Feint of Heart (2 page)

The wolves fell upon us from the top of a rocky cliff, nearly taking me to the ground in the process. I hadn't heard or smelled their approach, perhaps because this warm December night had opened up into a drizzle that dampened sound and snuffed scents. Or perhaps my attention was too firmly focused on the glimmering white pack princess who led us all on this midnight hunt.

Doesn't matter. I'll protect my pack and Alexis will lead us to our prize.

One glance over my shoulder proved that Wade had backed our females up against the rock face, putting his teeth and claws in front of their more delicate bodies. I nodded my approval, making it clear that I expected the teenager to continue playing defense to my offense.

In response, Fen glared, reminding me that she could hold her own in a one-on-one fight. But if I let the fourteen-year-old come home with so much as a hair missing from her head, our pack mother would have my hide. I wasn't scared of the five arrogant males arrayed before us, but just the thought of Tia's disapproval had me quaking in my metaphorical boots. So I simply widened my eyes at the girl, and she rolled her own back. Still, she obeyed.

Five to one weren't great odds, but the Griffins appeared to be in a playful mood. Well, as playful as werewolves get when two alphas face off against each other. Gavin and I traded glares for a long moment, our gazes locking and sending surges of adrenaline through my body. But then my opponent motioned for his cohorts to step back and form a ring around the two of us, leveling the playing field.

How sportsmanlike. I wouldn't be caught dead making such a newbie mistake.

I assessed the other alpha with a calculating eye. Gavin was close to Fen's age and not yet the Griffin's official leader, although he'd been attending All-Pack for a while now. Since he wasn't a bloodling, the teenager was still growing into both his human and lupine skins and didn't have much muscle to speak of. In an arm-wrestling competition, he wouldn't have stood a chance.

Despite his physical deficiencies, as I circled around the other male I decided that Gavin's greatest weakness lay in his sense of honor and fair play. Most alphas had learned the hard way that if they didn't play dirty, they inevitably lost. But Crazy Wilder was this kid's distant relative, and the stronger alpha seemed willing to extend his protection to the Griffins as long as Gavin made no waves in improper directions. The upshot of which was that the teenager had previously been able to get away with using human ethics around wild werewolves.

But Crazy Wilder isn't here to protect you tonight, now is he?
I opened my mouth in a lupine grin as I imagined my wolf teeth closing over human flesh and making short work of this little altercation.

I was about to lunge forward and end the battle before it truly began when Gavin spoke. "I hear you're aiming for a territory this year."

I tried to push the teenager's words away with a shake of my head. But despite my best efforts they stuck and grew.

How had he guessed?
I'd kept my intentions a secret even from my own clan, and it gave me pause to think that this baby alpha knew more about my objectives than even my closest pack mates did.

In fact, this very hunt was part of a long-range plan that had been percolating through my brain for a while now. My clan had purchased the territory that encapsulated Chief Wilder's estranged grandson over a year ago, the tactic being the first step toward wiggling out from under the debt the older alpha had saddled me with. And I'd hoped that winning the Winter Hunt would garner enough street cred that the other alphas would be moved to make that territory official the following afternoon.

What I hadn't realized was that my scheming was so transparent to all and sundry.

Still, human words and plots were the last thing on my mind at the moment. Despite my seeming advantage, I knew Gavin's cohorts would leap into the fray if—no, when—their leader appeared to be floundering. So I needed to end this fast rather than being drawn into the other alpha's patter.

"Chief Wilder plans to support you, you know," the boy droned on. Despite myself, I pulled up short once again. I'd been about to barrel into his legs, figuring the fastest way to finish this farce was to knock the kid down and go for the throat.

Not that I'd break the skin. The action seemed, well, dishonorable when the teenager was so much weaker than me.

I huffed out a laugh at my own hypocrisy.
And here I thought excessive honor was
Gavin's
weakness, not my own.

"The Chief told me this morning that he just needs an excuse to stand as your ally," Gavin continued, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that he was standing naked in human form while my sharp teeth and claws were inching closer by the second. "He can't appear to give you preferential treatment for no reason, of course," the kid went on. "But he has faith you'll win the Hunt. And that's all the explanation he'll need to make sure your clan has official sanction to claim the territory you're squatting on."

"Squatting, eh?" Despite my best intentions to maintain the advantage of wolf reflexes, I shifted upwards at the mild insult. It wasn't that he'd gotten my goat—human taunts rolled off my back like the current December drizzle was shed by my thick fur. But I was starting to wonder whether the young alpha had really intended to challenge me, or whether I'd simply read him wrong from the get-go.

Usually, I could smell out subtleties best in lupine form, but Alexis's rich persimmon odor clogged my nostrils. So I figured I might as well peruse Gavin's human facial expressions with two-legger eyes. After all, I didn't want to attack if the kid wasn't looking for a fight. And it wasn't a big deal anyway—I could take him down just as easily on two legs as on four.

I wiped one hand across my forehead, flicking away water droplets. And in the moment that my eyes were covered, the forest exploded into action.

"Now!" Gavin ordered.

I whipped my head around, gaze landing on the one clothed shifter who must have spent the entire evening two-legged. The lackey was already settling back into immobility, but Gavin lunged in his direction as a wicked-looking blade spun end over end through the air between the two shifters.

Starlight reflected off the weapon that promised to even the odds between Gavin and myself. Once it finished plummeting through the night sky, that is. The blade's presence needn't change the course of the battle, though. My superior reflexes meant that I could have easily grabbed the knife out of the air before it reached its intended recipient.

But in that critical moment of action, the pack princess behind me whined and I spun to ensure she wasn't being harmed.

Thunk.
I could hear the knife's hilt settling into Gavin's hand, but it was all I could do to force myself to turn away from Alexis's intoxicating gaze. As a result, the other alpha had closed the distance between us before I managed to face him again.

I threw up both hands to grab his right wrist, trying to force the weapon out of his grasp. Unfortunately, what Gavin lacked in muscles, he made up in agility. Now he twisted like a fish on a line, forcing my fingers to slip away from his arm. And in that instant of separation, my opponent brought the blade down to cut a long red stripe across my ribs.

I flared my nostrils, smelling my own blood. My heart was racing too quickly for me to feel pain, but I knew the ache would set in soon. Time to take off the kid gloves before our battle got out of hand.

Using Gavin's own momentum against him, I knocked his right arm away and forced his elbow to bend in the wrong direction until he grunted with pain. Then, kicking up with my knee, I sent the knife plummeting into the night.

Gavin was face down in the dirt, my foot on his neck, before his companions could take another step forward.

"I wouldn't," I warned with a growl.

In the end, I let the kid go unharmed. He was just doing what shifters did best—lobbying for power in the only way he knew how. And he'd given me an intriguing tidbit of information in the process. Crazy Wilder planned to back my territorial bid if I won the Winter Hunt.

Good thing our crew had Alexis as a lucky charm to speed us on our way.

So I watched until the other team had trotted out of sight, then I got down to business. "We should scout out the surrounding countryside, see if we can catch the old coot's trail," I murmured, more to myself than to my companions.

Wade and Fen had shifted to human form as soon as our opponents faded back into the darkness and they now nodded agreeably. But rather than continuing to hash out plans, I found my gaze settling on Alexis.

The pack princess was still fully wolf, and she seemed even more agitated now than she had been during the preceding fight. She whined at my feet until I crouched down to her level, giving her access to the wound oozing blood down my hip and thigh.

As soon as I was close enough, her whimpering abruptly ceased. Instead, the female reached out with her sandpaper tongue, licking my cut clean.

Her touch was painful but erotic. And in response, my dick stirred to instant life. The intimacy of Alexis's nursing had dragged forth a physical response I didn't particularly care to share with my pack mates.

Time for a little diversion.

"Wade, why don't you and Fen go out and see if you can pick up Crazy Wilder's scent while I wipe off this blood." My sentence was more command than question, and Wade immediately moved to obey. But Fen instead strode forward, pushing Alexis out of my lap and getting into my personal space.

"Wolfie..." she began. The girl ran a frustrated hand through her short hair, and I waited for her to make another complaint. She was clearly jealous of the bond I shared with our new companion, and I forced myself to soften the words that had initially come to mind before they reached my lips.

"Fen, I'm counting on you to keep your eye on the prize," I admonished her. "You know we'll be like sitting ducks if I bleed all over the forest. So I need you to be my eyes and ears out there. You heard what's at stake."

Before me, Fen seemed to swell to double her usual girth at my show of faith. "I know," she answered quietly. Once again, she opened her mouth, then pursed her lips back together without taking me to task as I knew she wanted to. Finally, she concluded, "Just be careful, okay?"

"Of course," I mollified her.

Seconds later, I could hear my pack mates shifting and loping away. But I didn't look. Instead, my eyes were riveted on the glorious female human who had materialized out of the wolf by my side.

***

Young male shifters tell tales around the campfire of pack princesses so magnificent they take your breath away. In the past, I'd always rolled my eyes at their hyperbole. But now I realized that the storied reaction was literally true.

I could barely make out Alexis's curves in the near darkness, but what I could see was so perfectly proportioned that I had to push fingertips into my wound to remind myself to breathe. In fact, I almost wished the moon would rise, even though the appearance of that glowing crescent would mean I'd failed in the Hunt and in my bid for territorial affirmation. Because if Alexis was stunning now in near pitch darkness, what would she look like under the cool luminosity of the waning moon?

"This should soak up the blood," the young woman murmured as she walked back toward me from where she'd been scraping Gavin's lost knife against the cliff face. I could barely smell the collected moss around the fruity aroma that encircled me, and the female's words trilled through my bones like a wood thrush's song. I realized I was panting—bad form when two-legged—and closed my mouth with an audible snap.

"May I?" she asked, reaching toward my stomach with her laden hand. I was barely able to nod, but Alexis didn't really need my approval. She gently pressed the damp plant matter against my open wound, and what should have sent shock waves of pain through my system instead made my legs go weak with pleasure. I collapsed at her feet.

Her laughter sounded like water tinkling merrily over stones. "Hey, careful there, big guy." She slipped down onto the leaves beside me so she could continue to put pressure on my laceration.

We were nearly eye to eye, the female's pupils dilating until their usual molten chocolate coloration was completely invisible. Touching a pack princess was forbidden, but I couldn't help myself. I reached forward and grabbed the long tresses that fell in silky waves from the back of her head, then I pulled her into a kiss.

"Mmm." She hummed her approval against my lips and swung one leg across my lap so she was straddling my erection. I hadn't meant to move so fast, but I slid into her wet folds as if we were two magnets clicking together against our will.

She wasn't a virgin. And she
was
willing. Which meant I wasn't breaking any taboos.

Right?

Then I couldn't even piece words together in my mind because Alexis was raising herself off my rigid length, cold air doing nothing to dull the heat growing between us. When we came together again, she pushed me deeper into her warmth and I came without thought for her pleasure.

Alexis's eyes enfolded my consciousness just as her body enfolded my skin. "There. Perfect," she murmured. "You'll follow wherever I lead now, won't you?"

Of course
.

I didn't even need to say the words aloud. Alexis and I both knew that I'd follow her anywhere.