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side. They’d even brought their first deer down together.
    She’d considered him a friend. So why then hell had he chosen now to challenge her? What the hell had he been thinking?
    That he could win .
    The thought echoed in her head, mocking her with the simple fact that it was completely true. That was exactly why Paul had challenged her now, when stress clouded her thinking and grief slowed her reaction times. As the beta, second in command of her father’s pack and a young Lupine in her prime, Honor had been too much for him to take on. But as an unprepared and insecure new alpha, she had been ripe for a challenge. Three of them as a matter of fact, so the one coming from Paul never should have surprised her.
    But it did. It shocked her to her toes. She hadn’t known what to do at first.
    Not until it became clear that even if she didn’t want to take the challenge seriously, that’s exactly how he had meant it. Deadly serious. He had gone for her throat, and as tough and strong as Honor was, she couldn’t underestimate a male Lupine who outweighed her by a good fifty pounds and had several inches on her in reach. Her father had taught her that every challenge needed to be dealt with swiftly and decisively, and he had made sure she knew enough to make her moves count. If she couldn’t compete with strength and size, she could use speed and treachery and use them well. Her father had pounded that into her until it became instinct. He had preferred the traditional end to a challenge—death—
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    Christine Warren
    something Honor hadn’t been able to do. She had held back at the last minute and taken Paul’s hand instead.
    She hadn’t wanted to. She’d tried stopping at a pin, as she had with the first challenger, but as soon as she let up, Paul had attacked again. So she’d hamstringed him, thinking if he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t fight. But he had still come for her, launching himself toward her throat with his good hind leg and suddenly there hadn’t been any other choice. It was his hand or his throat, and Honor had chosen his hand. He wouldn’t thank her for it, but her conscience did.
    She laughed at herself, not with humor so much as disbelief. Like she could afford a conscience. That item now counted as a luxury in her life, and would until the challenges stopped. She knew exactly when that would happen, too.
    When she died.
    Or when the Silverback Alpha came to Connecticut and formally acknowledged her as the White Paw Alpha.
    Right. And that would be the third Tuesday after he named her Queen of the Oompaloompas.
    Honor sighed again and reached up to turn the jets to a lower setting, no longer quite in the mood to be battered. At first, she had thought sending that letter to Graham Winters was the solution to her problems. The Alpha of Manhattan’s legendary Silverback Clan commanded respect from just about every Lupine east of the Mississippi River, and she suspected from a few of those out west, too. She had only met him once, when she was nine, but she remembered him vividly. He’d been a handsome young man then, only a decade or so older than her, but worlds apart. He had known his place as Alpha and lord over the Northeastern Clans. She’d heard he had a good heart as well, and recently, rumors of his marriage to a human had circulated their way. They said he had a son now, another Winters cub to lead the Silverback Clan into the future.
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    Good thing someone’s future was secure.
    She made a face and turned the tap with her toes to let more hot water flow into the tub. The temperature had dropped below scalding while she brooded over Paul. If she made a habit of this, she’d need to get a second job to pay her water bills. The way things looked, Paul wouldn’t be the last childhood friend to try their luck with the new, female Alpha. Not unless the Silverback Clan finally got around to answering its frickin’ email.
    “Argh!”
    “Honor? Are you okay in