steadies herself on his shoulders. She is a small human and he is a large wolf, but still I like them together. They add strength to each other, even if it isn’t the kind of strength the Pack understands.
“I’m not afraid of working or fighting or getting hurt, but for the first time in my life I’m afraid of losing, because for the first time in my life, it means something. If I lose, Poul is still the strongest unmated male. Ev… The Alpha doesn’t like him, but she will not go against Pack traditions for her own sake. Not like she did for you.”
Elijah gazes at Thea, the woman who smiles toward him but not at him because it’s too dark and she’s too human.
“If I win,” I continue, “then at least she has a choice. I want her to choose me, but whatever else happens, Poul will no longer take it as his right to sniff around her like she’s his personal fire hydrant.”
I know I’m talking too fast and saying too much, so I take a deep breath. “All I’m asking is to give me a chance to give her a choice.”
Elijah moves to Thea’s front, his muzzle at her chest until she squats down. He pats his head against the underside of her chin and she lifts her head back, eyes closed while Elijah opens his enormous jaws, fitting them to either side of her vulnerable throat. She is motionless except for a few thin strands of hair that bend to the current of his breath. When he moves away, one fang traces a gentle line down until it catches on the leather braid at her collarbone.
Then he plants himself in front of me, his head cocked, looking expectantly, though if he thinks I’m going to stick my throat between his jaws, he can go—
He jumps up, grabbing the front of my shirt between his fangs and pulling me down. Next he rubs his muzzle against my cheek. First one side, then the other.
“Do you understand?” Thea asks.
“Uhhh.” I watch her pull the flashlight from her belt. “Tell me he’s saying yes.”
“He’s saying yes.”
“Just wanted to make sure.”
Thea trains the bright beam on the steep hill in front of her.
“Can I ask you something?”
She points the flashlight down.
“If you had this all along, why didn’t you use it?”
“Hurts their eyes,” she says, grabbing hold of a branch and pulling herself up.
I stand at the base of the hill, watching the light and the woman and the wolf until in the middle distance, a door closes.
Chapter 33
Evie
That’s why we have laws and customs in the first place.
I drop my jeans and shirt over the back of the Adirondack chair at the end of the dock.
Sometime, somewhere, some ancestor did a bad thing and fell in love with the wrong wolf.
Holding my nose, I jump in, the water a frigid slap against my overheated skin. I spread my body out across the surface so the water at my back lifts me, the wind at my front caresses me. I paddle slowly toward the other side.
I don’t know what happened to that ancestor, but probably that strong wolf found out and challenged the wrong wolf, and in the end, the wrong wolf was defeated. The difference being that was a pack challenge, and pack challenges are about submission, not death.
This was where I made myself small so I could sink down where no one would find me, except Constantine, who found me and saved me. There was something sweet about it, the worry on his face, as though he imagined that I was the kind of wolf who might conceivably need saving.
Why did he have to do this? I know he doesn’t like Poul, but couldn’t he have pretended to offer him the respect due him as Alpha of the 10th? I’ve put up with so much shit from Poul… Why couldn’t Constantine have done this one thing? My love always has to be so encompassing. Couldn’t he have lowered his eyes and let me keep this little love that’s all our own, just us two?
Pulling my legs in and wrapping my arms around my knees, I make my body small again and sink deep into the water, my wolf’s metabolism letting me stay there for a long time. On my second time down, the water around me ripples around me, above me. I know who it is circling around me, just like he did when he was looking