“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.
“You like her.”
It was not a question, and Zane wouldn’t insult her intelligence by denying it.
“My wolf…” He tried to think of the most benign way to explain it, but Indigo didn’t wait.
“Wants to mate with her?”
Zane placed a hand on the back of his neck to crack it. “Just because my wolf wants her doesn’t mean that I’m going to mate with her.”
Indigo shrugged. “When my wolf wants something, I listen to it.”
“That’s because you lack self-control.”
“Maybe,” she said, shouldering past him. “But I think I’m a lot happier than you are.”
Zane rubbed the bridge of his nose as he watched his sister shift. The bandages he’d carefully wrapped tightened and then tore as her slender human foot gave way to a rear leg. She hobbled for a moment, but then steadied herself and continued walking, only slightly favoring her uninjured legs.
She was walking away from the camp, but he made no move to stop her. He knew she wouldn’t get far in her condition, and he also knew she would be miserable company if he had to drag her back. He climbed down the rocky hill, his keen ears picking up on the conversations being held.
Breeze was talking to Kuva about going on a hunt, though Kuva appeared to be only half-listening, the rest of his attention focused on the human female beside him. Ginnifer was huddled close to Boaz now, the two of them reviewing footage on her camera. She was commenting on a particular part, something about how it had come out shakier than she’d like, while Kuva peered over her shoulder, his chin nearly resting on her.
“I’m not sure,” he heard Ginnifer say. “I never anticipated this level of immersion. I’m not sure where to begin.”
“I say we do the same thing we did with the Maasai. We’ll collect interviews from everyone who’s willing and see what we can film along the way.”
Ginnifer was nodding her head as Tallow slipped behind Boaz and grabbed the larger recording device, which had been resting in his lap.
“I’ll give you an interview,” she declared. Tallow began pressing random buttons on the device. “How does this thing work?”
Boaz’s face went bloodless as he shot up and tried to wrest the camera back from Tallow. She dodged him effortlessly.
“Please put that down,” he said anxiously. “That cost me more than my—”
She waved the camera in his face. “Tell me how it works and maybe I’ll give it back.”
Tallow let Boaz show her how to record, and she turned the camera so that the lens pointed at her face. In a tone of exaggerated formality, she said, “Greetings, humans. I am Tallow, Princess of Sedna, Queen Bitch of Siluit, and Fairest of Them All.”
She continued to film herself, while dodging Boaz’s attempts to get his camera back. Breeze favored Zane with a smile and Kuva nodded respectfully at him as he reached the fire. Ginnifer looked up, her light brown eyes appearing bigger than usual. Casually, Zane sat next to her, taking the spot that Boaz had vacated. He stretched his long legs out towards the fire, but waited for her to speak before he cocked his head in her direction.
“Is Tallow really a princess?” she asked doubtfully.
Kuva answered before him, which Zane found irritating. “Her mother was alpha of Sedna, and her mother before her. Tallow is heir, but she cannot be alpha.”
“Her mother…” Ginnifer said thoughtfully. “I thought alphas were all males. And aren’t female shifters unable to have children? That’s why you mate with humans, right?”
Zane could see Kuva’s mind working to translate her questions and form his responses. He took advantage of the pause and answered in the beta male’s place.
“Sedna is a matriarchal pack,” he told her, capturing her attention. “It’s been ruled by females since its inception. Our females weren’t always sterile. In fact, mating with humans is relatively new to us. A century ago, offspring between a shifter and a human were considered to be half-breeds.”
While he spoke, Ginnifer had rushed to start recording him. At the brief pause, she gave him a sheepish look and asked, “Do you mind? This is incredibly interesting.”
He nodded his assent. “During that time, packs were much smaller, no more than ten to twelve wolves, usually a family unit with a dominant breeding pair. We don’t know why, but over the course of the next two generations, live births became fewer and fewer, until our females stopped conceiving at all. Pack dynamics shifted, and in most packs, shifter females became marginalized in favor of human mates.
“Sedna is unique, in that its matriarchs are still capable of having pups, though with diminished fertility.”
Ginnifer glanced over her shoulder towards Tallow. If Tallow was listening, she gave no indication, and appeared wholly distracted by Boaz and the camera.
“So, can Tallow have children?” Her nose wrinkled ever so slightly, causing Zane’s lips to twitch.
“No. That’s why she’s still here and hasn’t taken her aunt’s place as alpha of Sedna.”
“Has her aunt been able to have children?”
“A son and two daughters.”
“Wow, this is amazing,” she said, her smile revealing a set of perfect teeth. “And what about the other pack she mentioned, Sil… Sil…”
“Siluit,” Kuva said, eager to reinsert himself into the conversation. “Siluit is our pack.”
“My pack,” Zane said, before he could stop himself.
He immediately ground his teeth together. It wasn’t like him to be so prideful, and he recognized that part of it was his wolf—his baser instincts—wanting to impress her. To show her that he would make a better mate than Kuva.
“So you are the alpha?” she asked, her eyes widening. The look of excitement on her face made his chest swell, and suddenly he no longer cared about coming across as arrogant.
Ginnifer proceeded to ply him with questions about his pack, which he answered, albeit with mild reservations. He didn’t think that she would intentionally use any of the information against his pack, but he was still cautious about trusting an outsider.
While they spoke, Breeze fell asleep beside the fire. Tallow eventually grew bored with filming herself, and loudly announced that she was going to sleep. She pulled Boaz over to a rocky alcove, where she shifted and made a bed for him in the cove of her curled limbs. The human half-heartedly protested, particularly when she began grooming his bushy head with her tongue, but he fell asleep quickly enough.
During the intermission, Zane had watched Ginnifer, looking for some reaction towards Tallow’s handling of the human male. She appeared more amused than anything else, further confirming his belief that the two were not a coupled pair.
He knew from overhearing their earlier conversation that Ginnifer had another male, but his wolf had quickly dismissed this male as viable competition. No male of any substance would allow his female to put herself in such a dangerous position without his protection.
If he let her, Zane thought she would question him until first light. But he knew that she needed her sleep, and so eventually he feigned tiredness and then got up to search for Indigo. He wanted badly to stay with her, to cover her in his own furs and to have her sleep beside him, enveloped in his warmth.
But she wasn’t for him, she couldn’t be. And if he did those things, it would be harder for him to remind himself of that once they got back to his den. Better she sleep beside Kuva and wear his scent in the morning. Perhaps then, his wolf would begin to accept what Zane already knew.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ginnifer slept horribly. It wasn’t the cold or the wind that kept her from sleeping deeply, it was anxiety over being exposed. She kept waking in the night to readjust her coverings, fearful that one of her limbs would slip out and she would wake to severe frostbite.
Eventually, she fell into the hard sleep of exhaustion, only to be rudely awakened by the glare of morning sunlight. She sat up, her muscles and bones aching unpleasantly. She was unexpectedly warm, and she noticed that in addition to the fur that Kuva had given her, a darker fur laid spread out over her. She slipped off her glove to finger the sleek, espresso-colored pelt contemplatively.
The fire had gone out some time ago, and only a pile of ashes remained in the small stone circle. His teeth chattering, Boaz sat hunched over it, as though trying to gleam some phantom warmth from hours past.
“G-Good morning,” he said, rocking back and forth on the balls of his heels.
“Good morning yourself. Where is everyone?”
She spied Tallow near the alcove, still dozing in her wolf form, and to Ginnifer’s surprise, Indigo was there as well, sitting not far from Boaz, but with her back turned to them.
“Breeze went for a run and the guys said they were hunting. I told them we had enough food to share, but I guess they aren’t interested in power bars.”
“What are they hunting?” Ginnifer asked. “And did they say when they’ll be back?”
“They’re hunting rabbits,” Indigo said, still not looking at them. Unlike her brother, her voice held no discernable accent. “Though, I suspect Zane would drag back a whole herd of caribou if he thought it would impress you.”
Ginnifer frowned, but didn’t comment on the remark. Instead, she asked, “How is your ankle doing?”
Indigo was quiet for so long that Ginnifer thought she wasn’t going to respond. Finally, she said, “It’s better.”
She turned around, extending her leg to show that the mangled flesh had already undergone a rapid regeneration. The skin was an angry red color, but the wounds had closed and Ginnifer could see the beginnings of scar tissue forming.
“That’s amazing,” Ginnifer breathed, and she could only wonder at how many incredible things she would see in the coming weeks.
Indigo pulled her leg back and tucked it under the grey pelt that she wore. “I suppose I should thank you. Unlike my brother, you actually tried to save me.”
“Zane was going to save you,” Breeze said, appearing from behind a large rock. She wore only a loose leather hide and her short white hair was windswept. “But not until you learned your lesson.”
“Because Zane always knows what’s best for me,” Indigo muttered.
“You’re fortunate he let that be your punishment, for all the trouble you caused the pack. We will be fortunate if Sedna doesn’t hear of this.”
“Sedna can go stuff it,” Indigo huffed. “We have a better territory, more food, and a stronger alpha. I don’t see why we’re always treading on eggshells with them.”
“You’re right,” Breeze said patiently. “We do have more than Sedna, much more. But the more you have, the more you have to lose.”
“I guess I wouldn’t know that, because I don’t have anything that’s my own.”
“You have family that cares deeply for you,” Breeze said, her frown deepening. “You have never in your life been truly alone, and so you cannot possibly understand the value of that. I hope you never do.”
Indigo turned around again, but before she did, Ginnifer could see her flush from her cheeks down to her neck.
Flopping down beside Boaz, Breeze gave them a bright smile that was totally at odds with the somber mood of the campsite.
Boaz, who always felt the need to fill an awkward silence, asked, “How was your run?”
“Refreshing,” Breeze said as she peered around the area. “The males aren’t back yet?”
“Nope. Are rabbits hard to find around here?”
“Nothing is hard to find around here,” she told them. “Prey is abundant in Siluit.”
Ginnifer had gathered as much from her conversation with Indigo. The night before, Zane had told her that his pack was home to over a hundred wolves, and she’d had trouble imagining how a pack of that size was kept fed without modern agriculture.
“What kinds of things do you eat?” Ginnifer asked.
“Our territory sees regular herd migrations,” Breeze explained. “There’s also a breeding ground for seals in the northern region, but we rarely have to resort to that.”
“How often do you hunt?” Ginnifer had turned her camera on, eager to record the information.
“Almost every day, although we usually only make two or three large kills a week. It isn’t good fortune that brings the caribou and muskox herds through our territory each year. Unlike other packs, we’re very careful to only hunt stragglers—usually the old or lame ones. This way, we don’t scare off the core herd.”
“Are the other wolf packs close? Do you have to keep them away from your herds?”
Breeze leaned over and used her finger to draw a crude map in the snow. “Siluit is here,” she said, marking the eastern patch. “There are a few small lynx packs in the area, but they steer clear of us and our hunting grounds don’t overlap. Everything to the north is Sedna, they’re our allies. Everything to the south is bear country. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us. To the west, that’s Amarok. They aren’t above attacking our herds and their alpha is…”
“An asshole,” Indigo offered. “You’re lucky my brother found you and not him, otherwise you’d be dead.”
Boaz shifted uncomfortably, but Ginnifer could only shrug. Everything had worked out, so there was no sense dwelling on what could have happened.
Zane and Kuva came back a few moments later, each of them carrying a fat hare. Kuva walked right up to Ginnifer, dropping the hare in front of her. Ginnifer scratched the back of her head, unsure what to make of the hare, and she noticed Indigo snickering behind her hand.
Oh dear.
“Thank you, Kuva. I’ve already eaten though. Maybe Breeze or Tallow will want some?”
She hadn’t eaten yet, but she had no idea what accepting that rabbit would mean to him. From the way he’d been behaving thus far, she already got the impression that he had some interest in her,
and the last thing she wanted was to lead him on.
As if on cue, Tallow appeared beside her to snatch the hare up. “Thanks, Kuva!”
Kuva reached out for the hare and opened his mouth as if to protest. He stopped short though, his shoulders slumping with disappointment.
The rest of the wolves fell into easy conversation as they prepared their meal. Breeze and Indigo skinned the hares while Zane built the fire. Tallow was tasked with cooking the meat, and by the time the hares were roasting over the flames, Ginnifer was fighting to keep her stomach from growling. Kuva was still sitting in silence, looking dejected, and she couldn’t in good conscience claim that she was suddenly hungry again.
As they divided the meat amongst themselves, Tallow insisted on hand-feeding Boaz. His skin turned an impressive assortment of colors, but he allowed her to feed him, laughing nervously between each bite.
When the meal was nearly finished, Zane cocked his head towards Ginnifer. “Have you ever tried hare before?”
Ginnifer had to think about it. She’d eaten a lot of strange things in Tanzania, particularly bushmeat, which was the generic term used for any type of wild critter that the indigenous people considered edible, ranging from reptiles to rodents and everything in between.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
Zane tore a thick strip of meat from his portion. “Then I will have to insist that you try it.”
Before she could protest, Zane nudged the meat into her mouth. The tip of his finger gave a light tug at her bottom lip as he drew it back, and no matter how benign the gesture may have been, it sent a shiver down her spine. Their eyes locked, and for a few long seconds, she felt as though she’d been snared in a trap. He appeared to be searching for something, and whatever it was, he must have thought he’d found it, because his lips twitched.
Abruptly, she realized her lips were still parted and she hadn’t even begun to chew. She closed her mouth, chewing with exaggerated vigor. Her eyes darted, around the group, hoping no one had noticed. Tallow was still hand-feeding Boaz and Breeze was laying back, one hand under her head and the other patting her belly contentedly. When her gaze fell on Kuva, he quickly looked away, and Ginnifer felt a stab of guilt. The feeling soon gave way to embarrassment when she saw Indigo, watching with shrewd violet eyes and a half-moon grin.
Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) Page 4
