WithHerHunger (4 page)

Many of the
lunewulf
howled their approval when Anton
changed into his fur, after tossing his clothes to the side, and leapt on the
males who were currently fighting. Within seconds both were bleeding out on the
ground. He turned his attention on two other males. His white coat gleamed
under the large moon that slowly rose beyond the mountains. Blood shown off his
deadly incisors. One fierce growl was all the warning he offered before leaping
on them, his thick, pointed claws extending toward his targets.

“Enough!” Anika Klein howled at the same time Anton landed
on the larger of two males who sported only a few bruises and cuts so far from
their fighting. “I have declared how it will be,” she shrieked, managing to
howl louder than the screams from the male under Anton. “As your current queen
bitch, I order the fighting to cease!”

Anika, the widowed queen bitch from the pack who had lived
up in the mountains near Whitehorse, pranced out into the middle of the circle.
A female a few years older than Mariah, Anika had shaken her tail for any male
to sniff during their run down the mountain range from Whitehorse to Prince
George. Anika thought her shit didn’t stink, but where Mariah stood, it
appeared to have quite a stench.

Some of the litters around her began snarling their disgust.
Others, however, were howling their support. Mariah guessed any support that
female might receive was out of loyalty to her dead mate. Mariah accepted how
those remaining from her pack were forced to unite with the packs in the
mountains around Whitehorse. There just hadn’t been enough of them left from
any of the packs to do otherwise. This didn’t mean she accepted Anika’s rank as
their current queen bitch.

Mariah curled her lip, deciding she didn’t care if she
smelled disgusted. Regardless of how many had died in the fires, their laws and
traditions still existed and needed to be honored. Just because they’d been
burned out of their dens didn’t mean they should now all behave like mutts.
Mariah might not know every word of their written laws. She probably couldn’t
howl every tradition. But she was pretty damn sure there was nothing written
allowing Anika to now prance around like a bitch in heat, drooling over every
male and claiming her rank as queen bitch over this new pack.

“He just killed three males and the stupid bitch would howl
for him to stop,” she said to Marcy. “I have half a mind to take her down myself
and do our new pack a favor.”

Mariah thought she whispered, and in truth she might have,
but several males and females sniffed in her direction. Anika didn’t hear or
notice Mariah. Instead she paraded back and forth and around the dead males
while Anton snarled off to the side.

“Is this how we would choose our new pack leader?” Anika
howled, her high-pitched, annoying tone doing well to silence everyone
surrounding her. “Would you howl about laws and traditions when it demands our
males in their prime, ready to hunt, mate, reproduce and create a strong pack
must instead die until there is only one?”

Anika looked pointedly at Mariah, which meant so did a few
others. Mariah held her ground, refusing to smell reprimanded or humiliated,
because she was neither. That bitch wouldn’t get a rise out of her unless
Mariah decided it was time for her to do so. If Anika wanted to parade around
like a fool with her tail cocked in the air, that was her business. Mariah
would have nothing to do with it. Now, if Anika wanted to assert a challenge,
Mariah would have no problem responding.

After a two-second stare down, Anika bored easily and began
howling again. “So what if we saw first blood or if a male killed another?” she
screamed. Anika shook her long, thick mane of almost-white hair so it flowed
down her back to her ass.

She shook her ass too as she strutted from one end of the
grassy clearing to the other surrounded by all the
lunewulf
now. Even
those who had been at the fires joined the circle. If Mariah could smell the
discontent along with the approval, so could Anika.

The bitch wore cut-off shorts and one of her legs had a
thin, puckered white line going down it. She had on a button-down collared
shirt that was unbuttoned. Occasionally the breeze blew her shirt open, and
showed off large, firm breasts, indicating she hadn’t birthed any cubs before
her mate died. She howled as if she’d done this before, which made Mariah
wonder what type of leader Anika’s pack had. If Anika did most of the howling
instead of her mate, the bitch would be sniffing for a male with less of a
backbone, one she could mold to her suiting. That wasn’t the type of pack
leader their new pack needed.

“Standing here while four or five more males shred the life
out of each other will only make us a smaller pack than we are right now, and
with less males to go around,” she added and chuckled. Her tone was sickeningly
sweet as she continued. “I’m sure every single female here agrees with me that
there should be as many single males around as possible if we are to find
mates.”

Mariah curled her lip over the female’s crude attitude and
foul smell. She didn’t care if those around her approved or disapproved of her
reaction to the bitch. The female wasn’t their pack leader. Her rank of queen
bitch didn’t hold now that they were so far from where their litters had run
free, or at least it didn’t in Mariah’s opinion.

“I need a new mate,” Anika howled, and held her arms
outstretched toward the night sky overhead. It seemed the stars dimmed for a
moment, as if they pulled back their light in an effort to remain as far from
her as possible. “Who will mate with me and be our new pack leader?”

Anton growled loud enough to bring silence to the secluded
area they had chosen to handle pack business. Mariah growled her disgust as
well. From the quick smell of disapproval around her, Mariah knew she wasn’t
the only one who didn’t agree with Anika taking the law into her own paws.

“She runs with no honor,” Mariah complained under her
breath. “This is not how our laws and traditions are written. Why does she get
to howl amendments to them now?”

“Come forward single males,” Anika continued, keeping her
arms raised but lowering her head and casting her gaze at the
lunewulf
surrounding her. “May the best male win, but not by first blood, unless I
choose to bite you.”

“Are we going to let her do this?” Marcy snarled, leaning
against Mariah so only she would hear her.

The air around them smelled sour, like curdling milk, and
almost strong enough to turn her stomach. But Mariah also smelled lust and
sniffed the air to narrow in on it. Obviously everyone didn’t agree with Mariah
when it came to amending their laws and traditions. Before she could narrow
down which of the males around her smelled hungry for the stupid bitch, a tall
male standing on the other side of Anika strutted toward her.

“That’s it, pet,” Anika growled and did a half-circle type
of dance, arching her back and shaking her ass. “Show me how hungry you are to
lead the powerful
lunewulf
. Our pack might be smaller now but our race
will never be conquered.”

The male was tall and thin, barely grown and definitely not
at full maturity. Mariah guessed he was one of the younger males from Anika’s
pack. Although since they’d begun their run south along the Canadian Rockies
base line, Anika had shown the same friendliness toward every male, whether she
knew him or not. This male grinned broadly at her and walked into her open arms
then bent her over for a hungry kiss.

They had barely embraced when another male, who stood in a
small group close enough for her to smell, damn near leapt over the
lunewulf
in his way and strutted toward Anika. This male wasn’t thin like the first
male. He was a male in his prime. Mariah found herself watching his bare leg
muscles flex and bulge with his purposeful walk toward Anika.

As if she could smell him over the rising lust, anger,
disgust and curiosity growing among all of them, Anika stretched one arm out to
the approaching male the moment he was within reach. Their disgraceful queen
bitch turned her head as she grabbed the second male’s arm.

The first male began feasting on her neck. The second male
took Anika’s shirt by its collar and tore it from her body. Anika yelped. The
first male straightened, panting at the sight of her ample breasts bouncing
before his eyes. He reached for them and whined in protest when the second male
pulled Anika into his arms.

“Fucking tail,” Mariah hissed in disbelief when all three of
them collapsed to the ground. “Let’s get out of here.”

The howling grew louder by the moment, but Mariah swore she
heard Anika cackling like the insane bitch she was. The female deserved
whatever she got. Mariah turned her back on the idiots publicly fucking, and
grabbed her cousin’s arm. She marched away and noticed she wasn’t the only one
leaving.

It seemed the farther they hurried from the insanity that
had taken place before their eyes the louder the
lunewulf
in the
clearing became. The wind shifted direction, but Mariah still picked up on the
smell of lust with almost every breath.

“Where are we going?” Marcy demanded, and pulled her arm
free when they reached the edge of the mountain.

Mariah let go of her and sniffed their surroundings.
Something in the air brought the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to
attention. She turned, searching the darkness beyond the well lit circle of
fools. Mariah saw nothing but couldn’t shake the overwhelming sensation she, or
both of them, were being watched.

She tried ignoring the sensation and hoped she sounded
strong for her younger cousin. “Somewhere we can sleep without being
disturbed.”

Chapter Three

Luther Alger wiped sweat off his brow and squinted at the
afternoon sun. “I’m not used to this southern heat,” he complained
good-naturedly.

Sam Herrwulf rolled his eyes. “It’s probably in the
seventies. You Cariboo need to get out of the mountains more.”

The
lunewulf
had a deep, brusque laugh and a thick
middle, showing he probably needed to run in the mountains more. Luther had no
complaints to howl about the lumberyard owner.

There had been only a few of them who’d survived the fires
around Whitehorse, and that’s when the howling reached Rock Toubec. He was a
Cariboo
lunewulf
who had purchased legally by human laws one of the
largest ranches in this region. The land was just outside Prince George and he
held a lot of power in Prince George, even with the
lunewulf
pack there.
Before Toubec owned it, a female pack leader of the Prince George pack had
owned it. Toubec made it clear all Cariboo and
lunewulf
were welcome to
live, hunt and mate on his land. But they also had to work and earn their keep.
Toubec got this job for Luther. It was a start.

Luther helped finish loading lumber onto the forklift and
shook his head at Herrwulf when he sauntered back over. “I’d run my entire life
in the mountains if I could.”

Sam nodded. “You and me both, male,” he agreed. “But a male
runs a boring life without a good female by his side. And it’s the damndest
thing about those females—they all seem to want a den to smell like them so
they can breed and whelp pups.”

“Someone say something about breeding?” Jaeger Alger asked,
hopping out of the truck that would haul the lumber over to the part of town
where they were building dens for all of the
lunewulf
. He wagged his
eyebrows. “I’m always for breeding.”

“You’re always for chasing any female,” Luther snarled.

“And you aren’t?” Jaeger challenged.

“Possibly, until I find the right one.”

Jaeger tilted his head and sniffed the air. “Do you think
you’ve found that female?”

“You won’t be the first to know.” Luther kept his scent
indifferent. The last thing he needed was hassled when they had work to do.
Luther would always prefer being his own boss, but right now they had a
lumberyard owner to impress. “But you will be the first tail I kick if you
don’t keep working,” he snarled under his breath.

“You’re going to sniff after that little
lunewulf
,”
Jaeger said under his breath, not knowing when to drop it. “And I am working.
Bring it on, Cariboo, if you think you can.”

Luther’s younger cousin was always ready for a fight. Luther
had kicked his ass every time the younger male had challenged him and would
again right now too. Both Jaeger and Jarvis had snarled at him for still having
the sweet little
lunewulf’s
scent on him. Here, in the middle of Prince
George, a city predominantly of
lunewulf
, although there were humans
around, wasn’t the place to knock his cousin into submission.

He silenced his cousin with a look. Jaeger might be
hotheaded but he’d never smelled stupid. Now wasn’t the time to discuss
females. Luther sure as hell didn’t want the older
lunewulf
lumberyard
owner sniffing in on the smell of one of his own kind on Luther. It wouldn’t go
over well. Luther was a single male, at least for now.

It had been two weeks since he’d fucked the daring little
female. His cousins might have, but only because he’d allowed it. Their laws
were cut-and-dried, no howling about it. That little
lunewulf
was his.
He’d been keeping an eye on her from a distance. Once her pack was settled in,
he would make his move.

“If you two are going to fight,” Jarvis began under his
breath as he stalked over from the other side of the forklift. “Let’s make it a
good one so all of Prince George knows how the Algers rumble.”

Luther turned on the older of his two cousins. “No one is
going to smell any of the Algers right now,” he warned.

Jarvis gave Luther an assessing once-over before glancing at
his littermate. “I’d say it’s a bit too late for that,” he grinned.