“Sounds complicated,” Lindon says.
It’s a different Lindon than I’m used to seeing. Normally he’s sensitive and intelligent. But seeing him in touch with his wolf, a wolf that would very much like a mate, makes him seem different. There’s an edge to him I haven’t seen before.
“My only rule is no fighting,” I say.
“Of course there will be fighting,” Lindon says, flicking hair off his forehead. “What did you think would happen when you told us to compete?”
“Lindon, you’re supposed to be the sensible one…”
“I am being the sensible one, Aspen.” He uncrosses his legs and leans forward over his knees. “What were you expecting? Flowers? Roses?” He shakes his head. “We’re wolves, Aspen. We know one way of getting a mate. Well, two. Providing, and mating.” He flashes a fang.
Hawthorne sighs. “You’re getting ahead of yourself Lindon. You’re scaring her off.”
Lindon huffs and sits back again, looking off through the kitchen window.
Rafe keeps himself between me and my former friends. “We’re going to do this how Aspen wants. If she wants civilized, we’ll do civilized.” He turns to me. “Make the rules.”
I hadn’t really thought this far. Lindon and Hawthorne are already looking like they want to eat me up, and Rafe is waiting impatiently for me to say something to save the situation, when I’ve already screwed everything up.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But fighting won’t impress me.”
They all look a little put out by that, including Rafe.
“The longer you are unmated, the longer more wolves are going to be getting your scent,” Hawthorne says.
“It’s getting worse by the day,” Lindon says.
“I’m not sure why,” I say. “I don’t recall being accosted for all of my trip.” Then I look over at Rafe and wonder if he’s part of the reason. If being around him again is making me open to mating and that’s drawing in other males.
“Oh for Pete’s sake, she’s doing it again,” Hawthorne says.
“What do you mean? I stink all of a sudden?”
“No, it’s just something in the air. You can’t put a finger on it, you just…want.”
Lindon nods. “Damned odd thing.”
“Fine, so three weeks. But three weeks of what?” Rafe asks. “Being pushed down by competing wolves?”
“No. That’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want?” he snaps.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess the one who figures it out is going to be the one who wins, aren’t they?” I yawn. “And now I need to go finish my homework and get my beauty sleep, so that I’m worthy of competing for.”
“You were always worthy of competing for,” Rafe says quietly, almost too quiet for me to hear. But when I turn back, he’s facing away from me and watching the window, pretending nothing was said.
I walk away from the room. I’m going to need my beauty sleep if the Alpha games are going to start tomorrow.
Chapter 2
Early the next morning I’m woken by a knock on the door. I yawn and get out of bed and go over to open the door and see Lindon standing there. Today he’s in a bluish purple polo shirt that looks great with his light hair and eyes, and he’s holding a basket that looks suspiciously…
“A picnic?” I ask him.
“If you don’t have other plans.” He leans against the door and I consider it. I go to the window to check the weather. Sunny and bright, with just a few clouds in the distance that could suggest rain.
“Seems like a good day for it,” I say. “I’ll need a few minutes to get ready.”
“You don’t need to get pretty for me, Aspen,” he says. “You’re already pretty.”
There’s something about Lindon’s mouth that’s very sexy when he talks. Maybe it’s the deep curve in his upper lip, or the fact that he tends to have a perpetual half smile the flashes one dimple. And then there are those eyes, glowing like molten gold when the light hits them, and like fine apple cider when his lashes are lowered. He has a pointed chin, strong jaw, and aristocratic cheekbones, like all of Rowan’s offspring do. He’s a lean, perfect prince, and I’m not one to turn down a picnic.
“Alright then, give me a moment to change,” I say. He nods and I shut the door and hurry up to put on deodorant, a tee, jeans and a hoodie. I throw my hair back in a ponytail as usual and open the door to find Lindon waiting at the top of the stairs, still holding the basket.
He holds out an arm, which I take as he leads me down the steps.
On the way down, we pass Rafe going up the steps. He gives us a glare, and seems like he’d like to stop us, but I just give him a big grin and hold Lindon’s arm tighter, happy that my once quiet, shy friend is now taking more initiative. Maybe Rafe isn’t the best option after all.
“See, Rafe?” I say, following Lindon away from him. “Wooing.”
He rolls his eyes at us. “Hmph.”
“Don’t be mad, Rafe. Just because some of us can adjust to civilization better than you.”
Rafe just sends him another death glare. “Remember the rules.”
“Aspen makes the rules,” Lindon quips.
“Right, and you better not break them.”
“Ooh, big bad alpha. Better be careful, you might not be such a sure shot for the job anymore,” Lindon says. That gets another growl from Rafe, and he flips around as if to do something about it, but then he clenches his fists and walks away, muttering something like ‘civilization my ass’. Lindon and I laugh and go outside on the front porch. He walks ahead of me and clicks a button that opens the garage, revealing a number of beautiful luxury cars.
“Pick your poison,” he says, gesturing.
My stomach coils nervously. I trust Lindon, I do. But Rafe also said not to go away with them alone…as long as I wasn’t mated. “I was hoping we could walk,” I say. “I haven’t had enough time outside.”
“Ah,” he says. “Interesting.” He shuts the garage. “Walk like this, or transform?”
“Can you carry a basket?” I ask.
“Easy,” he says. “With my teeth.”
I laugh at the thought of a giant wolf carrying that little picnic basket and almost ask him to transform just so I can see it. But I don’t want us to be out there without our clothes, and if we transform, we’ll be leaving them. “Let’s just go like this,” I say.
“Okay, let’s go this way.” He waves me to follow him past the back of the house. There’s a little pathway leading off towards the hills behind the house, and there’s a little forest in the distance, just before the hills turn to mountains. When we get to the point where the gravel of our walk ends, Lindon turns to me with a grin, his collar and hair fluttering lightly in the wind. “Off the beaten path?” he asks, gesturing to the well-walked dirt path just beyond.
“Of course,” I say. “Always the best option. Even if you aren’t a wolf.”
“Did you go off the path a lot when you were traveling with Fang?” he asks.
“We weren’t always traveling,” I say. “Sometimes we were settled somewhere, just doing school. It’s amazing how fast two years can pass.”
“You’re telling me,” Lindon says. “It’s like only yesterday that you left. At least it feels that way.”
“Are you saying time flies when I’m gone?”
He laughs and turns to me, complexion heightened by the sun and air, eyes bright and happy. “No, not in the way you’re thinking. But it did. Maybe things just weren’t that exciting.” He stops to open a little gate that leads to another path. I look back to see the mansion is getting smaller in the distance. Am I an unsafe distance away? I guess I don’t really care right now, because I’m with Lindon alone for the first time in a long time, and we have a lot to talk about.
“So you’re a writer now? Is that what you want to do with your life?”
“I don’t know. A teacher said I was good at it, that I could make money at it. And I
decided it couldn’t hurt to try.”
“You’ve always loved books entirely too much for a wolf.”
“Well, as you said, we’re not full wolf. And you like books too.”
I nod.
“I miss trading good reads with you,” he says, reaching for my hand. I lock elbows with him instead. It warms the air around us a little and I smile.
“We can do that again, now that I’m back.”
“My guess is you won’t have a lot of time for reading,” he says. “Between homework and the shenanigans the guys are going to get up to.”
“Last night you seemed just as eager to get up to those shenanigans.”
“It comes and goes.”
“When the pheromones are in the air?” I ask.
“Maybe. The wolf in me isn’t as strong as it is in Hawes and Rafe. I guess because my mother was half human.”
“Rachel,” I say. “Right. She was always kind to me.”
He shrugs. “She was a good wolf.”
She died the same season that we lost our other young female. It wasn’t a good season. But Lindon and I are both eager to think of other things, as we crest a low hill and turn around to get a full view of the sun streaming over the mansion and the valley.
“Gorgeous,” he says.
“Yeah,” I agree.
“I wasn’t talking about the view,” he says, setting down the basket and turning to brush a stray lock of hair off my face. “I was talking about you.”
“I should have know you’d be the one most capable of being smooth,” I say quietly, closing my eyes for a second as his touch lights up my skin. It’s a warm, calm kind of touch, nothing like the fire Rafe causes or the energy from Hawes. I look up into his beautiful eyes and wonder if he’s going to kiss me. He cups my face with his hand and runs a thumb gently over my cheek.
“Do you really think you could be happy with me?” he asks.
I bite my lip. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can be happy with anyone. There’s a part of me, a large part of me, that just wants to run free forever and ever, and not be chained down.”
“I guess maybe that’s your alpha wolf,” he says. “Maybe that’s what makes an alpha female, that she craves that independence.”
“Don’t all wolves?”
“No,” he says. “Some of us crave companionship, company. Friendship.”
“You make it all sound so platonic,” I murmur, trying not to fall under the effect of his smooth, sexy voice. Light and melodic but with a dark edge that screams of suppressed masculinity. If any of us keeps our wolf the most suppressed, it’s Lindon. In a way, that makes him sexy to me. The control there.
He raises his head and sniffs the air with his slightly pointed nose. “You’re doing it again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he says, wrapping an arm around me. “I can control myself.” He pulls me a little closer. “I think so, anyway.” He laughs. “I guess we’ll see.”
I pull away from him with a nervous laugh and walk down off our hill down the little path that leads up to the next one. “Tell me about your writing,” I say. “You know, Megan went into writing.”
“That human is none of my business,” he says haughtily.
“Well, you know, if someone else ends up being alpha you’ll be free to take whomever you want as a wife.”
“It would break my heart to have kids who couldn’t shift. Who couldn’t feel what it’s like to be wolf, to have the wind on your fur in the moonlight as you dart between trees. It has to be a wolf, I think.”
I shrug. “I guess we’ll see.”
He grabs my hand as I’m about to walk up the next hill. Just a few more till we reach the forest and the mountain rising beyond that. Right now, between rises, we’re totally invisible from the mansion, even if someone had binoculars, probably. For some reason that makes me little nervous.
I guess I liked having Rafe come the other night. I liked knowing that he’s not going to force me but he’s not going to let anyone else force me either.
Especially as Lindon pulls me back, jerks me against him. “You’d have powerful children,” he says. “Strong, with the ability to shift.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. “You don’t know who my parents were, and I don’t remember.”
“It’s your scent. The way you draw males in. Your wolf is strong. You’re alpha.”
I try to shake him off, unsuccessfully. “Default alpha. Ava was probably alpha, but she died.”
Lindon’s eyes flash in pain. For a moment, I forget how close they were.
“I’m sorry, Lind.”
He shakes his head and pins his golden eyes on me. “It doesn’t matter now. Alpha is alpha. Don’t you see how different you are?”
“I haven’t really had much to compare to.”
“I know. But don’t you feel your wolf now? Calling to you? Telling you to make the males compete, to please you?”
I nod. “I guess so. I guess it’s definitely not the human part of me.”
He nods. “I thought so. Otherwise it would make no sense for you to come back here after all that time trying to avoid us. You can only avoid the wolf in you for so long.” He pulls me tighter and puts an arm around my waist. “And my guess is, she’s hungry.”
At his dominance, I can feel my body heat up slightly. I meet his eyes and find the stern set of his features, his intense glare, pretty attractive. But I’m not just ready to let go. But the wolf in me wants to see what he can do. I put my hands around his waist as well.
“Maybe she is,” I say.
He grins and lowers his teeth to my neck, lightly nipping in a way that makes me gasp and dig my nails in. Consciously, my mind wants to scream, ‘this is Lindon, what are you doing?’, but subconsciously, I just want to hang on and take what he can give and see if I like it. My legs are starting to weaken as he makes his way down my collarbone, brings a hand up my ribcage to caress me right beneath one breast. I suck in a breath in anticipation and push him back so I can think for a minute before this goes too far.
“Hold on, Lindon,” I say, looking up to see him flushed, see something burning deep in his eyes. Something eager and uncontrollable. But then I watch him tamp it down.
“Okay,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. I immediately want them on me again.
“Let’s walk a little further,” I say. At least then we’d be in sight if someone was watching us. Maybe Rafe is, for all I know. Interfering, over controlling.
Lindon stops walking and puts his head back, a pained expression on his face. Then he slumps forward, hands over his head. “Oh, shit.”
Chapter 3
“What?” I ask.
“I keep feeling…I don’t know. It’s odd. It’s like something’s calling me, almost forcing me, to transform.”
“Lindon…” I say, walking a little closer, but keeping distance in case something happens.
“You just smell…so freaking good,” he says, getting to his feet again. “I wish I had a way to describe it,” he says breathlessly. “Sorry about that. I swear, I’ve never had my control tested like that, and as you know, I’ve been a bachelor for some time.”
I send him a hesitant smile and start walking up the hill. He grabs me by the back of the shirt. When I look down, I can see that his expression is pained.
“Maybe we should go back,” he says. “I don’t know if I can control myself.”
I walk past him to the picnic basket, praying he can stay calm. “But we were going to have a picnic, right?” I put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Lindon. Don’t be like every other wolf, you can be better than that.”
He shudders and straightens up, rolling his shoulders back. “I know I can. I don’t know what came over me.” He reaches for the basket. “I’ll get the sandwiches out.”
“Sandwiches, huh?” I ask, peeking in as he opens it. “Did you make them yourself?”
“Of course,” he says. �
�Like I would let Rafe take the credit.”
“Too bad,” I say. “Rafe makes a mean sandwich.” I’m still not sure if I should end the date. I don’t want to prove Rafe right, that all wolves are animals that can’t be trusted, but also a part of me still wants to stay out with Lindon.
And the wolf in me keeps begging to taste him. I tell her to shut up.
She’s me but she’s just a different part of me, almost a different personality. And she wants a lover and she wants to take him now. I don’t even get the sense that it being Lindon has much to do with it, though he’s gorgeous.
He’s just a hot, potential alpha, and I’m going to have to keep my guard up against myself if I don’t want to be claimed right now. It’s not something you can take back, that commitment. An Alpha female and male will mate for life.
As long as that life is.
Lindon hands me a sandwich and wipes sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. It’s not a particularly hot day, so I eye him warily, wondering what it means. I bite into the sandwich. “This is good,” I say.
“Good,” he says, voice a bit strained as he takes out a sandwich for himself.
“So,” I say, sitting on the grass happily and eating the sandwich while watching the breeze hassle the grass and trees. “Tell me about writing. I keep asking and you keep avoiding it.”
“Well…” he says.
“Is it a secret or something?”
“Just don’t ask me for my pen names, or to read it,” he says. “I’d be too embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed? Why?”
“Just promise.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Alright then. I write books.”
“How many do you have out?”
“Twelve.”
“Published?”
“Self published.”
“Ooh,” I say. “Couldn’t hack it in the real world?”
He sniffs. “Of course not. Just couldn’t stand for the corporations to take my money. And plus, Rafe made a publishing company just for my books and it makes the whole thing look more legit. After all though, the whole point of the thing is money. Providing for a family if I need to.”
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