Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) (7 page)

“Boat troubles?” she asked.

Ginnifer seemed to hardly notice the other females. Her neck was craned as she peered up at the rocky spire that rose up over the den.

“There was a whale,” she said absently. “Is Boaz here, too?”

“He’s resting in Tallow’s room,” Breeze said.

Zane began trudging forward, and the rest fell into step alongside him. Ginnifer kept close, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him, and it took some effort not to slip his hand around her waist.

“Is Coral awake?” he asked, as they neared the towering entrance to the den.

Tallow guffawed. “Oh, yes. She’s been pacing up and down the tunnels for hours, ever since we came back without you.”

Even Breeze appeared amused. “Especially once she heard that you were personally escorting a human female—don’t look at us like that, it was all Indigo.”

“I’m sure neither of you had anything to do with it,” Zane said flatly.

“Well,” Tallow said, grinning as she plucked at a lock of Ginnifer’s hair, “I may have mentioned how beautiful Ginnifer was.”

Grimacing, Ginnifer swatted at Tallow’s hand. In a voice that was impressively neutral, she asked, “I take it Coral is your soon-to-be mate?”

“Yes,” Zane said tightly.

Breeze inserted herself between them, taking Ginnifer by the hand. “Why don’t you come with me, Ginnifer? I can take you to wash up and get you some clean clothes.”

Zane shot Breeze an appreciative look. She gave him a quick nod before pulling Ginnifer ahead and into the den. He hadn’t realized he’d stopped until Tallow stepped in front of him, hands on her hips.

“Breeze may be able to clean her up, but there’s no helping your scent,” she said. “And I doubt Coral’s going to wait until you take a bath.”

Zane almost said that he didn’t care what Coral thought, but the words stuck in his throat. He did care, not as much as he probably should have, but he did care.

Ginnifer heard a loud buzzing of activity up ahead, but Breeze guided her away from the central passageway, down a small tunnel that was just wide enough for them to walk side by side.

“This is a bit of a walk, but it will get us to the lower chambers without going through the main room.”

Ginnifer took a deep, calming breath before saying, “We didn’t sleep together.”

As soon as she said it, she wondered if the werewolf would be familiar with the phrase. She didn’t usually deal in euphemisms, but it was already hard enough to say aloud. Still, it needed to be said. Breeze was keeping up a pleasant façade, but her sidelong glances spoke volumes. Somehow, she knew that something had happened.

“I know,” Breeze said. “But you are covered in his scent. I would be surprised to find that he didn’t mark you somewhere.”

Was their sense of smell really that good?

“Mark me?”

“A bite, or even a scratch. They’re possessive brands,” Breeze explained. “It happens, less often than you’d think, though. Males and females both tend to get overzealous and eager to mark their territory when they find something they really like. It makes their scent hold for longer and serves as a reminder of the claim.”

While she spoke, Ginnifer’s hand went to her neck. She remembered Zane pressing his fangs to her, almost biting her. Breeze eyed her hand speculatively, and Ginnifer dropped it to her side.

“He didn’t bite me,” Ginnifer said. “Or scratch me, I don’t think.”

“That is good.”

Ginnifer waited for Breeze to question her further, and as silence stretched on, she began to grow anxious. The last thing she wanted was for Breeze to form her own idea of what had happened, when the truth was probably a lot less salacious.

“I didn’t know that he had… I didn’t know about Coral until afterwards, after he stopped me. It was my fault. I sort of threw myself at him.”

Okay, so that wasn’t really the truth either, at least, not the whole truth. She had initiated it, but Zane had taken it from there. Still, she would deal with the embarrassment if it meant that she could minimize Zane’s complicity.

“Is this going to cause trouble for him?” Ginnifer asked.

Breeze shrugged. “I doubt it. Zane and Coral are not mates, not yet. They are both free to share sex with whomever they please until they are mated.” As an afterthought she added, “Even then, some alphas still stray, but Zane is not the type to do so.”

Ginnifer’s mind buzzed with so many questions that her embarrassment was momentarily forgotten.

“I thought the mating bond was, well, kind of sacred,” Ginnifer said.

“I wouldn’t call it sacred.” Breeze paused thoughtfully, and then said, “When an alpha claims a mate, he is far less inclined to seek pleasure outside of that union. It is a very strong bond, much stronger, I think, than what humans experience.”

Ginnifer thought that last part might be directed at her, but she let the comment roll off. Later, when she was alone, she would beat herself up over Aaron, but for now she was going to pretend that she wasn’t a train wreck.

“What about other wolves, besides the alpha. Do they ever take mates?”

“On rare occasions, a beta male may decide to break away from the pack to claim a mate and become alpha of his own pack. But for most beta males, the drive to produce offspring is not strong enough to sever ties with the pack.”

“What about females?”

“Mating is a union for producing offspring,” Breeze reminded her. “The few females who can have pups are almost always mated to alphas of similar pedigree, as Coral and Zane are.”

For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to Ginnifer that Coral was anything but human. Then again, she’d been as eager to contemplate Coral as she had been to think about Aaron, so she hadn’t given the female much thought.

“I’m surprised you don’t have your camera out,” Breeze remarked. “Or are you pursuing these questions for your own interests?”

Ginnifer’s embarrassment returned at once, and she fumbled for an excuse. Why
had
she been so curious about the mating bond? Try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself that it was merely a scholarly interest.

“Oh, you poor thing. He has you turned inside out, hasn’t he?” Her tone was kind, far kinder than Ginnifer thought she deserved.

“It’s not like that. A lot happened—the poachers, meeting shifters, not to mention we’ve been isolated up here for weeks, I… I can’t speak for Zane, but I know I wasn’t in my right mind.”

The last vestiges of outside light faded, and Breeze took Ginnifer by the arm to guide her as the tunnel forked.

“You don’t have to explain yourself. Everyone is entitled to make mistakes now and again.”

***

Pearl beads had been strung throughout Coral’s pale blonde hair, which was tied in a tight braid. Most of her tan skin was bare, save for a short, loose-fitting dress of soft white leather. Her eyes, one blue and one green, stared into Zane’s, though it didn’t feel like she was looking at him, so much as trying to peer into his head.

A year ago, he might have told her to stop staring at him like that and go to her room. Five years ago, he might have told her to go outside and play. In fact, he probably had.

When Zane had been her age, and dodging the advances of brash juvenile females, Coral had been a pup, frolicking in the snow with his little sister, the both of them being minded by Breeze. Coral and Indigo were less than a year apart in age, and Zane found it hard, if not impossible, to reconcile that with the fact that Coral was now an adult.

He was a male, and as such, not ignorant of her full chest, the swing of her hips, and above all else, her mature scent, but the moment she started talking, he was always reminded of how young she was.

“Shall I pack my things and return to Sedna?” she asked, arms folded under her breasts.

Zane considered calling her obvious bluff, but it felt too cruel, given the circumstances. Instead, he decided to cut straight to the point.

“I did not lay claim on her and I do not intend to.”

Before they’d reached the main room, Tallow had warned him that Coral was pacing in front of his room, and had suggested that if he chose his route carefully, he could avoid running into her before he washed up. Zane had hardly considered it. He knew that one way or another, Coral would hear about it, and he wanted to address the matter himself, before exaggerated rumors reached her ears.

“I’m convinced you don’t intend to lay claim on
anyone
,” she said, punctuating the statement with a petulant frown.

Zane ignored the barb. “What do you want to ask me?”

The question seemed to catch her off guard. “You’re not going to argue?”

Zane leaned against the smooth wall of the corridor. “Did you really believe I was going to come to you, smelling like a human female, and try to defend my actions?”

“I thought you would say we aren’t mates yet,” she said, averting her gaze. “Or that you were alpha and you could do whatever you pleased.”

And Zane knew that she had prepared arguments for each of those assertions, as well as every other scenario her mind could conceive of. Coral often forgot that he had known her since she was a pup, and her personality had yet to mature with the rest of her. She was calculating to a fault, always prepared for a battle, but rarely for an honest discussion.

“Tallow said she was pretty,” Coral hedged.

“She is.”

Coral showed no outward upset over this, but was quick to follow up with another question. “Do you like her? Yes or no, only.”

“Yes,” he said patiently.

Her eyes narrowed. “
What
do you like about her?”

Yes, calculating to a fault
.

Zane stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “You are who you are, Coral. If you want to change something about yourself, do it for yourself, not to suit a male.”

He felt a twinge of irony, realizing that he’d given an almost identical piece of advice to Indigo no more than a year ago, when she’d been pining over Roch.

As he reached up to pat the top of her head, she leaned into him, rubbing her cheek against his chest. Subtly, she arched her breasts into him, but it made him feel more uncomfortable than aroused.

“Will you wash her scent off?” she asked.

Somewhere inside of him, Zane’s wolf growled.

He ignored it.

“Of course.”

Her hand slipped past his pelt, and her cool finger traced one of the muscles of his torso. “I can join you for the bath.”

Zane held back a sigh. “I’m tired. Maybe another time.”

Pulling away from her, he headed for his room. He didn’t bother excusing himself, because he knew she would follow.

“How long am I supposed to wait?” Her temper was back, and he didn’t have to look at her to know that she was glaring at him. “If it weren’t for Indigo running off, we’d already be mates. I won’t wait another season just so that you have time to go around rutting with that hu—”

Zane pressed two fingers to her lips, effectively silencing her. His own temper had flared, but fortunately for the both of them, he had far more self-control. He didn’t speak until he was certain that he was calm and collected.

“Coral, I’ve been alpha for nearly a decade now. If I wanted to reconsider the arrangement our parents made, I’ve had ample time to do so. You and I will be mates.”

For now, it seemed as though the fight had left her. She nodded her understanding. “Fine. I’ll excuse myself, then.”

Zane waited for the sound of her retreating footsteps to fade, and then he went to his bed, all but collapsing onto the pallet of furs. Traces of Ginnifer’s scent clung to his pelt, and he knew he would have to wash it as well.
Later
, he told himself.

Ginnifer sat beside Boaz on the bed, her head resting on his shoulder. Their eyes were glued to the screen of his old Sony camcorder, which he’d used to film his journey to the den. While he’d been capturing a video of their boat ride down the inlet, his Bolex had fallen into the water. With her superb reflexes, Tallow had caught it before it had sunk to the black depths, but it had still gotten waterlogged and whether or not it could be salvaged remained to be seen. Considering his most prized possession may have been reduced to scrap metal, he was in good spirits, and they’d been replaying footage for most of the morning.

The camera was focused on Tallow, who was sitting across from Boaz on the boat. Her hands rested on the oars and her eyes were on the starry horizon. She looked different than Ginnifer remembered, much more refined, almost regal in her cool austerity.

Boaz said, “So, Tallow, can I ask you a question?”

She didn’t turn to look at him, but her mismatched eyes shifted in his direction.

The camera shook slightly, and Ginnifer could picture Boaz scratching his head nervously.

“Um, are you and Zane, like, I don’t know, are you like, his girlfriend?”

Ginnifer cringed, but didn’t comment. Beside her, Boaz was scratching his head.

Back on the camera, Tallow narrowed her eyes. “Alphas don’t have girlfriends, they aren’t teenage boys. Why would you even ask me that?”

Ginnifer wondered the same thing. She hadn’t gotten the slightest impression that Zane was involved with anyone, at least, not until after their...whatever it was.

Before she could hear Boaz’s response, he pressed the fast forward button. “None of this is important.”

Ginnifer nudged her shoulder against his. “Tell me what you talked about.”

They were in Breeze’s room, which was where Ginnifer had slept the night before. At first, she’d been a little surprised she wasn’t getting her own room. Breeze’s bed was a raised stone platform, covered with so many soft furs that it was easy to forget you were sleeping on a big rock. Comfy as it was, it was also quite small, just big enough for Ginnifer and Breeze to sleep side by side with a few inches to spare.

The room was remarkably nice, considering it was essentially a chamber in a cave. The floor was flat stone and carpeted corner to corner with a dark rug woven from muskoxen fur. The rough edges had been rubbed out of the ceiling, giving it a dome shape, and the walls were similarly smooth and inlaid with shelves. The lower shelves held folded clothes and several ceramic bottles, which Ginnifer knew contained soap and scented oils. On the upper shelves were neatly arrayed rocks and crystals that had been carved into the shapes of animals.

After her bath, which had been a quick scrub down in a tub of lukewarm water, Breeze had brought her back to the room and left her there, advising Ginnifer to turn off the lamp once she had put her things away. In the pitch black room, Ginnifer hadn’t slept a wink until hours later, when Breeze had crawled into bed beside her to nap. After that, she’d slept like the dead, all through the afternoon and evening, barely even waking when Breeze left for the morning hunt.

Boaz shut the screen panel on his camera. “We talked about personal stuff. Nothing I’d want in a movie anyway. The only reason I kept filming was because it was easier looking at her through the camera lens. She’s so…”

Ginnifer realized that she’d been so preoccupied by Zane that she hadn’t noticed that there was actually something going on between Boaz and Tallow, at least, more than the moderate teasing she’d observed.

Boaz seemed flustered, so she decided not to press the issue, although her curiosity nearly got the better of her.

“Anyway, I think we should start doing interviews today,” Boaz said. “Do you want help writing up questions?”

She shook her head. “No, we’ll just let everything happen organically for now. Given that this is a closed society, I think it’s best we engage them in conversation while they get to know us, and then we can work up to open-ended questions.”

“Sounds good to me.”

In her notebook, they began to work out a plan for the next few days, who they wanted to interview, and what they wanted to try to film. Not only had they found a werewolf pack, but they’d been accepted into one to film, and it changed all of her plans for how the documentary would unfold. To anyone else, the work might have been daunting, but they both seemed to welcome the distraction.

“I think we should pick three or four wolves to be the focal point of the documentary,” Ginnifer said. They were both lying on the bed now, and she sat with her head propped in her hand and the pencil eraser in her mouth. “We can tell the story of the whole pack through their eyes, and make it more poignant in the process.”

Boaz looked up from his doodling. “Who were you thinking?”

“Well, Zane obviously,” she said with some reluctance. She knew that she should be steering clear of the alpha male, but he was far too interesting to sideline. “Breeze is easy to talk to, and very informative. You and Tallow are…friends, so I think she’d be a good third option.”

“What happened to your neck?”

With a start, Ginnifer slapped her hand down on the side of her neck. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a bruise.”

A small amount of the tension left her as she realized Zane hadn’t bitten her, though she still wasn’t sure how to explain the suck mark he’d undoubtedly left there. Thankfully, she was saved by Indigo, who popped her head into the room a second later.

“Is Breeze here?” she asked.

“She left with the hunters this morning,” Boaz said. “She’s probably back by now. Check the main room?”

Indigo stepped inside. “I’ll wait. What are you doing?”

She wore a pair of white-washed jeans and a lavender sweater with a scooped neck. Her wavy hair had been combed to a glossy sheen and pulled back into a ponytail. Ginnifer thought she remembered seeing freckles on Indigo’s cheeks, but if they were there, they were hidden beneath concealer and tastefully applied blush. She looked like she could have been a model in a department store ad, and Ginnifer found it hard to believe that there was a werewolf under all of that modernity.

Boaz began to explain that they were drafting an outline for their documentary. Indigo didn’t seem particularly interested in his answer. Her violet eyes surveyed the room, her nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air. Ginnifer kept her hand on her neck, feeling uncomfortable.

“Would you be okay with doing an interview for us?” Boaz asked.

Indigo arched a fine brow. “Me?”

Suddenly, Ginnifer forgot her discomfort, and a smile spread over her face. She’d been wondering who the fourth subject of their documentary would be, and Indigo was beyond ideal. Zane, Tallow, and Breeze were far more relatable than she’d anticipated, but she suspected that anyone watching Indigo would have a hard time seeing her as anything but a normal adolescent girl. There couldn’t be a more perfect subject.

Ginnifer sat up, careful to pull the pelt so that it covered her neck. She looked at Boaz and said, “We should probably ask her brother first. He might not be okay with it.”

Boaz gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yeah, you’re right about that. We really should get his permission.”

“I don’t need my brother’s permission,” Indigo said with a thinly veiled scowl. “I’m not a juvenile, I can do as I please.”

Boaz was quick to offer an apology. “We didn’t mean to offend. Of course you’re old enough. So you’ll do it then?”

“Maybe. What do I have to do, answer a few questions?”

“Actually, I was hoping we could do a bit more than that,” Ginnifer said. “I’d like to do a few interviews with you, and maybe have Boaz follow you around here and there. I can tell that you’re different than the others, and I think people would really like to see the world through your eyes.”

Never had a teenage girl heard such a perfectly beguiling statement, but while there was a spark of intrigue in Indigo’s eyes, her gaze remained level.

“I’ll do one interview,” she said. “If I don’t like it, I’m not doing any more.”

“Fair enough,” Boaz said. “How about we do it now?”

“Here?”

Ginnifer said, “Can we go to your room? It’ll make for a good backdrop.”

Indigo hesitated, looking between the two with suspicion. “Fine. But don’t touch anything.”

They waited for Boaz to get his camera mount, and then Indigo led them into the hallway. Like the rooms, the walls had been smoothed out, though there were various places where words or simplistic drawings had been carved into the stone.

They passed several rooms along the way. Most of the doorways were covered by pelts, which kept heat from escaping. More than once, she heard echoes of laughing children.

Indigo’s room was only a few minute’s from Breeze’s. She waved them in, and once they were inside, she passed the lantern to Boaz and went to flop down on her bed. Structurally, her room was similar to Breeze’s, with it’s domed ceiling and shelved walls. However, Indigo’s shelves were crammed with row upon row of books, and on top of the rows, more books were stacked, as many as could fit.

Ginnifer gravitated towards the books. She recognized many of them, and her finger ran over the spine of
Anna Karenina
, picking up not a single speck of dust.

“I told you not to touch anything,” Indigo said, though she didn’t sound particularly annoyed.

“Sorry. I remember reading this my freshmen year of college,” she said. “I still can’t believe I made it through the entire book.”

Indigo got up from her bed and approached the bookshelf, giving Ginnifer a measuring look. “You didn’t like it?”

Ginnifer shrugged. “It was pretty depressing. But then again, Russian literature usually is.”

Indigo gave a small smile. “I kept expecting it to get better, but everything got more and more terrible. Have you read this one?”

She pulled a fat red paperback from one of the higher shelves, and Ginnifer recognized it for
Gone With the Wind
before it was fully in Indigo’s hand.

“That one I read in middle school,” she said. “I hid it inside my pillow so that my mom wouldn’t find it.”

Indigo wrinkled her nose. The gesture made her look younger, and quite cute. “Why would you have to hide books?”

“My mom thought reading for pleasure was a waste of time.”

From behind them, Boaz asked, “What’s this?”

Not waiting for an answer, he did something that made a clicking noise, and all of the sudden, the room lit up. Ginnifer blinked, her eyes seeking out the source of the illumination. There were six sconces carved into the walls, and in each of them, a light bulb attached to a dark base. Small wires ran along the walls, all leading back to a large black box beside Indigo’s bed.

Indigo walked over to the box and kicked the switch with her foot. The lights turned off, and the room was once again dimly lit by the lantern.

“It’s a solar generator,” she said. “And I don’t feel like lugging it outside to charge up today, so don’t waste my juice. I need it to charge my laptop.”

Ginnifer and Boaz exchanged glances. Boaz asked, “You have a laptop? Do you have Wi-Fi?”

Indigo tapped her foot impatiently. “Do you really think I can get internet up here? Do I look like a magician? Now are you going to interview me, or did you just come here to mess with my things?”

After another apology, Boaz set to mounting his camera. Ginnifer convinced Indigo to let them use the lights, promising that she’d bring the generator up for sunlight first thing the following morning.

Once the lighting was settled, Ginnifer helped Indigo get into a camera-ready position on the bed. Indigo was unexpectedly receptive to Ginnifer’s instructions, and once Boaz started filming, she was pleased to see that Indigo looked natural on the video.

She took a seat next to Indigo. They hadn’t decided yet whether Ginnifer herself would appear onscreen, but given that it would be an informal conversation-style interview, it made sense for her to be there this time.

“Your bed is so soft,” Ginnifer commented as she settled into position.

“I made a small mattress out of eider feathers and wool.”

Ginnifer ran her hands over the lilac-colored comforter beneath her. “Did you make this, too?”

Indigo shook her head. “My brother got that for me. There’s a town south of here, he and the others go there sometimes to get things.”

“Aren’t they worried about attracting attention?”

“We can pass for humans when we need to,” she said, sounding a little defensive. She frowned, and then said, “I suppose some of the locals suspect what we are, but I don’t think anyone would believe them. When most humans think of werewolves, they picture hairy, hunchbacked, rabid monsters, not leggy blondes like Tallow, or well, come on, you’ve seen my brother.”

Indigo gave her a sly look, and Ginnifer willed her cheeks to remain cool. She hadn’t done many interviews before, as most of her filming was of animals, with the occasional aside from the locals. Still, she didn’t ruffle easily while on camera. Usually.

“It seems like you have an appreciation for modern conveniences,” Ginnifer said, gently redirecting Indigo. “I would have never expected to find electronic devices here, and your book collection is impressive.”