Not The Leader Of The Pack (7 page)

Heather cleared her throat again, breaking the spell Neil had cast on the room. “As a member of the pack, it’s your duty and obligation to assist your alpha with that. As the current beta, you bear that responsibility even more keenly. If you believe the alpha can’t lead, then you challenge her in single combat. Very simple. What part of this are you struggling with, Mr. Statham?”

“I know the way it’s supposed to go, Miss Compton.” He returned the investigator’s formal style with sneering sarcasm. “I also know there are free packs in Wyoming that do it differently. They allow the challenges, but they also give current pack members the chance to accept or reject a new alpha. They acknowledge the right of each pack to choose its own destiny, and, by extension, the right of each individual.”

“The packs in Wyoming betrayed the Council and broke their vows of kinship with us.” Heather pulled her lip back from her teeth in a snarl as subtle and elegant as her tasteful gold accessories.

Neil smiled. His body relaxed. He moved as if the tension had gone out of the room, when in fact it had grown even more. Juli watched him warily. She had to remind herself to breathe. “I guess someone’s thought of a solution, then.”

“Neil, what are you saying?” Juli couldn’t help reaching out to him. The magnitude of the trouble he flirted with horrified her. The investigators could arrest him just for hinting this way. They could haul him to Lewistown, or expel him from all Council-affiliated packs, or require that he take lycanthropy suppressants in such large doses he wouldn’t be able to shift even on the full moon. No matter how much conflict had grown between them, she didn’t think she could bear for any of that to happen. She didn’t want to be cut off from him.

He dodged away from her fingers and faced Heather, shoulders square. “I’m saying the Missoula pack isn’t going to follow the Council anymore. We’re seceding, just like Wyoming. I’ll lead.”

“Neil!”

“You can join us, Juli.” He paused and looked straight in her eyes. “You’re always welcome as far as I’m concerned.” She picked up the invitation laced through his words, but for once felt too distressed to respond.

Heather sighed loudly and dropped her weight in the chair she’d just vacated, unlatching her briefcase with a loud slap. “Well, I guess I’m not going home yet. Gabriel will not be happy about this.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

She arched a speculative eyebrow, and another irrational flash of jealousy spread through Juli’s body. “Do you want me to?”

“I’m happy to walk out of here as a free man.” Neil shrugged, but Juli thought she detected a little discomfort in his defiance, as if he hadn’t realized how far he could take things. He shifted from foot to foot and shoved both hands in his pocket, and he’d lifted his shoulders almost to his ears.

Heather shuffled more papers, and did not deign to meet Neil’s eye. “The Council recognizes that werewolves are prone to hasty speech. Technically, you’re not in violation unless you fail to appear at the ceremonial swearing in of the new alpha. I’ll be sure you and the rest of the pack are notified. Until that event, your rebellion is considered a threat only—serious, but not yet requiring intervention. You might want to take some time to think things over between now and then. We can make things very uncomfortable for you if you choose to join the rebels in Wyoming.”

Neil lifted one corner of his mouth. “Sure. I’ll give that some thought.” He turned on his heel.

Heather stopped him with a voice like a whip crack. “I’m not finished. We’re going to have to call in a full complement of investigators. We’ll take a statement from every pack member, and place guards on each one. Anyone found to be involved with sedition will be duly punished after the next full moon.” She paused for dramatic effect, a long nail tapping against her pale cheek. “If you don’t want your pack to suffer, I’d recommend you rethink your actions.”

Neil’s back muscles twitched. “I’ve had it with your threats and your police state.” He headed for the front door.

Juli jumped to her feet. She missed him as if he were already lost to her. She wished she could talk about what had just happened. If it hadn’t involved him, he would have been the person she sought out. “Neil, where are you going?”

“Out.”

She bit her lip. She’d already embarrassed herself plenty in front of the Lewistown officials. If she ran after him now, she didn’t think her pride could recover. She bit her lip and sat back down. Heather certainly had plenty of paperwork to keep her occupied.

Chapter Six

Two Council investigators stood guard outside Sarah Edmond’s modest ranch house. Even half-hidden in the surrounding forest, their presence emphasized the Council’s intrusion on Neil’s hometown and pack. He ignored them deliberately, and lifted his hand to knock on the battered front door.

Before he could complete the action, the door opened and revealed Juli. He froze, his fist still in the air, staring into those eyes, bigger and bluer than the wide-open Montana sky. He should have smelled that she was here. He certainly caught her scent now, earthy and delicate, like new growth in Spring.

Juli recovered before he did. “You have another visitor, Sarah,” she called over her shoulder. Nodding to Neil, she disappeared before he even caught his breath.

Neil did manage to lower his hand before the older female werewolf appeared in the entryway, her coffeepot in hand. She still got as much sun as ever, her wrinkled skin a pleasant nut-brown tan. An elastic flowered headband held back wild gray and white hair, and matched her housedress. Silver stars embossed the sides of her bright blue eyeglass frames. No one could have presented a friendlier, more welcoming image, but Neil couldn’t summon an appropriate greeting. Most of his mind had spun off in daydreams of Juli.

He wanted to kick himself. Considering the trouble he’d started, he couldn’t afford to be so distracted by Darrow Gunby’s daughter. She made him feel like he was twenty again, still a stammering kid casting about for the right thing to do.

Sarah Edmond gave him an amused smile that made his face flush. “I assume you’re standing on my porch because you want to come inside? Though I’m pretty sure I’m not the reason you’ve got that look on your face.”

Neil shook himself. “Yes, please. I thought I’d visit, since it’s been a while since I got the chance to see you.”

The older woman dismissed his words with an impatient gesture. “I’m no fool, Neil. I know why you’re here. Come sit down so we can do this over coffee. And close your mouth. You look like a guppy.”

She swept back down the hall and into the house. Neil waited another beat, then stepped in and closed the door behind him. Being inside Sarah Edmond’s house felt a little like being on one of the trails at the edge of town. She’d stuffed her home full of pressed wildflowers and other mementos of the outdoors. Water splashed in a miniature fountain to the left of the door, and Neil thought he recognized the rocks inside it as the kind found on the banks of the Clark Fork River. Beside the fountain, he noticed a framed photograph of Will Edmond, the werewolf who had been her mate until his death three years before.

“Are you coming to the table, Neil, or are you searching my house for valuables instead?”

Neil came to himself with a jerk. He’d come here to ask for the support of a well-respected member of the pack, and he’d started by behaving strangely on her porch. “Sorry!” Neil rushed into the kitchen to find Sarah waiting with two cups of coffee and a tray of thinly sliced roast beef. On the counter beside the sink sat a dirty coffee cup and an empty dish identical to the one on the table. He nodded. “You just had this exact conversation with Juli.”

Sarah smiled slowly, the expression spreading creases over her face. “No conversation is ever exactly the same. Juli wasn’t quite so tongue-tied when she showed up.” She slipped her glasses down her nose and studied him over their frames. “You’re both good kids. I’m not going to get between you.”

“Mrs. Edmond, I’m not sure if Juli filled you in on all the details of the dispute between us—”

She made a sound of disgust and waved his words away with one hand. “Those fancy people from Lewistown have gotten into you, boy. You call me Grandma Sarah like you always did. And you tell me what you really want to say.”

Neil hesitated, embarrassed by her criticism. Hadn’t he complained that Lewistown had gotten into Juli? The entire point of this rebellion was to get away from the Werewolf Council’s stultifying, legalistic ways. He cut to the point. “I told them the pack wouldn’t follow Juli. I said we would break off from the Council, and that I would be alpha.”

Sarah Edmond leaned back, pursing her lips.

“I guess I came here to ask if I was right. Would you follow Juli? Was that what she just asked you?”

The older woman sighed. “Why are you doing this, Neil? The way you’ve chosen causes so much trouble, and when you shift, you’re twice Juli’s size. You can just take her down and claim leadership, if that’s what you’re really after. Maybe it doesn’t satisfy all your principles, but it’s practical.”

“I can’t fight her.”

“Why not?”

“I shouldn’t have to. Darrow can’t pass on the—”

Sarah made another of her impatient gestures. She leaned forward and grabbed a big hunk of the roast beef, rolling it deftly between her fingers and biting it in half with feral enjoyment. “I don’t want to hear your official reasons. If you’ve got a wolf in you like the one in me, you’ve got no patience for that kind of argument. If you can win a dispute with your teeth and claws, under the moon, you go for it. Part of you longs for things to be so simple all the time. What’s stopping you, Neil?”

Her brown eyes sharpened with predatory interest, and he found himself swallowing and leaning back in his chair. She’d asked a fair question. More than one pack member had wanted to know why Neil made trouble with the Council over this when he’d never had any hesitation about taking on a shifted challenge before. Juli had never even fought officially. He had both size and experience on his side.

He avoided Sarah’s eyes, took his own bite of roast beef, and thought it over. He imagined himself shifted with Juli, raging, tearing, fighting for supremacy and life. The image raised a host of instincts within him—the urge to claim, to mate, to raise a set of cubs. Then he knew. He lifted his head with new understanding, and saw only knowing humor on Sarah’s face.

“You’re afraid to shift with her,” Sarah said.

Neil blew out a breath, half-covering his face with his hand. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, he couldn’t help the grin bursting out of him, along with the knowledge of his feelings for Juli. For him, mating with her wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t something to think over. It was an inevitability, if ever the opportunity arose.

If Neil ever found himself fully shifted with Juli, a single need would dominate his mind. He’d been telling the truth when he said he couldn’t fight her. Lowering his hand to the table, he jumped to see the thick mat of hair that covered it. “I am so sorry.” Sports scores automatically entered his mind as he snatched his hand off the surface and tucked it into his lap. Sarah only chuckled and shook her head.

“It’s not a problem, boy. It’s perfectly normal.” She refilled the coffee cup Neil hadn’t noticed himself draining. A fresh sip of it burned across his tongue, helping him return to the present moment.

His hand shrank and returned to human form. To Neil’s dismay, a dusting of fur spread over Sarah’s kitchen floor. “The Lewistown officials didn’t see it that way. They gave me a citation.”

Sarah scowled. “When you’re near a likely mate, the shift gets away from you for a while. It settles down shortly after you consummate.”

“Who said anything about mating?” Neil’s face heated. He covered his nerves with a different protest. “I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

The old woman just chuckled and continued speaking. “There aren’t as many of us as there used to be, and a lot of werewolves marry humans these days. When was the last time you were around a pair of courting werewolves?” When Neil shrugged, she gave a little nod. Then her eyes grew distant, and she shivered a little. “The month before Will and I mated, I woke up each morning fully shifted. I was lucky if I was still inside my house. One morning, I came to in the backyard with a rabbit in my mouth. Passion is wild, boy. There’s no containing it.”

Neil cleared his throat. He’d lose his mind if he considered the idea of passion, particularly not how Juli might express it. “Well, I can’t afford not to contain this, Grandma Sarah.”

“Good boy. You do know how you feel. Now you know what to do.” The older woman leaned forward, both her palms flat on the kitchen table. She lowered her voice. “Go after her, Neil. She can’t have gone far.”

He swallowed hard, knowing down to his very bones what he wanted to do with Juli. “I can’t do that. For one thing, she probably hates me.” He paused. “For another thing, I’m pretty sure the Lewistown investigators will notice if I shift this afternoon because my feelings get away from me. They’ve been watching me pretty closely.”

“Neil, you brought these investigators here, and you can send them back to Lewistown. We don’t need their attention.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Darrow should never have given in to the Council’s prudish suppression of natural instincts, but we have to live with their foolish regulations for the time being. The last thing we need are arrogant kids on lycanthropy suppressants going around issuing citations to every werewolf in the midst of a normal phase of life.”

She pursed her lips, and he wondered at the heat in her words. He remembered the way she and Will Edmond had stood together at pack gatherings, strong and entwined. “Grandma Sarah, what was it like to have a mate?”

Sarah smiled faintly. “Maddening. I couldn’t have a weak feeling about him. I wanted him with every cell in my body. When we fought, I wanted to wrestle him all night and then spend the whole next day making up.”

“That sounds like a pretty hard—”

“Like being alive. More than I’d ever dreamed possible.” She cocked her head and looked into him with searching eyes. “Don’t fear her, Neil. I know you feel like you’re losing control, but you’re going to find yourself clearer than you’ve ever been. If Juli unleashes the beast in you, that’s a thing to celebrate. If you run away from her, what you’re really doing is running away from yourself.”