Chapter Three

Logan watched the slim, young brunette emerge from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and placed an immediate stranglehold on his need to pounce. And sniff. And lick. And maybe taste. Even through the perfume-y fragrance cloaking her natural scent—bath salts? —she smelled nearly good enough to eat. He inhaled deeply and considered whether or not to try a nibble. Suddenly she turned and noticed him standing in the door, and he revised his plans.

Definitely nibble.

“How did you get in here? ”

Logan tore his eyes from the plane of creamy pale skin rising from the top of the woman’s towel and saw the weary suspicion in her gaze. He also made note of the long, fresh scratch across her forehead and the bite mark in her right shoulder. It looked as new as the scratch. Seeing the obvious wounds, he made a surreptitious inspection of the rest of the skin he could see—which was quite a lot, praise be! —and noticed a good dozen bruises. Some looked a few days old, some just pale shadows, not yet fully formed. She also had one skinned knee and a slowly bleeding cut on her left shin. This would-be alpha had clearly had a rough couple of days.

“Your housekeeper let me in. ” He looked her in the eye as he answered her question, curious to see how she would react to the aggressive expression. It also helped him ignore the stirring of involuntary interest he had immediately felt in her. She met and held his gaze, but made no other show of force. “She also offered me dinner but I stopped in town and ate while I got directions up here. You aren’t exactly easy to find. ”

“She’s my cousin, not my servant. And who the hell are you? ”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “I thought they were all our servants these days. ”

She didn’t answer.

“My name is Logan Hunter. ” He watched her face for a reaction. “I’m beta of the Silverback Clan. My alpha has requested that I offer you his condolences on the recent death of your father. ”

She blinked; wide, chocolaty eyes seeming slow to focus. “Beta. Sent to offer his condolences. Right. Tell him to shove them. ”

Then she turned her back on him and walked to a closet.

Logan tore his eyes from the point where her towel barely hung down far enough to conceal what looked like a truly luscious bottom. Before Missy, he’d never really been an ass man, but as Graham could tell you, that little human had an ass that could inspire men to poetry. It had inspired Logan to a thing or two over the last few months, but now the image of this stranger’s derriè re had all but supplanted Missy’s from his mind.

And with all that going on in his head, it took Logan a few extra seconds to register what she had said. Shove them? “Excuse me? ”

“You heard me. Tell him he can shove his condolences up his ass with a pogo stick. I don’t want them, and I didn’t ask for them. ”

He watched as she pulled some things from a drawer inside the closet and tried to keep his mind off the possibility of that towel coming loose and landing on the floor. And of him coming loose and landing on top of her.

“He knows that. He doesn’t offer you sympathy because you asked for it. It’s just the right thing to do. ”

“No, the right thing to do would have been to come here himself instead of sending his lackey. And to have agreed to my very sensible request for a formal recognition of my new position as Alpha of this pack. Since he has done neither, he can go take his pogo stick and have a little moment of privacy with his thoughts. ”

She began pulling on clothes with that peculiar talent women have for dressing without undressing first. She pulled a pair of loose cotton pants on under the towel and topped them with a tank top that she managed to don without displaying one additional millimeter of skin.

Logan bit back a curse and shoved his hands into his pockets while he dragged his attention back to the question at hand. “The Silverback alpha has not yet decided whether he will agree to the request or not. That’s why I’m here. Before he makes a decision, he wants to hear an outside opinion of the workings of the White Paw Clan. ”

“The White Paw Clan works just fine, ” she growled, turning to face him and tossing aside the towel. “You can tell your alpha I said that. And you can tell him that if he will not honor the request of his fellow alpha, then he and his pack members are not welcome in our territory. ”

Logan heard the fierceness in her tone and scowled. “That sounds like a hasty decision. Breaking ties between the clans cannot benefit either of them. And in your current situation, frankly, it can only make your position in the pack even more precarious. Your people are not going to like hearing you bu-fued three hundred years of cooperation between our clans because of a fit of pique. ”

He hadn’t expected her to move so quickly, and only instinct kept him from jerking backward when he blinked and found her about three inches from the end of his nose, snarling up at him.

“This. Is. Not. Pique. ” The low rumble in her chest told him she meant every word she spoke. “And I am not the one who ‘bu-fued’ anything between our clans. That would be your alpha who has denied our request in our time of need. ”

Logan did not back down, but he willed his hackles not to rise to the bait she presented. He could make her regret taking this attitude with him, but he was here on a diplomatic mission and pinning and mating the alpha of another pack with no warning, no invitation and no permission stretched the bounds of allowable behavior. Actually, it was out of bounds. But if would have been satisfying.

“If you would listen more carefully to my words, you wouldn’t need to make an ass of yourself by making groundless accusations and hurling unnecessary insults. ” He spoke through clenched teeth at first until his jaw began to relax. “Graham Winters has denied you nothing. What he has done is to send me to observe the situation in your pack and conclude which option will result in a positive long-term outcome for both our packs, and which jeopardizes the tenuous peace we currently enjoy. ”

She sneered at him, her tempting pink lip curling up to expose her white canines. “Right. And what is your conclusion, sir? ”

“I haven’t yet drawn one. ” He tried not to make it a growl. “It’s not something you can rush, Ms. Tate. In fact, the alpha and I estimate it will be at least a week or more before any conclusions can be drawn. ”

She laughed then, though the sound had not a trace of humor that Logan could detect. “Right. In a week or more, I won’t need your alpha’s endorsement, Mr. Hunter. Because I will already have been forced to cripple every adult male in my pack. So don’t you tell me about waiting for a royal blessing from his majesty, the King of Indecision. ”

* * * * *

Honor turned her back on him then, but not before she saw his nostrils flare and his lip curl at the insult. She really couldn’t have cared less. Her day had already been for shit. This just topped the cake. She had been counting on Graham Winters, and now she found out her problem wasn’t even important enough to get his personal attention. He sent a worker bee instead. Well, fuck him. She’d been dealing this long, she could deal longer. As long as it took.

She stalked back toward her closet, determined to don a pair of fuzzy slippers, find a bottle of Valium and dose herself into oblivion at least until morning. She didn’t want to hear one more thing about Lupines, packs, alphas, challenges or even the remotest connection to reality for at least eight hours. After that she’d go back to coping, but damn it, she needed a break.

It was a lovely thought, but it didn’t last much past the foot of the bed. She got about that far before she sensed his movement. She spun around just in time to avoid being tackled to the carpet, but not fast enough to prevent his getting a good grip on her upper arm. She felt his fingers digging into her skin, nearly bruising her, and she instinctively bared her teeth.

“I just took off one man’s hand, Silverback. I don’t have a problem with taking another. ”

“And I don’t have a problem with putting you in your place, White Paw. ” She saw his golden eyes snapping and felt her stomach knot at the knowledge that he spoke the truth. “I came here as an impartial observer, but if you want to make this personal between us, feel free. No one dismisses me but my alpha. Understand? ”

She growled at him. “Oh, I understand perfectly well, beta. ” She spat the title like a curse. “But you need to understand that no one gives me orders in my own territory. I don’t care how big, bad and wolfie you might think you are. I am Alpha here, and I don’t take lightly to insults. ”

“You might be alpha of this pack, but you still answer to the Silverback Clan. Don’t forget that. ”

“I respect the Silverback Clan, beta. I answer to no one. ”

Their gazes clashed for a long moment, a heavy silence of rapid pulses and the sharp smell of temper. Neither of them blinked. Then the Silverback beta’s hand slid from her arm to the back of her neck and he hauled her forward, mouth descending on hers for a rough, violent kiss.

It lasted no more than a handful of seconds, but it seared her senses with lips, tongue, teeth and hunger. She tasted the thick, spicy flavor of him, smelled the musky, woodsy scent that clung to his skin and felt the sharp edge of his strong, white teeth. When he pulled back, she blinked up at him, silent.

“We’ll see, honey. We’ll see what happens once I get around to asking the right question. ”

Then he turned on his heel and strode out of her bedroom, closing the door softly behind him.

Honor stared at the white wooden panel for a long time before her knees unlocked enough for her to sink to the bed, where she sat for a while longer, trembling.