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He paused and smiled. “So after I did that, we’d finish the ceremony and live here. You’d run the pack and I’d take care of the things you don’t have the stomach to do and we’d get to be together, being madly in love and having 116

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mind-blowing sex at least three or four times a day. It’s a great plan. I had it all worked out.”

Honor just stared at him. Her mind had been well and truly boggled. This man, this amazing man she’d fallen in love with faster than a lightning strike, had been willing to give up his entire life. To make himself submissive to her for the rest of his life, just because he thought it would make her happy. The very idea made her so happy she almost cried. “But you can’t do it.” He scowled at her. “Why not?”

“Because it would make me miserable. I don’t want to be the alpha. I never did. Being beta was all well and good, but alpha is too much. It’s too much responsibility. It takes too much time. It doesn’t leave any of me left for the things I love doing, like throwing my pots and having mind-blowing sex.” She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. “My plan is much better. It allows for me to not be alpha, you to be with your friends, and still leaves lots of time for the mind-blowing sex.”

“Clearly a superior plan.” Missy laughed.

This time Graham smiled. “But I have a better one.” Everyone in the room turned to look at him. Missy’s eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t involve maiming anyone, does it?”

Her mate laughed. “Not at all. It’s just that, although I like the spirit of Honor’s plan, I feel it fails to address a couple of key points. Namely, that the White Paw Clan would continue to lack an alpha, which I would then have to appoint. And also that if Logan has to spend one more week reporting to me—or to anyone at all, I’m pretty sure—he’s going to be the one doing the maiming.” Logan frowned. “What are you talking about? I have never been anything but loyal to you, brother. You ought to know that.”

“Oh, I know it. I’ve never doubted it, but somewhere along the line I’ve lost the right to ask loyalty of you, brother.” He held up a hand when Logan would 117

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have protested. “Shut up and listen, because if you find this news surprising, you’re even dumber than I’ve always said you were. You’ve outgrown your place in the Silverback Clan, Logan Hunter. You can no longer be beta to anyone.

Which is part of why your plan sucked. You’re Alpha, brother, and it’s time you took your place at the head of the pack.”

Logan shook his head. “No. I won’t. I’m not challenging you, Graham. It’s never going to happen, so just—”

Honor smiled and smacked Logan hard across the chest. “You really are dumber than he’s always said you were. Logan, shut up for a minute and listen to what the man is telling you.”

Graham shot her a grin that almost made Honor understand why Missy had shackled herself to the idiot. “Thanks, Honor. As I was saying, I think my plan is the best of the three. In it, I will accept Honor’s decision to step down as Alpha of the White Paw Clan. I will then announce that I have chosen a new alpha for this pack by the name of Logan Hunter. Any challenges will be swiftly and, I’m sure, successfully dealt with, and Missy, Wrecker and I will return to the city, where we will proceed to have mind-blowing sex.”

Missy blushed, but winked at her mate. “Yeah, I think I like this plan best of all, too.”

Logan finally broke a grin, actually throwing back his head and laughing. “I only like it if Honor and I can have the mind-blowing sex, too. No way are you guys getting to have all the fun.”

“Well, okay,” Graham teased, “but you can’t have any more mind-blowing sex than we do. You will, after all, still owe fealty to me, even if you will be an independent alpha.”

“Not of this clan!”

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The shrill cry took them all by surprise, but not nearly as much as the small form of the woman that launched itself into the room toward Logan, shifting as it went.

By the time she landed atop him, Joey Tate wore her were form, which was nearly six feet as opposed to her normal five-feet-three inches. Her body had bulked up with muscle and wore a covering of sandy-gray fur. Her face had elongated into a muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth; the claws at the ends of her fingers sliced cleanly through Logan’s shirt and into the muscle beneath. He howled in shock, but it was Honor who howled in rage.

She shifted forms like water flowing from a tap, swift, liquid and effortlessly.

If her audience hadn’t been used to such transformations, it would have appeared that they blinked and Honor disappeared, leaving a six-foot-four-inch werewolf standing in her place.

Immediately she leapt for her cousin’s back, tearing her off the form of her fallen mate and wrestling the other female to the floor. Joey fought back fiercely, her usually dull green eyes glowing with the fire of madness. She squirmed like a serpent, wriggling out of Honor’s grasp and launching herself once again at Logan.

Honor roared in anger and grabbed her cousin by the ankle, her claws biting deep into the furry limb and drawing enough blood to mat the hair with sticky red fluid. Joey yelped in pain, but she didn’t turn away from her target. She lunged, and if Honor hadn’t pulled her up short by the grip on her ankle, she would have sunk her sharp teeth deeply into Logan’s human throat.

Dragging Joey away, Honor threw her to the floor several feet away and leapt atop her, securing the smaller Lupine’s hands beside her head, her powerful body pinning the woman’s legs as well. Joey might have been spurred on by some rage of her own, but she was really no match for an alpha female, and Honor held her easily.

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A moment later, she found herself holding thin air as Joey shifted back into her human form and slipped out of her cousin’s grip to curl up in a fetal position and sob piteously.

“Not supposed to be this way,” she moaned, tugging at her disheveled hair and rocking back and forth. “Darin. Darin should be Alpha. Then I’m Luna. I get to make the rules and that slut of a cousin gets to do what
I
tell her to do. That’s what’s
supposed
to happen.”

Stunned to her toes, Honor fell back onto her haunches, shifting as she went.

She landed buck-naked on the wooden floor, her bottom making a loud thump on impact. Logan took one look at her, one look at Graham and practically dove over Missy to get the blanket from the back of the sofa to drape around his mate’s naked body.

“Graham, cover your damned eyes.”

Graham laughed, then turned it into a cough when his wife smacked the back of his head. “Not to worry, brother. I didn’t see a thing. Not a single, pale, creamy-looking thing. Ow!”

Missy glared at him, but Honor was too busy staring at her cousin to notice the melodrama behind her.

“Joey, what are you saying? You and Darin conspired to take over the pack?

What were you going to do? Were you planning to have him challenge me?

Because according to what he told me yesterday out at my office, he planned to challenge for the chance to be my mate.”

“NO!” Joey screamed and launched herself at Honor. “No! Darin loves
me!

Not everyone in the world loves you better than me! Some of them love
me
better. Darin loves me better. He does!”

Honor just shook her head as Logan plucked Joey out of the air inches from her throat and secured her hands behind her back with the spare jumpsuit Missy pulled from Roarke’s diaper bag. “She’s out of her mind.” 120

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“Yeah, I’d say that’s a safe bet.” Graham watched as Joey dissolved again into tears, collapsing to the floor at Logan’s feet. This time she looked as if she was staying put, so he draped the baby blanket Missy handed to him over her shaking form. “The question is, what do we do with her now? A non-challenge attack on another Lupine with the intent to kill is a death sentence. But it seems a little cruel to do that to someone not in her right mind.” He turned to Logan.

“What do you say, Alpha? She’s a member of your pack, now, so she’s your responsibility. What do we do with her?”

“Well, we can’t just put her in an institution, can we?” He frowned. “It would be like a death sentence anyway. I mean, one full moon, one shift, and she’d either be in a lab somewhere being vivisected, or she’d be killed outright as a monster.”

The men fell silent for a moment, thinking. Then Missy piped up. “I have an idea.” The all turned to look at her. Well, all but Joey, who was having a conversation with her hair. “Let’s ask Ava and Tess to help. Tess’s granddad is a witch and he went nutso. I’m sure between the two of them they must know someplace where she can be confined to keep her from hurting anyone, but where they’d be sympathetic to what she is.” Logan groaned. “We’re asking Tess first. The last person on the face of this earth that I’m willing to be indebted to is Ava Markham.” Honor frowned. “Who are Tess and Ava?”

Logan and Graham groaned in unison and rolled their eyes, but Missy just laughed loud and long. She looked from Honor to Logan and must have seen something she liked, because when she spoke, her eyes were twinkling. “Oh, Ava is one of my closest friends. And she loves a happy ending to a good romance. I’m sure you’ll be meeting her sometime soon.”

“Over my dead body,” Logan scowled.

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Honor laughed. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Alpha. She sounds like fun. I’m sure if Missy likes her, I’ll like her, too.”

“No. You won’t. Trust me.”

She laughed again and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, tugging him down for a kiss. “I do. Always. But I don’t think Ava matters right now. We have some mind-blowing sex to catch up on before we go out and meet new people. Don’t you think?”

Logan growled softly and took her mouth in a breathless kiss that lasted four and a half years and turned her brain into tapioca pudding. And left her smiling like a loon.

“Absolutely. A good alpha always knows when his Luna is right.” 122

About the author:

Since her early days of hiding the luridly covered paperbacks under her pillows so her parents wouldn’t catch her reading past her bedtime, Christine Warren has suffered an addiction to romance novels. Discovering Ellora’s Cave turned her into a positive junkie by introducing her to the world of Romantica, but it also proved to be an inspiration for the long-time writer. After penning everything from poems to short stories to screenplays, she discovered her real calling in erotic romance and happily penned her first e-book about a sexy Russian vampire and a woman with too many friends.

Christine spends most of her time thinking about sex—which is really no different from what she’s always done—but now she puts those thoughts into her computer screen and hopes her audience enjoys reading them as much as she enjoys writing them! She loves to hear from readers...

Christine Warren welcomes mail from readers. You can write to her c/o Ellora’s Cave Publishing at P.O. Box 787, Hudson, Ohio 44236-0787.

Also by Christine Warren:

Fixed: Fantasy Fix

Fixed: Fur Factor

Fixed: Faer Fetched

Fixed: Fighting Faer

Fixed: Fur For All

Pleasure Quest

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