Sworn to the Wolf by Lauren Dane

you’ll excuse me,” she said and left the room through the sliders on the deck off the dining room and started down the hillside toward the cabin.
    “What on earth did you say that for?” Andreas roared.
    “Children, why don’t you go to the playroom?” Phillip said and Anna came out with a plate of cookies and more milk and led the way through the house so their father could discipline one of his wolves.
    “What?” Paloma said, feigning innocence.
    “Of course she’s human, you could smell it. You mentioned it just to bait her,” Laurent growled out as he burst to his feet.
    “Why is she here anyway? Jesus, Laurent, she’s some human mouse. Why her when you can have a wolf?”
    Andreas interrupted before anyone could say anything else. “I don’t give a fuck about this business except for the part where you could have exposed us to an outsider.” His voice, laced with the power of a dominant wolf, slapped out.
    Chastened, Laurent had to agree.
    Andreas continued, satisfied to see Laurent’s focus where it needed to be. “You’re considering an excuse like you didn’t know he hadn’t told her. I’m going to recommend against that. There’ll be a tithe for your infraction.”
    Laurent nodded. Rule infractions were punished in a whole series of ways. Every last one bound by rights and obligations. Rules. Hierarchy. As Lieutenant, it was up to him to decide the fate of a great many of the Pack.
    A tithe was a payment. It could be a wide variety of things from money to being put to death.
    As infractions went, endangering the secrecy that kept them safe was going to involve a hefty tithe that had to hurt.
    “Your fine is twenty-five thousand dollars to be paid to the Pack within forty-eight hours,” he told her, knowing the fine would sting far longer than a beating of any sort would.
    Andreas nodded subtly, approval stamped all over him.
    Paloma’s face had gone bone white.
    “Now then.” Laurent paused to underline the separation of his punishment and what he would say next. He knew better than to let her push his buttons. She fed off that reaction and had he been under better control, he’d have remembered before engaging with her.
    Still, a point needed to be made. “She’s my Mate. You won’t upset her or interfere with her entrance into this Pack.” There was no need to point out that he and Paloma weren’t together. They hadn’t been even casually involved for seven months.
    As a submissive wolf and one at the bottom of the power hierarchy, Paloma remained seated, keeping her head down. But the moment she fell to her knees, rubbing her face on his thigh to seek his pardon was the one Rain came back into the room to retrieve the sketchpad she’d left.
    “I think I should be getting back to Seattle,” she said to Laurent through clenched teeth.
    What a mess. He turned to her, stepping around Paloma. “This isn’t what it seems. Come, little heart, let’s talk about it.”
    Rain snorted and walked out. Kari gave an I told you so look at Andreas, who’d been squeezing her hand to keep her quiet, but she held her tongue, for which Laurent was eternally grateful.
    He groaned before taking off after Rain.
    When he got back to the cabin she was shoving her stuff back into her duffel bag. Stalking over, he grabbed the bag and put it on the floor. He took her arm. “What are you doing?”
    “Leaving. That way you and your friend can be alone. I’m sure I can catch a bus back to Seattle in town.”
    “You aren’t going anywhere. I don’t want to be alone with her, I want to be with you. I was telling her that right as you walked into the room. You ran out before I could explain.”
    “On her knees? Her face near your cock? That was just disrespectful to both of us, Laurent.”
    The show of obeisance wasn’t something he could expect any human to understand.
    “She dropped something. It just looked weird from where you were standing. It was in a room full of people,” he tried to