The doorbell rang once more, and he heard Cara and Ashton stirring in Michael's bedroom.
Hunter opened the door to find the red lupus garou pack leader of Portland standing on the front porch.
Meara said under her breath, "Uh-oh."
His expression dark and menacing, Leidolf barged into the house. "Your people are causing trouble in my city. When I attempted to contact you at home where your pack members said you were living, I got your sister. She gave me this address. I want them out in three days, or I'll take care of the situation myself. And you don't want that to happen if you care anything about them."
Hunter slanted his sister an irritated look that she would give the red Tessa's address. Meara gave him a half smile.
Leidolf was bigger than most reds Hunter had seen. Although that amounted to only a couple of dozen over the years. But the man was as tall as Hunter, his chestnut hair tinged red, his eyes a slightly more olive color than Tessa's. But it was the dark brooding look that really defined Leidolf.
He glanced at Tessa, his eyes widening when he saw her. Surprised to see a human in a house full of lupus garous? Or was he interested in the redhead?
Irritated that Leidolf had seen Tessa, Hunter moved across the floor to block Leidolf's view of her. "I've got a situation here I need to resolve before I can go to Portland."
"With the woman?" Leidolf asked, his voice and brows raised.
"I'm Tessa Anderson, and you are?" She moved around Hunter to shake Leidolf's hand. She didn't look pleased Leidolf would treat her as some woman when the house was hers, or that Hunter would stand between them.
But Hunter didn't like that she would get near another alpha male. Where Rourke and Ashton were concerned, they seemed to know their place. Leidolf was an unknown quantity--and an alpha leader.
"Leidolf Wildhaven." He tilted his nose up and took a deep breath, his eyes darkening as he took her hand and held on longer than necessary, not shaking it, but restraining her.
For long enough that Hunter's blood heated.
Hell, if her pheromones were triggering Leidolf's interest--and worse, she seemed intrigued by him also and didn't pull away... "Fascinating." Then Leidolf released her hand and saw the wolf photos on the coffee table. He motioned to them. "Who took these?"
"I did." Tessa sounded as ready to defend herself as Leidolf's tone was accusing.
"Let's go outside, Leidolf." Hunter motioned for him to take the lead and shut the door behind them before he gave in to his wolf nature and fought him over Tessa. "Like I said, I have a situation here, and I need to resolve it before I can leave."
"Concerning the woman? She knows what we are?"
"No."
"I smelled at least six different lupus garous in the house, and she doesn't have a clue what's going on?"
"None. A gray is trying to change her. I need to stop him before it gets that far."
"The one who's been in the house? The one in the photos? Hell, he's Yoloff and he and his brothers and three more of their pack members are from La Grande. All males. All looking for mates. They came sniffing around Portland, but we don't have any unattached red females, so the grays moved farther west. You're bound to have more trouble with them. I take it you want the woman for yourself?"
"I don't believe in changing humans."
"At least that's something we agree on." Leidolf offered an arrogant smile. "Yet two are newly turned, am I right?"
"Yoloff changed the one and the other was an accident."
"Ah. I don't blame you about the woman. I'm a royal and mixing our kind with a newly turned lupus garou doesn't appeal."
A royal? But Leidolf's attentions toward Tessa hinted at more than a little intrigue. Mixing his purer lupus garou line with a human just turned might become an option if the red got desperate enough for a mate.
"I'd guess she has a red in her family tree because of her hair color and as petite as she is."
Hunter snorted. "A lupus garou can't impregnate a human."
"In all of the years I've lived, I've learned one important thing: there are exceptions to nearly every rule."
Hunter snapped his gaping jaw shut, glanced back at the house, saw Tessa watching him through the picture window, and turned his attention back to Leidolf. In all the years Hunter had lived, he'd never seen a case like that. "You know someone like that?"
Leidolf motioned to the house. "Right inside. Maybe a couple of generations back. Maybe more. But she's got a lupus garou in her genes somewhere along the line. Got to have if she's chasing down lupus garous like Yoloff, drawn to us, curious, and we're just as attracted to her."
Hunter glanced back at the house. Tessa's brows lifted.
"She may not smell like us or have our enhanced wolf abilities, but she triggers your craving, doesn't she? I can see in your expression you don't believe me, but I met one other nearly a hundred years ago. A human female.
She moved close to where my father's pack lived in Wildhaven. Several of our unmated males fought over her. Finally, a red won her over and that was that. But she had lupus garou pheromones that triggered quite a bit of testosterone between our males before the situation was resolved. A grandfather was the culprit."
"But the woman didn't interest you."
Leidolf shrugged. "I told you. I want a lupus garou who's close to being a royal. Why don't you bring the woman to Portland where you can keep an eye on her, and then you can force your pack to return to the coast?"
Bring her to Portland to watch over her? Or give Leidolf another opportunity to check her out? Only this time in his territory.
"If I don't resolve this by week's end, I might do that."
"Good." Leidolf looked back at the house and bowed his head to Tessa. "Too bad she isn't a red lupus garou. I imagine though, you wish she were a gray."
So Leidolf was interested in her. "She's human, and I intend for her to stay that way. But if she were part lupus garou, she would have gray lineage." Hunter made the comment as pointed as he could. He didn't want one horny red thinking he might claim her.
Leidolf perked up. "How so?"
"If it's true she has distant lupus garou lineage, her great-grandfather was probably Seth Greystoke."
Leidolf's eyes rounded. "The devil gray who beat Alfred's great-grandfather?"
Hunter frowned. "Who?"
"Alfred was the previous red pack leader in the Portland area. His great-grandfather was as much of a terror when he was the pack leader in the Oregon territory. Seth had come here with the gold fever. Made a mint. Then after he took down Alfred's great-grandfather, he returned to his home in Colorado. Seth's great-grandson, Devlyn, came here looking for a female red, Bella, and destroyed Alfred three months ago, after Alfred and some of the males in his pack had killed young women in the area."
"Seth." Hunter shook his head. "We'd heard he had a son."
"Yes, whose own son fathered three boys. But everyone died in a house fire set by vigilante humans, except for Devlyn. Being punished for disobedience, he was sleeping in a shed that night."
Hell, if Tessa and her brother were truly Seth's descendants, they were Devlyn's distant cousins. Which could be more of a problem, or Hunter's solution, depending on the way he looked at it. "Never would have figured Seth to oust a leader. He was in California when my great-grandfather met him."