
Graham shot her a grin that almost made Honor understand why Missy had shackled herself to the head of an entire region of Lupines. “Thanks, Honor. As I was saying, I think my plan is the best of the three. In it, I will accept Honor’s decision to step down as alpha of the White Paw Clan. I will then announce that I have chosen a new alpha for this pack by the name of Logan Hunter. Any challenges will be swiftly and, I’m sure, successfully dealt with, and Missy, and I will return to the city, where we will proceed to have mind-blowing sex.”
Missy blushed, but winked at her mate. “Yeah, I think I like this plan best of all, too.”
Logan finally broke into a grin, actually throwing back his head and laughing. “I only like it if Honor and I can have the mind-blowing sex, too. No way are you guys getting to have all the fun.”
“Well, okay,” Graham teased, “but you can’t have any more mind-blowing sex than we do. You will, after all, still owe fealty to me, even if you will be an independent alpha.”
Honor laughed with the others, jumping a little when a large hand tapped her on the shoulder. She turned her head to see her uncle Hamish standing behind her, grinning.
“Well?” he said, bushy eyebrows quirking. “What do you say we get the formalities out of the way?”
Logan draped his arm over his mate’s shoulder. “I say, let’s roll.”
“With your permission, alpha?” Hamish nodded to Graham.
“By all means, elder.”
Taking Honor and Logan each by the hand, Hamish led them to the center of the oak stump and stood between them facing the pack members still filling the clearing.
“Challenge has been made and answered,” he said, his voice ringing with satisfaction. “The Goddess and the alpha of the region have spoken, and a new chapter has begun for the White Paw Clan. From this day forward, you will follow Logan Hunter as your alpha. This title, this pack, and this territory are his, and Honor Tate shall stand as his Luna by his side. To the White Paw.”
Every single Lupine in the clearing threw back his head and howled.
Honor felt her heart expand until she wondered whether her body could hold it. Everything she had ever dreamed of, everything she had believed she would never be able to have was suddenly within her grasp. Her pack had an alpha who she knew would restore them to the strength and honor that had slipped from their grasp, and best of all, that alpha was someone named Not Her. She had a mate by her side who alternately fascinated and infuriated her, one who would stand by her side during her greatest trials and give her just enough grief to keep her on her toes. All the threats to herself and her pack had been removed, and the future had become something to anticipate with excitement rather than resignation.
Could life get any better?
When Logan turned to smile at her and lowered his mouth to hers, Honor got the answer to her
