Several wolves growl. I look up, startled by the sound, and am shocked to see that a few of the wolves I’ve danced with are hovering nearby and are now glaring at Daniel as if it’s his fault I just insulted them. Daniel ducks his head a little, and his face pales with fear. This pisses me off so much. It’s bad enough that all those cocky wolves don’t respect Daniel just because he’s not as dominant. But to try and scare him away from the one girl who’s spoken to him all night? That’s just rude.
“You know what?” I push my plate away. “I suddenly feel like dancing again.” I glare at all the scowling werewolves as I grab Daniel’s hand. “Come on, hot stuff. Let’s dance.”
My new plan is to flush out the girlfriend. If I’ve learned anything about werewolves, it’s that they’re all possessive and jealous. No female werewolf is going to stand around while I flirt with her man. And maybe if I can get him and the girlfriend together, I can figure out if their plan involves taking the money themselves, or if maybe Jeffrey is blackmailing them.
I grab Daniel’s hand and drag him onto the dance floor. His thoughts are a conflicted mess running a mile a minute. I can’t say no. It’ll offend the pack’s honorary guest for the night. Do I even want to say no? I don’t want to date Nora, but I’ve never been asked to dance at a social before. I don’t have any feasible reason to say no, anyway. Not that anyone knows about. No one knows we’re together. But she’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill Nora first, and then she’s going to kill me.
This is perfect…unless it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. It’ll draw out Daniel’s girlfriend, but it sounds like she’s not a weak wolf, and she’s not going to be happy with me. Strike that. She wants to murder me. I know I’m in danger, because the second I put Daniel’s arms around me and start to sway, those warning tingles shoot up my spine like fire licking up tapestries. My skin explodes with goose bumps, and my gut rolls, until I’m forced to gasp.
“Nora? Are you all right?”
My knees buckle, which is actually good, sort of, because Daniel has to catch me and cradle me against him to keep me upright. But the feeling of foreboding is so strong I can’t run. Not that I could outrun a pissed off werewolf anyway, but, you know, I’d at least like to try. “My hero,” I tease Daniel, sagging my body against his. “Sorry. I guess I’ve done a little too much dancing this evening. Maybe you could take me someplace quiet, instead? We could get to know each other better?”
And that does it. Suddenly Daniel’s arms clamp around me. “No! Wait!” he shouts, as a giant wolf parts the crowd heading straight for us—for me. His girlfriend does not feel like listening. She jumps at us, teeth first, and Daniel whirls us around, blocking me from the snapping jaw and taking the claws. “Maya, stop!”
Maya?
Daniel pushes me away, yelling, “Run, Nora!” as he turns around and tries to grab Maya to keep her from coming at me again.
I don’t have time to run. Rook sweeps me away from the trouble at the same time Alpha Toth shifts and attacks the wolf that attacked me. Alpha Toth quickly subdues his out-of-control third. When he’s got her in an obvious I-could-kill-you-right-now position, he lets go of his grip on her throat and transforms back to human. “Shift!” he orders.
The command is so strong several people whimper, and a couple of the young teens actually turn into wolves. Maya shifts and jumps to her feet, as naked as Alpha Toth and just as unconcerned about it. She ignores her pissed off alpha and glares at me. “You bitch!” she screams. “I can’t believe you! I introduced you to every available alpha male our pack has, and you had to go after the one man I told you to stay away from! I thought you were cooler than that.”
I know it’s ridiculous, because I’d been doing it on purpose to draw her out, but I feel the need to defend myself. “I am cooler than that. It’s not like you told me you were dating him. I specifically said I was interested in him, and all you did was call him weak. What kind of a girlfriend does that?”
“I’m not his girlfriend, I’m his mate!”
I ignore the gasps of the shocked pack members, but Maya doesn’t. She’s at Daniel’s side in a blink, looking for all her worth like she’d kill anyone who came near him. I don’t get it, until the room erupts into growls and several men call out, “I challenge!”
And then I understand why they had to keep their relationship secret. It’s like what Rook was saying might happen to me if I were turned and tried to mate with him. Only this is a hundred times worse, because Maya is third in the pack. She’s the strongest female other than the luna, and she’s mated to one of the weakest males.
Daniel is standing there, shoulders hunched, face pale and looking hopeless. But Maya shouts at all the men now gathering around her and Daniel. “NO!” she growls. “My wolf has accepted that I love him. We are happy. I will not choose another mate!”
“Challenge!”
“I challenge!”
The men in the crowd don’t seem to care that Maya loves Daniel. Wolves may be a friendly lot, but they definitely have their issues.
Jeffrey, the creep, steps forward, glaring at Maya. He waves a hand at Daniel and sneers. “This is why you keep refusing me? Him? You can’t say no once a challenge has been offered, and I was first. He has to fight me, and when I win, you’re finally mine.”
“No,” Daniel says, shocking the entire pack. His voice and hands are shaking, but he squares his shoulders and says to Alpha Toth, “We choose to leave the pack.”
Daniel and Maya share a look that tells me everything. Forget Jeffrey. Daniel and Maya stole the money together. They’re confident that they’ll be fine if they leave. More than that, they’re ready. Daniel had thought they were leaving soon anyway. They couldn’t do that without the proper funding to get them safely away from here.
They link hands, and Maya nods to Alpha Toth. “We choose to leave the pack. We’ll go to the free territory and live as lone wolves.”
“They can’t do that!” Jeffrey roars. “I issued a challenge! He has to fight me!”
He pushes Daniel in the chest, and Maya steps between the two, as if she plans to rip Jeffrey apart.
Alpha Toth finally explodes. “ENOUGH! Maya and Daniel, in my office, now.”
Everyone starts to move, but stops when Luna Marie says, “No. Let them enjoy their disgrace in front of the entire pack. We’ll set an example to those who might consider going behind their alpha’s and luna’s backs in the future.”
Alpha Toth looks annoyed, but he won’t go against his luna in front of everyone. He sighs, as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders. And it is, really, or at least, the weight of his small world. He looks back and forth between Daniel and Maya and finally says, “All of this because you forged a mate pairing without my permission?”
Maya looks around the crowd, hating the public display as much as Alpha Toth, but she squares her shoulders and nods once. “Alpha, I’m sorry, but we had to. You saw what happened. I love him, sir. He’s a good man. I don’t want him hurt, and I have no desire to mate with anyone else, but the pack never would have let us be. I’m too strong.”
“And you didn’t think you could come to us for help?” Luna Marie asks, sounding devastated by the betrayal. “You’re Peter’s third-in-command, my right-hand woman. Do you know what kind of example this sets when our third sneaks around behind our backs? How weak of a leader it makes your alpha seem?”
Jeffrey scoffs, and Rook snarls at him for the disrespect. Alpha Toth silences them both with a glare.
“We’re sorry, sir,” Daniel says quietly, staring at his shoes. “We didn’t know what else to do. You would have encouraged Maya to leave me.”
Alpha Toth nods. “I would have, but only because I care about you both.” When Daniel looks up, Alpha Toth adds, “You have a hard, dangerous road ahead of you.” His eyes flash with anger. “If I let the two of you live, that is.”