Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) (9 page)

“And they’re so comfy, too. And good craftsmanship. My sister would love them. She works for a fashion magazine. The top might even fit her, though I don’t know where she’d wear it, Miami is really hot. Still, the outfit would be nice to have. Maybe Breeze will let me have it when I leave.”

“When are you leaving?” Zane asked. It seemed like a reasonable enough question.

“I’d like to stay and really immerse myself in the pack, but…” She finally looked at Zane, and offered him a weak smile. “I don’t want to impose.”

He knew that she wasn’t talking about eating his pack’s food or taking a bed. His gaze caught on her bare neck, not for the first time, and he thought that the smooth skin was taunting his fangs. His groin throbbed, and that alone should have told him that she needed to be gone sooner rather than later. Then his gaze moved to her questioning eyes, light brown and fringed with long, thick lashes, and any hope of rationality fled.

“Stay as long as you’d like,” he said. Speaking to his wolf as much as to her, he added, “Coral and I will be mated by the end of spring. After that, having you here won’t be so…problematic.”

She nodded, though he could see her lips straining with indecision. For a few seconds, it was quiet, save for the sounds of snow crunching beneath their feet. Just when he thought she wasn’t going to speak, she blurted, “Do you love her?”

No one else would have asked him that question. No one pried at an alpha like that, save for perhaps Tallow and Indigo, but for them, the answer was plain to see.

“I don’t, no.”

She exhaled slowly. “So, why are you taking her as your mate, then?”

There were many answers he could have given, but only one that he felt inclined to give.

“Do you remember Sedna, the northern pack I told you about?”

Ginnifer nodded.

“Coral is the daughter of the alpha, Shale. Taking her as my mate will bring our packs closer together.”

“So it’s like a political marriage, then?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Her next question surprised him. “Is she pretty?” She blushed a little, before saying, “I only ask because I’m curious as to why you’re not attracted to her. Which, I guess is presumptuous of me. Maybe you are attracted to her, and what happened between us was just… I mean, it’s stupid of me to think that you can’t be attracted to two people at once.”

Zane let her talk, finding that he enjoyed seeing her flustered. His eyes strayed to her neck again, but he made himself look away.

When she’d talked herself in circles, he interrupted her, saying, “You wouldn’t know it from how they glower at one another now, but Indigo and Coral used to be best friends. Coral’s home was always Sedna, but she spent the winters here during her childhood, so that when she was old enough to become my mate, she would be familiar with her new pack.”

They started up a steep hill, and he resisted the urge to take her hand, knowing that it would only be an excuse to leave some of his scent on her.

“So, you’ve known her since you were kids?” Ginnifer asked.

Zane couldn’t hide his distasteful frown. “She wasn’t even ten when I became alpha. She and Indigo used to make snow cakes for me and every night they would invade my room, claiming that they’d had bad dreams.”

He remembered those nights fondly, though at the time he’d thought nothing could have been more bothersome. He longed for the time was Indigo was small and fit so perfectly in one crook of his arm, and Coral would lay softly snoring in the other.

“I should not have treated her so much like a sister,” Zane said. “But it was impossible for me to look at her as anything but a girl.”

It still was.

“You shouldn’t have to be with someone you don’t love.” Hastily, she added, “Not that I’m telling you not to, you know, go through with it. I’m the last person who should be giving you relationship advice, or anyone really, but I think you deserve to be happy.”

Zane wanted to ask her if her
Aaron
made her happy, but he stopped himself. If she became emotional and vulnerable again, he would instinctively need to soothe her, and it would likely lead to a repeat of the other night. Just the thought of those fleeting moments, with her body pressed close to his, the rough fabric of her pants the only thing keeping him from being inside of her, made him begin to grow hard.

He was glad when they reached the summit of the hill. Their conversation was forgotten as Ginnifer took in the landscape with a murmur of appreciation. A thick layer of snow still blanketed the earth, though much of it would melt soon. Far off to the horizon, the setting sun cast red and orange light over netted clouds. Beneath them, the surface of the inlet appeared to glitter. 

“That’s where we would have docked,” he said, pointing towards a small cove. “If not for the whale.”

“This is amazing,” she said, her camera already in hand.

He was quiet for a few minutes, allowing her to film the landscape. Once she’d gotten several panoramic shots, he began to point out different things, explaining how the region would change once spring came, telling about the caribou herds that would soon flood the region, and the types of fish they pulled from the waters. When he told her where the muskoxen calved, a grin flashed on her face.

“Kuva caught one this morning! It was
so
good, I’ve never had anything like it.”

His wolf bristled at the memory of watching Kuva feed her, and then that scrap of a male, Roch, putting his hand on her. He had seen that, and much more. When she’d entered the central chamber, and while she’d sat eating, many of the males had turned her way, their food lying forgotten on their plates.

“I will save some of the leather and wool from the next one that’s caught,” he told her. “One of the females can make you your own outfit from it.”

“Are you going to hunt it yourself?”

Hunting muskoxen alone was something he often reprimanded cocky juvenile males for, especially in the winter when they clustered together and the females were as vicious as the bulls. But when she smiled up at him, Zane felt like he could take down a whole herd himself.

“Of course I will.”

“And I can come with you and help you catch it?”

He snorted with his amusement. “How do you intend on helping me?”

“I dunno. I could probably scare it towards you. Hey, don’t laugh!”

Zane covered his mouth with his free hand. Words muffled, he said, “I’m not laughing.”

Her eyes narrowed in consternation. “I helped catch a marsh buck once.”

“What is a marsh buck?”

“It’s a type of antelope.”

Which still told him nothing. “And how big was it?”

She thought for a minute, and then raised her hand to just above her hip. “But that’s not including its horns and they’re very fast.”

Still humoring her, Zane asked, “How big do you think a muskox is?”

“I haven’t seen one up close yet.” She raised her hand to mid-waist. “Maybe, this big?”

He took her hand by the wrist, raising it to just above her breasts. “Easily that tall, and there are bulls that are twice as long. And when they catch sight of a predator, they form a tight circle around their calves, so that they have eyes in every direction.”

Ginnifer rolled her eyes. “All I’m hearing is that you don’t think you can keep me safe from a bunch of snow cows.”

She was laughing, and suddenly Zane’s abdomen felt taut and he wanted badly to kiss her.

“I will take you to see
snow cows
,” he said, his voice husky. “But you will have to stay wherever I tell you to and not move from that spot until I say so.”

“You’re the boss,” she said, giving him a playful jab with her finger. He wanted to take that finger and nip it. “Can I bring my camera?”

“Of course.”

When she got back to the den, Ginnifer was relieved to find that Breeze wasn’t in their room. She crawled into the bed, climbing under one of the furry blankets. If there’d been a pillow, she’d have probably screamed into it. Instead, she put her head in her hands and moaned.

Her conscience, she was now beginning to realize, sounded an awful lot like her older sister, who’d always had a way of calling Ginnifer on her bullshit.

What do you think you’re doing?

“I’m filming a documentary,” Ginnifer mumbled, and then repeated the mantra as though to ward away the nagging voice.

You’re blatantly flirting with a man who is already involved with someone. Not to mention, emotionally cheating on your fiancé, who is probably in Syria building houses for orphans.

“It’s his fault for not marrying me,” she whispered in response. “How long does he expect to string me along?”

Maybe, if you stopped smiling and nodding every time Aaron went off to save the world, he would realize that you want to settle down
.

“Because it’s
so
easy to tell him that I’m more important than the people he works with.”

Or maybe, the reason you keep smiling and nodding is because you know that if you were stuck with him for more than a few months at a time, you’d realize that he’s nothing but a teenage infatuation that you’re too stubborn to break up with
.

“Ginnifer?”

She jumped, giving a small yelp as Boaz’s head appeared in the doorway. He gave her a quizzical look.

“Are you okay? You’ve been really…skittish lately.”

Ginnifer smoothed out her hair. “Well, we are in a den of wolves,” she said dismissively. “What did you want?”

“We were supposed to interview Marl,” he reminded her.

Right. Flower room. Shit
.

She was glad to hear her own voice again, rather than her holier than thou conscience.

“Is Breeze okay with you trashing her room like this?” Boaz asked, looking around.

Ginnifer gave the room a cursory look. There were a few of her things lying around, but it wasn’t too bad and she knew where everything was.

“Are you kidding? This is the cleanest room I’ve ever had.”

Boaz scratched the back of his head. “That’s not really saying much. Remind me when we get done with Marl and I’ll help you clean this up before Breeze sees it.”

Getting up from bed, she followed Boaz into the hall. It was quiet, with most of the wolves either still in the common room or retiring for the night. Everything that she’d read had said that werewolves were nocturnal, but Siluit wolves slept in shifts, with the bulk of the population sleeping during the first half of the long night. They were partial to rising before the sun, something that Ginnifer was accustomed to, though she dragged a little without coffee.

Marl’s room was easy to find. Intricate floral designs had been carved in the stone around the doorway, which was blocked off by a patchwork quilt on the outside and a worn pelt on the inside. They peeked in to find the room dark and cold, and before they could decide what to do next, Marl’s voice carried over from across the hall.

“Wait for me in there. I’ll be right in.”

Ginnifer turned to find that the pelts on the adjacent room were pulled back just enough for her to see inside. Marl sat on a chair beside a bed, a large book in her hand. She was speaking too softly to be heard in the hallway, her expression serene. Ginnifer took a few steps to the side, and the new angle revealed three small children, two lying side by side in the bed, and the third laying on her belly across them.

“Where do they all come from?” Ginnifer mused aloud.

“Nataq mostly,” Boaz said. He lowered his voice. “At least, I think that’s what Tallow said. It’s a village not far from here. There’s a woman there, her daughter Kya is one of the Siluit wolves, and every so often, she makes a trip out here to bring the kids to the pack.”

“But where does she get them from?” Ginnifer asked as they ducked inside Marl’s room. The light from Boaz’s lantern illuminated the room, but it was still uncomfortably cold.

Frowning, Boaz said, “People leave them with her. It’s sort of a well-known secret that she has ties to the local pack, and women come from as far south as Quebec and as far west as Alaska to give her their kids.”

His words made Ginnifer queasy. “That’s horrible. They abandon their children?”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” he said, already setting up his camera. “The way Tallow described it to me, trying to raise a shifter child in human society sounds like trying to keep a lion cub in a Manhattan apartment. Maybe you can get away with it for a little while, but it’s going to grow up and—”

“Kid, you don’t know the half of it,” Marl said as she stepped into the room. “I tried for five years with Enzo before I knew I was out of my depth. A pup needs a pack, older wolves to guide them and teach them how to control themselves and work with others.”

“But why leave them? I mean, you came to live with Enzo, right? Are the mothers not allowed to join the pack?”

“No, Zane and his father before him, they let any woman come that wanted to. Some do, but they never stay. This life isn’t for everyone. And as for the others, well, I imagine most of them are just glad be rid of the burden, like finding a new home for a dog.”

Ginnifer found the analogy appalling, but she didn’t show it. She didn’t know how anyone could see the young shifters as anything but the children that they were. While Marl didn’t appear particularly troubled by what she’d said, it was clear by the fact that she’d chosen to stay with her son, that she didn’t share the sentiment of the other mothers.

“You,” Marl said, pointing a boney finger at Boaz. “Go find somewhere else to be, this talk is just between us girls.”

“But I’m the cameram—”

“I said, shoo,” Marl said, ushering him through the door.

Marl waited at the doorway, listening for the sound of Boaz’s retreating footsteps. When she turned around, she motioned towards the camera and said, “Put that thing away. There are plenty of pretty people to film here, no one wants to see my ugly mug.”

“Oh…” Ginnifer said, getting up to turn off the camera. “If you want to do a written interview, I’ll have to go get my notebook.”

“I didn’t ask you here for an interview,” Marl said, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. She patted the spot next to her and waited for Ginnifer to sit. “Enzo and I are going to Port Trent next week and before I go, I wanted to ask if you needed birth control.”

Ginnifer gaped at Marl, but she continued talking, oblivious. “And don’t say you brought condoms because they’re no good. Even if you could get him to use one, there are never enough, take it from me. Besides, what you need is something hormonal, you know, gums up the works for a while so that your scent isn’t driving him crazy.”

“Him, who?” Ginnifer asked in a strangled voice.

Marl tossed up her hands. “Whoever, preferably not my Enzo, but let’s be serious, you aren’t interested in that skinny bowl head, no more than that cute little camera boy you brought tagging along after you. I’d wager you have your sights set higher.” She pressed her lips thin. “Much higher.”

“I’m not—”

“I know, I know, you’re not planning on doing anything. But take it from me, it doesn’t matter what your plans are, you’ll be like a cat in heat when you’re fertile, especially if you let him sink those teeth into you.”

Some of Ginnifer’s anxiety gave way to amusement. This was reminding her a lot of the sex talk her grandmother had given her the night before senior prom, though there was less talk about fangs and teeth, and more reminders that God was always watching. Ginnifer had quickly turned it around on her grandmother, and she’d spent a half hour trying to explain to her how Depo-Provera worked, and then another hour backpedaling and promising her it was only to regulate her period, not because she was having copious amounts of underage sex.

“Don’t worry, I’m covered,” Ginnifer assured.

She’d gotten her last Depo shot the week before she left, and it was still good for at least another month. Not that she planned on needing it.

“Was that really the only reason you asked me here?”

Marl eyed her flatly. “You’d be glad I did if you weren’t on anything. Honestly, I don’t know what he was thinking, bringing a pretty girl like you back to the den. Like father, like son, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?” Ginnifer asked, scooting a little closer.

Marl’s lips were squeezed shut, as though she were afraid something would slip out.

“Off the record?” Ginnifer offered.

Her mouth popped open. “All right, all right. It’s really none of your business though. Back around the time Enzo and I came here, things weren’t nearly so peaceful as they are now. Southern packs were driven from their lands by human development, and everyone was fighting over territory, this one especially.”

“Why this one?”

“Location,” Marl said. “Not every pack has caribou herds coming right up to its doorsteps every year, or muskox lounging out in its back yard. Not to mention, we could fish up enough in the inlet to keep us fed all winter if need be. While most packs have to wonder where their next meal might be coming from, half the time we’re throwing away meat we don’t finish.”

Many times, different members of the pack had mentioned that Siluit had a lot of resources, but Ginnifer had taken it as boastful exaggeration. It hadn’t really occurred to her that their experience might be so drastically different from those of other packs.

Marl continued, “Zane’s mother was gone by then, but Ephraim, the former alpha, wasn’t overmuch interested in taking a mate. Still, with the security of his pack in mind, he agreed to mate with Shale, who was, at the time, the daughter of the alpha of Sedna. Are you following me so far?”

Ginnifer nodded. “It was like a political marriage? Zane’s father and Shale became mates to form an alliance between Siluit and Sedna.”

“Yes and no,” Marl said. “Ephraim and Shale never became mates. A few weeks before she was supposed to come to Siluit, Ephraim found Jill, half-frozen to death and babbling about being on some nature expedition.”

“She was human?”

“Bingo,” Marl said, looking none too happy about it. “And the moment he laid eyes on her he forgot all of his good sense. By the time Shale came down from the north, Jill was already pregnant with Indigo, and Ephraim refused to demean Jill by taking a second mate.”

Ginnifer leaned back on the balls of her hands, her face slack with surprise. She would have never guessed that Zane and Indigo were half brother and sister, or that Indigo was half human. Though thinking back, it should have been obvious, given that Indigo didn’t shed a pelt when she shifted.

“When Sedna found out that Ephraim took a human mate over Shale, they were
not happy
,” Marl emphasized the words, signaling that it was a massive understatement. “They probably would have been biting at our heels with the rest of the packs, if Ephraim and their alpha didn’t come to an agreement. It was decided that when Zane came of age, he would take—”

“Coral?”

“—Tallow as his mate.” Marl gave her a stern look for interrupting.

“What? Tallow? I’ve never heard anything about that.”

“That’s probably because nothing ever came of it. Zane and Tallow liked one another well enough, but when she got older, it became apparent that she wasn’t like the rest of the females in her line. She couldn’t have pups, so she couldn’t be anyone’s mate, least of all Zane’s, with his pretty pedigree. So, not long before Ephraim passed away, God rest his soul, it was decided that Zane and Coral would be mates.”

“And Zane agreed to that? It sounds a lot like he’s being tied down because of his father’s indiscretion.”

“Ephraim had just as much right to choose his own mate as Zane did,” Marl said patiently. “The only difference is that Zane cares more about the stability of his pack than he does about himself, and don’t you go making that sad face. Every one of us has to make sacrifices in this life, and that’s his. Now, you do know why I’m telling you all of this, right?”

“You like to gossip?” Ginnifer asked hopefully.

Marl laughed, mirth making her eyes sparkle. “I do, but I think we both know that’s not it.”

Ginnifer nodded, mostly to herself. “You don’t want Zane to make the same mistake as his father.”

“I’m not saying Jill was a mistake,” Marl said softly. “I’ve never met a brighter soul, and I’m sure you would make Zane a hell of a lot happier than that bratty slip of a girl, Coral. But if you understand anything, it has to be that you don’t understand anything, at least not when it comes to wolves or pack politics. Things are peaceful now, but without Sedna’s support, there will be a lot of eyes on this little piece of paradise.”

Ginnifer considered telling Marl that she had a fiancé, and that she wasn’t interested in Zane. But she wasn’t even sure she could convince herself, let alone this shrewd woman, that she didn’t have some sort of feelings for the alpha, even if it was only lust.

“You have my word,” Ginnifer said. “I won’t meddle with things I don’t understand. In fact, do you think I could go with you and Enzo to Port Trent? There’s something I need to do.”