“That’s because I don’t hunt. I’m a male lion. I weigh six hundred pounds. Do you really expect me to scamper through the brush after deer? When I want a steak, I want a damn steak. I don’t want to chase it around the woods for two hours and then eat it raw. I have food brought to me, and the only time I get off my ass is when something threatens the Pack. I’ve been on exactly one hunt in the last three years. I went because I had to go, and once they ran off, I found a nice warm rock and had myself a nap in the sun. Do you know when the last time I really had to hunt to survive was? After my parents died. Until Mahon found me half-starved.”

I stared at him.

“Hunting together is something young werewolves do when they’re trying to learn how to work in a team. Most shapeshifters don’t cavort around in the woods, unless the urge to kill something strikes them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually catch a deer on foot? There is a reason why humans are the most successful predators on the damn planet. Lorelei doesn’t know this, because she’s young and naive and she has never been outside her uncle’s wolf pack. She never had to survive weeks in the forest, eating worms, mice, grasshoppers, and whatever other shit she could catch because she’s starving and desperate. She thinks every pack in the world follows the same pattern, but you know me. You know better. Or you should.”

I opened my mouth.

“I’m not done. Hugh understands this. He made that farce of a hunt because he gets off on making us run through the woods, fetching meat for him like we’re subhuman, like we’re his dogs, and then when we bring it back, he gives the one who debases himself the most a treat. If I didn’t have to keep Desandra breathing, I wouldn’t have gone. I just want to know, is that what you think of me? Am I a fucking dog to you?”

“No, you’re the man I love and who is supposed to love me back. Instead, you spend all your time with another woman. Apparently you pulled the plug on us and forgot to forward me the memo.”

“Am I with her now?”

“Where were you this morning when I went to speak with the packs?”

His eyes told me I’d hit home. It hurt. “Don’t bother to answer. I always thought that if you decided we weren’t working out, at the very least you would have the decency to tell me up front.”

“I’m thirty-two years old,” he said. “Women have thrown themselves at me since I was fifteen. Do you honestly think that Lorelei has anything I haven’t seen before?”

“She has the Wilson name.”