Chapter 8

Despite dark glares from my former enemies, the wolves I landed amidst didn’t tear into me. Instead, they glanced once at Gunner, his verbal claim sufficient to mark me as ineligible for use as lunch meat. Then they shifted in tandem, revealing long scratches up their backs and shoulders that looked far more like the effects of human nails than like any wound I might have inflicted during the battle that came before.

I didn’t have long to puzzle over that inconsistency however. Because the werewolves I’d spent the last three months sharing a house with had risen to human feet at the same moment, stepping forward to take up where Ransom’s underlings had left off. Allen, Crow, and Tank had always treated me and Kira with gentlemanly deference back at the Atwood mansion. Now, though, the first two grabbed hold of my arms while Tank took custody of my sister on the far side of the racetrack-turned-battlefield.

“I have your word,” Gunner growled between us, his back still bent in deference to his brother even though I could taste the former’s frustration permeating the air. “The sisters are mine to manage. As ordered, I kept them far away from your pack.”

Rather than replying, Ransom gazed at my unclad breasts in a very unshifter-like show of lasciviousness. Not that he seemed particularly interested in me as a sex object or even as a potential enemy. Instead, I got the distinct impression he was staring in an effort to draw his brother’s attention to himself.

Gunner, however, kept his gaze carefully trained on the mud. So Ransom was forced to move on to words.

“Are you still sniffing after unwilling tail, brother?” the pack leader asked after one long moment during which my skin prickled with the intensity of his perusal. “If she hasn’t put out by now, she’s just using you for your money. You’re no Casanova, but surely even you know that.”

Gunner raised his head in response and I winced, surprised to find that this jab at the younger brother’s manhood—or perhaps at my honor—had succeeded where Ransom’s earlier efforts at breaking through his brother’s illusory show of submission had resoundingly failed. The already loaded air vibrated with electricity now as the younger brother leveraged himself upright, the mud caking his legs from knees to ankles doing nothing to diminish the power of his broad-shouldered stance.

Gunner was magnificent, I noted. A pack leader in bearing if not by birth order. In contrast, Ransom looked like an upstart, no less dangerous but lacking the restraint and maturity his younger brother had in spades.

No wonder Ransom flared his nostrils and continued with his verbal parries. “I’ve invited two dozen pack princesses to this year’s gathering,” he said, smirking so broadly his final word was distorted. “They’ve all accepted, of course, because I’m the world’s most eligible bachelor. I plan to try them on for size this week, in ones and twos and threes if you know what I mean.” He wiggled dark eyebrows before finishing. “I’m sure a few of the discards will give you the time of day, though, brother. It’s painfully obvious you can’t get laid on your own.”

And that was almost the last straw. Around us, werewolf shoulders bent down beneath the force of Gunner’s displeasure, the concept of Ransom running through virginal innocents like kleenexes hitting the alpha where it hurt. Any second now, Gunner’s already stretched nerves would snap and he’d say something that neither he nor his brother were capable of forgetting.

Which was a shame since I was beginning to understand the point of the preceding banter. Ransom was attempting, in the least efficient way possible, to rewind the brothers’ relationship into the past.

After all, Gunner and Ransom had been a solid team when I first met them. The elder brother led the pair on wild goose chases while the younger brother propped up his sibling at all costs.

Which made Ransom’s choice to assert his independence three months ago nonsensical. Apparently now the pack leader had returned to his right mind.

Unfortunately, an alpha werewolf can’t just ask for assistance. So I sighed, pulled free of my supposed jailers, then took one step toward Ransom with diplomatic words waiting on my lips.

The male I faced, though, was nothing like his brother. He didn’t raise brows in question and treat me like an equal when I inserted myself into a conversation that didn’t apply to me.

Instead, the pack leader’s eyes skimmed over my mud-covered body, a smirk rising onto his lips. “Can’t resist a real man, can you, baby?”

Baby, really? And, to my eternal regret, the words I pushed into the ensuing silence came out cockeyed, less like a fox’s smooth sidestep and more like a sally led by a werewolf’s bared teeth. “My favors aren’t for sale,” I started. “But you think your brother’s are, don’t you? What do you need Gunner to do for you now?”

Five minutes ago, I’d thought the situation had already hit rock bottom. But, yep, I’d managed to make it significantly worse. Because Gunner’s arm twitched as if he wanted to press between me and his brother...or possibly to wring my ornery neck.

For his part, Ransom did turn his attention away from needling Gunner. But as the pack leader’s shoulders expanded with alpha aggression, I felt far less capable than Gunner had been of standing up beneath his brother’s discontent.

Only...the pack leader didn’t eviscerate me, either verbally or otherwise. Instead, his eyes slid sideways to land on the male guarding my back. “Actually, Crow, I came to talk about my cousin. Since when do you let Elle cross into Claremont territory and train kitsunes on the sly?”