Double shit.
Shit with a side order of fuck, no less.
It all became very plain to him, as if written out before him in black-and-white. He had a choice to make. He could have Honor, or he could have his pride. Now he just had to decide: which of the two things he loved most in the world could he most easily live without?
Twelve
There was no rest for the wicked, nor apparently, for the werewolf needing to come up with a plan to save her own life, let alone the pack that apparently wanted to see her mated or dead. On Thursday night, Honor collapsed into her bed, mental and emotional exhaustion sending her spiraling immediately into sleep. Too bad it wasn’t a restful one. Plagued by dreams in which she found herself covered in the blood of those she considered family, or standing over the bloodied body of her mate, the night proved short and restless. When a fist pounded on the door just before dawn, it came almost as a relief.
“What is it?” she demanded hoarsely, sitting up and pushing a tangle of hair out of her eyes.
“We’ve got a fence down.” Max’s voice was easy to recognize, even through the thick panels of wood. “Moody’s cows are tramping through the gap to the northeast.”
Honor cursed.
While most Lupines much preferred the taste and entertainment value of wild game, when the spirit of a hunt was on them, they occasionally forgot to exercise their better judgment if confronted by the easy pickings of a domestic dairy cow. It kept the farmers happy to know that the “timber wolf” and “red wolf” populations on the supposed wildlife sanctuary next door to them stayed safely contained behind a stout ten-foot-high wooden fence.
Well, the fence had started out ten feet high and stout. As Honor stood looking down on it twenty minutes after the summons came, it resembled firewood waiting to be stacked. Someone had done a number on it.
Trouble had come, she heard, when said stout, ten-foot wooden fence wandered directly into the path of a bunch of rowdy teenagers who had decided to do a little cow-tipping and four-wheel mudding to entertain themselves. Their truck had spun out of control on the dirt road—barely more than a path, really—that bordered the fence line, and slammed sideways into the fence, which was already twenty years old and in need of repair. It had collapsed under the strain, and forty of the neighboring cows had stampeded through the opening, enlarging it quite a bit in the process.
“I smell you and a few of the others,” Honor said to Max, who stood close behind her, “but I’m giving you credit for being too smart for this shit. Inside the car, were the kids ours?”
If they had been, none of them would be driving for a while. Hell, none of them would be conscious for a while. Not after the smacks she planned to deliver upside their fool heads.
“No, it was a bunch of townies. Human kids. Tom Sergeant got a whiff of them when they peeled onto the main road trying to get home. He saw the damage to their truck. Definitely not ours.”
For which both Honor and the teenaged population of the pack could be grateful. The teenagers, because their asses would remain unbeaten, and Honor, because that was at least one thing she wouldn’t have to add to her already overcrowded plate. Although at this point, she probably wouldn’t even notice one more crisis. It could just get in line behind the others, and she’d deal with it in turn.
Hey, maybe that was a point in favor of not surviving tomorrow night. If she died during the challenges, someone else got to deal with all this shit. The prospect sounded almost appealing.
“All right.” She sighed, rolling up her sleeves both figuratively and literally. “Let’s get the cows back to Moody first. Get Henry and Jay on that. Animals are usually okay with them. You can help me sort through all this crap to see if there’s anything we can salvage. We need at least half a dozen usable posts. Then someone needs to go to town to the feed store and pick up some razor wire. It will have to do until I can order new material for a permanent replacement.
“Let’s get to work.”
It meant a lot of sweaty hours, clearing up all the broken timber and debris of the accident. Thankfully none of the kids had been hurt and the truck had been operational enough to limp back to town under its own steam, so she didn’t have to deal with the headache of injured humans or irate parents blaming her for their progeny’s stupidity. It all just came down to cleanup and repair. Until she could get the materials to replace that section of the barricade, they had to make do with what they had on hand. On the farmer’s side of the old fence, she and a handful of the pack dug temporary postholes and hammered in posts made up of scraps of the former fence. Then they’d strung and stapled razor wire to keep the cattle in their field.
Keeping curious Lupines out of said field would prove to be a sight more challenging.
The only effective barrier against wandering werewolves was a fence at least as high and strong as the one the truck had taken down, and that just wasn’t going to happen without time and the proper materials. Actually, even a fence that tall did more to soothe the farmers than it did to actually contain the Lupines. An adult werewolf could easily clear the ten-foot barrier with room to spare. But it did generally serve to make one think twice about leaving the pack’s territory, and that was its primary job.
This time, since she couldn’t rely on that job being done by wood and post, she would have to be a little more resourceful.
Wiping a dirt-streaked forearm across her brow, Honor stood in front of the temporary barrier and waved Max forward. The kid had proved to be a lot of help that morning. “Send everyone home and make sure no one like Moody wanders by.” And by “like Moody” she meant human. “I need to finish this off.”
Max nodded, quickly catching on to her plan. “You got it, boss. Just give me a second.”
Honor waited until she could scent that her workers had turned and headed back toward the pack’s main buildings, then she slipped deeper into the tree line. Stripping quickly in the cold air, she shifted into her wolf form. Then she walked along the perimeter of the patchwork-fenced area and marked the whole thing with her scent.
On the one hand, the smell of a mature female close to heat might end up drawing more males than it repelled, but the smell of an alpha was the important part of the equation. If she marked the barrier and therefore the field beyond as her private territory, then any members of the pack would know she meant, “This is mine. Stay away and don’t touch.” It would have to do until she could order wood and permanent posts for the new fence.
Shifting quickly back, she dressed and looked at her watch. It was nearly noon.
“Come back up to the house with me,” she said to Max. “Least I can do is feed you for helping out here. Joey can make you a sandwich, or something.”
“Uh, thanks, but no thanks, boss.” Max shook his head. “No offense, but I don’t think your cousin likes me very much. I’m sure my mom’s got food at home. I’ll grab something at her place.”
Honor sighed. “Don’t take it personally, Max. These days, Joey doesn’t seem to like anyone, really. Maybe my dad’s death hit her harder than she expected. He was kind of her last link to her own father. I barely remember Uncle Joe, but I do know he and Dad were a lot alike.”
Still, Max accepted the offer of a lift back to his mother’s cabin, and Honor swung the pickup in that direction before heading back to her own house. She climbed out of the truck slightly sore and extremely grubby, dreaming of nothing more than a nice hot shower. All thoughts of the upcoming Howl had been pushed to the back of her mind and locked away, at least for another few minutes. When she was clean, she’d think about that again. Maybe when she was clean, it wouldn’t seem like such an insurmountable obstacle. She just didn’t have the bandwidth for it yet. She barely had the bandwidth for a shower and lunch.