My sister just wasn't thinking. She was a wolf without her pack - in a sense - and starving for that personal connection. She didn't have a mate, or want one, but that she'd lost her friends at the same time? Well, I could only imagine what that was like. The problem was that her decision, while reckless, also had some merit to it - and I wanted to be a different kind of alpha.
All my life, I'd been told what made a good pack leader. Responsibility, dependability, good decisions, and such. The leader of the community was supposed to be a man others could look up to. And yet, all too often, he - or she, because there were plenty of female alphas - ended up a tyrant. They demanded too much control, used their strength as a weapon, and made their followers suffer.
That wouldn't be happening in Wolf's Run under my watch. This place was supposed to be our sanctuary, and this one woman could ruin everything. I needed to deal with the mess, but the moon had been out last night, so I hadn't gotten the chance. Hell, I'd barely hauled my ass in by dawn this morning. Hearing the clanking of a nearly-broken lawnmower before noon on a Sunday? I woke up ready to bite someone's head off. Namely, my sister's.
I also wasn't really awake. Grabbing a pair of jeans off the floor, I pulled them on as I stormed downstairs, not bothering to stop for anything as unnecessary as a shirt or shoes. Two hours of sleep were not nearly enough to put me in a forgiving mood, and if this woman wanted to stay here, she needed to figure out that her neighbors weren't morning people. Right about now, throwing her ass out the front gates would solve all my problems.
"What are you doing?" I snapped as I walked around the back of my truck.
Elena didn't hear me. She was still just trudging along behind the rattle and clank of her mower, but I got one hell of a view. Yesterday, she'd been in a baggy pair of sweats and a tee at least two sizes too big. With the scowl on her face, she'd reminded me of a teacher I'd hated in elementary school. Today? Long golden-brown legs kept going up to a pair of tight denim shorts and a tee that proved her curves were insanely good. Then there was that dark chocolate ponytail streaked through with almost caramel-colored highlights. Damn, she looked like something I wanted to put in my mouth, especially from this angle.
I hadn't expected that.
Then she turned, lifting the front wheels of the mower to perfectly line up the next swath of her lawn, and I got the front view. My eyes couldn't make it past the cleavage. Why did she have to be beautiful? Chasing her off would be much easier if she wasn't completely stunning. Not that I was supposed to chase her off, but the truth was that I intended to give her every possible reason to leave. My loyalty, after all, was to my pack - not her.
She saw me standing there and released the emergency handle, killing the engine. "Can I help you?" she asked, letting her eyes drop to my chest with a look of confusion. The Hispanic cadence of her words sounded wonderfully distinguished.
I'd been pissed when I came out here. That was a lot harder to hold onto when I was looking at the sexy little crinkles giving her eyes life. In my mind, I'd imagined her to have the same kind of arrogance I hated in most of her kind. The type that said she thought she was better than everyone else right up until they ran away from people like me in fear. I hadn't talked to her long enough to get a read on her yesterday, but she'd just asked that like she actually cared. It was enough to make me pause.