Caleb growled and bared his teeth at Elijah, passing his brother and bombing down the stairs. He could hear his brother’s mental link in his head, telling him to calm down, talk it through. He was tired of his brother’s careful ways.

They were the alphas of the Cascade pack. Why were they walking away from their perfect mate and trying to seduce her as if they were mere humans? The woman needed to be bitten, marked, and claimed. Now.

Elijah could explain it all to her afterward, but Caleb was done waiting. His inner wolf wouldn’t stand back a second longer. He needed to take her for his own.

Why Elijah wanted to wait to put their mutual mark on the woman, Caleb could not understand. He and his brother might be identical twins, but their ways could not be any more different.

Elijah constantly wanted to analyze, think, study, research, wait, wait, wait. Caleb needed to act. If there was something he wanted, he went out and got it. All the standing back and waiting made him weak and sick in the head.

Their differences had come in handy in managing the Cascade pack. While Caleb liked to take action and was physically stronger, Elijah had a way of understanding people and situations that Caleb lacked. But in this situation with the woman, Elijah’s reluctance could cost them the mate they had been waiting for all this time.

The elaborate ruse to keep her at their property until she agreed to mate with them would never work. The longer they waited, the more time she had to get away. After the bite, she couldn’t leave. She’d shift at the next full moon and be marked by them forever.

Elijah’s link buzzed in his head, telling him the woman had to decide for herself. If they forced her, no one would be happy. Did he want to live with an angry, trapped she-wolf for the rest of his life?

Caleb was convinced she wouldn’t be angry once they gave her the gift of shifting—and the gift of his cock in her tight little pussy. He could smell her arousal and desire for them both a mile away. Sitting next to her at the bonfire without bending over her curvy little body and fucking her from behind while she sucked Elijah’s cock had been absolute torture.

“Just trust me, Caleb. You trust me about personal relations when it comes to the pack. Why can’t you trust me when it comes to our mate?”

“Damn you, Elijah.” He stomped out the door to go jerk off in the woods, but he picked up the scent of his packmates galloping toward the house.

Tyson Gavel, a long-time friend and packmate, led a group of wolves from the Cascade pack to his porch. Elijah joined him on the porch as Tyson told them of a rogue pack of coyotes coming into the area. It had to be the very same pack that had been snatching the red foxes from Elijah and Caleb’s traps.

Coyote shifters were notorious opportunists and thieves, and neither brother wanted them anywhere near Mystic Harbor, not without learning the laws of the land and agreeing to abide by them. You didn’t hunt on other shifters’ lands, and you certainly didn’t poach anyone’s traps, be they human or shifter.

The brothers threw off their clothes and fell into the shift before running off into the night with their pack. Caleb could smell the scent of the coyotes as soon as they crossed the creek. The bastards were coming close. They’d back off without a fight if they knew what was good for them, but coyotes rarely did.

Caleb picked up a strong scent and yipped for the others to follow him. The pack galloped through the forest, their footfalls as light as November snow. The scent grew stronger as the pack approached a clearing that lead into a meadow. The waning moon glowed overhead and cast pale blue light over the ground.

He could see the shadows of the coyotes moving in the distance, their stench blotting out the clean scent of the forest. The pack circled into formation, and Elijah and a small group galloped around the coyotes, cutting off their escape. Caleb and the rest circled around the front, closing in on them step by step.

The wind changed, and the coyotes picked up the wolves’ scent. The leader yelped and made for the forest beyond where Elijah and his group now stood. The wolf pack pressed forward in an ever-tightening circle.

Cornered, the coyotes growled and formed a tight pack of snarling teeth and narrowed eyes. Caleb lunged forward, gripping the leader’s neck in his strong teeth. The rest of the coyote pack jumped on him, but the wolf pack was not far behind. The wolves attacked the smaller canines, fur and blood flying in the cool night air.

Caleb could hear the coyote screaming for release through their animal link. The intruder relented, promising to adhere to any demands the wolf pack might have.

Caleb let the smaller animal go and stepped back, growing tall and lean in his human form. The others followed his lead and shifted in the moonlit clearing.

“You’ve been poaching our traps. That is a capital offense for any animal,” Caleb sneered, not acknowledging the coyotes’ humanity.

“I had no idea they belonged to a wolf shifter,” said the coyote alpha.

“Is your nose broken?” Caleb bellowed. “Can’t you smell?”

“It was my mistake, sir,” the coyote alpha said, holding his hands out in supplication. “It won’t happen again.”

“You’re damn right it won’t. You leave this territory or you abide by our rules—the rules agreed on by all shifter clans in Mystic Harbor. You do not take another shifters’ kills. You do not hunt on other shifters’ lands. Seeing as how coyote opportunists like you can rarely follow these standard rules, I suggest you leave. Now!”

The coyotes shifted and galloped off into the woods. The metallic taste of blood still clung to Caleb’s lips. He spat, but it didn’t help. He hated disciplining scum like that. He guessed this wouldn’t be the end of it. Showing them mercy and not killing the lot of them then and there would come back to bite him in the ass. Literally.

The wolf pack shifted and ran through the night forest, panting with the joy of the run. Caleb picked up the scent of a deer but was too irritated to hunt. The others yipped at him to chase, but he growled back that he was done for the night.

Elijah sent him a private jab, something only his twin brother and co-alpha could get away with. Elijah wanted to get back to the house to be close to Lucy as much as Caleb did. Caleb wanted to be balls deep inside her, not out chasing dumb-ass coyotes in the middle of the night.

He could still taste the idiot’s blood in his mouth, and it just made him angrier as they approached the house. Caleb and Elijah shifted as they bounded up the porch steps. They both turned to their pack, saying good night through their animal links. The others yipped and howled in reply and hurried off into the night.