Hanging around the washrooms hadn’t been an option. She’d seen Sten getting back into the bath as she’d been leaving. He’d have to wash her scent off of himself, and she didn’t want to risk another run in with him.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. If she could, she would plaster herself to Sten’s side. But absence made the heart grow fonder. She’d read that in a book, and it seemed to apply to this situation. If she kept chasing him around like a lovesick pup, he wouldn’t have any time to miss her.
“And besides,” she grumbled to herself. “I’m through being the pursuer. I’m the female. I shouldn’t be chasing him. He should be trying to sweep me off my feet, or seduce me.” She raked fingers through her wet hair and growled. “Why won’t you seduce me?”
At least this time she hadn’t been a blathering idiot. For the most part, she’d been pretty in control of herself. In fact, up until he’d kissed the sense out of her, she’d felt more like her old self than she had in months. She only hoped that the kiss had been enough to ignite a fire in him. If he didn’t come to her…
Sighing, she pushed the thought from her mind. There was no sense agonizing over it now. Besides, with everything that was happening in the pack, there would be plenty to distract her over the next few days.
Before coming down to the reservoir, she’d swiped a towel from one of the washrooms. She wrapped it around herself, and regretfully tossed her dress into the water. She couldn’t wear it back to her room, as it was covered in Sten’s scent.
“Soon,” she whispered, staring at the dress.
Soon enough, she wouldn’t have to hide her feelings for Sten, or worry about who smelled him on her skin. They’d be mates, and everyone would know that she belonged to him.
On her way up through the tunnels, she caught wind of Kya’s scent. She sped to catch up with it, and a moment later, her friend came into view.
Kya wore a pair of jeans and a V-neck sweater that showcased her impressive curves. She was the only other wolf in their pack that preferred dressing in human clothes, which was one of the reasons she and Indigo had become good friends, despite the fact that Kya was almost ten years her senior. She had the darkest skin Indigo had ever seen, and her black hair was always tied into over a hundred tiny braids and ornately beaded. The braids made it impossible for her to shift, but her exotic beauty meant there were no shortage of males willing to carry her on their backs.
“What are you doing back?” Indigo asked, coming up to walk alongside of her.
Kya was holding a thick bundle of leather bags under one toned arm, and a lantern in the other. “You probably know more than I do. Lake came to get Coral and I about an hour ago, saying we needed to come back to the den to pack. I’m out of the den for two days, and suddenly we’re all heading off to join Amarok.”
“We’re not joining them, just staying in their territory until this thing with the bears blows over.” Indigo was only half aware of what she was saying. Her mind was one step ahead of her mouth, and contemplating something awful. “Wait, so Coral is back in the den? Is she… Is it over?”
Kya had been away from the den, holed up in a small cave with Coral while they waited out her heat. A pureblooded shifter female could become fertile as often as once per season, but it only seemed to happen to Coral once every winter. When it did happen, she needed to be isolated from the pack, otherwise the males would be at each other’s throats over her.
“Are you kidding? It’ll be another week,” Kya said, giving Indigo a shoulder bump. “She’s insanely horny and trying to screw everything with a cock and a pulse. Basically, it’s going to be the most hilarious week of our lives. I’m starting a betting pool—how many days until she tries crawling into bed with Zane. Bonus points if you think Ginnifer will punch her in the face. God, I hope so.”
There had been a time when Indigo and Coral had been best friends. Less than a year apart in age, they’d practically grown up together, with Coral spending every winter of her girlhood in Siluit. One winter, when they were fourteen, Coral hadn’t come to stay with them. After hours of listening in on private conversations between Zane and Breeze, Indigo had found out that Coral had become fertile for the first time.
When she saw her friend the following year, Coral had become a completely different person. Her silly, bubbly personality had vanished, replaced by cold aloofness. After weeks of trying to get to the bottom of it, Coral had finally snapped and told Indigo that she was a woman, and no longer interested in playing with girls.
It had been a particularly low blow for Indigo, and Coral had known it. Indigo was older than Coral, but had yet to show any signs that she’d ever be able to have pups. Because her father had been a pureblooded shifter, she had always aspired to have a mate and pups of her own, but there was always the possibility that her mother’s human blood had rendered her infertile, like so many other female shifters.
Fourteen had been an absurd age to worry over fertility. She certainly hadn’t wanted pups then, but she did have a growing sense of dread with each season that passed without her scent changing. She’d shared her insecurities with Coral, who had commiserated with her, confessing that she herself was afraid she wouldn’t be able to have pups. Coral had been promised to Zane from the day she’d been born a female, and at the time, she’d seen no other future for herself, other than being his mate.
They had both cried and hugged, and promised to support one another, no matter what happened. That was why her words the following year had been a slap in the face, and completely unforgivable. It was the first time in her life that she had actually hated someone.
Usually, the prospect of Coral making a fool of herself would have been as exciting to her as it was to Kya, but this time it only made Indigo feel nauseous. Not even Zane would be entirely immune to Coral’s scent. If she set her eyes on Sten, it would ruin everything. All it would take was for Coral to entice him into being with her once, and she could very well end up carrying his pup.
Oh, God.
“You’ll be watching her, right?” Indigo asked. “To make sure she doesn’t try sleeping with anyone?”
Oblivious to Indigo’s inner turmoil, Kya shrugged. “Zane wants me to. Personally, I take issue with trying to control her sexual needs. She’s a grown woman, who are we to stop her if she wants a mate and pups?”
“But she’s not in her right mind,” Indigo protested. “Her judgment is compromised by her hormones. If she really wanted a mate, she’d pursue a male when she wasn’t fertile.”
“I guess,” Kya said, in a way that told Indigo that she was dropping the subject. “Hey, aren’t you going to ask me where we’re going?”
“We’re headed to the storeroom, right?”
They were past the washrooms, and it was the only other place of note on this side of the den. The freezing temperatures of the lower chambers made it so that they could store cured meats for months without fear of them spoiling.
Kya said, “Coral’s asleep, and Lake is keeping an eye on her. There’s no way I can sleep tonight, so I figured I’d pack up the food. Wanna help?”
Indigo nodded. “I don’t have anywhere better to be.”
“Pretty soon, our lives might not be so damn boring. I can’t believe we’re going to Amarok territory.”
Indigo thought to point out that Kya’s life was anything but boring. She regularly made trips to Nataq, the town where her human mother lived, and when she was in the den there were no shortage of males fawning over her.
“I’ve heard that their pack has three males for every one female, and every last one of their males is a skilled fighter,” Kya said, licking her lips. “If they look anything like Erik’s brother, I’m gonna have…”
Kya’s words became muddled in the haze of jealous anger that fell over Indigo. She almost told Kya flat out that Sten was hers, but that would have brought up a discussion she wasn’t ready to have. How could she claim that Sten belonged to her, when Sten didn’t even think he did?
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She quickly reined her anger in before Kya caught on, though it was a while before she could focus on anything the other female was saying.
The storeroom was a massive cavern that was partitioned by a thin wall of stone. Every available space on the walls had been carved into shelves, and every one of them was stocked with food. Most of it was caribou meat, hunted and smoked during the summer, when the herds came through and there was plenty of dried foliage to use for kindling. There was also plenty of muskox meat, rabbit, waterfowl, and Indigo’s least favorite, seal. Because they were hunted outside of summer, they had to be salted.
Despite ample food in storage, the wolves still chose to hunt for fresh meat most days. Unless there was a particularly bad winter, most of the salted meat would be thrown away in late spring, when the caribou herds would return. Even during their worst winter, when it had been snowstorm after snowstorm and they’d been unable to leave the den for three months, their food stores had come nowhere near depletion.
She and Kya had filled four large bags with food by the time they were done. It would only be enough meat to last the pack a few days, and Kya said she’d come back with Roch later to pack more.
After dropping off their haul in the main room, Indigo excused herself to return to her room. To her dismay, she already wanted to seek Sten out. She could smell him somewhere nearby, and his fresh, clean scent bothered her. Though it was completely irrational, she wanted him to still smell like her.
Once she made it to her room, her frustration was dampened by the sight of Maia, who was asleep in the center of her bed. Smiling, Indigo sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair, before tucking the covers in around her.
Getting up, Indigo shed her pelt and went to the chest that held her clothes. On top of it was Sten’s pelt. Her blood still stained the inside, but she wrapped it around herself anyway, sighing as she inhaled his scent. After a moment, she sat on top of the chest, surveying her room through weary eyes.
One bag…
She’d have to pack clothes, for certain. At least two warm outfits. There was her mother’s jewelry, and the money she’d left for Indigo. Money was of no use within the pack, but it was essential for getting anything from humans, like the soaps and lotions that she enjoyed. It was also very hard to come by, short of stealing.
There was her laptop, but her generator was far too large to bring, so anything electronic would be useless after a day or two. That one really got to her, because she kept a journal on her laptop, mostly silly drabbles, but also a lot of medical information she’d been gradually compiling, as well as the birth plan she and Ginnifer had outlined together. Before morning, she’d have to beg pencil and paper from someone and transcribe as much as she could.
Lastly, she’d have to choose which books to bring. It was by and away the most daunting task, because even the most boring books were dear to her. Many had belonged to her mother, who had taught Indigo and Zane both how to read, despite their father’s protests. Zane had learned entirely to appease mother, and he’d never read for pleasure as Indigo had. For her, they were an escape from the banality of her existence.
Not only did they allow her to peek into the lives of interesting people, but they also provided a framework for the world that existed beyond her pack. Leaving any one of them behind felt like abandoning a piece of herself.
She hadn’t budged from the chest when Zane came in some time later. He sat down on the space beside her, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. His fingers pinched the fur of her pelt.
“Why are you wearing this again?”
“No reason,” she said tiredly. “I was cold, it was nearby.”
He made a thoughtful sound, and she tried not to grimace. She wasn’t afraid of telling Zane about Sten. She didn’t know how he would take the news, but she trusted him to support her desire to take a mate. But she knew that he would worry about her, and right now, he had enough to deal with. She could at least wait until Luken was born to tell him.
“You should clean it and give it back to him before we leave. I’m sure he’ll need the extra pelt.”
“He gave it to me,” she said, instinctively clutching at it. Recognizing how defensive she sounded, she quickly followed up with a more neutral response. “Even if I clean it, I won’t get the bloodstain out. I’ll just have to give him one of my own pelts as recompense.”
As she said the words, she felt a rush of excitement. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? It was the perfect way to put her scent on him without rousing much suspicion, and it would also act as a subtle deterrent to any females that had designs on him.
From the way Zane looked at her, he didn’t think that was a reasonable solution, but he seemed too weary to argue his point. She placed her hands on his cheeks and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead.
“You should be sleeping,” she said. “You look exhausted. What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to check in on you,” he said. Then, appearing slightly abashed, he added, “And to see if you can check in on Gin before you go to sleep. She says she’s feeling fine, but I think she’s in pain again and doesn’t want to tell me.”
Indigo nodded, not letting her disappointment show. She knew that Zane loved her, and she herself loved Ginnifer, but sometimes she missed the days when her brother had made her his priority. It was stupid and selfish of her to even contemplate, and she immediately felt guilty.
“Sure,” she said, giving him the brightest smile she could muster. “Whatever you need.”
Chapter 12
The early morning sun had been creeping over the horizon when Zane and his mate crossed the inlet, leaving Tallow and Kuva in charge of directing traffic across the water. Tallow abandoned her post the second her human male arrived at the docks with the pups. She was supposed to have come back, but she hadn’t. Kuva had gone to the other side of the inlet in order to ensure someone brought the boats back each time they crossed.
This had left Sten and Vale to audit everyone who arrived at the dock, ensuring that they weren’t carrying too much, and that they waited for a full boat before crossing. It was an uneventful morning, and they were nearing the end of their job, with only a few stragglers left waiting for a boat to return.
Vale sat balanced on a dock post, her long, bronze legs bare and gleaming in the sunlight. Her pale hair was cut short, the masculine hairstyle somehow managing to accentuate her feminine beauty.
“There’s no order in this pack,” she stated. She was voicing Sten’s own thoughts, as so often was the case. “Everyone obeys their alpha, until the moment he stops speaking. It’s complete anarchy.”
“That’s because there are no repercussions for disobeying,” he said, as one of the boats returned.
Roch was rowing the boat, and he looked between Vale and Sten sullenly. Ignoring him, Sten took the arm of an elderly female and guided her to the edge of the dock. As a formality, he asked for her permission before he picked her up and placed her onto the seat beside Roch.
The remaining Siluit wolves, three female juveniles, made their way up the dock. Vale’s sharp eyes had kept them at bay while they’d been waiting for the boat, but now they were all smiles and dimples as they approached Sten. The middle female passed off her bags to her friends, and then proceeded to bat her blue eyes at Sten.
“Can you help me?”
Sten gave her a slow smile, and then just as slowly, he let his expression flatten. “You’re only supposed to have one bag each. I’m counting seven between the three of you. You have five minutes to get back to the shore and discard your excess belongings. If you take too long or you try bringing back more than you’re supposed to, then you’ll be swimming across.”
All three looked shocked, but the one in the middle made a feeble attempt to complain. “You can’t do that. Zane—”
“Is not here,” Vale finished. “And I suggest you don’t waste your five minutes trying to argu
e with us. You may as well start swimming.”
The females shot glares at Vale, but they all left as they’d been told to. Sten waved a hand in Roch’s direction.
“Go. They’ll get on the next one.”
The young male gave him a contemptuous look, but pushed off and headed across the inlet.
The peaceful sounds of splashing fish and water lapping against the docks were now disrupted by the disgruntled noises of the females as they tore through their bags and argued over what to bring.
“You don’t have to stay,” Vale said. “I can wait for the rest and catch up later.”
His lips flattened. “Do you really think I want to be stuck in a boat with those three?”
“Ah, fair enough.”
Two females appeared over the eastern hill. Neither female was the one he’d been waiting to see, but they still held his interest. One was a dark-skinned female, whose braids were strung with glittering beads, and the other was petite, her pale gold hair tied into a single, tight braid. The smaller female was leaning on the other, and as they approached, he could see that her eyes appeared unfocused and glazed with fatigue.
“Poor thing,” Vale said softly. “They need to give her back to her mother so Shale can find a proper mate for her.”
Sten reluctantly nodded. Zane had no idea what he was doing by keeping Coral from taking a mate. It would also be problematic having her in Amarok territory, given the number of males they had in their pack.
While the two females were reaching the bottom of the hill, Indigo finally arrived. She swayed back and forth as she walked, barely managing to balance Maia on her hips and four heavy-looking bags on her shoulders. He was walking towards her before he was even aware of what he was doing.
As Coral and her companion approached the three juveniles, they gave Coral haughty looks. One of them tried to trip her, earning them a verbal lashing from the other female. Sten stopped in front of them, folding his hands across his chest.
“I hope you enjoyed that,” he said. “Now, you can fill two bags between the three of you.”
Chasing the Alpha: Shifters of Nunavut, Book #3 Page 10
