Hunting Ground

Charles opened one side of the double-door entrance, releasing the heady combination of beef, barbecue sauce, and coffee. The restaurant was dimly lit and, to A

Charles inhaled and turned left, walking around a wall of shrubbery, through a swinging door, and into a room set apart from the rest of the place. A discreet sign above the door noted that the room could be reserved for large groups for a small fee and could hold up to sixty people. When A

Alpha wolves don’t mingle well with others. A

Someone had made a hasty effort to clear a space for fighting because a couple of tables were lying on their sides against a wall, and chairs had been tossed wherever they landed.

“You don’t have the courage of a half-bred mongrel,” said one of the two men standing in the center of the room with cool deliberation. He had an accent, but it was so slight she couldn’t place it immediately.

Charles looked at her, then at the door they’d just come through. A

It also gave her a quick escape-so many dominant wolves… Even with Charles, she couldn’t help remembering what the dominant wolves in her first pack had done to her. And her heartbeat picked up. Not panicked. Not yet. But not comfortable either.

The room looked like nothing so much as a scene from a reenactment of West Side Story or, with slightly different props and costuming, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Four men stood on one side of the room, six on the other. A few paces in front of either group stood a man, ready to fight. The testosterone level was so high that she was amazed it hadn’t triggered the little sprinklers in the ceiling.

There was a thirteenth man still seated in the corner of the room. He had his back to the wall and was cleaning his hands with a damp towelette. He noticed Charles’s entrance first and tipped his head in a casual salute. “Ah,” he said in a beautiful upper-class British accent, “I was wondering when the cavalry would arrive. Good to see you, Charles. At least the Russians aren’t here, eh? Or the Turks.”

Action froze for a moment as everyone realized a new player had entered the game.

“You know how to see the bright spot in a cloudy day,” said a dark-ski

Which meant that the man who’d been tossing insults could be none other than Jean Chastel, the Beast of Gévaudan.

He wasn’t handsome, precisely, but there was a power to his features and in the way he carried himself that made her first Alpha, Leo, look like a half-grown pup. He made an impression, as most of the Alphas she’d met did; he took up more space in the room than he should, as if he were weightier, both physically and metaphysically, than he ought to be.

He was aware of Charles, but his pale eyes stayed firmly on his opponent. Neither tall nor short, Chastel had a lean build. His hair was longish and brownish, brushing his shoulders. His beard was several shades darker than his hair and close-trimmed. But the physical details didn’t matter nearly as much as the force of who and what he was.

His opponent didn’t stand a chance against him-and the Spaniard knew it. A

“Sergio, mi amigo,” said the dark Spaniard who’d spoken before. “Stand down. The fight is over. Charles is here.”

The Spanish fighter hadn’t noticed Charles’s approach, and his startled look was very nearly his undoing. Jean Chastel’s right arm shot out and would have co

Charles intercepted the blow and jerked Chastel around, using the other’s momentum to propel him into his own people. A quick glance at the Spanish wolves had them all backing up a step, then his attention was focused on the first wolf.

“Fools,” Charles snarled. “This is a public place. I’ll not have you disturbing the peace while you are guests on Emerald City Pack grounds.”

“You’ll not have us, pup?” murmured the Frenchman, who’d recovered quickly from the unpla

There was something abject about the way the rest of the French contingent stood that told A

Beneath all the aggression and posturing in the room, there was an undercurrent of fear: hers, the Spaniard’s, and the French wolves’, so thick that she sneezed at the smell of it, drawing unwanted attention. Jean Chastel’s eyes met hers, and she held them, despite the violence they promised. Here, she thought, here was a monster worse than the troll under the bridge. He stank of evil.

“Ah,” he said, sounding almost gentle. “Another story I’d dismissed. So you found yourself an Omega, half-breed. Pretty child. So soft and delicate.” He licked his lips. “I bet she’s a tasty morsel.”

“You’ll never find out, Chastel,” said Charles softly. “Back down or leave.”

“I have a third choice,” Chastel whispered. “I think I might take that one.”

There was no good outcome for this, A

Maybe she could help defuse it. She’d been working with Asil, an old wolf in her new pack, to try to come to some understanding of what she could do. His dead mate had been an Omega just like A

Charles didn’t say anything to Chastel. He just stood, his arms loose at his sides, his weight on the balls of his feet, as he waited for Chastel to make a decision.

Only Charles allowed her to put her fear aside-Charles, her wolf, and the door.

She imagined a place in her mind, deep in the forest where the snow lay lightly on the ground and her breath frosted in the air. It was quiet there, and sheltered. Peaceful. A creek full of fat trout trickled under a thin layer of misty ice. In her mind’s eye she followed a trout as it slid, a silver shadow, through the fast-moving water.

When she had it clear and perfect in her head, she pushed that feeling out.