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Aunt May leaned across the body, frowning down at the male who had tried to steal my boot only a few hours ago. “He wasn’t my brightest grandson.” Her words were cold, but her scent was filled with pain.
“It’s my fault.” Carly’s tears overflowed into her voice. “I should never have led us into unfamiliar territory....”
“Hush. It’s not your fault.” This was Witch-Hazel. “It’s nobody’s fault but Easton’s.”
No living wolf’s fault, but all of our problem. After all, we had a corpse of a pack mate lying beside an elk that—now that the heady pack joy was fading—I realized shouldn’t have been dead in the first place.
Because who would we say sniffed out the prey animal? Who would we say killed it? Not Carly. Not while she was being groomed as a pack princess.
And did the rules that applied to a young female cover her elders also? I didn’t know enough about werewolf culture to puzzle this one out.
I expected one of the aforementioned elders to take command, but no one stepped up to the plate. Instead, they stood frozen by bonds of dead family. Frozen by their instinct to let somebody male take the lead.
But there were no males present, barring the dead one. So, reluctantly, I backed a little further into the shadows then shifted, pressing my pelt onto a ledge above my head to hide it from view.
The moment my fingers left its fur, a scene that had been shades of gray via lupine eyesight became pitch black to human pupils. Still, I remembered where I’d been standing. Turning to face in the proper direction, I mimicked Ruth as I barked out commands.
“Aunt May, go get the pack. You and I were hunting. I didn’t know about Luke’s territorial boundaries and I got ahead of you. Easton must have followed, which is why he fell.”
Stated so plainly, the cause of death sounded even more precarious than Carly’s crumbling self-esteem. I itched to shift and track Easton’s path backwards, but first I needed to deal with the other disasters waiting to erupt.
“The rest of you, take Carly and head for the other side of pack territory. Get rid of the blood and the elk scent. Decide what you’ve been up to that won’t get Carly shunned.”
Ruth, even as a teenager, would have argued at having such a satisfying kill as the bull elk taken away from her. Carly merely breathed a single word in answer: “Thanks.”
I’d stolen her status symbol—something that mattered to skinless more than I’d initially registered. Yet she was grateful....
The notion made me furious. There was so much more wrong with this pack than I’d initially assumed.
And I was going to fix it. Just as soon as I got rid of my audience.
So I bit out my final words rougher than I’d intended. “Hurry. Don’t make me tell you again.”
***
I SMELLED THE LONE wolf coming as I padded lupine across the rock arch for the tenth time, hoping for a different conclusion to present itself. Because the one I’d come to royally sucked.
Easton had been following our trail. No, that was imprecise. He’d been following my trail. Where I’d split off from the other females a tenth of a mile back to ford a stream rather than leap across it, he’d sniffed carefully up and down the bank to make sure I wasn’t evading him. Then he’d continued along my solo track.
Such caution wasn’t the work of an idiot. And yet, by the time he reached the rock arch, he’d been sprinting. Rushing—why?—so fast he leapt right off the edge like the elk had before him.
Only, unlike the elk he wasn’t fleeing. He was following. Following my scent trail, which seemed to disappear into the void when I’d dropped onto a ledge three feet below it. My scent had separated from the other females’ more solidly there than it had at the stream bank. Did Easton think I’d veered off on my own? That he could catch me solo? Grab a token? Be the first challenger initiating the Alpha’s Hunt?
Whatever his thought processes, Easton had smelled my path. He’d dove after me...then he’d plummeted to his death.
And whoever had pushed me...had she known, somehow, that Easton would follow me over?
It made no sense. None of it did. So I stood on the spot where Easton’s feet had last left solid ground and watched the first hint of dawn illuminate a lone wolf stalking out of the forest.
The male came from the direction of the road, not the direction the females had left in. Plus, something about the scent wafted toward me by an uprising breeze told me he was no member of Luke’s pack.
But he didn’t sneak the way I’d expect a lone wolf to. Instead, every step was both silent and powerful. He paced over to the elk, sniffed, then walked on.
Not interested in an easy meal then. Nor did he stop for more than a moment beside Easton’s broken body.
Instinct held me frozen as the stranger paced back and forth beneath me. He was looking for something, but what was it? I wasn’t sure until he latched onto Carly’s receding trail.
Because the youngest member of our party had stumbled as she left the area, peering back at me over one shoulder. Or, more likely, stealing one last glimpse of her fallen elk. She’d sidled in a curve away from the rest of the females in order to catch her balance, and that was the path the lone wolf followed now.
His jaw gaped open into a grin, his tongue lolling out and his eyes sparking with pleasure. Drool splattered to the earth beneath him. His hindquarters bunched as he prepared to follow her trail....
And skinless streamed into the valley. Familiar, furious. They flushed the stranger as easily as if he was a sparrow. Within seconds, the lone wolf was gone.
***
NO ONE REMARKED ON the lone wolf’s presence immediately, not with two corpses to choose from. Instead, familiar wolves milled around the bodies—the elk’s and Easton’s. Luke was the only one who noticed me there above them. His gaze rose to meet mine as if he’d seen himself through my eyes.
“I did.” The words in my head were quiet, chastened by the loss of his pack mate. Still, Luke backtracked without hesitation, climbing up the precise route I’d come down the first time. One last boulder scaled, then he shifted upwards atop the arch.
I matched his transformation, careful to do so out of sight of the wolves below us. Letting my pelt slip down to the stone between us, I gazed at the dried blood striping Luke’s chest.
The wound I’d torn into the side of his neck was much worse than I remembered. I reached up to touch it, pulling back one moment before my finger made contact with abraded skin.
Then his hand was on mine, pressing my fingers flat against the barely scabbed over surface. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Despite myself, I snorted just like Ruth would have done. “Of course it hurts.”
Luke’s lip twitched ever so slightly. Below us, the pack hummed with interest. They’d noticed my presence and their leader’s shift to humanity. Their own transitions rose as an electric crackle through the early morning mist.
“I was prepared last night at the bonfire.” Luke’s eyes bored into me for one long second before he reminded me of the joke we’d tossed back and forth between us last summer. “There’s always danger when hunting zombie giraffes.”
As he spoke, the sun glinted fully above the horizon, sparkling his eyes a brilliant cobalt. Had it only been one night that I’d spent among the skinless? My exhausted muscles said those hours were an eternity.
So did the lightness in my chest.
Luke was here. The day was brightening. Carly’s future, trouble with the pack—both could wait another few minutes.
Despite our audience, I stood up on tiptoe, leaning in close until human nostrils could capture Luke’s cinnamon. He was so spicy sweet he might as well have been a pastry right out of the oven. But I didn’t want to lick or bite him. I craved a kiss.
My lips brushed across his...and Luke didn’t reciprocate. Instead, he stood still as a statue. Breathed out a question. “You’re ready to declare this so soon?”
Below us, someone called up encouragement. “Don’t stall, alpha!”
Another voice was less supportive. “Is this why you won’t choose Michael?”
I cocked my head, and so did Luke. Which meant our eyes were level with each other as his brows drew together just like mine already had.
“I thought you understood this.” His voice vibrated my bones with its intensity. “I explained last summer.”
The parts of the summer I’d spent with Luke were inscribed in my memory as clearly as if they’d been laser-etched there. No explanation seemed relevant to the present moment.
So I shook my head mutely. Whatever information he referred to, I had a feeling I didn’t want to hear it. We’d already been derailed by the issue of mate bonds and sword maidens. What more did I need to learn about my place in Luke’s pack?
Luke rubbed his jaw, his voice so deep I felt more than heard when he continued. “Duties of an alpha?” He raised his eyebrows. “The issue of an heir?”