Chasing the Alpha: Shifters of Nunavut, Book #3

by Rivard, Viola

  Chasing the Alpha

  Shifters of Nunavut, Book #3

  Viola Rivard

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  31. Chapter 31

  32. Chapter 32

  Sharing the Alpha

  Copyright © 2017 by Viola Rivard

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Foreword

  “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?”

  Indigo

  The Wolves of Nunavut

  Chapter 1

  Indigo looked past her brother, to where Ginnifer lay on the bed of furs, finally asleep. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to breathe a sigh of relief or growl in frustration. Ambivalence was a permanent fixture in her life now, and she couldn’t remember the last time her mind wasn’t clouded with indecision and insecurities.

  Over the past three hours, she’d done everything she could for her brother’s mate, and now Ginnifer was resting peacefully. By rights, Indigo should have been able to leave and go somewhere quiet, where she could be alone to decompress. As always, Tallow stood between Indigo and the path to her room. With her hands on her hips and her eyes blazing with scrutiny, Tallow’s tall form seemed to fill the passageway.

  “Well, what do you have to say this time? Let me take a guess—” Tallow puckered her bottom lip and affected a small, whiny voice, presumably Indigo’s. “First pups come late, Tallow. Luken will come when he’s ready, Tallow. He can’t stay in there forever, Tallow.”

  Indigo looked to her brother, but Zane wasn’t paying attention. He was staring in his mate’s direction, concern marring his handsome features. Seeing her brother like that made Indigo sadder than Tallow could have ever made her feel. The only thing Indigo could do was remain outwardly calm and self-assured. Uncertainty was blood in the water, and Tallow would go for the kill.

  “I understand that you’re worried, but this is all normal. We have to let things run their course.”

  Tallow’s lips thinned. “Normal? She’s been in pain for over a month now. That’s not normal. She wasn’t supposed to be in pain until the pup came—”

  “Sometimes—”

  “Which by the way, was supposed to be a week ago.”

  Indigo said, “The due date is just an—”

  “Estimate?” Tallow hissed. “How conveniently vague. Is there anything specific you can tell us?”

  Indigo took a breath and smoothed her skirt. “You need to be patient. I know it seems like this is going to last forever, but Luken will be here soon and everything will be fine.”

  They were the same words she’d given to Ginnifer hardly an hour ago, but while they’d helped to calm her brother’s mate, Tallow only looked angrier.

  “How do you know everything will be fine?” Tallow asked. “I hope you have a crystal ball, because it’ll probably be a hell of a lot more accurate than—”

  “That’s enough.”

  Zane didn’t raise his voice, but the soft command easily cut through Tallow’s diatribe. Still scowling at Indigo, the beta female folded her arms under her breasts and stepped aside, clearing the path.

  “I’ll be back to check on her in an hour,” Indigo told her brother. She resisted the urge to hug him, and instead patted his back. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  Never one to give up the last word, Tallow said, “I’m sure that’s what you told Breeze.”

  Indigo excused herself without another word, though she had to walk a good distance before she could no longer hear Tallow and Zane arguing. When the sounds of their voices faded, she finally allowed herself to tremble.

  It was worse than usual this time, and when she caught Kuva’s scent, she had to veer off the main thoroughfare and down the narrow, winding tunnel that led aboveground. She swiped at her burning eyes several times, and then wiped the moisture onto her sweater.

  As she walked, Indigo wondered how long it would be before her brother stopped sticking up for her. She knew it was only a matter of time before Zane’s eyes held the same cold accusation as Tallow’s, and the thought of losing him made bile rise in her throat.

  Zane wouldn’t have to defend you if you grew a backbone, she thought bitterly.

  Never in her life had Indigo been so prone to passivity. There had been a time when she could have traded tongue lashings with Tallow and emerged unscathed—something that even Zane had difficulty doing. But the past few months had backed Indigo into a corner and kicked her one too many times. Even if she could have summoned her temper, the last thing the pack needed right now was more tension.

  Indigo emerged from the tunnel, which emptied into a wide passageway with a high, sloping ceiling. To the left was the main room, and she could smell the scent of dinner—grilled char and soft-boiled roots. There was no singing or laughing, only the low hum of scattered conversations.

  Zane had woken Indigo up at first light, when Ginnifer had begun having contractions. Some time around noon, Indigo had ordered Zane from the room to eat, and he’d brought back food for the both of them, but Indigo’s nerves had been too frayed to do more than pick at her meal.

  She knew that she should join the others and eat something, but her stomach was still queasy and her shaking had yet to fully subside. She turned right, letting the cold wind cool her heated face as she headed for the den’s exit.

  Standing in the mouth of the cave, the tips of her boots flirted with the divide, where the stone ground succumbed to the winter snow. It was against the rules to leave the den alone, and for Indigo, that rule went double. Aside from the external threats, Indigo had the tendency to run, and then keep running, before she was even aware of what she was doing.

  But with Zane distracted and the two beta wolves in the den, there was no one to stop her from taking a walk. The island was still safe, she reasoned as
she began stripping off her clothes.

  Human clothes were impractical for shifting, and most of the other wolves opted to wear loose pelts that made changing forms a quick and seamless process. But Indigo spent less time in her wolf form than any other shifter she knew, and she found the aesthetic beauty of a color-coordinated outfit to be well worth the minor inconvenience.

  Just a quick walk, she thought as she kicked off her boots. I won’t even go over the hill.

  She pulled her ponytail free and left the elastic hair tie around her wrist. Shifting was always a bit of a process for her. Everyone else made it look so easy, but usually, Indigo had to drag her wolf to the surface by the scruff of its neck. The shift from human to wolf form was always painful, but there was nothing quite the release she experienced, not a physical one, but rather, a mental liberation.

  While she was in her wolf form, Indigo faded into the background, surrendering control to her animal. For a little while, all of her worries and troubles disappeared, and she felt light and unburdened.

  The wolf took off into a run. She kept her head low, chomping at snow as she dashed towards the hill. She frolicked on the hillside for a while, running in circles and rolling around until the heavy snow had clumped onto her dark fur. She wanted badly to howl at the moon, but the elastic band was uncomfortably tight on the joint where her leg met her paw, serving to remind her that she couldn’t give in to every animal urge that pulled at her.

  Her heightened senses picked up the trail of a hare, and soon she was bounding off in search of the small creature. She chased it for a while, having more fun collapsing its tunnels than anything else. When she finally caught it, there was no instinct to kill—never that. She only wanted to play. The hare did not seem to be enjoying the game, and before long she grew bored and let it go. As it scurried away, the wolf exhaled through her nose and rested her head on her paws.

  Her eyes went to the moon again, and she let out a soft whimper. It was so big and pretty. On a night like this, it would look even prettier reflected off the surface of the inlet. She nipped at the band on her leg.

  Time to go home. Indigo tried nudging her wolf in the direction of the den. The wolf nodded, as though in understanding, but when it rose to its feet, it began running in the opposite direction.

  By the time she reached the inlet, the moon had dipped behind the clouds, and fog had rolled over the water. Forgetting the moon, the wolf hopped along the coast, snapping her jaws at the lazy snow flurries that drifted down from the sky.

  Time to go home, Indigo told the wolf, more firmly this time.

  The wolf jerked to a stop, as though reaching the end of her leash. She paused, sniffing the air, and then without warning, it veered into the opposite direction—into the water.

  Can’t swim, can’t swim, can’t swim!

  Indigo fought to regain control of her wolf, but the animal stubbornly paddled forward. Somehow, it seemed to be managing to stay afloat, so Indigo backed off, knowing that if she did manage to shift, she’d probably drown.

  The wolf’s head dipped below the surface several times, but it pressed on, undaunted by the strong current and icy water. When it scrambled onto the far shore, Indigo aggressively wrested control back. It was the hardest battle she’d ever fought against her wolf, but fury gave her an edge. She won, coming back into her human form naked and still coughing up seawater.

  “Stupid animal,” she growled, pounding her fist on the snowy ground. “You’re not going to stop until you get us killed, are you?”

  Indigo stopped abruptly, her hand flying up to her heart. Her chest constricted, and the chill left her as a wave of heat swept over her body. She drew in a shaky breath, inhaling deeply through her nose.

  Him.

  The first time Indigo had smelled him was the previous winter. In hopes of drawing her brother away from the den and, by proxy, away from Coral, Indigo had run away. She hadn’t planned on going far, but when she’d neared the western border of Siluit territory, she’d caught the faintest hint of a scent—a tantalizing and evocative scent that made her body go haywire. Before she’d known what she was doing, she was chasing after it with blind fervor, only to end up getting caught in a poacher’s trap. The night that followed had been the most agonizing of her life, but not because of the steel teeth biting into her flesh or her imminent demise. All night, that bewitching scent had filled her nose, and she’d been powerless to pursue it.

  The following evening, she’d been found by Ginnifer and Boaz, both of them strangers at the time. Ginnifer had freed Indigo from the trap, and alongside Kuva, Tallow, and Breeze, her bother had dispatched of the poachers.

  Since then, she’d caught the trail a few times, and had never been able to resist its allure. Once, she’d even chased it within a half day of the Amarok den before Zane had come to bring her home. The worst had been when the Amarok wolves had come two months back. For a terrifying moment, she’d thought that it was Erik, Amarok’s notoriously cruel alpha, but the scent laid past him, beyond the inlet, so close, but ultimately beyond her reach. Enzo had been badly wounded, and if Indigo had left to pursue the scent, he would have almost certainly died.

  When she had been a pup, her grandmother had told her about the time before shifter males had begun taking human mates. Back then, claiming a mate was not something to be taken lightly. A wolf might spend half his life traversing the continent in order to find the one female whose scent proved to be an irresistible lure. When he found her, he would often claim her on the spot, and the union of their souls was so powerful that it would break the bonds of any claim that another male might have on her.

  The notion of a soul mate had always seemed rather fanciful to Indigo, but the first time she’d smelled him, there had been no doubt in her mind. This male was her mate. He would be the alpha of the pack they’d one day share, the father of the pups they would have together, and above all, he would be her lover until the day they died.

  Indigo thought of all this and more as she ran westward, towards the jagged hills. The region was especially dangerous in wintertime, when ice could be hiding beneath the snow. She’d seen the dangers firsthand, when Reed had fallen from one of the highest cliffs and broken his back three summers ago. Even with the benefit of his shifter healing and Marl’s medical knowledge, he still walked with a pronounced limp and had never been able to shift again.

  She tried to remind herself of Reed, and of her own mishap with the poaching trap as she ascended the first hill. It was difficult to focus on anything but her mate’s scent. She’d never smelled him this close before, not even on the day Erik had come, and she knew that there was no way he could slip from her grasp this time.

  The scent of her mate had been so overpowering, the she nearly missed the underlying odor of a bear. It was a smell she’d grown sickeningly accustomed to over the past few months, as the bear shifters continued to invade the region in small waves. It seemed as though every time they killed one, two more would be there to take its place the following week.

  Zane was the only wolf in their pack that could have taken on a bear shifter alone. Kuva and Roch might have stood a fair chance against one of the weaker ones, but everyone else in the pack, Indigo included, was under strict orders to run the second they caught wind of a bear.

  Any other night, she would have turned back and gotten her brother, but she couldn’t afford to lose her mate’s trail, not again, not when she was this close.

  She continued up the hill, stepping more quietly, but with no less urgency. The last stretch was too steep to scale by foot, and she had to claw at the slippery rocks to pull herself up. By the time she reached the top, her nails had been worn blunt and her arm sported a long red gash.

  Even as the scent had grown closer, a part of her hadn’t expected to actually find him. It had been almost a year of chasing dead-ends, and a whole lifetime of dreaming he would come to her and sweep her off her feet, like a princess in a storybook. Why now, of all times, would he final
ly be there? It was more likely she’d end up in the jaws of the bear than in the arms of her mate.

  But as she crawled on her hands and knees to peer into the basin below, her breath caught. Time did not stand still, but it did seem to slow as she saw him. His coat was the same radiant silver as the moon, sleek along his torso and long around his neck. He was a large wolf, bigger than Kuva, perhaps even the same size as Zane, but she’d known that he would be. What surprised her most was the way he held himself, his steps graceful and unhurried, his amber eyes utterly indifferent as the bear circled him.

  Indigo’s hand went to her mouth, muffling a gasp. She wouldn’t be the one in the jaws of the bear, her mate would be, if she didn’t do something. Giving her wolf a hard tug, she was shocked when the animal responded in earnest, catapulting her into the shift before she’d had a chance to fully prepare herself. As her form changed, she lost her footing on the edge of the cliff.

  She came into her wolf form a mere instant before she hit the ground headfirst. The snow and her more durable animal form prevented her from sustaining serious damage, but for a moment the world spun around her. Staggering to her feet, she lifted her head in time to see the bear charging at her, its mouth open wide to reveal a set of serrated teeth.

  Indigo reared up on her hind legs, and to her utter amazement, the bear stopped short, snapping at the air in front of her, but making no move to actually bite her. Indigo came down onto all fours and backed away, just as her mate arrive at her side.

  He issued three deep, aggressive barks in the bear’s direction, and the bear immediately drew back. It began to pace in front of them, but after one more bark from her mate, it turned and fled.

  As she stared after the bear’s retreating figure, Indigo released her hold on her wolf. She shifted into her human form with relative ease, but to her dismay, she was shaking again and she felt dizzy. Hoping he would be able to look past her disheveled state, she braved a glance at her mate.