Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) (3 page)

Tallow was looking straight at Zane. “You told me I couldn’t hurt him,” she said, defensiveness belying her innocent expression.

Ginnifer shouldered past Zane, her hands fisted. “Get off him!”

Tallow sneered at her, but a pointed look from Zane reined her into compliance. She rolled off the male, but continued to lie beside him, her head propped up on one hand.

“What did you do to him?” Ginnifer demanded as she squatted down beside the male. She pulled his head into her lap. “He has asthma. Can’t you see he’s having trouble breathing?”

Zane was only vaguely familiar with the malady, as it wasn’t something that generally concerned shifters.

The male looked up at Ginnifer. “I’m fine, don’t worry. I’ll catch my breath, I just need some space.”

With a vague flick of his wrist, Zane beckoned Tallow to him. She let out a huff of air and then stood, trudging over to stand between him and Breeze. His eyes remained on Ginnifer and the male in her lap, who was, in his mind, hardly more than a juvenile.

Her scent was all over him, and his on her. He found it difficult to picture them being mates, and the thought of them being together stirred his agitated wolf. It had sniffed out the competition, and was eager to display its superior strength and skill.

It was strange to feel his wolf so active. It had been virtually silent for months, languishing in some small recess of his being. For a while, it had felt as though nothing could excite him, not even a long run or the thrill of a hunt.

“I like him,” Tallow said, folding her arms beneath her breasts.

He cast her a sidelong glance, looking for signs of a smirk. When he found none, he asked, “What is there to like?”

“He’s cute,” Breeze said, in her usual, airy manner. “He reminds me of a baby caribou, especially with those skinny legs of his.”

Now, Tallow was grinning. “I think I’ll keep him for myself.”

He stared at her flatly. “He’s a boy.”

“He’s not a boy. He’s twenty-six.”

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” Tallow asked, tossing her rope of pale gold hair over one shoulder. “Within ten minutes, I knew where he went to primary school and the maiden name of his great-grandmother.”

Zane’s lips curved, though his amusement faded as his eyes flicked back to the two humans. The male had stop wheezing, but Ginnifer still held his head in her lap, and now she was tenderly stroking his hair. He heard his wolf snort and shake its head.

“What could you possibly want with a male like that?” he asked absently.

Tallow was silent just long enough to draw his attention. A shadow of vulnerability passed over her face, but it was quickly replaced with a haughty expression.

“A male like that has never had a female like me. He’ll worship me.”

Zane’s smile returned, but he didn’t comment. “I’m going to see if Kuva is ready. Have them above ground as soon as he’s stable.”

He left the way he’d come, and by the time he was outside, his wolf was once again quiet and subdued. Still, he got the sense that something within him had become tightly wound; a metal coil drawn too taut.

“This isn’t your den?” Ginnifer asked, staring back at the cave they’d exited. For all its depth and sprawling passageways, its entrance was simply a narrow shaft between two rocks.

Tallow looked over her shoulder at the crevice. The female shifter was almost as tall as Ginnifer. She sported an athletic build and pale blond hair that was almost white. Her hair color clashed with her darkly tanned skin, which along with her wide cheeks and tilted eyes spoke of Inuit descent. She had a unique attractiveness to her that was only damped by her foul mouth.

“This piece of shit? Hell no. Who the fuck do you think we are, cavemen?”

The other female, who had introduced herself as Breeze, came up alongside them, offering a bright smile.

“Our den is the most beautiful one you will ever lay eyes on.”

After Boaz’s asthma attack had quelled, they’d been given a flask of cool water to share, as well as a few pieces of salted meat. Before they even had time to start chewing, Tallow was urging them up and out of the cave.

Tallow snorted. “Don’t listen to her. This is the closest thing to another den that she’s ever seen.”

“You don’t know that,” Breeze protested.

They continued to argue, but Ginnifer’s attention had shifted ahead, to where Zane stood talking to a burly and comparably short man. A cursory glance had her noting the newcomer’s long, braided hair and bushy beard, but then her focus was pulled back to the taller male. In the light of morning, Zane appeared even more attractive than she’d realized before. The way he carried himself, with the casual authority of a person accustomed to being obeyed, fell neatly into place with her overall impression of him. He was a leader, at least of this group of wolves.

She tried to picture him as being the leader of the entire pack, but found it difficult. Despite his size and bearing, he didn’t have the grizzled look that she would expect of a male in such a position. He also looked too young; she couldn’t imagine that he was any older than his late twenties.

“Whoa, they have our stuff!” Boaz’s exclamation broke through her musings, and she saw that only a few feet in front of them, most of their camp supplies were stacked in a neat pile.

Boaz ran ahead, falling to his knees in front of his Bolex D16 camera, which Ginnifer suspected he might love more than several relatives of his.

“I thought you were lost forever,” he said, clutching the piece of equipment to his chest.

Breeze skipped over to him, and Ginnifer was vaguely aware of her telling him where they found it. Her eyes kept drifting back over to Zane, and she hadn’t realized that she’d stopped walking until Tallow elbowed her in the side. Ginnifer shot her a glare on reflex, but when she caught the woman’s knowing look, she averted her gaze.

“I was just wondering who the other man was,” she said quickly. “I only saw two other wolves last night, you and Breeze.”

“You didn’t see me,” she replied. “He was the grey wolf you saw, Breeze was the white one. I’m the one that knocked you out.”

Now, Ginnifer had a good reason to glare at her. She was still pissed about that, especially considering she’d obviously been on their side.

“Do you want to know if you’re his type?” Tallow asked, and Ginnifer’s glare fell away as her brows drew together.

“Whose type?”

“Don’t be cute. I can see the way you’re looking at him. I used to look at him like that, too, when I first came to Siluit. But eventually a girl gets tired of chasing the void, you know what I mean?”

“Not really, no.”

Tallow gave her a once over, and then her gaze turned patronizing. “I bet you don’t. A pretty human like yourself, why I bet you’ve had males falling over themselves to have you since the day you learned to bat your eyes.”

Ginnifer’s jaw locked, and she was about to put Tallow in her place—or at least attempt to—when Boaz cut in.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “There are guys pining over Ginnifer on four different continents. One time when we were in Uganda, this tribesman offered me a herd of like twenty goats in exchange for Ginnifer, which, if you know anything about African bride prices, is not only completely backwards, but astronomically generous, considering she has absolutely nothing to offer.”

Ginnifer gave a half-hearted swipe at the back of his head. Boaz easily ducked it.

“Clearly that goat herder was much more discerning than you,” she said.

Boaz grinned at her, but continued on, still speaking to Tallow. “In all seriousness though, you’re wrong. She’s not interested in anyone besides Aaron. Part of the reason we’re filming this on the tail end of winter is that we need to have it wrapped up before their wedding at the end of summer.”

At the mention of her fiancé, Ginnifer immediately sobered. She hadn’t thought of him once, not since two nights ago, when she’d woken up to Boaz’s erection nudging her in the rear. She’d laid there, amused and too lazy to get up, until an image of Aaron’s disapproving face had become stuck behind her eyelids. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she’d gotten up and crawled over to a chilly corner of the tent.

Tallow seemed to mull over this information for a moment, and before she could say anything else, Zane was motioning them all to him. Ginnifer grabbed two of their bags and then followed after the others, hoping that he hadn’t overheard their conversation.

She wasn’t interested in him, at least, not in the way Tallow thought. He intrigued her. They all did. They were nothing like what she’d expected. She’d immersed herself in shifter literature prior to leaving for Nunavut, but with few exceptions, the books had largely focused on the differences between shifters and humans. What amazed her was how human Zane and the others seemed.

Zane was stunning, and Ginnifer wouldn’t deny that it was the reason she found him particularly fascinating. Admitting that she found another man attractive was not betraying Aaron, and she thought that went double considering Zane wasn’t exactly a man at all. He was a wolf.

A very beautiful wolf
.

Zane said something to Tallow, and Ginnifer caught up to them as Tallow slapped Boaz on the ass.

“You hear that, bird legs? You’re riding me today.”

Boaz blanched. “Riding you? You mean—”

“Get on my back when I shift. Clamp your legs down tight on my sides.” She wagged a finger at his face. “And unless we’re being chased by rabid bears, don’t you dare grab my fur.”

As soon as the last word flew from her mouth, Tallow shifted. The pelt that she’d been wearing fell away, and Boaz had to stagger back to keep from getting knocked over by the limber, pale-gold wolf. She was nowhere near as large as Zane had been in his wolf form, but she looked just big enough to carry Boaz, though Ginnifer imagined it wouldn’t be comfortable for either of them.

“We can walk,” Ginnifer said, turning towards Zane. The space where he’d been was empty, and only the other male stood there, giving her a patient smile.

“You would not be able to keep pace with us,” he said. His voice was thick with an accent she didn’t recognize and he spoke slowly, carefully considering each word. He extended a meaty hand. “My name is Kuvageegai. Kuva, if it pleases you.”

Ginnifer took it, shaking his hand in earnest. “Ginnifer. Gin, if it pleases you. Just don’t call me Ginny.”

“Gin, then,” he said, giving a small bow. “You will ride with me today.”

It was only after she was climbing onto the back of the grey wolf that Ginnifer remembered that she hadn’t asked how far they were from their den. Reluctantly, she settled in, reminding herself that adventure was found in the journey, not the destination.

Unlike Tallow, who had taken off the second Boaz had climbed astride her back, Kuva waited for Ginnifer to get comfortable and make sure her belongings were secure. Riding wasn’t completely foreign to her, as she’d been a member of the equestrian club for three years in high school. Still, she’d never ridden without a saddle and she definitely wasn’t accustomed to giving over complete control to her mount.

She remained comfortably upright as Kuva began walking in an easy trot. She relaxed a little, and then scanned the area, looking for some familiar landmark to place where the wolves had brought her.

As though drawn by a magnetic wave, her eyes found Zane again. He was in his wolf form, sitting on a stony hill. Nearby, the young female from the night before sat with her knees pulled up against her chest. She had her head turned away from him and her shoulders were hunched. Ginnifer tried to get a look at her face, but there was too much distance between them. Gradually, Kuva sped up, and soon Zane and his sister had vanished beyond the hills.

They caught up sometime later, when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. Zane bounded up alongside them, his sister lying on his back with her arms wrapped loosely around his long neck. Ginnifer offered her a greeting, but Indigo’s face flushed and she looked away without responding.

The group made two stops during the daylight hours, only brief enough for Ginnifer to pee and take a few swigs of water. Boaz had the food bag, and during the afternoon he’d tossed her a protein bar that had somehow made her feel hungrier than before she’d eaten it.

Her digital watch read 19:00 in neon green digits when they finally began to slow again. This time, they were more deliberate about choosing a place to stop, and she sensed that they’d be down for the night.

She was relieved when she slid from Kuva’s back. Her legs wobbled a bit and her thighs ached something fierce, but Boaz was much worse for wear. He fell headfirst off Tallow’s back, his hands coming up at the last minute to spare his face from the stone ground. Ginnifer went to help him, but before she reached him, Tallow had already shifted and was hoisting him up with one arm hooked under his.

“Is this where we’re stopping?” Boaz asked, sounding both hopeful and skeptical.

They had stopped in the small basin between two steep hills. Patches of thin snow were scattered across cracked grey stone, and lichen made her steps springy. Although natural buffers flanked it, the cold wind still snaked through the area, slipping right past her faceguard to sting her cheeks.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” Breeze said, back in her human form and wrapping herself in the tawny pelt of a caribou.

It was then that Ginnifer realized something else she’d forgotten. Their tents. From the grim look on Boaz’s face, he’d come to the same realization.

“We can’t be out here in the cold like this,” he said.

“Not to worry,” Tallow said. She took the oversized pelt that she was wearing and wrapped it around the both of them. As she did so, Ginnifer caught a glimpse of her naked body, and her eyes widened.

Tallow snorted in her direction. “See something you like?”

Ginnifer ignored the quip. “Is that really all you need to keep warm? And what about your feet?”

The shifter eyed her dryly. “Just because we look human doesn’t mean our bodies work like yours do.”

“It is like our wolf bodies,” Kuva said in a much friendlier tone. “Looks same, but is different. We can run faster, hunt for longer, and go longer with no food.”

“And the cold doesn’t bother you?” Ginnifer asked. “Even without fur?”

“It is a bother,” he said. “But only that. It does not hurt us, not like it does a human.”

As if to emphasize his point, he wrapped a heavy pelt around her neck. It had long grey fur and hung down to below her knees.

“To keep you warm,” he told her.

***

“I’ll bet he’d like to
keep her warm
,” Indigo said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Zane covered his sister’s face with his hand, giving her a light push. “Does this mean you’re done sulking?”

“I wasn’t sulking,” she said, batting his hand away. “I was coming to terms with how much I can’t stand you and reconciling it with the fact that I’ll never escape your despotic regime.”

Zane hid his amusement with a long-suffering sigh. “Run away again and I’ll personally deliver you to Amarok. Survive there for a few weeks and I’ll listen to whatever you have to say on the subject of tyranny.”

Indigo knew it was only a bluff, but her mouth snapped shut anyway. Her expression turned sullen again as she turned to stare off at the horizon.

There had been a time when Zane had known his younger sister’s mind better than his own. Her needs had been so simple, her desires so few. She said everything that was on her mind and could find the humor in anything. He would have given anything to have that needling little chatterbox back, in place of this temperamental, brooding stranger.

“Kuva likes her,” Indigo said suddenly.

Zane followed her gaze to where Kuva sat beside the human, showing her how to light a fire with flint. Zane had gone through her belongings the night before and knew that she carried more efficient means of fire building, but she leaned over the gathering of brush with keen interest, her camera in hand. When the first sparks caught, her mouth widened and her eyes sparkled with captivation. With the way Kuva beamed with pride, one would think he was the first man to capture fire.

“Kuva likes any human female with a pulse,” Zane said. He had tried to sound dismissive, but the bitterness was obvious even to his own ears.