She climbed the stairs to the second floor, moving more like a ninety-year-old woman than a twenty-four-year-old Lupine, but she just felt battered. She knew enough to realize that at least half the sore muscles had less to do with wrestling barbed wire than with wrestling a male Lupine yesterday afternoon, but she didn’t mind those aches nearly as much. She knew very well they’d be gone within a couple more hours, and for now she almost savored the reminder … especially since she knew better than anyone that it might have been the last time she’d ever make love with the wolf who had mated her.
Honor shivered and found herself weaving a little as she padded down the hall to her bedroom. Her mental and emotional exhaustion just kept deepening, and while the end might be in sight—with the Howl coming up tomorrow—the type of end it had the potential to become made it look less like the light at the end of the tunnel and more like the oncoming train.
Who knew things would work out like this? she wondered as she turned on the shower and stripped while the water warmed. When she’d complained that this wasn’t a good time to find her mate, she hadn’t realized what a fine mate he would be, or how irresistible she would find him. She’d thought all those old pack legends about one perfect mate for each Lupine had been hogwash—romantic, but useless. And yet here she was, finding herself drawn to one man and one man only, not even able to picture touching another as long as she lived. She’d even found herself holding her breath at times while she and the five male members of her pack had been working on the fence. Their scents had been offensive to her, something she’d never experienced with any other Lupine who bathed. It was just weird.
She almost smiled as she stepped under the shower spray. Having a mate might have turned out to be very interesting, she decided. Provided, of course, that she could have kept him.
The stinging hot needles of water pounded down over her, rinsing away the worst of the debris and splinters and mud splatters. When she felt the nastiest grime sluice away, she reached for a washcloth and her soap and began lathering her skin. She lathered and rinsed twice, but the need to scrub off her skin had not reappeared since the day she’d bitten off Paul’s hand. It boggled her mind that the incident had happened only a couple of days ago. So much seemed to have happened since her father’s death. She felt as if she’d lived an extra lifetime in that one week.
She shampooed and rinsed her hair, leaving the conditioner in while she washed her face with a moisturizing cleanser. Being a werewolf didn’t excuse a girl from a skin-preserving regimen. When she was clean and rinsed, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in an enormous towel, using a smaller one to twist into a turban around her hair. She still had to moisturize, or all that nice clean skin of hers would end up dry and chalky before her hair even dried.
She nearly laughed at herself as she spread the milky cream into her legs. She’d always been a bit too much of a girly girl for a Lupine beta, not to mention an alpha. That might have been part of the reason why it took so long for her father to start paying her any attention. Before she’d begun fighting challenges, she’d been too busy playing with her dolls, and then later painting pretty pictures and decorating the dollhouse her nanny bought her to interest a man who lived and breathed the eternal combat of strength. What use did he have for a pretty little girl who preferred to make things rather than destroy them? Not much, as she’d found out.
As Honor had grown, she had developed into the sort of daughter her father could love, a woman who could challenge a grown male and win, who could bench-press a small bus and bite a hole through a sheet of stainless steel. She’d had to give up all of her more feminine hobbies and traits to please the man who refused to be pleased. The only thing of her own she had kept was her pottery, and it was the only area of her life where she truly felt at home and at peace. She didn’t feel it when playing alpha or beta, when managing the business or ordering people around. So why was she still doing those things, and why was she planning to fight for the right to continue doing them for the rest of her life?
The answer came easily, but not prettily. Pride. She was too much her father’s daughter in that one respect, too bloody proud to admit she’d been wrong her whole life in struggling to make someone else happy by doing things that made her miserable. How dumb did that make her?
Sighing, Honor unwrapped the towel from her head and combed through the mass of curls. She squeezed out all the excess water she could, then left it to dry naturally. Leaving her other towel on the floor in front of the sink for Joey to get later, she turned and padded silently back into her bedroom.
She stood in front of her closet for a long time, just staring blindly at the contents. It seemed like such an effort to reach in and grab a pair of jeans, a snug thermal pullover, a practical button-down shirt. And, sheesh, lacing up a pair of boots…? Just the thought of it exhausted her.
Hm, so maybe this was what burnout felt like?
Too bad she couldn’t afford the luxury.
A force of will had her tugging out an outfit and pulling it on. Whether any part of it matched any other, she neither knew nor cared. She was covered. As long as the law was satisfied, so was she.
Honor made her way down the stairs conscious of the silence surrounding her. The big house felt empty. She couldn’t sense her cousin moving around on one of her cleaning rampages, and her nose told her that her mate was nowhere within these walls. In fact, she smelled no one until she stepped into the kitchen at the same moment that her uncle came in through the back door.
He took one look at her and headed to the coffeepot. Pouring two steaming mugs, he handed one to her and raised the other to his lips.
Honor accepted it and opened the refrigerator for the cream.
“Heard you had a busy morning,” Hamish remarked.
Honor recapped the cream, put it away, and dropped a spoonful of sugar into her mug. A quick stir later, she sipped, nearly sighing with pleasure. Any morning that started without coffee made her want to cry. She hadn’t taken the time for a cup earlier. Now her day could really begin.
“Some kids from town came out here joyriding last night and took down a section of fence,” she said. “Max found it when he was out for a run and came to tell me about it. It took a few hours to get the cows back where they belonged and rig up something to keep them there until we can replace the fence. Of course, trying to dig postholes was bad enough today. It’s going to be a real bitch in a couple of weeks after the materials come in and the ground has had a chance to freeze even more solid.”
“Gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Hamish eyed her. “So why are you standing around here, then?”
Honor blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t you have a few other things on your plate right about now?”
“I thought I’d finish my coffee first, but sure, Uncle Hamish. Just as soon as I’m done I’ll wave my sparkly magic wand and go fix everything. Thanks for the reminder.”
He chuckled, apparently unfazed by the dark look and rude gesture she threw in his direction. “Sweetheart, the day I see you wave a sparkly magic wand is the day I go vegetarian. I wasn’t criticizing. Fact is, I was suggesting that you need to get away and clear your head. The Howl is tomorrow night. If you waste today taking care of a thousand little chores that won’t spell the end of the world if they get missed, you won’t be doing yourself any favors. If you want to come up with a plan, you need to get away from the pack and do some thinking. If it were me, I’d hightail it so deep into the woods, the squirrels couldn’t find me, and then I’d do some thinking.”