Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) (8 page)

“We’re not all comfortable living in the stone age around here. Would you want to live by firelight, or without a computer?”

“Actually, I’ve done both,” Ginnifer told her. “Boaz and I have spent a lot of time in developing nations. Believe it or not, you and your pack seem better off than most humans. You have clean water, plenty of food, clothes, shelter, and from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty peaceful here.”

“Most packs don’t live like this. It’s because of my brother that we have as much as we do. He’s a good alpha.” A fond smile graced her lips, but only a second. “When he’s not being an overbearing asshole.”

“Is that why you ran away? Did you and Zane get into a fight?”

Indigo stiffened. “Pups run away. I’m an adult, I can go where I please.”

“Of course,” Ginnifer said, not a hint of mockery in her tone.

“Your mother was strict?” Indigo asked, relaxing a bit.

Ginnifer nodded.

“I’ll bet she didn’t allow you to share your body with males, or pursue a mate, did she?”

A grin broke out over Ginnifer’s face. “I couldn’t look too long at a boy without her whacking me over the back of the head. I did have my fair share of teenage romance, though. I just had to be a little more…creative than most of my peers.”

“Yes, well imagine if your mother could have smelled arousal, or a male’s sweat clinging to your skin. Or if your mother was in charge of every male you knew and they were all afraid of incurring her wrath.”

“I see,” Ginnifer said, cringing. “So your brother doesn’t approve of you pursuing a relationship?”

She didn’t ask about Indigo’s parents. No one had mentioned them, and she suspected that Zane’s position as alpha meant that they weren’t around anymore.

Indigo’s gaze shifted to trail over her books. “I’m nineteen. All of the other females my age are free to do as they please with males, but as soon as I show any interest in one, my brother interferes. He still sees me as a juvenile, and thinks I should only be interested in boys my own age.”

Indigo cast Boaz a pointed look, and he popped his head from behind the camera.

“I’m twenty-six,” he grumbled.

Ginnifer shot him a reproachful look. He was always good at fading into the background while he worked, but his age was a hot-button issue he could never seem to get over.

Getting back to the interview, Ginnifer asked, “So it isn’t that your brother is against you having a relationship, he only wants you to be with someone your own age?”

Indigo hissed her frustration. “It’s not a matter of age. If there was a boy my own age that had all of the qualities I wanted, then I would gladly consider him.”

“So what is it that you’re looking for, then?”

She didn’t hesitate, and Ginnifer got the impression that she’d gone over this list many times. “For starters, I want an alpha. I’ll settle for a beta male, but only if he’s strong enough to become an alpha, because I want my own pack. Our pack will be close enough to my brother’s so that our pups will be able to play together—we’ll have four, but not one after the other, I’m not going to be some broodmare. Three years apart is good, that way they can still play with each other if my brother’s pups turn out to be little jerks like him. And we won’t live so close that Zane can come over and boss me around. And besides, my mate won’t let Zane tell me what to do. In fact, Zane will probably be afraid of him, because he’ll be very strong and he’ll have a bad reputation, but it will all be for show, you know? Deep down, he’ll be kind and gentle, but only with me and our pups. And if he’s all of those things, I won’t mind so much if he’s not
that
handsome, I don’t expect him to be perfect, only exceptional. Is that unreasonable?”

There were several seconds of silence before Ginnifer realized that Indigo was waiting for an answer.

“Well, it’s rather specific,” Ginnifer said tentatively. “Did you already have someone in mind?”

With a small sigh, Indigo fell back on the bed. “No, not really. One time, I think…it’s weird, I thought I could smell him out there. I don’t know how to explain it. But that’s why I needed to get away from the den. Every moment I spend here is a moment I could be out there, looking for him.”

Ginnifer thought that maybe Indigo needed to lay off the romance stories, but she kept that to herself.

Boaz was working to readjust the camera angle, but Ginnifer waved at him to turn it off. They’d gotten a decent amount of footage, and already, she was getting a vision for how she wanted the documentary to play out.

Ginnifer knew that she should have thanked Indigo for her time and left it at that, but she felt strangely compelled by Indigo’s plight. She scooted back on the bed, until she could look down at Indigo without twisting her neck.

“Where I come from, nineteen is awfully young to pursue a lifetime commitment.”

It was the closest she’d dare come to saying ‘maybe your brother is right.’ She couldn’t help but wonder if Indigo’s pursuit of a mate was born out of genuine desire, or if it was a way for her to rebel against her brother. Maybe if she heard it from another woman, it would help put things into perspective.

Indigo smiled up at her, but it seemed a bit too sweet. “So, how old were
you
when Aaron proposed?”

Ginnifer tried to swallow, but her mouth was suddenly dry. “How do you know about Aaron?”

“Boaz told Tallow about him the morning after we met, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

For a moment, Ginnifer had thought that Indigo had somehow found out about the embarrassing things she’d confessed to Zane. She relaxed a little, realizing that was impossible.

“I was nineteen,” Ginnifer said carefully. “But we agreed to wait until I graduated college, once I had a better idea of what I wanted for my life.”

“You’re not in college any more though, are you?”

“I dropped out of college to pursue my career.”

“But you didn’t get married?”

“Not yet, Aaron and I have both been very busy with our careers. You see, it’s very important that you prioritize your—”

“How hard is it to get married? Isn’t that whole wedding thing optional? Don’t you just have to sign some paperwork?”

Heat began to prickle over Ginnifer’s head, starting at her ears and working its way to her cheeks.

“There’s more to it than that,” Ginnifer explained. “We don’t want to get married and then live on separate continents. When we do marry, it’ll be when we’re ready to buy a house and start a family.”

She hoped the words didn’t sound as bitter as they tasted. It was the same excuse that Aaron always gave whenever they were both in the states and Ginnifer impulsively asked him to fly to Vegas with her. It always sounded reasonable when he said it, but when Ginnifer repeated it, Indigo made a face like she’d just sucked on a lemon.

“That’s horrible. How old are you, thirty?”

Ginnifer’s mouth dropped open, and she heard Boaz snicker.

“I’m twenty-six.”

He laughed harder.

“I guess that’s not that old. But still, that’s seven years! I don’t understand how he could wait so long to claim you. Does he not respect you, or is he not in love with you?”

Abruptly, Boaz stopped laughing, and the room went quiet. Ginnifer felt as if her face had turned to stone, and was surprised when she found herself able to move her lips.

“What do you mean?”

Indigo sat up, her brows knitted with what looked like genuine concern. “Either he doesn’t respect that you deserve commitment or he doesn’t love you enough to give it to you.”

Boaz spoke up. “Marriage isn’t that important where we come from, Indigo. Lots of humans have happy, healthy relationships without it. And men don’t get to decide when a woman marries him, it’s a mutual decision, one that Ginnifer and Aaron will make when they’re both ready.”

Ginnifer was grateful for his intervention, but his words made tears sting at her eyes. Not because none of it applied to her situation, but because Boaz was her best friend and he had no idea what she’d been going through. No one did, except for, of all people, Zane.

“You’re right,” Indigo said coolly. “I guess for all of my reading, I really don’t understand your customs that well. I was only thinking that if a male asked me to be his mate and then thought to string me along for years, I wouldn’t consider him worthy of me. Do you think that’s unreasonable?”

This time, Ginnifer didn’t believe Indigo needed an answer.

“Wow…” Boaz said, rubbing the side of his head. “She’s…something else.”

Ginnifer was relieved to be out of Indigo’s room and back out into the chilly hallway. She felt like she’d been dissected, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and try to reassemble herself in private.

“Where are we going?” she asked, as Boaz led her in the opposite direction of Breeze’s room.

He inhaled deeply through his nose. “Can’t you smell that? You can go back to the room and have a protein bar for lunch if you want, but you haven’t lived until you’ve tried grilled muskox.”

“When did you eat muskox meat?”

“I was awake for dinner last night. Come on, I’ll show you the way to the common room.”

The common room wasn’t far, and the walk wasn’t nearly long enough for Ginnifer to have time to clear her head. However, it did prove to be an adequate distraction from her miserable thoughts.

The large chamber was well lit and warm. It looked big enough to hold a hundred people, and was packed to capacity. Everywhere she looked, there were shifters—some older, many younger—clustered together in tight groups. Most of them were eating, but there were groups of children playing, a circle of females knitting, and somewhere, someone with a gruff voice was singing a song with an upbeat melody.

Boaz pulled her along, helping her to navigate the sea of people. Up ahead, she saw Breeze, Tallow, and Kuva, sitting with three others that she didn’t recognize. As soon as she saw them, she felt a pang of disappointment, and realized she’d been scanning the crowd for Zane.

They were greeted warmly by Breeze. Boaz surprised Ginnifer again, this time by introducing her to the strangers, Roch, Marl and Enzo. Roch was a younger male with a pretty face and an air of confidence. Marl was a middle aged woman, who looked to be in her late fifties, with wiry gray hair and bright blue eyes. Enzo’s age was harder to place. He was tall and lanky, nowhere near as skinny as Boaz, but her grandmother would have said there wasn’t nearly enough meat on his bones. She thought he might be around her age, but his perpetually flushed cheeks made him look ten years younger.

One thing that made Ginnifer feel better was Kuva, who smiled at her as she arrived, and patted the empty space beside him. She’d been worried that she had hurt his feelings before, and she was glad to see that he wasn’t upset with her.

“Where have you been?” Tallow asked, as she yanked Boaz down beside her. Boaz told her that they’d been interviewing Indigo, and Tallow let out a bark of laughter. “Did you manage to get a straight answer past all that juvenile angst?”

Boaz scratched his head. “I wasn’t keeping count, but I think we probably answered more questions than she did.”

There was a wide, round tray on the floor in front of them, half of it filled with a pile of cooked tube roots that looked only slightly edible and the other half with thick strips of grilled meat. Tallow was already feeding Boaz a piece, but Ginnifer hesitated, uncomfortable taking what hadn’t been offered.

She took the opportunity to observe the strange pair, Tallow with her exotic beauty and Boaz with his boyish looks. Boaz wasn’t unattractive, not by any means. When they’d met in middle school, it had been right around the time
Lord of the Rings
had become popular, and all of the girls had pined over him, thinking he looked like a curly-haired Legolas. Then, puberty had seemed to strike everyone but him, leaving him more cute than handsome. In her mind, he had never really grown up, and it was strange to see him being fawned over by a beautiful woman.

“Are you hungry?” Kuva asked, offering her a slice of meat.

Ginnifer hesitated, but decided that she wasn’t going to shoot him down a second time. Plus, it looked really good.

“I caught it this morning,” Kuva told her. “That is why we have the best plate.”

“Uh huh,” Ginnifer said through a mouthful of succulent meat.

“I helped catch it,” Roch said. He leaned in to offer her another piece, his green eyes expectant. “Try this piece. It’s my favorite part.”

Enzo thrust a third piece of meat in her face.

“This is delicious,” she said, licking her fingers. “I could eat it every day.”

“We will get another one for you tomorrow,” Kuva said.

She wet her lips nervously, unsure what to say to that. Marl came to her rescue, swatting at the air in front of the males.

“Leave the poor girl alone and let her eat in peace.” She passed Ginnifer a cup that sloshed with warm liquid. “Here, have some tea—no strings attached.”

Ginnifer held the cup to her lips, hiding a small grin. She took a few sips, and then picked at the tube roots.

“I heard there’s a town a few days from here. Is that where you get the tea?” She was eager to make conversation with someone besides the males, and something about Marl intrigued her.

“I get it from Nataq, a small village not far from here. It’s much closer to the den than Port Trent.”

“How do you pay for it?”

“We sell odds and ends to the locals—mostly furs.”

“Do they know what you are?”

“Some think I’m a shifter,” Marl said, her eyes twinkling. “But it doesn’t stop them from buying out my meat supply in the winter.”

Enzo said, “They only think mom’s a shifter because she lets them. Anytime someone tries to make her pay full price for something, she does this crazy-eyed face and starts to shake until they offer it to her for next to nothing.”

Tallow said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t always work. The last time I went with her, the shopkeeper shoed us out like we were wet dogs. Kya had to flirt with his son to get us back into the shop during the late shift.”

Marl scowled at Tallow. “The only reason it didn’t work is because you started laughing.”

“You looked so stupid,” Tallow moaned, smacking her head. “And it was so unnecessary. All Kya or I had to do was flash out fangs and he probably would have pissed himself.”

“Wait, so you’re human?” Ginnifer cut in. “Are there more humans here?”

Marl’s face brightened considerably as she favored Ginnifer with a smile. “Right now, there’s only old June and I, but there have been others.”

Ginnifer knew that Zane’s mother had been a shifter, but she wondered if his father had been one of the types of males Breeze had told her about, the kind that took more than one mate at a time. She cast a quick glance at Enzo, but with his messy black hair, broad cheekbones, and eyes that were more yellow than gold, she couldn’t see any resemblance to Zane or Indigo.

Ginnifer asked Marl, “Do you think that maybe I could interview you sometime?”

“Sure. How about this evening? My room is the one with the flowers around the door.”

Ginnifer made a mental note of that and thanked her. She hoped that in the privacy of her room, Marl would speak frankly about pack life from a human perspective, and maybe even about the former alpha.

“You can interview me as well,” Roch said. He’d placed a hand on her knee to get her attention, but didn’t remove it.

“And me,” Kuva said. The big male was already offering her another slice of meat. She took it, and then patted Roch’s hand away.

The group continued to chat. Tallow and Boaz were speaking too quietly for her to hear over the hum of noise in the room, so she did her best to contribute to Breeze and Marl’s conversation, that way none of the males could isolate her. Dealing with them didn’t intimidate her, but she got the impression that if she were too nice to either of them, they might start getting crazy ideas in their heads. Kuva probably already had some.

There was a lull in the conversation, and without realizing what she was doing, Ginnifer began scanning the crowd. She found the alpha almost immediately, standing between a stocky male and a muscular female with dark eyes. Both appeared to be talking to him at the same time. Her gaze fell on the female, who she thought was pretty, in an athletic sort of way. She wondered if that was Coral, and then quickly looked away.

She tried to tune back into the conversation, but she couldn’t stop herself from casting furtive glances in Zane’s direction. The more she looked at him, the more she noticed things beyond his physical appeal. The left corner of his mouth slanted easily into a smile, but he never showed his teeth, and the half-smile didn’t quite reached his eyes. Aside from that, his expression rarely changed from its calm neutrality, except when something bothered him, then she noticed the barest twitch of his right cheek, as he clenched his jaw.

Though she made a point not to stare too long, he eventually caught her. No surprise registered on his face as his eyes locked with hers, and she wondered if he’d been aware of her the whole time. His eyes moved to the left, the motion quick and exaggerated. As second later, she saw him excuse himself, and he glided away from the two shifters, heading left towards the main exit of the common room.

Ginnifer sucked in her bottom lip. Had that been a signal for her to follow him? And even if it was, should she do it?

She told herself that if he wanted to talk to her about something, he would have done it in front of the others. No good could come of following him alone into a dark tunnel.

“Are you well, Gin?” Kuva had leaned in close to her, a concerned look on his face. “Your heart, it is beating fast.”

She gave him a quick pat in on the shoulder. “I’m okay.” Her voice was unnaturally high-pitched, and she took a breath to steady herself. “Really. I actually need to go pee. I’ll be back right, um, right back.”

Ginnifer got up, hoping she hadn’t attracted the attention of anyone else. She told herself to go back to her room and get some work done, but her feet stubbornly headed after Zane.

The evening meal was in full swing now, and few of the shifters paid her any mind as she passed. When she made it to the mouth of the tunnel, she peered into the darkness, squinting for any sign of Zane.

Darkness had always made her nervous. It was one of those odd fears that she still carried from childhood, which she doubted she’d ever get over entirely. She considered going back to get a lantern, but she didn’t want to risk drawing too much attention to herself. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped into the chilly passageway.

She walked carefully, and was relieved when her eyes began to adjust. It wasn’t completely dark, there was a very faint light up ahead.

Anxiety faded, replaced with anticipation. Would Zane be waiting somewhere in the tunnel? She imagined him pulling her into the shadows and pushing her against the wall, those soft, hot lips covering hers. The memory of their last, long kiss was still so fresh and vivid in her mind that her body began to ache for him. Her conscience was curiously silent.

“Do you have any idea what you smell like when you’re aroused?”

Ginnifer had been expecting to cross his path, but she still gave a small jump. Zane hadn’t grabbed her or tried to kiss her again. In the dim light, she could see him leaning against the wall. His posture was relaxed, his expression strained.

She’d remembered what Indigo had said, about the shifters being able to smell arousal, and she didn’t like it one bit. She also thought that if they went down that road of conversation, she really might end up against the wall.

“You wanted me to follow you, right?” she asked brusquely. “Did you want to talk about something?”

“No.” He let his response hang long enough to fluster her, and then he flashed her a smile, his canines catching the scant light. She felt a fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach. “Do you have your camera?”

She nodded. “Always.”

“All right, then. Let’s go.”

***

Dark clouds netted the sky, with faint blue light glowing in the spaces between them. The air was still, but Zane could still hear the sounds of his pack behind them and waterfowl ahead in the distance.

He felt more alert than usual, and could almost feel his wolf in his head, peering out through his eyes and periodically searching the area for threats. The island was easily the safest place in his territory, and nothing ever came close to breeching its banks, but he left most of his rationality behind when he was with this particular female.

“I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. “Boaz and I were working a lot longer than I thought.”

The mention of Boaz made his claws tingle. Once again, the human male’s scent was all over her. Zane’s own scent was gone, which he found almost as irritating.

“These clothes are so much warmer than mine,” she said, absently rubbing the fur at her neck.

When Zane had first seen her enter the central chamber, he’d almost growled in appreciation. She’d forsaken her numerous layers of bulky clothing for a more practical one made of soft, padded leather and lined with stoat fur. He liked seeing her in fur, and it hadn’t helped that her long hair was swept to one side, exposing the smooth column of her neck.

She kept talking, as though she was afraid of the silence. Zane let her, because he wasn’t sure what he would say if given the opportunity. Likely something he shouldn’t. Given his unnaturally strong attraction to her, he should have been avoiding her altogether, not taking her for a stroll around his territory.