Bought By Their Alpha

by Bonnie Burrows

  He knew he would never regret this moment, even if he woke to find Eva hated him for it. He would never forget the taste of her, or deny the deep desire that ran through his entire body every time she looked at him. There was nothing left to do but tumble over the edge, and hope that when he reached the bottom, that she would be there, waiting for him.

  As Eva pulled Quinn closer to her body, legs locked around him, gasping his name in his ear, she felt her world tilt on its axle.

  Quinn thrust, and she met him, move for move, passion for passion. As Eva’s orgasm built, her toes went numb with the pleasure until she couldn’t hold it off anymore. As she dove into her orgasm, headlong, falling over the edge, she felt Quinn release himself within her. They fell over the edge of their pleasure, together, gasping as they felt a shift in their inner wolves.

  Eva knew then, she had found a different sense of belonging.

  The storm had finally blown itself out; the only sound Quinn could hear was Eva’s breathing. They lay entwined, her hand over his heart, one leg over his. Eva opened her eyes slowly, and seeing Quinn was awake, smiled and gave herself to him again.

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  Quinn snapped back to the present. He had been a million miles away, his mind preoccupied by the curve of her hips and the sensual tilt to her lips. He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Quinn, seriously?” Thomas’s exasperation was getting the better of him.

  Quinn grimaced in embarrassment and shrugged.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Thomas folded his arms, his irritation evident even to a dazed Quinn.

  “Nothing,” Quinn replied, hoping Thomas would be happy with his less than truthful answer.

  “I’ve known you my whole life. Don’t try pull the wool over my eyes, man. You’re not good at it.”

  “Some things are better left unsaid.”

  A slow smile crept across Thomas’s face as he realized the implications of what Quinn wasn’t saying.

  “Let’s get back to the task at hand, shall we?” Quinn raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, if I can have your attention for longer than ten seconds. We’re all set for tomorrow,” Thomas continued from where he had obviously left off before he interrupted Quinn’s musings.

  Quinn found himself struggling to concentrate, and instead of fighting the tidal wave, he chose to ride it. Eva’s smell was imprinted in his brain, thanks to his wolf senses. The softness of her skin was all he could think about. The blue depths of her eyes held him captivated. He was drowning in the thought of her, and he found he didn’t really mind.

  Realizing he had lost the war for Quinn’s attention, Thomas sighed and shook his head. Quinn shrugged, and watched Thomas leave the room, his mind already preoccupied.

  The coming attack niggled at the back of Quinn’s mind, and he knew that he couldn’t afford to be distracted like this when they made their move. He made his way outside, and shifted into his wolf form.

  The thrill of his other form coursed through him; the raw power and energy was addictive. He sniffed the air, not sure if he wanted to find Eva’s scent or not. Not finding it, he loped off, letting his feet lead the way.

  The ground was hard beneath his paws; winter was well on the way and the chill was starting to seep into the ground. As Quinn ran, claws digging into the cold ground, his mind started to clear. He had always found solace in his wolf form; while he was a pack animal by nature, he preferred the solitude of his own thoughts. He had never been one to need the company of others to keep his mind occupied.

  For this reason, it still surprised him that he was the alpha of his own tribe. But then, he thought, the role of an alpha was innately a lonely one – while everyone looked to him for answers, guidance, and reasons, no one truly paid very much attention to him as a person.

  His role was to lead, and most of the time he was comfortable with that. He had been born an alpha in a pack that had no room for another one, and his natural instinct was to lead and protect. He knew his strengths and weaknesses, and he made the difficult decisions that were required of him.

  He was now faced with yet another one of those decisions.

  While Eva had been sleeping, Quinn’s mind had been racing. He didn’t know how he would tell her why she had been sold to him, or if he even should. While it was true that her old tribe had been in severe financial difficulties due to bank recalls on loans, and yet another season of failed crops, the original deal had not included her as the trade item. She had not been offered to him; he had demanded her.

  The sky was beginning to darken when Quinn realized he was on the far western edge of his lands. He turned back to the village, picking up the pace so that he could try to make it back before full dark.

  The central long house was filled with sleeping bodies by the time he made it back; there were those in his pack who still preferred to sleep together in a pile of fur in their werewolf forms.

  Quinn padded past the building, and shifted back into his human form when he had reached his house. Once inside, he was disappointed to find Eva had already fallen asleep on his bed, waiting for him it seemed. He smiled, and slipped in under the covers next to her. She snuffled in her sleep, and moved closer to him. Quinn found himself drifting off into the first proper sleep he’d had in months, the smell of Eva surrounding him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day seemed to drag on, as Quinn and his men prepared for the upcoming effort to expel the rebels from their borders.

  Time dragged its feet, for Quinn and Eva both, as each faced their own fears at the prospect of what was to unfold that day. For Quinn, there was a very real possibility that he or his men would not return in one piece that night; for Eva, the fear that Quinn wouldn’t come back at all wrapped its fingers around her heart.

  She had been trying to pretend that what she was feeling didn’t really matter, that she wasn’t falling in love with Quinn. She wished she could pretend that her world wasn’t slowly turning on its head for a man who had paid gold for her – but it was. She couldn’t deny it, in those tense moments that seemed to last hours throughout the day, where she thought about the very real possibility of Quinn being brought home to be buried.

  Eva could feel her heart constricting in her chest at the thought of him being injured, she could smell her own fear and feel her blood quicken through her veins. The thought didn’t just scare her – it terrified her, and that very fact terrified her even more.

  Eva had never been afraid to lose someone the way she feared Quinn’s loss – not even that of her father or her ex-boyfriend had brought on heart palpitations and the shakes. It had something to do with her mother’s death, she figured. After her mom’s passing, a numbness and coldness towards death had opened in her. It was something she didn’t like about herself, but she couldn’t deny herself whatever means of self-protection from hurt she could get.

  Quinn himself feared more for his men’s lives than his own – he had realized that as an alpha, it was part and par for the course to worry more about your people than yourself. He found himself physically in pain every time he looked into Eva’s eyes that day – to see her worry for him, when no one had done so in years – broke his heart.

  He wished he could take her aside and tell her he was invincible, and that nothing could touch him, but he knew he’d be lying. His own mortality, as well as the vulnerability that went with it, was something he couldn’t deny.

  Their people had been gifted with the power to shift into werewolf forms, and while they led healthy, slightly longer, lives than the average human, they were by no means immortal or immune to injury, or worse, death. The legends told that a witch had fallen in love with a wolf, and wishing to know him, to hear him speak, had granted him the ability to shift into a human form.

  The stories about full moons and silver bullets had all been conjured up over the years, mostly as nonsense. Idle mythologies and gossiping over the years had created a legendary statu
s around werewolves, something Quinn wasn’t sure he was thankful for. Of course, a silver bullet could kill a werewolf – they were no more than a wolf or a human at the end of the day. As for the full moon, perhaps they were just more easily spotted with more light – they weren’t constricted to any particular time of the month, or day, when it came to their ability to shift.

  The time had come to leave for the attack.

  Quinn pulled Eva into his arms, ignoring the looks of all those gathered at the village center, and kissed her lightly on her nose.

  “I’ll be back. Make sure there’s fresh oats in the morning,” he smiled down at her.

  “I don’t think you’re funny, Quinn Maywell.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be, Evangeline Thomas.”

  Eva sighed and rolled her eyes, but there was no mistaking the faint smile turning her mouth up at the corners.

  “Just come back in one piece, please,” she cupped his face in both her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes, and see that she meant it from her soul.

  “I’ll do my best,” Quinn whispered as he pulled her close and kissed her deeply.

  It was difficult to ignore the whispering and gasps of shock that were going through the people gathered, and it bugged Quinn to no end that he had no privacy in that moment. The kiss lasted far shorter than either of them wanted it to, but their audience was rather annoying.

  Quinn squared his shoulders, and with a last kiss on Eva’s forehead, walked over to his men. As one, they shifted into their wolf forms. The air shimmered and blurred around the seventy odd men that would go out that night to protect what was theirs. Only the very young and the injured had been left out of this.

  They moved out, with Quinn and Thomas in the lead. They made fast time, as the sun set ahead of them. The hard ground flew up behind them as they made tracks through it, dust flinging into the air. The rank smell of fear from those who were going out for the first time kept pace with them, and all Quinn could hear was the heavy breathing and panting from the wolves as they ran.

  The air was crisp and clear, winter coming ever closer. They cold began to settle in as they ran and the sun sank further towards the horizon in the west.

  It felt like hours of running by the time they slowed their pace, the rebels’ camp just on the other side of a small rise. As Thomas and Quinn slowed to a trot, so did all the wolves behind them. They needed to gather their strength as much as possible in the moments they had before they surprised the rebels.

  They stood still for a few minutes, panting, clouds forming in front of their noses as they waited for Quinn to begin the move forward again.

  Deeming it enough time, Quinn and Thomas shook out their coats, loosening their fur from their backs. Digging his claws into the ground, Quinn pushed forward and began the run of the last few yards to where he could see movement up ahead in the trees.

  They rushed the rebel camp, and Quinn was glad to see they had come unexpected. Most of the rebels were already in their wolf forms, having no permanent structure under which to sleep, but there were those who had been cooking and tending to the fires that were in their human forms.

  Those who didn’t get cut down immediately, shifted and joined the defense against Quinn’s attack.

  The sound of ripping and snarling filled the air, as Quinn tore into the throat of his first victim. The taste of blood in his mouth, Quinn turned towards his next target, a smaller wolf who looked more agile than strong. The white of the wolf’s eyes shone in the dark, but refusing to run, he held his ground as Quinn rushed him.

  They met with a gnashing of teeth and a scraping of claws, as the smaller wolf tried to defend himself. Quinn clamped his jaws shut around the wolf’s left forepaw, and shook his head, fairly ripping off the other wolf’s paw. The wolf howled in pain, but as he was no longer able to move, Quinn moved on to his next target.

  Quinn took no pleasure in the taste of copper in his mouth, or the ripping and snapping sounds around him. The yelps of pain drove through his mind like a jackhammer, causing him physical pain for those of his men who were injured. Quinn also knew there was no time to doubt what they were doing; they had to do this. Forcing aside all thoughts of Eva, of his fear, his loathing of death, Quin focused his mind on the next attack, the next kill.

  A behemoth of a wolf rushed Quinn as he finished off his third attack, but he found himself too slow to get out of the way in time. As the wolf bulldozed into his side, Quinn heard, rather than felt, the crack of his ribs. He yelped in pain, as he went down, the larger wolf on top of him. He heaved against the wolf, who was struggling to get up because of his sheer size. The wolf finally managed to find purchase and turned his snout to come in for the kill.

  Quinn’s blood rushed through his veins, his heart pounding in his chest. The world had gone still around him, everything happening in slow motion as though in a movie. He watched as the wolf lowered his jaw towards his throat, excruciatingly slowly, and knew in that moment what fear was. He smelled it rolling off himself in waves, as he could taste his own blood in his mouth.

  The jaws came closer, saliva dripping off the fangs, and Quinn closed his eyes so that he could see Eva’s face one last time before he died.

  What felt like an eternity passed. Thomas rushed the large wolf from the side, accompanied by two of the other wolves in their pack, and made quick work of him.

  Quinn opened his eyes, pain lancing through his skull and his sides, to find Thomas standing over him, tongue lolling out of one side of his mouth. He could see the concern in his friend’s eyes, but he didn’t have the strength to fight the waves of pain and nausea washing over him. He closed his eyes, and let the pain carry him away.

  Dawn was just breaking as the men returned from the routing of the rebels. Eva watched as the wolves ran up to the central longhouse, some slower than they had been before they left. She scanned the wolves for the familiar shape of Quinn – but she couldn’t find him.

  Eva’s heart hammered in her throat as she ran towards the wolves. Some of the men had started shifting into their human forms, so she turned towards the one face that she recognized.

  “Thomas,” she asked, almost too scared to hear an answer.

  Thomas looked at her, the corner of his eyes were strained, his mouth pulled tight with stress. She could see the look of abject horror in his face.

  “Where is he Thomas?” she all but begged.

  “They’re bringing him back. He’s been hurt, Eva,” he placed a hand on her shoulder, that simple gesture of comfort sending Eva into a place filled with worry and anxiety.

  “How badly?” she managed to ask.

  Thomas shook his head, and said only, “He hasn’t shifted back yet.”

  It was never a good sign when a wolf either couldn’t or wouldn’t shift back into his human form – it spoke volumes as to how injured he must be. Eva’s world tilted around her, as her stomach heaved. She bit back the bile, refusing to let her anxiety get the better of her. Eva’s legs swayed beneath her, as if she were trapped on a ship on the ocean. She nodded, more to herself than Thomas, and without care, sat down where she was.

  Eva buried her face in her hands, not caring who saw. Thomas sat down next to her, and placed his arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. He didn’t say anything, knowing that words would help little and would matter less.

  All around them, the women of the tribe were gathering their men into their arms, thankful for their safe return. Most of the men had returned, uninjured or with minor scratches and bruises. It seemed that Quinn had sustained the worst of the injuries.

  A general cry went up, as four wolves came into view, dragging a makeshift pallet behind them. Ropes gipped in their jaws, they pulled it together – a prostrate wolf figure lying on the blankets they must have claimed from the rebel camp.

  Eva’s heart dropped into her stomach, as she stood up quickly. The wolves moved into the centre of the gathered people, and quickly shifted into their human forms. They eac
h grabbed a corner of the pallet, and quickly carried it into Quinn’s house, Eva hot on their heels.

  They placed the pallet down on the floor of his room, and moved him, as gently as they could, onto the bed.

  Eva nodded her thanks, as the men left, one to fetch the doctor and the rest to find their women. Thomas stood beside her, and they stood in wretched silence as Quinn wheezed in a breath in his wolf form.

  “We won’t know the full extent of the damage until he shifts,” Thomas said softly. The fear in his own voice mirrored the fear that Eva felt.

  She walked over to the side of the bed, and placed her hand on Quinn’s head, rubbing his fur gently. She sniffed, and wiped her face with the back of her other hand.

  “Now, all we can do is wait.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Eva kept her vigil by Quinn’s side that day. She was joined by Adrianna, who knew more than her fair share about injuries and how to heal them, and for a time, Thomas sat with them, too.

  Quinn seemed to be sleeping for most of the time, his breathing deep and labored, his furry chest rising and falling sometimes with great effort. There was no doubting that he had broken ribs; it was the rest of the damage that they couldn’t assess while he was still in his wolf form.

  Eva could only imagine how difficult it was for her friend to sit by and watch Quinn suffer, as Adrianna’s own husband had been lost to a border skirmish not more than a year before. Eva could see the pain in Adrianna’s eyes, in the way the crows’ feet at the corners of her eyes seemed to deepen, in the way her mouth pulled tight, and how she seemed to age ten years in front of Eva. But even though it pained her, Adrianna said nothing about it, and instead, provided only comfort to Eva.