Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Sawyer Ballantine didn’t like having either close this early in the morning. Not when they were likely to bring down the doe grazing peacefully in the snow-free patch outside his cabin door.
Stone-gray shapes drifted between the pines—they’d scented breakfast on the hoof. Six, no, seven wolves… Maybe they’d inhale enough there wouldn’t be more than a scrap of shinbone and a rib left once they’d eaten. Not like the mess they left last time.
Sawyer rumbled deep in his throat. The wolves didn’t get to bring their business to his doorstep. The Urso of Ballantine Mountain deserved more respect. Even if they brought an entire haunch as tribute, they didn’t get to hunt on his private grounds.
He slapped the window with one broad hand. The doe jerked her head up and dashed, not even stopping to flare her nostrils. She hadn’t been alert enough to notice the danger creeping up on her but made up for the lack now, bolting at the thud of his palm on the glass.
Sawyer stepped through the slider, heedless of the chill mountain air on his bare chest and feet. He hadn’t troubled to pull on more than jeans after a night in the sack with his lover. Let the wolves get a look at his bulk, all six foot two and two hundred and twenty pounds as a man. Remind them he could be seven hundred pounds of grizzly rage chasing them at thirty-five miles per hour.
“Get over here!” Sawyer bellowed. He’d built the cabin sturdily enough Dillon might sleep through the summons, and much as he wanted to get his Arth in on this confrontation, he didn’t have the luxury of time to go wake him. Dillon was still learning the fine art of managing a mountain full of shifters. The mangy mongrels creeping through his woods heard Sawyer clearly enough.
One wolf bolted after the doe but hadn’t pursued her far. He stopped at the base of the deck. Lolling his drippy tongue at Sawyer, he paused a moment, letting the rest of his pack join him.
Seven wolves gathered and rippled back into two-footed pains in the ass. Two women, five men, all naked as jay birds, and not a one of them doing a thing to disguise it. Hmm, Margo the nurse, TJ the electrician, Carl the truck driver, a couple of his drywall crew, Josh from excavations, Lilly the… who cared, she was hunting on his grounds.
“You rang?” their leader drawled.
Brian. Insolent pup, of course he’d be the instigator. Rudy hadn’t crushed the upstart yet. What was he waiting for? Sawyer’s former second-in-command wouldn’t remain Lobo long if he didn’t get his fuzzy tail in gear and deal with the biggest threat to his leadership.
“Did I give you leave to hunt my land?” Sawyer growled.
“The deer don’t care if it’s your land,” Brian shot back. “And neither do we.”
“This is Ballantine Mountain and you should care.”
No one ever thought a bear could move as fast as Sawyer could. In a heartbeat he’d dropped from the deck to the ground before the wolves, and had Brian by the scruff of the neck. Bastard thought he could be the alpha? Let him deal with the fallout from their impudence.
“My woods. My game. Any bloody mess near the house, my bloody mess.” Sawyer shook his handful. So tempting to break him, right here and now. “Could be you if you keep mouthing off.”
One of Brian’s companions whined in the back of his throat, but not Brian. Idiot. He could be dead before his cronies could shift and intervene.
“Yeah, yeah, fighting your pal Rudy’s battles for him again.” Brian spoke with a twist of pain in his voice to mark the massive hand halfway squeezing his spine to pulp. It would be child’s play to shift that hand completely, let the claws finish off the troublemaker… And do exactly what Brian accused him of.
Damn it all, why hadn’t Rudy dealt with his challenger by now? Sawyer spared a curse for the Lobo.
“Fighting my own, pup. Bring down prey on my doorstep, would you? I’ll take the whole kill if you do.” Venison would be right tasty, too. Winter was nearly over, the fierce hungers of hibernation time waning, but a slab of deer steak tossed at the grill never came amiss.
“Big bad bear is a thief?” The fool in his clutches trusted entirely too much to Sawyer’s good nature.
“I am master here, dog.” He shook Brian again, harder. So easy to snap his neck… So tempting. The others stepped back—Sawyer manhandled the strongest of them. If they rushed as a group, things would get a little busy. And bloody. Nothing Sawyer couldn’t heal with a shift or two, but then he was back to a bloody mess outside his winter home. “And you will remember it.”
He forced the wolf to bend before him, his massive strength enough to bend his challenger even without the weight of his bear-self.
“You going to pound my ass like you pound that pussy Rudy’s?” Would this damn dog never learn? Sawyer’d taken Rudy often enough, hard not to smell it on him. Not that scent markings were easy to smell beyond Eric, the Wapiti of the local elk herd, but there’d been more to their joinings than domination.
“Think I should?” Sawyer rumbled. Maybe he should stick his dick into the wolf just to teach him manners. Wouldn’t be the first shifter he’d schooled, but not like this. Not with Dillon upstairs. His mate. His bear lover, and his companion. Sawyer wouldn’t do anyone without Dillon’s participation and cooperation, and he had other ways of making a point. With one massive mitt he forced the wolf to bow before him. “Better bend over.”
A gasp came out of the pack, and someone was brave enough to snarl, though Sawyer quieted that nonsense with a growl of his own.
“Think your ass is ready?”
A thin whimper came from the wolf in his grasp, and the stink of fear. Good.
Sawyer smacked the flat of his free hand against the rounded humps of rump before him. Again he struck, and again, forcing yips of shock from his victim. Hard enough to sting his palm, more than hard enough to make his point. A fourth slap against Brian’s butt ought to drive the lesson home. He landed the blow and thrust the wolf away, letting him stumble and nearly fall into the pine duff.
“I am Sawyer Ballantine. This is my mountain. You do not hunt on my doorstep. Now get your furry asses out of here.”
Seven gray forms hit the forest floor with four feet and raced away, tails down but not all of them tucked.
The Lobo better bring this bunch to heel before he stopped being Lobo. Sawyer couldn’t fight Rudy’s battles for him.