Page 31 of To Challenge a Wolf

“N-no, we don’t. We don’t want anything,” one of the original trespassers said. The stench of desperate lies stung Rhett’s nose.

A new rogue, who smelled of cloves and honey rather than the bitter herbs that reeked from Drew’s pack, took a step toward Aaron. Like Rhett, he was on the short side for a wolf, about six-foot-two. His eyes and hair were brown, and a scar ran down the left side of his face from his temple to the bottom of his jaw.

“I surrender myself to your pack’s judgment,” he said, meeting Aaron’s eyes squarely. “And I surrender them too.” He nodded to the other two strangers, and they nodded back.

“Drew wasn’t your alpha,” Aaron said.

“No.”

“Are you theirs?”

“I am.”

“How’d you get involved in this?”

“Drew offered to pay us…a lot. Told us he’d been here on some sort of business and y’all ambushed him. He said he wanted to resolve it in the traditional wolf way, no human authorities involved, just teach you not to attack anybody else. I didn’t know he planned on murder.”

“Well, he was a lying violent wolf who hurt a woman, a mate from our pack,” Aaron said.

Low growls sounded from the three mercenaries.

“My pack followed my lead,” the merc alpha said. He did his best to hold Malachi’s gaze as he spoke to him rather than Aaron. “If you spare us, we’ll leave here and never come back. But we trespassed on your territory. We attacked your pack, unprovoked. You’re within your rights to kill all three of us.”

“That’s right,” Aaron said, a low growl beneath the words.

“I know it is. So I’m asking you, please”—he met Malachi’s eyes for a long moment this time—“let my pack go home. Take my life and be satisfied.”

“Daniel, no,” snapped the older of the two wolves beside him.

Daniel snarled at him, and the other wolf took a step back in deference.

Malachi stepped toward Daniel, bared his teeth and growled from the back of his throat, an unmistakable warning and threat. The mercenary alpha bowed his head, and shock rippled out from every wolf present to coat the air in an oily essence. No alpha bowed his head to another, no more than he’d cede his pack to that alpha.

Now Malachi’s growl held acceptance. He nodded, then swung his head toward the access road from where Drew had approached pack land last time. The wolves clearly understood the gesture of dismissal. Their relief stung Rhett’s nose.

“Thank you,” Daniel said.

Patrick, Corbin, and Trevor escorted the three mercenaries toward the road. Daniel and the older wolf helped the younger one; his back had missed impact with the tree trunk when Rhett threw him, but his leg had hit squarely. As their scents faded into distance, Rhett padded up to Malachi, whined, and turned his face in the direction they’d left. He didn’t want only to know the mercs were gone. He wanted to see them off, smell their absence at the border of pack land. Malachi nodded, and Rhett bolted after them, loping full out.

When he caught up, Trevor nodded to him. “Hey, Rhett.”

The merc alpha’s scent brightened with awe. Quietly with a shake of his head, he said, “A pack that can control their moonbound forms.”

“Well—” Trevor began, but Rhett cut him off with a warning bark. If these mercs thought the entire pack could change form at will, so much the better. An advantage of intimidation.

Trevor looked hard at Rhett as they all continued to the road, and Rhett bared his teeth.I mean it, wolf. Don’t you give up an advantage just to be honest.

The going was slow. The wolf Rhett had thrown leaned hard on his companions, but he kept his lips sealed tight against any sound of weakness. When they reached the place of parting, the mercs drew up straight, even the injured one though his scent was thick with pain. They nodded their thanks and began to move away.

“Hey,” Trevor said.

With a nod to his wolves, the merc alpha turned back to face Trevor. The other two continued hobbling forward. Clearly they wanted to make distance, and Rhett allowed himself the pride of knowing he was the reason.

“You don’t strike me as hostile,” Trevor said to the merc. “Did you really come all this way to fight just for money?”

Daniel eyed each of them in turn, even Rhett, before returning his attention to Trevor. “It wasn’t ‘just’ money. It was money. To catch us up—a mortgage here, a tax payment there. Clothes and shoes for fast-growing pups.”

Corbin said, “And you think that excuses attacking fellow wolves?”

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