“I can’t just stand here.” When Dante again blocked her path she growled. “Move out of my way.”

“Taryn, come on, I’m Beta he’ll kill me if something happens to you.”

“And I’m temporarily Alpha female, which means I outrank you, but even if I wasn’t Alpha, I’d still expect you to move the hell out of my way. So do it.”

“What if he hurts you? It’ll distress him to know he’s harmed his mate. Have you thought about that?”

She huffed impatiently. “He won’t hurt me.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Of course not. “Yes, I’m sure. Now move.”

Finally he did, signalling for the others to give her some space, but without going too far. Very slowly she took a few steps toward the wolf. She knew there was no point in calling Trey’s name and appealing for him to come back. The wolf wouldn’t respond to the name, wouldn’t understand the words. The only way that Trey could overcome his wolf was if his wolf came down from his feral state. And that wasn’t going to happen until she got him away from that carcass. The smell of the blood would only be making him worse.

As she couldn’t exactly go over there and snatch away his prize, she decided her best bet might be to distract him from it. As an idea formed in her mind, she removed her denim jacket and balled it up. Hoping like hell this worked and didn’t just act like a red flag to a bull, she gently threw the jacket so that it landed to the side of the carcass. Instantly the feral wolf dived on the jacket as though it was a rabbit or a hare. Picking it up with his jaws, he shook it just like he had the carcass.

And then he seemed to pause and his growling eased a little as if he recognised the scent on the jacket. Hopefully he recognised it as the scent of his mate and not another threat.

“Hey Cujo,” she called in a soothing voice. His head whipped around to face her and he snarled while at the same time standing over the carcass and flattening his ears outwardly, warning her away from his prize. There was no logic or rationality in those eyes. “Now that’s not very nice,” she said in the same gentling tone. She knew he wouldn’t understand her, that the words would be indistinguishable, but her hope was that he might recognise her voice and find it calming.

His head extended toward her and his nostrils flared, scenting the air. He let loose a low whine, and she had the feeling that he acknowledged who she was but wasn’t sure how to calm himself.

Feeling reassured by him recognising her, she moved another step toward him but then halted; she wanted him to come to her so that he was away from the dead wolf. Easier said than done, of course. “Come on, big guy, you don’t want to play with that nasty carcass. If you can hear what’s going on, Trey, then let me just tell you that you’ll be buying me a new jacket. This one’s now covered in foam, fur and blood.”

Tao took a step toward her. “Taryn -”

“Don’t,” she ordered, but the grey wolf had already seen the male approaching his mate and he wasn’t too pleased about it. With her jacket still in his mouth, he began to advance on Tao who very smartly froze. “Cujo,” she sang. “Hey, remember me.”

The wolf’s gaze darted from her to the carcass to Tao repeatedly. Clearly he was torn on whether he wanted to continue playing with his new toy, go see his mate, or attack the male who dared talk to her.

Knowing she was about to make herself vulnerable to attack but not sure what else to do, Taryn squatted and tapped the ground with her fingers. “Come here, come on.” He took one tentative step toward her, but then glanced back at his carcass. “Seriously you don’t want to keep that. Come on.” Again she tapped the ground, knowing he could feel the vibrations through it.

Flicking a disgruntled look at Tao, the wolf slowly took a few steps toward her before halting to whine at the carcass.

“No, we’ll get you another toy. Get your furry ass over here.” Still at a sluggish pace, he covered those last remaining steps between them and dropped the jacket at her feet. “Hey there.” The wolf rubbed his cheek along hers and buried his nose behind her ear to inhale her scent. Then he took to happily licking along her jaw. “Ew.”

She now considered it a good thing that the foam and blood from his mouth had transferred to her jacket. Rather the jacket than her face. She winced when she saw that he was injured in several places. It was nothing fatal or even anything that would cause him much pain, but the healer in her wanted it fixed.

Allowing the wolf to continue rubbing himself against her, she turned her head toward the mass of wolves that Roscoe had brought along, all of whom were still waiting. Not even one of them appeared to have moved a muscle. Keeping her tone light so as not to startle the animal, she asked, “So which one of you considers yourself Alpha now, because I’m pretty sure you all had this sorted before you got here?”

They gave her ‘I’m not sure what you mean’ looks.

“Come on, don’t play dumb. Not one of you looks even the slightest bit bothered that your Alpha is dead. I really don’t care one way or another how you feel about it. I just want to know who I should be talking to when I ask if we should be expecting retaliation over this.” The challenge was fought fairly, but it wouldn’t be the first time that someone who was sour about the loss decided to take revenge.

The three males at the front of the mass glanced at each other and then the one in the center stepped forward, identifying himself as the Alpha. “There’ll be no retaliation. We didn’t agree with him coming here to try to separate mates, but he was set on having you.”

“And you were following orders. Nothing wrong with that, just like there’s nothing wrong with you not being prepared to die for an ill cause.” The wolf, apparently not liking that he didn’t have her full attention, nipped her chin. She rubbed her cheek against his reassuringly and then turned back to the new Alpha. “Now that Roscoe’s gone and there’s no animosity between the packs, I don’t see a reason why there can’t be an alliance.”

The new Alpha’s expression was a mixture of shock and eagerness. “An alliance would be acceptable,” he said coolly, seemingly trying to hide his excitement and look the composed Alpha.

“We can’t exactly discuss it properly now for obvious reasons,” she said, flicking a look at the Alpha male of her pack who was still very much in wolf form. “We’ll call it a temporary verbal contract, one that will expire in thirty days if you don’t contact us to lay out the details with Trey.”