his curt response as the admonishment it had been. Lexi was accustomed to male dominance, but this time it didn’t rankle her as much as it usually did, because he was only trying to help. And his devotion to the rescue touched the hard, cold place in her heart that she often wished could grow warm.
“At least eat a bit before you go out again. We’ve prepared sandwiches and there are sports drinks just around the corner on a table outside the cafeteria. Don’t be stupid, Hawkes. You need the energy.”
“I can manage a few minutes.” He headed toward the food, his heavy boots clomping with his lanky strides. Shaped differently than the pack wolves, he was longer, leaner, but no less muscled.
Lexi watched as he tilted back a sports drink in one swallow, then grabbed another and sucked that down as quickly. Accepting a turkey sandwich stuffed with veggies, and thanking the women manning the food table, he ate it as he marched out the lobby door and back into the brisk winter night.
Outside, the winds whipped relentlessly, nearing thirty miles an hour. Here in the valley, where one would think they’d be protected, it was as if the winds scooped down to scour the land. Lexi knew the weather had to be brutal, yet Trystan Hawkes’s determination glowed like a bright aura only a psychic could see.
The other wolves helping the rescue efforts were all as determined, but seeing this stranger step into the role without question or ties to the pack intrigued her. What kind of man would do such a thing? Sacrifice for others he didn’t even know? Exemplary—
“Who’s the tall redhead with the freckles? He certainly stands out from the pack like a bright red warning beacon.”
Lexi turned to find her sister, Alana, looking fresh as ever with perfect makeup and blond hair swept into a smooth, tight bun. She never went anywhere without bright red lipstick. Or the five-inch stilettos. Lana Connor was a Tiffany kind of girl stuck in bargain-basement hell. Apparently she had not been volunteering in the keep with the wounded, but then Lexi would have been knocked over had Lana even asked after the well-being of the survivors.
“I don’t know who he is,” Lexi offered. “But he just may be the most honorable wolf I’ve ever met.”
“Is that so?”
She sensed her sister’s eligible bachelor radar go up. Lana might be engaged to Sven Skarson, but that didn’t keep her from flirting with every wolf who risked his life by returning the heartless flirtation. She was beautiful, spoiled, and could have any man at whom she batted an eyelash. It was a game, Lexi sensed, a defense mechanism of sorts. Because she knew she was safe, Lana played with social and pack boundaries. Lexi was her sister’s opposite—she put up a cold front, knowing she was safe from any of the pack’s amorous attention.
Lana was the pretty one; Lexi was the smart one. She’d grown to accept the distinction between them, and for some reason, Lexi had never cared about Lana’s random flirtations.
Until now.
“He’s not your type,” Lexi said quickly. “He’s a hard worker, and is more concerned with helping others than himself.”
Leaving that verbal slap hanging, Lexi marched off toward the south wing to look in on her father.
“I almost forgot!” a man shouted down the hallway as she neared him.
Trystan Hawkes had a way of putting himself near to her, not touching yet just a little too close, challenging her own personal boundaries. He huffed from running and carried a titanium suitcase that she had remembered seeing when he’d first come into Wulfsiege.
“I came here for a reason, and I think what I have with me may be timely. I’m supposed to hand this directly to the principal. Your father?”
“Principal Connor is my father. But I can take that for you.”
“No, I, uh … can’t.”
“Monsieur Hawkes, with the events that have occurred, protocol has changed—”
“Sorry. I have specific orders to put it in only your father’s hands. Instructions stipulated by your father to mine according to the contract he signed with Hawkes Associates when assigning us as security advisors for his stored items. Please, can you take me there quickly? I need to get back outside.”
It wasn’t a breach of protocol, but it could be dangerous for her ailing father to have visitors. Still, if her father had requested whatever was inside that case—something he had chosen to store at Hawkes Associates and not here at Wulfsiege, so it must be valuable—then she would not question.
As well, she didn’t mind spending a few more minutes with Hawkes. She wanted to observe him, figure out what made the handsome wolf tick.
“Come with me.”
The principal’s private quarters were set in the south tower of the castle, as far from the damage as one could get. Lexi thanked the nature gods for that small blessing.
Though the principal’s room was located in the tower, the space was massive, but Tryst couldn’t move his thoughts from the urgency of the rescue to do more than flash a look around the room, not really taking in details. There were still wolves outside. It had been over eight hours since the avalanche hit. They were likely dead, but if the slightest chance existed any could be alive, he had to find them.
Alexis, still dressed in white leather and still sporting the sunglasses inside—though the conference room she led him into was lit with low light—gestured he approach the man seated in a leather chair at the end of a long table. It was an easy chair, and the leg rest was up. A plaid blanket covered him to the chest.
Tryst laid the titanium case on the table and said, “Sorry to be in such a hurry, Principal Connor. My father sends the elixir inside this case with his blessings and wishes you a speedy recovery.”
The elder wolf stared at him with mouth agape. Salt-and-pepper hair curled about a narrow face with loose skin that indicated he must have lost weight and perhaps was normally much more fit. His heavy-lidded eyes made him appear old and weak, yet they stared at Tryst, stunned.
It was then Tryst realized his lack of protocol. He should bow or kneel, or—something—before a pack leader. His father’s instructions rang loudly in his thoughts. He should have waited to first be spoken to.
No time.
“Forgive me. I apologize for the protocol I am stepping on and of which I probably made a huge mess. But I have to leave. The avalanche. There are still many from your pack missing.”
Principal Connor didn’t say a word, merely lowered his tired eyes to the titanium case.
With that, Tryst did bow and backed from the room. He looked to Alexis, who also gaped at him with her soft pink mouth parted, and then knowing he hadn’t the time or the fortitude to make political amends, he turned and raced down the spiraling tower stairs.
“What the hell was that disaster?” Edmonton Connor rasped at his daughter.
Lexi should have explained protocol to the man on the way up to the tower, but she had blindly expected him to behave. Or to have a rudimentary grasp on pack procedures. He’d shown such courage and leadership so far. Was he not a member of a pack? Had he never approached a principal before?
“He’s heading the rescue team, Father. Please accept my apologies for his rudeness. If I had known …” She sighed. She’d been running on full throttle since the disaster, hadn’t eaten, and right now was feeling as tired as her father looked. “Trystan Hawkes has helped our men bring up six who were buried under the snow. And he seems determined to find the remaining six.”
“I see.” Her father looked aside and smoothed his palm caressingly over the titanium case. “I suppose I can overlook it this time. Knowing his father, Rhys Hawkes, I should have expected the insubordinate behavior. He didn’t bring up his son in a pack.”
“He’s an omega?”
The principal nodded. “Where