Read Online Hungry Like a Wolf by Christine Warren - Free Book Online Page B

well for her in terms of her ability to lead the pack. Logan admired compassion from a theoretical point of view, but he knew it had little place in the hierarchy of a Lupine pack.
    For all the veneer of civilization their human forms lent them, at their core, a Lupine pack functioned in much the same way as a wolf pack. The strongest led, the others followed, and the weakest either made themselves useful, or they didn’t live to see another winter. To humans it sounded brutal; to Lupines it was the way things worked. They didn’t make the rules out of cruelty. They simply knew that the survival of the pack was more important than the survival of any one pack member, and a hell of a lot more important than manners.
    Given the three challenges Honor had had, Logan wondered why Major hadn’t followed—or even preceded—any of them with a challenge of his own. He clearly thought he would make a better alpha than a female, no matter how wrong he might be, so what was he waiting for? Did he think the others would wear her down and make her more vulnerable, or did he have some other sort of scheme in mind? Logan’s curiosity had been piqued.
    He made no effort to silence his footsteps as he strode toward the stone yard, and he wasn’t surprised to break through the tree line into the clearing to find Honor and two teenaged males staring at him.
    Honor thrust the tip of her shovel into the dirt at her feet and pointed toward the west. “Town is that way.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.” He smiled pleasantly and walked toward her and the fire pit she and the teens looked to be repairing. “For when I’m ready to leave.”
    “You’re ready now.”
    “Not true. You’re ready for me to leave, but me? I prefer to stay a while.” He turned toward the two boys who watched the interplay avidly. “You guys might want to go now.”
    Both boys turned to look at Honor, who scowled but nodded curtly. “Go. Head up to the offices and tell Mike I want you to go along when he looks at that pipe work we want to replace in cabin twelve. I can finish here.”
    This time the boys nodded and moved off, heading back along the same path Logan had used. At least the young ones knew enough to take orders only from their alpha. But teenaged boys were one thing. He still wasn’t sure about her qualifications for leading the entire pack. Just because the one challenger he’d met was a puffed-up windbag didn’t mean every adult male in the pack would be the same. There could still be a serious claimant to the title waiting in the background.
    As soon as the sound of the boys’ footsteps had faded from their sharp ears, Honor turned on Logan with a snarl. “What the hell are you still doing on my land? I thought I made myself pretty damned clear last night. I want you gone.”
    “Oh, you were clear. And so was I.” He met her gaze squarely, not bowing to anyone else’s alpha. “I’m not leaving until I finish the job I was sent to do. That means I’m not leaving until I see for myself whether or not you have what it takes to run this pack.”
    She threw down her shovel and planted her hands on her hips. “Who the hell are you to tell me if I have what it takes? I grew up in this pack, and I’ve been its beta since I was fifteen years old. I know the way things work around here a hell of a lot better than you do, so who the hell do you think you are to give me orders?”
    “I’m the man who intends to see them carried out.”
    She laughed at him. Literally threw her head back and laughed, but when her eyes met his again, the look in them had very little to do with humor. “You go right on thinking that, city boy, and I’ll tell you what my father told me. ‘A White Paw leads the White Paw, and everyone else can go fuck themselves.’ You can make any damned decision you want, and you can go carry your news to your boss back in New York. But I am telling you right now, what you two think won’t make one bit of difference to