“It’s frustrating,” Indigo said, tugging at her earlobe. “I can’t get an angle on him. This thing I smell, it has to be pheromones, right? And if it’s affecting me so strongly, than it has to be affecting him, too.”
Ginnifer chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Well, you said he’s Erik’s brother, right? My guess is that it if he did like you, it would put him in a difficult position. Just the fact that you’re Zane’s sister would keep him from, um, jumping your bones, so to speak. And as far as being mates, well if that’s the case then you’d be a big complication for him. If were going to take a mate, he’d probably have to leave Amarok.”
Indigo hadn’t considered any of that. She’d always imagined her mate as already being an alpha, and it had never occurred to her that he wouldn’t immediately claim her and bring her back to his pack. A selfish part of her—probably her stupid wolf—wished that her mate would take her far away from Siluit, to a place where no one died, except of old age, and they could raise their pups without fear for the future.
“I thought it would be so much simpler,” Indigo said, her shoulders sagging.
Ginnifer opened her arms to pull Indigo into a loose embrace. She rubbed Indigo’s back, gently stroking between her shoulder blades in a way that always made Indigo want to sigh.
“If it really is him,” Ginnifer said, “then I know things will work out for you in the end. Now might not be the best of times, but we can’t live our lives waiting for sunny days.”
* * *
Engraved into the top of the stone table was a sprawling map, deep lines marking off the borders of the Siluit territory, with Amarok to the west, Sedna to the north, and the ocean to the east. Intricately carved trees dotted the southern end of the map, where the tundra met the forest, the former territory of the Talek bear tribe. Grey and white pebbles had been rubbed smooth, and at a glance, they seemed to be randomly scattered across the map. Upon closer inspection, Sten could see that they were deliberately placed, with certain colors clustering in separate areas.
Henna was standing to his right, while Vale stood close to his left. Both of the beta females appeared worn out, too thoroughly for mere sleep deprivation. The age lines on Henna’s face appeared particularly pronounced as she stared down at the map, her lips pressed to a thin slash.
“The grey ones are sightings,” Vale explained. “The white are for attacks.”
“Are these all in the past year?” Sten asked.
Henna cast him a pained look. “This is just the past four months.”
Sten looked up at the Siluit wolves. Zane, Kuva, and Tallow stood on the far side of the room. The beta male appeared to be on the verge of falling asleep, and Zane didn’t look like he’d be far behind him. Only Tallow didn’t look completely exhausted, though dark circles rimmed her eyes.
“What about Sedna?” Sten asked. “Aren’t the two of you allies?”
Zane shook his head. “They aren’t going to help.”
“Because you’re holding Shale’s daughter captive,” Henna said, making no effort to hide her irritation.
“She is not a captive,” Kuva said, his bushy brows drawing together. “She is under our protection.”
“You have Coral here?” Sten asked.
Suspicion flashed in Zane’s eyes. “You know Coral?”
Before Sten could give a vague response, Tallow spoke up. “If he’d started screwing Shale a few years earlier, Coral probably would have been his pup.”
So much for pretense.
Sten gave her a demure smile. “So you do remember me, then?”
Scowling, she said, “I never forget a pretty face.”
“You were a member of Sedna?” Zane asked.
He nodded, but before the alpha could question him further, Sten waved a hand over the map and said, “What you’re seeing now is not a concentrated effort. The shifters that have attacked you are small clans that have broken off from a larger herd.”
Sten pointed towards the southern border of Amarok’s territory. “My brother and one of his beta males have made contact with leadership within the herd. That’s why I’ve come here. While Erik’s primary concern was the security of our pack, he was able to ascertain their intentions towards your pack and arrange for a dialogue between the bear shifters and Siluit.”
He’d been practicing that speech for most of his journey, fine-tuning it so that everything he said was the truth. That way, if Siluit did manage to emerge the victors against the bear shifters, Amarok would have plausible deniability. They could claim that they’d had no idea that the bear shifters had only been using the negotiations as a means to infiltrate the Siluit den.
Of course, now Sten could see that an outright lie would have sufficed. The onslaught of skirmishes had whittled down the packs numbers and had left the remaining fighters worn out and haggard. There was no way Siluit would survive an attack from the full force of the bear herd.
Tallow was the first to speak, practically spitting out the words. “We’re not going to talk to those filthy bastards. If they come anywhere near our den, they’re dead.”
Sten kept his attention fixed on Zane. For the first time since Sten had met him, Zane looked the part of an alpha, with his chin raised high and his expression inscrutable.
“If you refuse, then there can be no chance of peace,” Sten told him, the words leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
Kuva folded thick arms across his chest. “I do not like this. Why now do they ask for peace?”
They were all staring at Sten, but he gave a noncommittal shrug. “I am only delivering the message. If you agree, then we will personally escort their representatives to your pack within the next month.”
“And if we don’t?” Zane asked, fixing Sten with a penetrating stare. “Will that be the end of our alliance?”
“I don’t know,” Sten said plainly. “Erik is unpredictable at the best of times, but given that he’s just taken a mate, I’m not even sure he knows what he’ll want to do next.”
A hush fell over the room, and for a moment even Tallow appeared contemplative. Finally, Zane sighed and rubbed his temple. “I need to sleep on this. I’ll give you my answer in the morning.”
The mention of his brother’s mate had reminded Sten of the other reason he’d been sent to Siluit—to try to convince Zane to send Ginnifer to Amarok. Sten still wasn’t certain how he was going to accomplish that, but he knew that it wouldn’t happen tonight.
Kuva regarded Sten with a flinty gaze. “I will take you to a room.”
Chapter 5
Indigo stayed with Ginnifer until the human nodded off. As much as she enjoyed her sister’s company, she was glad when she was finally able to slip away.
After narrowly avoiding her brother in the hallway, she set to tracking Sten’s scent. It seemed to be stuck in her nose, making it difficult for her to smell anything but him wherever she went. Tracing his steps back to an empty map room, she paused outside the door and sniffed the air.
She caught Kuva’s scent a moment before he appeared around the corner. The stocky male had long grey hair, a byproduct of his wolf coloring that had nothing to do with his age, which was only three years above Zane’s. He carried a small tray of meat, and the smell made her stomach rumble.
“Is that muskox?” she asked.
Her nose told her it was, but it had been over a week since the last time she’d had anything besides fish. There were no muskoxen on the island, and the hunting grounds beyond that were too dangerous. The few times they’d ventured out for muskoxen, only the hunters and Ginnifer had been given fresh meat, and the rest had gone to the storeroom, where it wasn’t to be touched unless there was an emergency.
“It’s for our guest,” Kuva explained. “If you’re hungry, you can—”
“Sten? Where is he?”
Kuva was accustomed to being interrupted. He spoke slowly, as he had to mentally translate the words from his native tongue. “He is in the room next to Kya’s.”
Indigo’s appetite abruptly vanished. “Why? There are plenty of other rooms.”
“There was already a bed,” he reasoned. When Indigo continued to frown at him, he sighed and went on to say, “It was Breeze’s room. Now, it is not. You must accept this.”
Another time, Indigo might have been angry. Having lost both of her parents, she was intimately acquainted with death, but the fact that Breeze had bled out right beneath Indigo’s fingers made the admonition all the more aggravating.
“I’ll take that,” she said, holding her hands out for the tray.
Kuva continued walking. “You should go to bed.” His nose wrinkled. “But first, take a bath.”
Indigo could have easily guilted him into getting her way, but she thought better of it. Instead, she gave him the sweetest smile she could muster, and said, “Kuva, did my brother tell you how I’m not allowed to leave the den until further notice?”
Kuva gave a cautious nod. “We are to make sure you do not go outside without Zane’s permission.”
“Well, there are two ways this can go.” She motioned towards the tray. “Either I can be a good girl, stay in my room, keep busy with my silly little projects, and stay out of your hair, or…”
With a low grumble, Kuva stopped and thrust the tray at her. Beaming, Indigo took it, but the beta male did not immediately release his hold on it.
“You are not to leave the den. It is not safe out there,” he said.
“I know,” she replied, tugging at the tray. He still didn’t budge.
“He is not safe either, this Amarok wolf. I do not trust him.”
“Duly noted.”
He released his hold on the tray, giving her a worried look. Now she was the one who felt guilty. She knew that he was only looking out for her, as he always had, since she’d been a pup. She patted the side of his arm, giving him a sincere smile.
“Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”
Sort of, she thought, as she turned to walk away.
Breeze’s room was down the hall past Indigo’s, but well before the lower chambers where Zane and the betas resided. Breeze had been a beta female, but she’d preferred to sleep closer to where the pups were.
Indigo stood outside of the door, which was obscured by stitched hides. She usually went out of her way to avoid passing the room, let alone going inside. She heard nothing stir within the room, but she knew he was in there.
Why this room? Can’t anything go the way I’d hope tonight?
When she’d imagined finding Sten, this had been the last place she’d expected him to be. She considered going back to her room and leaving the food there, and then using the meal as an excuse to draw him out of Breeze’s room. But if she brought him to her room, he might think that she was trying to seduce him.
Would that be such a bad thing?
That stubborn arousal came back as she imagined getting him back onto her bed, this time without her brother to interrupt them. She wondered what his lips would feel like against hers, and if he would bite her neck, marking her as his own.
But what if he doesn’t want to stop there?
Indigo didn’t think she would have the willpower to deny him, even though mating in her room would be highly inadvisable. Anyone would be able to hear or smell them, and the thought of Zane finding her doing that… Her cheeks flushed.
No, they couldn’t mate in the den. But maybe, if he wanted to claim her, they could go outside.
There you go, already reneging on your deal to Kuva.
And was that really where she wanted to spend her first time with her mate, fumbling around out in the cold and the snow? No, she wanted him somewhere warm and cozy, with furs against her bare back, and his strong body above her, infusing her with his heat as he kissed her, stroked her, and moved inside of her.
“Are you coming in?”
Sten’s cool voice made Indigo jump, and she nearly dropped a portion of the meat. She took a breath to steady herself, and then pulled up the door coverings to step inside.
She managed two steps in before she froze, her wide eyes fixed on Sten. He was lying on his side, his long body making the bed appear as though it had been made for a pup. A carefully placed pelt covered his groin, but nothing else, leaving his torso on full display. Indigo knew that she’d seen him naked once before, but her attention had been entirely drawn to his face. Her body clenched as she took in the rows of hard muscles, gloriously marred by what must have been a hundred scars, like scratched marble.
The deep clearing of a throat brought her attention upwards, where Sten had his head propped up on his hand, and was watching her with a look somewhere between amusement and annoyance.
* * *
With the slight maneuvering of his thigh, Sten managed to obscure his erection. Mostly. He wanted to scowl at Indigo, both for hovering around his door and for coming in smelling like she was ready to climb into his bed, but as she gaped at his body, he couldn’t help feeling a little pleased.
For the first time since meeting the female, his wolf offered its input, sending Sten vivid images of grabbing her by the hair, bending her over the bed, and mounting her from behind. He fought the urge to roll his eyes.
Settle down, Sten thought, giving the animal a mental kick.
When it was on its best behavior, Sten’s wolf could make Erik’s seem rational and civilized. If his wolf had its way, Sten would spend his days hunting, fucking every female he encountered, and tearing the throats out of every male who looked at him the wrong way. Sten’s control over the beast never slipped, though it did sometimes weaken when he grew truly angry. Thankfully, it rarely reared its head for arousal, except to flood his mind with perverse suggestions that were usually more entertaining than bothersome.
He cleared his throat, causing her to tear her eyes from his chest. The color in her cheeks deepened, but when she spoke, her voice was steady.
“You said you weren’t a fighter.”
Sten gave a slight shrug. “I don’t seek fights, but with Erik for a brother, they tend to find me.”
That was partially true. A few of the scars had come from battles he’d been in with Erik. Most had come from Erik himself.
He nodded at the tray of meat. “Is that for me?”
Head bobbing, she came over and cleared the table beside his bed, gathering up the stone figurines before setting the tray down. Sten watched as she took the figurines to the shelves, carefully placing them with the groups of corresponding animals. She took her time, and he would have thought she was stalling to stay in the room, if not for the pained expression on her face.
Kuva, the beta male who had brought Sten to his room, had said in not so many words that the room had belonged to a pack mate that had been killed recently. The female’s scent still clung to the room, and he suspected that was the reason Indigo looked so troubled.
With some effort, he ignored the tray of meat. “How is your arm?”
Her head perked in his direction when he addressed her. Whatever dark spell the room had cast on her instantly vanished, and she padded over to the bed, sitting down on the edge and lifting up the pelt to display her arm. And again, the side of her firm breast. It was hard not to wet his lips.
Sten ran his finger along the stitches. The skin around them was still red. “Do you always heal this slowly?”
With her shifter healing, the wound should have been well on its way to being sealed after an hour of being stitched.
Indigo shook her head, though she never took her eyes off him to look at the wound.
“When did you last eat?”
She looked up thoughtfully. “Yesterday?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable amount of time. Most shifters he knew ate only once a day, and could abstain from eating for several days without being too badly affected. But lack of nutrition had a major impact on the recovery process, and could render their healing as weak as a human’s.
“Have some,” he said, gesturing towards the tray of
meat. He helped himself to a slice, but Indigo shook her head.
“I don’t like to eat with my fingers,” she said, primly folding her hands in her lap.
“You’re a very strange female,” he murmured as he sniffed the meat, and then lowered it into his mouth. It was tender, and slightly bloody. His wolf approved.
He thought she might take offense to his comment, but Indigo cocked her head, her lips quirking. “Strange, or intriguing?”
Sten couldn’t stop the snort of laughter. She seemed to take his amusement as a signal to get comfortable, because she drew her legs up onto the bed, pulling them to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. He found her position endearing, if not a touch childish.
“My mother had pale skin like you,” she said. “She was from Alaska, a town called Anchorage. Where are you from?”
Town? The female really was endearing. Inordinately so.
“I was born in Greenland,” he told her.
Her mouth popped open. “Kuva’s from there too, but you don’t look anything like him. Do you speak Kalaallisut?”
“Poorly,” he said. “Only enough to communicate with the native speakers in my father’s pack.”
“Which language did you speak, then? I can tell you have an accent. I like it, by the way.”
Sten wanted to snort again, but there was no telling what she’d do if he favored her with more laughter. His wolf offered a few ideas, and the salacious images heated his blood.
“I’m glad you approve,” he said, giving her a sardonic smile. “I mostly spoke my mother’s language, Danish, though I was also fluent in my father’s Sami dialect.”
“What’s Sami? I’ve never heard of that language. Where was your father from?”
“Do you question all of your guests so thoroughly?”
Her violet eyes seemed to sparkle. “Only the interesting ones.”
“Norway,” Sten said, sighing the word. “My father was from Norway.”
“How did he get to Greenland? By boat?”
Chasing the Alpha: Shifters of Nunavut, Book #3 Page 4
