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  “Females are rare,” Fang scoffs. “That doesn’t mean they’re that valuable. The tribunal would never condone you killing multiple of us for that little bitch—”

  Rafe is there in a second, swiping claws across Fang’s face, cutting off his words. He pulls the other wolf close by the scruff. “She doesn’t have to be valuable to the fucking tribunal. She’s valuable to me. I’d fight to the death for her, so come prepared to do the same yourself.” He lets Fang go and Fang stumbles back, hate flaring in his eyes.

  “Be careful Aspen. Maybe you want to pick a wolf who’s less inclined to piss off the most powerful of our kind. A little less…arrogant, maybe. Maybe you’d be safer.”

  I eye Rafe, with his massive size and his perfect integrity. Somehow I don’t think there’s another wolf in the world I would be safer with. Whether or not I should mate with him if he doesn’t love me remains to be safe. But whether I’d be safe with him has never been in question.

  In another moment, Fang has vanished, along with his wolves, back into the trees from whence he came, and I let out a sigh of relief and turn into my human.

  “Aspen?” Rafe asks, shock plain in his voice.

  I can’t answer him. I’m too tired. The wolf in me was torturing me. Everything Rafe said and did kept making her feel he was perfect, and the urge to mate was becoming overwhelming. I don’t care if I’m naked and human now. If I stay in that body, she’s going to get what she wants, even if it breaks my heart in the longterm. And she wants the alpha, deep inside her, making us both the heads of the pack.

  I moan and clutch my stomach, which is sore from tensing my abs throughout the confrontation and when Fang was first talking to me and then trying to kidnap me. I tend to feel stress in my gut. Rafe goes bounding away and returns with clothing. He sets it by me and I slowly put it all back on. He transforms into a human but looks away until I’m changed, then picks me up gently in his arms.

  He’s naked and carrying me princess style when we pass Hawthorne and Lindon, who walk out, carrying lemonades and eyeing us curiously.

  “How’d it go?” Hawthorne asks. I look at Hawe’s face and can see there’s more stress there than he’s trying to show. Should I be offended that they didn’t come out with Rafe? I’m too tired to care.

  Am I tired? I wasn’t tired until I turned into a human. Now that I think about it, it was probably just the subconscious fight between my wolf and my human that wasted my energy. It took everything I had to stop my wolf self from running to Rafe and telling him to claim me now, to kill Fang and then claim me.

  Now I can barely think, barely smile at Hawes and Lindon as we walk past. Rafe carries me swiftly upstairs to his bedroom and I make no protest when he walks in, sets me down on the bed, shuts the window, and turns off the lights.

  Then he opens the closet and I can hear him changing. I lay on my side with my eyes closed. The last thing I need is to see him naked right now. The wolf in me might come bursting out if I did.

  When he comes back he’s in a loose tee, well, loose at the waist, nothing would be loose with those shoulders and pecs, and soft, slouchy pajama pants that don’t at all hide how impressive his thighs are.

  He brushes sweaty hair off my face. “I didn’t know they’d get that aggressive that fast. I should have been out there with you.”

  “I told you to go inside.”

  “I didn’t have to listen.”

  “That’s right, Rafe. You’re just too liberal.” I roll my eyes and he laughs and goes to the bathroom to get a washcloth and run water over it. I know because my eyes are glued to him, almost as if I’m suspicious in some way, though I know I have no reason to be.

  “I know, right?” he says, handing the cool washcloth to me. When I hold it up with a questioning glance, he takes it and moves closer. Then he gently dabs my forehead. Immediately cooling me. How can someone so huge be so gentle? “Listen, Aspen,” he says. “I’m sorry that a lot of wolf shifter culture is messed up. You know, there are even packs where there’s an alpha female running things, or where alpha females are stronger than males. You don’t have to listen to the tribunal.”

  “I know.”

  “As females get rarer, they’re just going to get more ridiculous about rules and control, but don’t worry. A few old men at the top don’t rule for us,” he says, pausing with the cloth to the side of my cheek. I look up at him curiously.

  “Who does rule then?”

  “We all do. All of us that are wolves inside. Without us there is nothing to rule, and if enough of us disagree, what will they do?” He removes the washcloth and looks thoughtfully off to the side. “My father is one of the more influential alphas around. The tribunal would think twice before fucking with him.”

  “Ha ha, there’s the bad language again.”

  He grins. “My wolf has kind of a dirty mouth.”

  “I noticed,” I say, grinning.

  He looks me over, alarm flaring in his eyes and then fading again. “You’re okay, right? No wounds I can’t see or smell?” He inhales and seems reassured. “I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.”

  “I heard your growl when you realized what was happening.”

  “You’ve always had exceptional hearing,” he says.

  “It’s my alpha power, I guess,” I say. “I never thought about it before, I always assumed people just thought I was alpha because Ava died. But looking back, there were times that I should have known it was blood related.”

  He nods but remains quiet, like he knows something we don’t. “Um…”

  “What?”

  “Aspen, we didn’t adopt you out of nowhere.”

  “You came across me in the woods. I remember.”

  “Do you remember anything before that?” he asks.

  “Not really. I was too young. I do think I remember my mom.”

  “Aspen, Ava was never the next potential alpha female.”

  “What? But I thought…”

  “We just never told you…”

  “Told me what?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I should tell you. It’s all old secrets. It goes way back.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I can’t. I’d have to talk to my dad first.”

  I humph and sit up against my headboard. “So you can tell me there’s something I don’t know but not tell me what you know?”

  “It’s hard for me to keep things from you. Especially as, you know, we get closer.”

  He blinks dark, long lashes over those incredible blue eyes and I’m gifted with an image of how beautiful our pups would be. One with black hair and gray eyes, one with dark red hair and ice blue eyes. I catch my breath at the thought of it. Of Rafe in his wolf form lying down beside his cubs, nuzzling them playfully. In my fantasy, he looks up at me, beckoning me to join them with a tilt of his snout.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks, cocking his head as he watches me, making his silk hair fall to the side in a sexy way. I want to put my hands on him. I want to put my hands on him so bad.

  “Nothing in particular?”

  “Really?” he asks, a twinkle in his eyes. “Because it seemed to be so pleasant that you were were forgetting to breathe…”

  I let the air I was holding out in a loud huff and wrap my hands around my knees. “To be honest, I was thinking about a possible future with you. It’s odd, it’s been happening lately, you know, as you guys compete for me.”

  He nods thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s another of your alpha powers,” he says. “Maybe you can sort of see the future you’d have with your pups. That’d certainly be useful for an alpha female.”

  “Is that possible? I thought alpha gifts were mostly things like scent or sight or things. Things that other people can do but we can do better somehow.”

  He shrugs. “We don’t talk about it a lot,” he says. “Mostly because it’s genetic. It doesn’t necessarily come from being alpha, but it’s passed through alphas because alpha offspring is likely to
be alpha. At least in the male case.”

  “Wouldn’t there be a lot of inbreeding?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure exactly how it works. For all I know, Lindon and Hawes would get my powers if I wasn’t alpha.” He sighs and gives me a lopsided grin. “You know, that’s the thing about us, Aspen. We’re half wolf, part human, part magic. No one really knows the ratios of it all. We just are.”

  “We know that we’ve been this way as long as we’ve had records.”

  “Right, but always changing. For all I know, we used to go from wolf to ape.”

  I laugh. “I don’t know if the time frames match up on that. If you’re going to be running one of the most powerful packs one day, shouldn’t you read up on that?”

  “Our distant past doesn’t matter,” he says. “I know enough to try to ensure our future, and I have to put my energy toward that, because we’re going to need it, now that packs think it’s okay to fight each other.”

  I shrug. “Wolves have always fought for mates in some places.”

  “Yeah, but there was a kind of decorum, a kind of unspoken civility about not trying to take over another pack when you have one of your own, or when the other pack already has multiple potential alphas. It’d be very demotivating for an alpha to build a whole life for his pack only to have some weaker wolf backed by his whole pack coming to try and take it all and waste a lot of everyone’s energy.”

  “Yeah. But I mean, you’ve been working your whole life to build resources for the pack and you may not even be the alpha.”

  He shrugs and it makes me want to touch those big shoulders. Hug them. Hug him. “I didn’t do all of that to be alpha. I did that so that all the people I love would be taken care of. Including you.”

  I try to resist the part of me that hardens whenever he groups me in generally with the rest of the pack. I’m realizing he just cares for a lot of them more than I ever realized. I guess maybe Fang was right, maybe the fact that I never felt anyone cared was more something wrong with me than with anyone else.

  “I never really felt like part of that pack,” I say. “I don’t know why.”

  “Probably because you didn’t have parents,” he says. “People tried to be kind, but no one knew how to act. You were old enough to be weaned, and most wolves were either worried about illness or their own pups. And of course, it’s scary to bond with a young female, knowing how fragile a lot of them can be.”

  “You said it wasn’t a coincidence that the pack found me. How did they find me?” I ask. “All I remember is lying in the rain in the middle of a clearing where there were pine needles scattered all around.”

  He swallows, and his jaw tightens. “I’m really not sure if that’s a story for another day or not. I’d be a lot more comfortable if you let me ask Rowan about it.”

  I humph again. “Right, so you just want to torture me then?” I sigh. “I gotta give it to you. You know how to drive a girl crazy. Just give her half the info she needs, no, just a tantalizing tidbit, then make her wait for the rest. Then make her feel like she’s a bad person if she tries to get you to tell before you’re ready to.”

  He smiles gently, and it’s a bit infuriating how calm he always manages to stay. “I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me. How can I make it up to you?”

  “You could just tell me. It can’t be that much of a secret,” I say. “Otherwise Rowan would have told me.”

  “You’re fishing,” he says, giving me a chiding look that says I should know better.

  “You’re teasing,” I say. “Now I can’t think of anything but knowing.”

  “You’ve never acted like you wanted to know about this kind of thing.”

  “I mean, I knew my parents died. I didn’t know the exact details…” To be honest, there was always kind of a blank spot in me that never wanted to be filled in. Like I knew it would be painful. But the pack and how they found me, I’m curious about that. “Is it about my parents?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Though I heard your mother was a powerful alpha.” He shrugs. “Could have been a rumor.”

  I shrug back. “I don’t know. If it’s about my parents, I don’t want to know it.”

  “Yeah.”

  I hug my knees tighter. It’s better not to know. Things happen to wolves in the wild. They just do. I don’t want to know if they suffered, if they fought for me, what happened in the end, whether they had a pack or were betrayed by them.

  “It’s not about your parents,” he says. “I’m sorry for telling you speculation. It’s not about your parents.”

  “Good to know,” I say. “What’s it about then?”

  He smiles ruefully and shoves a hand through his hair. “Ah. Out of the frying pan, back into the fire. I’ll tell you at some point, I promise.”

  “Hm,” I say. “Now I’m going to be thinking about it nonstop.”

  He moves a little closer, leaning over my knees. He breathes in, as if taking in everything about me. “I bet I can distract you.”

  I look up at him disbelievingly, trying to ignore the arousal rising in me. “How are you even thinking about that right after a fight?”

  “How could I not, when a fight brings me as close as possible to those feelings I have about you, the desire to have you for my own?” His deep voice is smooth and earnest, and I lean forward a little to meet him halfway over my legs.

  “Feelings, hm?” I ask.

  “Well, obviously, you know I want you. I told you.”

  “Want me?” I ask.

  He nods. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I say doubtfully, wishing I knew what wanting encompassed in his mind. He said he’d fight to the death for me. That has to mean something. I try to widen my heart a little more to give him the benefit of the doubt a little longer. I’ve had some practice at that today and it hasn’t led me astray. “So, how were you planning to distract me?”

  He leans in until our noses are tip to tip, then gives me a light nuzzle that makes me smile. Then steals a quick kiss, nipping my bottom lip when he pulls back. Heat sears through me, and I look up at him, embarrassed by my own arousal and how close it is to the surface ever since the fight.

  “Do you really think this is a good idea?” I ask. “With everything that’s happened.”

  “All I know,” he says, leaning forward and inhaling the scent of my hair. “Is that I can smell Lindon, Hawthorne, and even Fang on you, and if my scent doesn’t replace theirs soon, I’m going to go mad.”

  I blush as my arousal heightens. “You won’t let it get out of control?” I ask, somewhat nervous but excited at the same time. Things seem different between us right now, somehow. Maybe I’m just choosing to trust him for once.

  “Of course not,” he says, gripping the back of my neck and pulling me forward until we’re forehead to forehead and I can feel his breath on my lips. “Not losing control is one of my alpha powers.” He smiles at me, flashing white teeth, and I smile back.

  “Okay then, alpha. Show me what you can do.”

  Chapter 3

  Rafe gives me a grin that sends arousal flooding through me like a bucket of hot water poured right over the top of me. There’s a power to him, one that’s usually restrained, that’s barely below the surface right now. It makes me sit up on my elbows and observe him with cautious but eager eyes. As if I don’t trust him fully, but my body is begging me to. Maybe I’ll listen.

  Keeping his eyes on mine, he comes forward, leaning on his hands, crawling over me, crowding me back onto the bed, with his weight, his strength, those intense eyes, those beautiful muscles. My hand comes up to touch his shoulder, his arm, run along the hard bulge of his bicep, down to the thick forearm that seems impossibly ripped for such a usually slender part of the body. And his hands, just looking at them turns me on.

  Long, slender fingers, deft and strong and hardened at the palm by work and responsibility. Those powerful shoulders are just evidence of everything he has always carried around on them. Responsibili
ty, and that head of his with its huge ego. His huge, totally founded ego. I eye him hungrily, wanting to take off his shirt, see everything underneath it, put my hands all over him.

  Rafe, not just the hot son of the alpha that I’ve fantasized about since I was young, or my future betrothed, but the hot wolf who came out to save my butt and tell my attackers he’d fight to the death for me. Would he do that just to ensure he was the future alpha? Maybe, but I don’t get the idea that it’s the reason he did.

  And regardless, his pheromones are driving me crazy, filling the air and my lungs with a soaring lust that makes me want to just fly off the face of the earth with him, wrapped in pleasure beyond comprehension. I reach up and hold him tight, gripping those firm, muscled shoulders with all the expectation in the world that he’s going to bring me unimaginable pleasure. No pressure, Rafe.

  But Rafe thrives on pressure, and I can hear a satisfied growl as I dig my nails into his back, begging him for more, to get things started, to not just sit there giving me that ‘fuck me’ expression and the pheromones in the air that are seriously going to drive me out of my mind.

  I’m wet for him, clenching my legs together to stave off the agony of anticipation, and he hasn’t even done anything yet. I guess it’s just the power of his wolf, and my wolf’s terrible attraction to him. I could feel it thrumming under the surface when I was watching him face off with Fang, knowing that with his size and his sheer alpha-ness that Fang and a hundred wolves wouldn’t have a chance of winning against him.

  Though maybe it’s just evidence of my other feelings for him that would give me such great confidence. But if anyone was ever winning against him, I’d be right at his side, fighting too, because I don’t want to be pulled away from him either.

  It was interesting to be with Lindon and Hawthorne, just a little, but all it really showed me was that when the chips are down, it’s only Rafe for me.

  Which reminds me of something I want to ask, so I push aside the haze of lust for a moment to ask a question.