“Contact Armani and tell her I’ll be in first thing in the morning.” Anya worried her lower lip as she thought. “Maybe I can convince her to up the dosage a bit with Del-Rey here.” She looked at Sharone questioningly. “If that worked, then I wouldn’t have to leave every time he got a wild hair up his butt and decided to come back.”
“Del-Rey? Get a wild hair up his butt?” Sharone snorted. “No body hair, remember?”
That was Sharone, mocking and sarcastic.
“Don’t pick on me, Sharone,” she ordered her. “This situation is bad enough with Del-Rey returning as it is.”
Her emotions were ready to overload. Excitement. Anticipation. She was tired of hiding from something that wasn’t her fault. This mating heat crap was kind of under control. The mating heat hormone levels were steady. She had periods of arousal, but Armani kept arguing they were normal. Baloney. What she was feeling was not normal. It couldn’t be. Otherwise, it meant she was actually missing that wisecracking, lying, mangy Coyote and she refused to do that.
“So, should Emma and Ashley get the cabin in Haven prepared?” Sharone asked.
Anya grit her teeth and stared back at the other woman in fierce determination. “I don’t think so. Let’s see how long he can actually stay with the coya in-house so to speak,” she bit out. “A hundred says he’s gone in a month.”
Sharone laughed. “A hundred says you’re knotted again within the week.”
They shook on it. Anya had no doubt in her mind who was going to win.
CHAPTER 4
He had changed.
The next afternoon Anya walked into the open community room, a large cavern that housed the recreational area of the base, and stopped.
She stared at the man lounging in a recliner on the far side, his pack alphas similarly relaxed, beers in their hands as they talked.
Del-Rey looked happy. There was a grin playing about his lips, his dark face was creased in amusement, his devil’s black eyes filled with mirth as one of the pack alphas talked.
His dark blond hair was shorter. It had once fallen to his shoulders, the long, coarse strands thick and healthy. It was now cut a bit above the shoulder and it was shaggier than it had been before, as though he’d cut it himself.
One jean-clad leg was stretched out, the other bent. His wrist rested on his knee and he held his beer loosely. The shirt he wore buttoned up the front was wrinkled, clean but not exactly neat.
In his opinion though, if it were neat, he would be a Wolf rather than a Coyote. She snorted silently at the thought as she let her gaze caress him again.
He was just as gorgeous as ever. Not pretty-boy gorgeous, but rough and rugged. Strong features defined his face; arched brows, a high forehead. His entire body was a golden bronze, as though perpetually tanned. His lips were sensual, the lower lip just a bit too lush for a woman’s peace of mind perhaps. The full curve tempted the imagination, made her remember what his kiss had felt like.
Hot. Destructive. Hungry.
At that moment his head jerked around, his gaze meeting hers. As though he had felt her eyes on him, felt the caress that her hands itched to give in the middle of the night.
She swallowed tightly as he watched her, his hand moving as he brought the bottle of beer to his lips and tilted it back. Her breathing became deeper, harder. Sweet mercy, she was going to break out in a sweat.
“Call that damned quack Armani and tell her to get her crap together,” she ordered Sharone.
“Really,” Sharone muttered. “Damn, Anya, you’re getting hot.”
“Shut up.” Anya threw her a hard glare before stalking through the community room and heading into the kitchen.
Okay, the alpha leader was in residence, he could damn well approve kitchen help now. She needed a cook, assistants and a cleanup crew. And she didn’t want Breeds. Breeds were military trained; it was part of their genetics, part of their training. Breed soldiers did not make good cooks, or neat cooks.
She stepped into the kitchen and automatically started rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher as Sharone, Emma and Ashley began putting other items away.
“I wasn’t created to clean a kitchen,” Ashley informed all of them as she flipped her cosmetically enhanced blond hair over her shoulder and looked at her nails. “I’m not washing skillets.”
“You get the first stack,” Anya informed her. “I’ll take the second.”
“You’re so kidding,” Ashley laughed.
Anya turned back to the younger Breed girl. She and Emma might be twins, but they were worlds apart.