Honesty by Viola Rivard Page B

a chance,” Lark said defensively.
    “Oh, you are so in denial,” said Holly. “It’s because you’ve got no tits.”
    “And a flat ass,” Fenix added.
    Taylor peeked at them just in time to see Lark hurl a rock at the male. Fenix caught it, shooting Lark a scowl. Taylor had recognized Fenix as the tattooed man who’d been conversing with Hale the previous night. With his bulky muscles, she’d been sure that he was a wolf. Looking at him now, with his beak-like nose and keen amber eyes, it was easier to picture him as the hawk that he was.
    “Cut the shit, badger,” he groused. He tossed the rock into the river and resumed skinning a hare. Taylor noted that he wasn’t using a knife, but rather his thick, sharp nails.
    “I’m a raccoon. Quit being an asshole,” Lark shot back.
    “Quit being a cunt.”
    “Quit with the profanity already,” Taylor snapped, unable to hold it in any longer. “I’m so sick of it.”
    They all stared at her, as if only just realizing she was there. Holly was the first to speak.
    “I don’t get why you’re being such a bitch,” she said. Leaning back on her hands, she regarded Taylor through shrewd green eyes. “You have the two most desirable males in the pack fighting over you.”
    “They aren’t fighting over me.”
    Holly smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “Not yet, but they will. As soon as your scent begins to change they’ll be tearing one another apart to be with you.”
    “My scent?”
    “She’s talking about when you become fertile,” Glenn said. “We can all smell it, but alpha males, it makes them all hormonal and shi—stuff.”
    “They’ll fight, maybe even to the death, to breed with you,” Holly elaborated. “It’s why having two alphas is a stupid idea. Sooner or later, one will want to take a human mate and have her spit out a few pups. The next thing ya know, even brothers are at each other’s throats. I always knew it was a bad idea. The other foxes didn’t believe me. They thought it’d be all peaceful and shit.”
    Yesterday, when Glenn had broached the same subject, she’d been able to dismiss it, but it was clear now that this was a real issue. She was pretty good at rolling with the punches and had taken all of the werewolf stuff in stride up to now, but this was where she had to draw the line.
    “I don’t want to get pregnant,” she said.
    Holly shrugged. “You have my sympathies,” she said, actually sounding vaguely sympathetic. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want any children.”
    “I wish I could have two children,” Lark said. “One boy and one—”
    “No one cares,” Fenix said.
    As they began to bicker again, Taylor stared down at the half-plucked turkey in front of her, wondering if her life could possibly get any more convoluted.
    Glenn came to crouch down beside her. He wiped his hands on his dirty T-shirt.
    “There’s not a lot left to do here,” he said. “Fenix and I can finish up if you and Lark want to go back to the cabin.”
    Taylor managed a smile and quietly thanked him.
    On the way back to the cabin, Lark continued to chat about her fictional children, oblivious to the fact that Taylor was coping with a whirlwind of emotions. She was still anxious about having to tell Alder about what had happened with Hale, but at the same time she was pissed at him for not telling her that he wanted to breed with her.
    Tired of being stuck in her own head, Taylor caved and asked, “What am I going to do? This whole situation with Alder and Hale is crazy. I should be running for the hills, but I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
    “You don’t have to go anywhere,” Lark said, seeming surprised. “Hale is not even an issue. All you have to do is tell Alder you want him gone.”
    Taylor frowned. “I can’t ask him to force his brother to leave for me. That’s his family. I’m just some girl he met.”
    “You’re going to be Alder’s mate,” Lark said earnestly. “The mother of his