Christine Warren - Hungry Like a Wolf

Gee, thanks, Dad.

To add insult to the injury of her past few days, she’d been forced to start using the scented bath salts, which gave off a fragrance way too heavy for her sensitive nose, to try and mask the beginning of the changes to her body chemistry that any Lupine worth his salt would have known indicated her approaching heat.

And while she was at it, she thought she’d throw in a few menstrual cramps and a case of boils. That sounded like fun.

Right. Sitting up in the bed, Honor ran her hands over her face and groaned. She figured she could either sit here till dawn and brood, or she could get up, go downstairs and make up for the dinner she’d never eaten. Now that the taste of blood had finally faded from her mouth, her Lupine metabolism had reared its head to let her know just how wildly it disagreed with the notion of her skipping a meal.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and onto the floor, ignoring the chill of the boards. Her stomach overruled her soles. She paused long enough to pull on the pajamas she’d never intended to sleep in and made her way down the hallway to the stairs.

The house sat silent around her. It always seemed silent since Ethan’s death, but especially at night. With just her and Joey there now, silence almost came with a guarantee. Joey barely made noise when shouting at the top of her lungs, and Honor only seemed to get into the house just long enough to fall unconscious for three or four hours a night. Since she didn’t snore, that meant things stayed pretty quiet.

She heard little more than the sound of her own breathing and the rattling of the bare tree branches in the yard as she made her way through the house. The glow of moonlight silvered the floor in front of the windows, making it look almost as cool as it felt against her bare feet. She ignored the chill as she headed for the kitchen. If she was lucky, Joey had left a snack or two in the fridge. A half calf or twelve would go down fairly smoothly right about now.

If she hadn’t been so hungry and so tired, she probably would have heard the soft sound of breathing coming from inside the kitchen. She knew she would have noticed the smell—that musky, woodsy smell she’d detected earlier in her father’s bedroom when she’d emerged from her bath.

The smell of the stranger.

But she didn’t notice a thing, not until she turned on the overhead kitchen lights and found her eyes focusing on the half-naked male form standing beside the center island.

“Care for a snack?”

Logan wanted to make a snack out of her.

He stifled the urge to bare his teeth and inhale deeply, since it wasn’t precisely the polite thing to do, but damn, he wanted to. There was something about her scent, hidden under the too heavy perfume of whatever she’d added to her bath … something indefinable and elusive.

Either that, or he had a cold.

“What are you doing here?”

Okay, not exactly the hey-sailor-buy-me-a-drink he’d been hoping for, but he figured that might be pushing things a tad.

“I got hungry. The diner in town’s not bad, but their idea of all you can eat and mine aren’t precisely the same.” He held up a chunk of the sirloin he’d been munching. “Your housekeeper told me to help myself.”

“She’s my cousin. And she should have told you to help yourself to the opposite side of the front door.”

He watched her cross her arms over her chest, figuring it gave him the perfect excuse to stare at her breasts without being caught staring at her breasts. How was that for smooth?

“Ironically enough, she decided to go with the whole polite thing. She put me in a guest room overlooking the woods. Private bath. Pretty homey.”

“Really, and did she leave a mint on your pillow?”

“Chocolate. I had it before I came downstairs.”

She rolled her eyes and stalked past him toward the refrigerator. “I’m surprised you didn’t just call up for room service.”

Logan seized the opportunity to reevaluate the ass he’d been so struck by earlier. He almost choked on the beef. Lord, but it looked even better than the last time he’d seen it.

He quickly finished swallowing and shook his head in amazement. He still didn’t quite get why he found this woman so compelling. She pretty much defined “not his type.” Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she should have had dusky, tanned, or olive skin. Instead, her complexion looked pale and milky and perfect, especially in the silver light of the waxing moon that had illuminated the kitchen before she’d turned on the lights.

She’d looked like a shadow as she slipped through the dark house. Her form, slender and tallish, seemed almost too delicate to be Lupine. He was used to women of his species being sturdy and athletic, but this girl looked as if a good strong handshake might do her an injury. Her cousin had certainly seemed convinced that Honor could hold her own as alpha, but Logan found himself even more skeptical after meeting her. Somehow, he could not picture this woman facing an alpha challenge, let alone winning one. Or three, as Joey had told him. Just this week. It boggled his mind.

Of course, part of that might have had something to do with the fact that he could picture a whole lot more appealing things to do with her than fight, once he got his hands on her.

She slapped a plastic container down on the island and peeled off the lid, reaching inside for a bite-sized piece of pork. “So what time are you leaving in the morning?”

The pointed question made him smile. He had to give her points for effort. “About a week from next Tuesday, I figure. If everything goes smoothly.”

“Perhaps I’m not making myself clear, but you really aren’t welcome here. I want you gone. Now.”

“No, I actually think that’s pretty clear. The problem is that what you want really isn’t the issue. For the past three hundred years, the White Paw Clan has been swearing fealty to the Silverback alpha. That makes your clan his responsibility, and from where Graham Winters stands, there are two things that could happen here.” He ignored her glare and stole a piece of her pork, more to keep his hands occupied with something other than her sweet curves than because he was still hungry. “Either way, the White Paw alpha will need to renew that vow of fealty at the next Silverback howl. The only remaining question is whether the White Paw alpha will be you, or someone else.”

He watched her while he spoke, so he saw the muscles in her jaw clench and her eyes narrow when he made that statement. He tried to ignore the way the spark in her gaze made his jeans fit a little too tightly.

“I am the White Paw alpha. And I will remain the White Paw alpha for a very long time to come.”

“That’s what I’m here to determine. Maybe you will hold the title, maybe you won’t. The Silverback is not so much concerned with who keeps your pack as with the knowledge that the pack is well kept.”

He could almost see her hackles rise. “I. Will. Hold. My. Pack. Did you get that? Or do I need to use smaller words?”

Logan clenched his teeth to hold back the growl he could feel reverberating in his chest. His wolf didn’t like to be challenged. It reacted instinctively to her aggressive tone. “You need to watch your mouth.”

“Make me.”

She knew almost before the words formed on her tongue that saying them would be a mistake, but they launched themselves into the quiet room before she could stop them. They hung between her and the sexy stranger like the ripe scent of heat, and she couldn’t take them back. She felt the words pulse between them for all of three rapid heartbeats before she made her fateful mistake.

She blinked.