Boaz had been Ginnifer’s cameraman, though unlike Ginnifer, he had never expressed any desire to leave the pack. He’d fallen in love with Tallow, and as hard as it was for Indigo to believe, Tallow was smitten with him as well. Indigo shuddered to think of how Tallow would handle him leaving.
“Of course I am,” he said, raking a hand through his curly hair. “I’d give anything to be able to take Tallow and the pups, all of you, away from all of this insanity.”
“But we are getting away.”
“Yeah, to Amarok, a pack full of psychopaths.”
“They’re not all bad,” she said, wincing at the lack of confidence in her voice.
“I just want her to be safe,” he said. “If she were human…”
He left the sentence unfinished, though Indigo could guess at what he’d been about to say. If Tallow were human, the two of them could leave the pack and go live in a town or city. While she’d heard of some wolves who’d been able to live in human society, Indigo didn’t think Tallow would ever be able to adhere to the structure of laws, or keep her animal nature under control.
“I’m sorry to unload this on you,” he said, eyes shimmering with sincerity. “I know I’m not good for much, but I am here for the long haul.”
“I know,” she said, feeling guilty that she’d ever doubted him.
“Don’t tell Tallow about this. She’s already upset about the move.”
“I won’t.” She hesitated, her fingers tugging at her earlobe. “Can I tell you something? You have to promise not to tell anyone else though, especially not Zane.”
“Sure. What is it?”
She looked both ways down the long hallway. There was no one around, but she still lowered her voice to a whisper.
“That bear shifter earlier, he’d didn’t say anything about an attack. He’d didn’t say anything at all. He just died. Sten had us lie to my brother so that Zane would agree to leave the den.”
From Boaz’s shocked expression, Indigo inferred that he hadn’t been expecting a secret of this magnitude. “What the hell?” he asked, loudly enough that she had to shush him. “Why did you go along with it? Did he threaten you?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. He knew, Boaz. Sten knew before he even came here that the bear clans were planning an attack on our den. He was going to leave without warning us.”
Boaz’s face was pale. “Shit… What made him change his mind?”
“What does it matter? The point is that he was going to let us die. How can we trust him after that?”
How can I trust him?
Boaz’s jaw worked as he considered her. “The night we found you, Ginnifer and I sat on that hill and watched you suffer for hours.” He looked away, and blinked several times before going on. “When Ginnifer finally decided to go down and help you, I tried to stop her. I didn’t like watching you struggle against that trap, but I knew it would make a good scene for the documentary.
“Now that I know you… Christ, Indigo, I’d stop a bullet for you. But back then, you and your pack, you were all strangers to me.”
“Boaz…”
“Honestly, I don’t know if Sten can be trusted,” he said. “But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he’d go through all the trouble of tricking us so elaborately. Odds are, he was making what he thought was the right call, and then he changed his mind.”
Indigo leaned into his side, signaling to him that she wasn’t upset. She had known that Boaz and Ginnifer had watched her while she’d been trapped, but she’d always assumed that they’d merely been afraid to approach a shifter. She couldn’t have been mad at him, not when Zane and the betas had watched her as well, all with the point of teaching her a lesson for running away.
Boaz was right, and she was glad, because now she wouldn’t feel so guilty about pursuing Sten. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had any real chance of swearing him off. He was her mate, after all.
“Would you really die for me?” she asked, crinkling her nose.
Boaz gave her a sly look. “I said I’d take a bullet for you. I was thinking more of superficial bullet wound, like in the arm, or grazing the side of my chest. The kind that’ll hurt, but leave me with a badass scar.”
Laughing, she elbowed him in the side. He jumped back, holding his palms up in front of him. “Watch it. I’ll tell Tallow you attacked me.”
“And I’ll tell her that you were staring at Kya’s breasts last week.”
The color drained from his face. “That wasn’t…”
Indigo patted his shoulder. “Relax, I’m only joking.” She smiled at him. “I have something to do. Thanks for listening. I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me.”
Chapter 10
Indigo was getting better at tracking Sten’s scent. She followed his trail out to the main room, where it changed slightly, the natural fragrance of him mixing with sweat and earth. It told her that he’d returned from his patrol with Henna, and she lifted her nose to the air, picking up the fresh trail that led to the other end of the den.
Opposite to where the bedchambers were, there was a vast network of interlocking tunnels. Anyone who hadn’t been walking the tunnels from an early age could have easily gotten lost in them. They were also bitterly cold, which made them an odd place for the washrooms.
Now and again, someone would suggest moving the washrooms to the other side of the den, where the air was warmer and the ambiance was less foreboding. But the underground reservoir directly below the washrooms made it easy to haul water to the tubs, and no one wanted to carry the heavy buckets farther than they had to.
Until she’d met Ginnifer and Boaz, Indigo had only heard of hot baths in stories. Heating the water for the humans to bathe in was very impractical, but something that neither human was willing to compromise on. None of the wolves she knew had ever taken a hot bath in the den, so it surprised her to see steam rolling out of one of the washrooms. As she approached, the hot mist brushed over her. It was thick with Sten’s scent.
She stopped, attuning her ears to any sounds from within the room. There was nothing, save for the sound of rhythmic breathing. Among pack, there was nothing particularly private about a bath, which was what she reminded herself of as she stepped into the steamy room.
The oval-shaped metal tub was big enough to have fit Indigo twice over, but it couldn’t hold even one of Sten. His long arms rested on the rim of the tub, while his legs hung over the end, the heels of his feet almost resting on the floor. Only his hips and the bottom half of his torso were submerged in the water, which left his glistening marble chest on full display.
Two candles, melted nearly to the floor, lit up his face. His eyes were closed, and his head rested on a rolled up towel, placed beneath his neck and the back of the tub. His long hair hung dry and in a pool behind him on the floor. He looked like he could be asleep, and with his features in repose, Indigo thought he looked very much like an angel. Not the kind that sang and played harps, but the kind that held swords and battled demons.
The heat in her cheeks had more to do with her own silly thoughts than Sten’s nudity. He was her mate, and she had a right to look at his body. She took another step forward, craning her neck to get a look at the parts of him that lay beneath the water, but they were obscured by shadow.
“Are you going to say something, or did you just come here to stare?”
She hadn’t thought that he was actually sleep, so his words didn’t startle her. Not really.
“How did you manage to heat so much water up?”
She sounded remarkably self-possessed.
How long will that last?
The water was disturbed as he gave a slight shrug. “Vale arranged it.”
At the mention of the other female, Indigo felt the urge to growl. Vale was one of the more civilized Amarok females, which wasn’t saying much, but Indigo sort of liked her. She was very beautiful, with a full chest that drew the attention of all the males, even the ones that wer
e frightened of her. She was also much older than Indigo, with an air of maturity that Indigo could not have feigned for herself.
“It’s wasteful,” she said, practically growling her disapproval.
Sten opened his eyes, his smooth features calmly serene. “You don’t take hot baths?”
“Never.”
His heavy-lidded gaze settled on her, and her anger evaporated. Pinned by those amber eyes, she couldn’t even remember what she’d been so upset about.
“It relaxes the muscles,” he told her, stretching his corded arms. “In my pack, we have several underground springs that are pools of hot water. A few are hot enough to boil you, but most of them are the perfect temperature for bathing. Perhaps you’ll see them for yourself one day.”
Even if Sten waited naked in a pool of warm water, she probably wouldn’t get into it if it were deeper than her knees. Still, her skin prickled at the thought of sharing a bath with him in his den.
“Do you think I’ll ever go to your den?” she asked. “Zane said that we’d probably be staying in one of the mountains near it, and that your brother wouldn’t let us in your den.”
Sten only shrugged. It annoyed her, because she wanted to know if he envisioned bringing her back to Amarok.
He stood, and despite the odd way he’d been laying in the tub, he was on his feet in one fluid movement. Water cascaded down his body, over his scarred chest, past his powerful hips, and down his strong legs to splash onto the floor. Her eyes remained fixed on his hips, where she got her first good look at what was between his legs.
She’d anticipated that he’d be well endowed, so his size came as little surprise to her, until she realized that he was only partially erect. She wondered how much bigger he’d be once her was fully aroused and prepared to mate with her.
Tying the towel around his hips, Sten gave her a tight-lipped frown. “I assume you’re no longer angry with me.”
She had to consider the statement for a few seconds, and at first she thought he was referring to the way she’d reacted when he’d mentioned Vale. But that had been a brief agitation compared to everything that had happened that afternoon.
“I am still angry with you,” she told him. “But…you did the right thing, eventually, so I’ll forgive you. Eventually. But if you ever make me lie to my brother again, I’ll add another scar to that chest of yours.”
Indigo pantomimed the threat, drawing her claw in the air across her chest. He smirked in a patronizing manner that would have earned anyone else the rough side of her tongue.
“Why did you decide to help us?” she asked.
“Because it was the right thing to do.”
“Do you always do the right thing?”
His grin faded. “No.”
Indigo tensed as he approached her in sauntering steps, instinct telling her to brace herself. He stopped a pace in front of her, and looking up at him, she felt very small. She had wanted a mate that was tall and strong, one that could intimidate anyone that sought to threaten her. She only wished that he didn’t intimidate her as well.
“What is it with you?” he asked. “Why do you follow me around like this? Why do you talk to me the way that you do? Why do you stare at me as though we’re already lovers?”
It was difficult for her to swallow. She still didn’t think she could tell him the truth yet, not until she was sure that he felt the pull as strongly as she did.
Her gaze flitted to his mouth, and then back up to his eyes. “Kiss me.”
He said nothing, though his brow creased.
“Kiss me once, and if you ask me to, I’ll leave you alone.”
“I’ll be back in my den within the week.”
Despite her nervousness, she smiled. “A week is plenty of time for me to stalk you. And who knows, maybe next time I’ll ask for more than a kiss.”
“You think it would be that easy to seduce me?” he asked wryly.
“Do you really want to find out?”
He hooked a finger under her chin, scrutinizing her face as he spoke. “One kiss and you’ll leave me alone? Just like that?”
“All you have to do is say the words,” she said, her heart pounding against her ribcage.
“You’d give up so easily?”
She thought he sounded disappointed, but it was probably wishful thinking.
“I didn’t say I’d give up. I’ll have to wait for you to come to me instead.”
Sten’s chest rumbled with soft laughter. It didn’t bother her, not when he was looking at her with unexpected affection.
“Fine. One kiss.”
Sten started to lower his head, but a thought made Indigo’s hand shoot up to block him.
“It has to be a real kiss, not just a quick peck.”
He looked as thought he was going to laugh again. “I know what a real kiss is. Do you?”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to give some defensive retort that would have betrayed her inexperience, but Sten was too quick. Seizing her hand by its wrist, he pinned it to the wall behind her. In the next instant, his mouth was on hers.
The second his lips touched hers, she moaned. The soft sound had been impossible to hold back, as though her body needed to tell them both how much it had been craving his kiss. Any embarrassment she may have felt quickly dissipated, as she reveled in the feel of his lips moving over hers.
His kiss was gentle, and in sharp contrast to the way he still held her wrist, his grip so tight she thought it might bruise. Though she’d gone over and over in her mind how she was going to kiss him, Sten gave her no opportunity to take the lead. His mouth moved confidently, skillfully, and it was all she could do just to react to him. Anxiety trickled through the pleasure, and she was afraid he’d be dissatisfied and end the kiss soon if she couldn’t do something to hold his interest.
Something hard brushed against her abdomen. Arching into him, she felt herself being jabbed, and realized that it was his penis, now fully hard. Did it always happen so quickly, or was it because he was enjoying her? Curious and more than a little excited, she drew her leg up to rest on his hip. The position opened her up, and allowed her to pull their pelvises closer together.
Sten gave a chiding growl and nipped her bottom lip. If it was meant to be a reprimand, he’d failed utterly. Heat burst through her body, incinerating doubt and fear, everything that wasn’t pleasurable. She whimpered into his mouth. It was a needy sound, and for all his reproof, he was suddenly pushing her against the wall, his rigid length jutting against her soft belly.
Her wolf was remarkably silent, but unmistakably present. It was the force that kept her bold each time it seemed as though Sten was going to pull away. Then, she would deepen their kiss, until he ended up kissing her even harder than before.
Time kept leaping ahead when all she wanted was to slow it down. She was so absorbed in his touch that certain things kept slipping through the cracks in her awareness. When had he let her wrist go, and how long had his hand been in her hair? For that matter, how long had her tongue been in his mouth, and how could he possibly taste so good?
One kiss. That had been their agreement, but her wolf wanted more. So did Sten, she could feel it. She had to get him inside of her, to fill her, to take away the unbearable ache and replace it with pleasure. Her dress was already hiked up. If she could only get that damn towel off his hips, she could maneuver herself so that he was inside of her. Something told her that if she could just get him nestled within her, he wouldn’t be able to leave until he’d taken his release.
Her hand, which had been reveling in his muscled chest, dipped low to tug at the edge of the towel. It was tied taut, but she yanked at a second time, until she felt it begin to give.
This time, Sten’s growl was harder. Before she could blink, both of her hands were pinned above her head and he’d broken their kiss. She looked up at him, unable to stop herself from pouting. He was panting, but for all his rough handling, he didn’t appear angry.
“What’s wrong?
” she asked in a breathy voice.
For once, Sten seemed at a loss for words. It was strange, the way his mouth opened and closed, his face twisted with indecision. Indigo had no such dilemma. If she had her way, he would put his lips back on her, get rid of the towel, and bury himself inside of her. She could deal with the consequences later, so long as her hunger for him had been satiated.
“We can’t do this here,” he said huskily. Then he shook his head. “We can’t do this anywhere.”
“But I want you,” she said, sounding like a child even to her own ears. Not caring, she rubbed against his erection for emphasis. “And you want me.”
“Don’t do that.”
She almost pointed out that he could have easily stepped away from her, but she was enjoying his closeness.
“You know it isn’t that simple,” he said, a touch gruffly. “You said one kiss. It’s done now. Are you defaulting on our deal?”
Indigo grit her teeth, not because of Sten’s words, but because of her wolf. The animal seemed to think it could do a better job of securing her mate, and was intent on proving it. It was difficult to stop herself from shifting, but she had to do it. She couldn’t let Sten know that she wasn’t able to control her wolf.
There was silence between them for a short while, until he finally let her go and stepped back. Her knees felt weak, and she wanted to fall to the floor. Only pride kept her legs straight. Extending her arm, she was just able to reach his chest. She traced a finger over one of his scars.
“I’ll wait for you to come to me,” she said, leaving before she could make a fool of herself.
Chapter 11
Indigo’s skin turned to gooseflesh as she sank into the icy water of the reservoir. It was forbidden to swim in the underground lake, but she knew that all of the water they’d need for the next few days was already stored in casks in the upper chambers. No one would be drinking out of the reservoir between now and morning, so she didn’t feel bad about giving herself a vigorous scrub down in it.
Chasing the Alpha: Shifters of Nunavut, Book #3 Page 9
