Fixed: Fur Play

FIXED: FUR PLAY

An Ellora's Cave Publication, January 2004

Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

PO Box 787

Hudson, OH 44236-0787

ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-84360-773-5

Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned): Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

FIXED: FUR PLAY © 2004 CHRISTINE WARREN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Edited by
Karen Williams

Cover art by
Darrell King
.

FIXED: FUR PLAY

Christine Warren

Christine Warren

Logan Hunter and Rafael De Santos strode up the wide, granite steps to the front door of Vircolac’s, braced to plunge headfirst into the heart of the enemy camp. Well, Logan was braced. Rafe’s step possessed a suspiciously eager spring to it, and his expression looked more lazily amused than wary. He’d recently defected.

Few people had been more surprised than Logan when Rafe decided to take a mate, especially a human witch. Actually, Rafe might have been slightly more astonished, considering he’d spent most of his adolescent and adult life demonstrating where the expression “tomcatting around” came from. But he had taken a mate, and apparently it didn’t matter to Rafe that he was supposed to be one of Logan’s closest friends. In matters of marriage and mating, not even friends could be trusted.

“Last week they somehow managed to rig the door of Graham’s office to lock from the outside.” Logan held open to door for his companion and checked the hallway to be sure none of the perpetrators he was currently griping about lay in ambush. “Then they sent me in there to wait for him. As soon as I stepped inside, the door slammed shut and trapped me in there with Annie. Annie, of all people!”

Rafe grinned at Logan’s obvious dismay. “I thought you liked Annie. She is a very attractive woman, after all. And intelligent. I would think she’d make some lucky Lupine a fine mate.”

Logan growled. “She’s Silverback, man. It would be like sniffing my sister.”

“Right. You and your pack mores. It’s not like she’s actually any blood relation to you.”

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“That’s not the point.”

“Right. Because the point is that you probably humiliated a beautiful and sensitive young woman by tearing down the office door just to get away from her. How do you think that made her feel, you insensitive clod?” Logan scowled. “I didn’t tear it down. I just kicked it in. But Annie knew it wasn’t about her. She’s cool with it. She’s not interested in me either.”

“Right, puppy. She just smiled and thanked you for opening the door and told you to have a wonderful day.”

Logan paused and grimaced. “She told me to shove the door up my ass and shit splinters.”

“Precisely. Logan, you need to learn that whether she’s a werewolf, a shapeshifter, a witch or a human, women are women. They all need to be flattered and coddled and made to feel special.” Tipping the attendant who took their coats, Rafe led the way down the main hall and toward the club library.

“It’s a wonder you’ve ever managed to get laid.”

“And that’s such a sophisticated observation,” the Lupine scoffed. “Don’t bother to pretend with me, De Santos. Under that pampered, nancy-boy Casanova image you like to project, you’re just as much an animal as I am.” Rafe’s dark brow shot up toward his hairline. “I might be an animal, my friend, but I am not, as you might be, a dog.”

“Very funny.”

Rafe smiled a feline smile.

“You can’t tell me they didn’t drive you crazy.” Logan sniffed the air in the hall outside the library, and his keen senses caught the faint but unmistakable odors of breast milk, perfume and female skin.
Damn it
. Bracing himself, his muscles tensed as he reached out to open the door. “They were after you almost worse than me.”

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Christine Warren

“They meant well.”

“I don’t care what they mean. I want them to leave me alone.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be happy about the idea of finding a mate and settling down with one, single female forever and ever and ever? At least you canines seem to take to the idea.”

Rafe pushed ahead of Logan and entered the room. The fire crackling in the hearth at the far side of the room cast a very becoming glow on the skin of the two women standing beside it. Logan shook his head as he saw his friend’s gaze shift and fix on the curly-headed urchin of the pair. He was still getting used to that possessive gleam that sparked in Rafe’s eyes every time they turned toward Tess Menzies De Santos.

“And you took to it just fine, Morris. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do my own finding, damn it.” Logan had lowered his voice, and he looked carefully away from the women at the hearth. “They just don’t seem to understand that mating is a whole different ball game from just getting married.

Maybe if they weren’t all so…human.”

Rafe shrugged. “Regina isn’t human. And Tess might be human, but she’s a cut above the average, you have to admit.”

“Regina has been Other for less time than it takes me to mark a fire hydrant.

And Tess doesn’t count. She’s a witch. And she’s taken.”

“Damn right.”

Logan heard the possessive note in Rafe’s voice and watched him stalk toward his wife. He fought the simultaneous urges to snicker and roll his eyes. A couple of months ago, Logan would have bet his left canine tooth that Rafe would never settle down with one woman, let alone a human woman. Good thing for him no one had taken him up on that bet, because the marital bliss that followed Rafe and Tess around like a cloud would have meant some seriously tough hunting for Logan.

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He still really didn’t get it. Not that he had anything against taking a mate—

he was Lupine, for God’s sake—but he liked for there to be a certain sense of order to his world. And in his world, a Felix did not settle down with one woman and look happy about it. Of course, in the ideal version of his world, the only woman he’d wanted for himself in longer than he cared to think about didn’t up and marry his best friend and pack alpha, either.

Shit
.

Tearing his gaze away from the blonde head on the other side of the room and plugging his nose to the warm, milky scent of new motherhood that wafted from the same direction, Logan turned on his heel without bothering to say hello to the ladies. Damn Graham for getting to Missy first and damn himself for caring. Graham Winters was like a brother to Logan. For all intents and purposes, the men
were
brothers, and Logan did not poach on his brother’s territory. Even if it didn’t go against every fiber of his loyal body, it also meant risking a fight to the death with an outcome that he honestly couldn’t predict.

He swore again and then again, quietly, because in this house, you never knew who might pick up on it. Some of the folks who frequented this club had sharper ears than he did. And that was kind of scary. He took a firmer hold of his self-control and tried to beat back the restlessness that seemed to be constantly stirring inside him these days. He had been called to a meeting with his alpha about pack business, and he’d present a business-like demeanor if it killed him.

Graham did not need to know that his beta had the hots for his mate.

Graham kept an office on the first floor of the club in the heart of the action.

He said it helped him keep an eye on the happenings, and when your clientele consisted mostly of werefolk, vampires and other assorted creatures of the night, keeping an eye on things made a heck of a lot of sense. Technically, it should have been Logan’s job as head of security, but Graham was the owner
and
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Christine Warren

alpha, and that made him the boss. Logan suppressed the urge to growl and stuffed the thoughts aside. Bad thoughts.

Puppy, you have got to get a hold of yourself. You are not the alpha here, and your
best friend is. So quit trying to sniff on his wife and do your damned job
. He paused outside Graham’s door and took a deep breath while he repeated those words a time or twelve. He took another one before he raised his hand to knock.

“Come on in.”

Logan pushed open the door with his game face on. His brown eyes took in the office, empty except for Graham, and he met the other Lupine’s gaze for a second before he shifted his own to stare politely over his alpha’s shoulder.

“Sorry I didn’t come earlier today. I was at the gym until after two, and I didn’t get your message until I got back.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Graham pushed back in his chair and closed the folder he’d been working on. He waved Logan to a seat. “It was your day off. I didn’t expect you to be on call.”

Logan settled himself in the leather armchair that faced Graham’s desk, but he didn’t relax. He sat coiled and tense, the way he always did these days, and he felt Graham’s gaze on him. The sensation made his hackles rise, and he fought back the growl that wanted to rumble low in his chest.

Damn it, this is not happening. You are
not
challenging your alpha in his own
damned home, moron, so shut up and play nice doggie. Now
.

He clenched his teeth so hard, he thought he heard the grinding sound echo in the quiet office.

“All right. That’s it.” Graham leaned back until his chair threatened to tip over backward and crossed his arms over his chest. “What the hell is your problem lately?”

“I don’t have a problem.”

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“Right.” Graham’s eyes narrowed, and Logan looked at the alpha long enough to guess his own were probably sparking with an eerie amber light.

“That’s why in the past month you’ve been in four fights, broken three pieces of gym equipment, driven six waitresses to tears and destroyed the door to my office. Because you don’t have a problem.”

“That’s right. No problem.”

The nasty little voice inside Logan’s head was telling him to go ahead, pick a fight. Let him and Graham have it out and finally see who deserved to be alpha over this pack. To hell with the Winters line, to hell with Silverback tradition.

Alpha was about strength and ruthlessness and power, and Logan had more than enough of it to make the pack his own.

If only his conscience didn’t scream a denial every time he thought about it.

Damn it, Graham was his
brother
. The closest thing he had to family, closer than any other member of the pack. He’d die for that man.

But damn it if he didn’t really want to kill him right now…

“Fine.” Graham’s voice indicated things were anything but. He sat forward again and picked up a piece of paper, which he tossed across the desk to Logan.

“You say you don’t have a problem, that’s terrific. Because I do.” Logan caught the letter in one hand, but didn’t bother to glance at it. He snarled in satisfaction. “Perfect. Who do I get to kill?”

“No one. It’s not that kind of problem.”

Well, shit
.

Suppressing another growl, Logan got up to pace around the office. The restlessness inside made it impossible for him to sit still for long. “Fine. Then what do you want me to do?”

“If you’d read the damned letter, you might have a clue. There’s been a death in Connecticut. The White Paw Clan has lost its alpha.” 9

Christine Warren

That bit of news actually managed to get Logan’s attention. He turned toward Graham with interest. “Ethan Tate is dead?” He paused, letting it sink in.

“Challenge?”

Graham shook his head. “Cancer. And apparently he managed to hide it from the pack until the end.”

Logan let out a low whistle. That was old school, and a hell of an accomplishment. In the old days, any sort of illness that might have compromised an alpha’s ability to lead would have been punished by a swift challenge and the likely death of the sick or wounded Lupine. Knowing that, the toughest alphas would hide any sign of weakness, using whatever means necessary to camouflage their vulnerability and maintain control of their pack.