Indigo’s lips curved. Zane had never once hit his sister in anger, and he never would, but at the moment he could clearly envision himself smacking the smile from her face.
“What are you so damn pleased about?”
Indigo shrugged, not looking up from her hands on Ginnifer’s swollen arm. “Oh, nothing. I’m just glad to finally have a big sister. Is she carrying your pup yet?”
Ginnifer’s head snapped up, just as Indigo jabbed her thumbs hard into her flesh. There was a soft popping sound, and suddenly Ginnifer let out a short, agonized scream. Zane rushed to gather her in his arms, pulling her tightly against his chest.
“I’m not finished yet,” Indigo said, her hands covering her ears.
“I heard you fix it,” he grunted. “You’re done now.”
Indigo rolled her eyes. “Quit being a bonehead. I still have to bind it, otherwise it’s not going to heal properly, if it heals at all. Geez, I hope you don’t expect me to deliver your pups. I’m not going anywhere near either of you when that’s happening.”
“No one’s having any pups,” Ginnifer said weakly. “Go ahead and splint it, and then give me whatever you have that’ll knock me out for at least twelve hours.”
***
Ginnifer rubbed her cheek against Zane’s warm skin, feeling exceptionally tactile. Sitting in his lap, she’d made it a point to wiggle until his erection was pressed against her entrance, only her clean pair of underwear keeping him from being inside of her. She knew that Zane wouldn’t take advantage of her right now, and that was why it was so fun to tease him.
Indigo had given her a dose of prescription-strength pain medicine that had been taken from Marl’s abundant drug stash, as well as an over the counter allergy med that made her pleasantly drowsy. Her head was almost fuzzy enough to mask her sense of impending doom.
“How much longer do you think we have like this?” she asked, pressing her lips to the flat plane of his nipple. “I don’t think we’ll be able to stay in your room forever.”
Zane’s hand was massaging her scalp. “Would you, if we could?”
Ginnifer wasn’t one to giggle, but the bubbly, high-pitched laugh escaped her lips all the same. “I think we’d get sick of each other after a while.” She paused to flick her tongue over his nipple, eliciting a groan from the alpha. “But it would be nice to freeze time for a couple more hours.”
In a conspiratorial whisper, she added, “Coral could be here any time.”
“I don’t care,” he said in a husky voice.
Ginnifer looked up at him through heavy lidded eyes. She arched a brow, or at least, she thought she did.
“Whether or not I can convince you to stay, I’m not mating with Coral,” he told her. “She deserves a male who could love her, and that will never be me.”
And you deserve to be with someone you love, she thought, a stab of guilt cutting through the haze.
Ginnifer tugged at a lock of her hair. “What about Sedna?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’ll figure out a way to deal with them.”
It sounded too vague for her liking, but while her muddled mind tried to formulate a response, Zane leaned down to kiss her, his warm lips gliding over hers with controlled fervor. An ache began to build in her, and she was wondering whether or not she could tempt him further when he pulled back.
Zane tucked a lock of hair behind her ears. “I will convince you to stay.”
“You’re putting a lot of pressure on me,” she said, chewing on her lip.
“Is it working?”
Ginnifer hesitated, only a second, but a grin broke over his face.
“I didn’t say yes,” she grumbled, but she laid her head back against his chest.
He tensed a little, and she thought she’d upset him, but a moment later Boaz burst into the room, Tallow trailing behind him.
“I told him he couldn’t come in,” Tallow said airily. “But he insisted that he didn’t care if you mauled him.”
“It’s fine,” Zane said tightly, as Boaz came to a running stop and fell beside them.
Ginnifer climbed from Zane’s lap and threw her good arm around Boaz’s neck to hug him.
“I’m so sorry,” they both said at once.
Boaz shook his head. “No, I was an asshole and I didn’t mean any of it.”
“No, no, it needed to be said,” Ginnifer hastily replied. “And I don’t hold any of it against you.”
“I felt like shit even before you were gone. Ask Tallow, I tried to get her to run after you.”
Tallow said, “But I punched him in the face and he didn’t wake up for an hour.”
Ginnifer looked over to where Tallow sat beside Zane, both of them staring at the humans with displeasure etched on their faces. She let go of Boaz, but remained sitting close to him.
They fell into two separate conversations about the same story, Ginnifer and Zane each telling Boaz and Tallow their own versions of what happened with the bears. As Ginnifer was recounting how Zane tricked the bear shifter, Boaz interrupted her.
“Did the bear do that?”
Boaz reached out towards her neck, but Ginnifer found herself flinching back from his touch.
“I did,” Zane said, sounding irritated. She looked back to see that the alpha was glaring at Boaz.
Boaz looked between them, before his gaze settled on Ginnifer. Hesitantly, he asked, “What about Aaron?”
At the mention of her former fiancé, Ginnifer realized that she’d never told Zane that they’d broken up. He had never asked, and she hadn’t been able to think of a way to tell him without sounding as though she were inviting him to make a move on her.
“I spoke with him in Port Trent, and we, mostly me, okay, pretty much all me, I decided to break up with him.”
Boaz heaved a sigh. “Finally.”
Tallow snapped. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He held his hands up defensively. “It’s not like that!” To Ginnifer, he said, “I mean, you were horrible for each other.”
Ginnifer wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What are you talking about? You were always going on about what a great guy Aaron was.”
“Yeah, he is a great guy,” Boaz said, scratching the back of his head. “You’re great too, but you’re terrible for each other. You’re never in the same country, and even when you are together, you never seem to be on the same page with one another. I think the only reason you lasted this long is because you only see each other twice a year.”
“Why are you just telling me all of this now?”
Boaz’s cheeks reddened. “Come on, Gin. How would it have sounded if I criticized your relationship?”
I would have thought he was just being jealous…
“You’re right,” Ginnifer said, nodding to herself.
She leaned back against Zane and rubbed her temple. Her excitement over seeing Boaz had died down, and her tiredness had returned twofold.
“I should probably head back to my room and get some sleep.”
Boaz cringed. “I’m not sure where your room is. Not long after you left, Breeze came by and dropped all of your stuff off with Tallow and I. She said you’re going to have to find somewhere else to sleep.”
Zane snaked an arm around her waist. “You’ll sleep here. You two leave so she can get some rest. Tallow, I’ll be out to speak with you shortly.”
Ginnifer said her goodbyes. When the others were gone, she let Zane tuck her into his bed. Unlike the other beds she’d been in, his was simply a pallet of furs on the floor, but its lack of structure allowed it to spread out, covering almost a quarter of the large room. There were no pillows, so she rolled up the softest fur she could find and stuffed it under her head.
He stayed with her until she fell asleep, which didn’t take long. The last thing she remembered was him placing a kiss to her neck, right over his mark.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Later that evening, Zane stood outside of the den, surrounded by his betas.
He’d been gone over a week, and all except Tallow, whom he’d spoken to earlier in the day, seemed to be competing for his attention.
“There hasn’t been any sign of the caribou herd this far north yet,” Breeze told him. “But Kya found two muskox carcasses near the point.”
“Amarok?” Zane asked, unable to hide his sneer.
He had told Tallow about his encounter with the western pack, and she had relayed it to the others. It wasn’t unusual for the Amarok wolves to be spotted on the fringes of Siluit territory, especially during winter, when their own barren territory struggled to support them. But it was rare for Erik to be sighted, and now more than ever, Zane bristled at the thought of the other alpha in his territory.
Kuva said, “The carcasses were old and the storm covered up the tracks, but she says they smelled like bears.”
A week ago, Zane would have scoffed at the idea of bears being so close to the den, but now he felt unsettled. He told the others what he and Enzo had seen in the southern forest, and his suspicion that it might be the cause of the bear migration.
“How widespread do you think this is?” Breeze asked, frowning.
“There’s no telling,” he said. “I’m not going to send anyone to scout the entire southern border. I think what we need to focus on right now is teaching every capable wolf how to fight. Between the bears and Amarok, things could get complicated in the months to come.”
“I take it we won’t have Sedna’s help?” Breeze said.
Zane met her level gaze, and refused to look away. None of them had brought up Ginnifer, not even Kuva, but Zane knew they were all wondering what his mark on her meant for the future of their pack.
“I don’t think Sedna’s going to be a problem.” Tallow spoke for the first time, and they all turned to look at her. She appeared intensely focused on picking the nonexistent dirt from beneath her fingernails.
“What did you do?” Zane asked slowly.
She looked at him, and then back at her nails. “Haven’t you wondered where Coral is?”
He had been wondering that, from the moment his mind wasn’t preoccupied with worrying over Ginnifer. After she’d fallen asleep, he’d spoken briefly with Tallow about Marl. Tallow pretended not to need reassurance, but he told her it wasn’t her fault and that Marl’s health had already been at a tipping point. Once he’d left Tallow, he’d gone to Coral’s room to find it empty.
Breeze repeated, “What did you do?”
“I may have encouraged her to run off with Roch.”
Tallow explained how she’d gone to Coral’s room as soon as Zane and Ginnifer had arrived at the den. She’d told Coral that Zane had marked Ginnifer as his mate, and that if she knew what was best for her, she’d leave.
“It was all Indigo’s idea, and she’s the one that put a bug in Roch’s ear a few days back. He’s always had a thing for Coral and seems to think he can pull off being alpha of his own pack,” Tallow said, snorting.
Zane stared at her in disbelief. “She’s not going to mate with Roch. She’s going to go straight to her mother and tell her that I drove her away from the den to take a human as my mate.”
Breeze cut in, sounding uncharacteristically furious. “Which is exactly what Zane’s father did to Shale. Maybe we could have smoothed this over, but you’ve made things a thousand times worse.”
“Will you settle the fuck down?” Tallow bit out. “Shale’s my aunt, and I grew up in Sedna, in case you forgot. I think I understand the situation a lot better than either of you.”
Zane held up a hand to silence them both. He gave Tallow a hard look, but said, “You better have a good explanation.”
“It’s a lot better than yours,” Tallow said, but she quickly averted her gaze towards the ground. “None of you know Sedna like I do. There’s a reason I decided to stay here when Shale became alpha. She’s a cold bitch, and her daughters are nothing but pawns to her.
“I didn’t tell Coral she should leave because you were going to kick her out. I told her that you were going to have her sent back to Sedna. If Shale finds out that you chose a human over Coral, Coral’s going to be in even deeper shit than we are.”
Anger surged in Zane’s chest. He’d always assumed that Tallow’s stories about Shale’s cruelty were overblown. He couldn’t fathom Shale blaming Coral because he rejected her.
Tallow went on, her features tightening. “When I told her that she should probably run, she told me something even worse. Apparently, Shale’s planning to ally with Amarok as well. Next year, when Nova’s of age, she’s going to try to pass her off to Erik. This winter, before Coral left to come down here, Shale told her that if she wasn’t mated to you by the end of spring, she’d be sending Coral off to Amarok instead.”
The alpha of Amarok was widely regarded as a bloodthirsty tyrant. Now and again, they took in wolves that had fled from Amarok, all of whom told stories about a pack where the strong lorded over the weak, violence was an everyday affair, and the only punishment for insult to the alpha was death.
Zane’s fists clenched. “There’s no way she meant that.”
Now and again in Siluit, disobedient pups were told they’d be sent off to Amarok if they didn’t stop misbehaving. Zane often threatened Indigo with as much, but it was an empty threat and they both knew it. He’d sooner break his own leg than see his sister as part of that pack.
“I can’t say for certain,” Tallow conceded. “But what matters is that Coral believed it and she’s out of the way now, so you’re free to do whatever you want with your human. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Thank you,” Zane said, patting her on the head. “You’ll be leaving tomorrow to find Coral and Roch before they get themselves killed.”
Tallow gaped at him in disbelief. “You seriously want to bring her back here? What about Ginnifer?”
“Ginnifer has nothing to do with this,” he said. “Coral can’t fight. Roch is strong, but he’s young and inexperienced. There are poachers, bears, and Amarok wolves out there. They won’t last the month on their own.”
More so than that, Zane felt responsible for Coral, now more than ever. She left because of him, and in her mind, she had nowhere to go. He had much less sympathy for Roch, but he wouldn’t leave the young male out there to die.
Tallow continued to stare petulantly at him, and Zane motioned for the other two to go. Kuva left without complaint, but Breeze made an agitated sound.
“I don’t understand,” Tallow said, kicking at the snow. “I thought this would make you happy.”
“I appreciate what you were trying to do, but Coral is pack.”
“Coral’s from Sedna.”
Zane gave her a pointed look, and she wrinkled her nose.
“I’ve spent most of my life here,” she said defensively.
“I know. But Coral’s still your cousin. I don’t understand how you could do that to her, even for my sake.”
“It wasn’t only for your sake,” she said, tugging at her braided hair. “I wasn’t even going to go along with it at first, but then I saw that you’d marked that human, and I thought… I thought that with Coral out of the way, you’d take her as your mate for sure. If she decided to stay here…”
Tallow turned her back to him, but not before he noticed her blushing, something he had not seen in years. “If she stays, maybe Boaz will, too.”
Zane put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you in love with him?”
She shrugged him off.
“He isn’t…” She paused to exhale. “All of the other males are afraid of me. Even Kuva. But Boaz, he thinks I’m funny and…cute.”
“Cute?”
Tallow whirled around to glare at him. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you,” he said with a grin. “I’ve always thought you were cute.”
There had been a time when Zane had thought Tallow would be his mate. That seemed like another lifetime, and in many ways it was, but it was why the others assumed that he not only
gave her so much authority, but also tolerated her combative nature. That was part of the reason, but only a small part.
“You are the only one who doesn’t treat me any differently than before I was alpha,” he said. “And as much as that can piss me off, I need that. I need you. So I understand why this human is important to you.”
A genuine smile broke over her face, though it quickly turned sly. “You know what else Boaz said to me? He told me that I’m the most beautiful female he’s ever seen, much prettier than your human.”
“I doubt he said that. Not unless you had his arm twisted behind his back.”
She scowled. “He didn’t explicitly say I was more beautiful than her, but it was implied.”
“Go spend some time with your male before you have to go,” he told her as he moved to head inside.
Tallow grabbed his arm to stop him. “Ginnifer… She’s going to stay, isn’t she?”
“Focus on finding Coral, and let me worry about that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“How’s it feeling?”
“Not too bad, if I don’t move it the wrong way,” Ginnifer said, absently rubbing the splint. “Or sneeze. Or breathe too hard.”
“It would hurt a lot less if you took the medicine I gave you,” Indigo chided, still not looking up from her book. The young shifter was poring over a textbook on—of all things—botany.
“Are you planning to start a garden?” Ginnifer asked, both out of interest and to avoid more lecturing.
Despite Zane’s insistence that she stay in bed, she had managed to have a very productive week. The wolves had been clamoring to get in front of the camera and she and Boaz had been filming almost nonstop. According to Indigo, they wanted to suck up to Ginnifer so that when she became Zane’s mate, they’d have a higher standing in the pack.
The first couple of days, she’d found it difficult to work while on pain medication, which turned her into a groggy, giggly space cadet. She’d ditched the strong stuff, opting for double doses of Tylenol to take the edge off her discomfort.
Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) Page 18
