Page 39 of Rejected Mate's Baby for the Alpha King

“You’re awake.”

Stiffening, I turned my head sharply to the left as an elderly man ambled my way. He gave me an easy smile. “Sorry for scaring you. I suppose we haven’t been introduced. I’m Gideon.”

“Maya. I hear I have you to thank for the rescue.”

“It was a team effort.” He glanced at the cabin. “I gave Rhyson a radio but realized when he didn’t answer that it’s not charged. Luckily, I was able to return quickly. Is there anything that your healer needs? My own has returned if she needs a second set of hands.”

By hunching his shoulders and ducking his head, he was clearly trying to make himself seem smaller and put me more at ease. He stopped a respectable distance away from me and put his hands in his pockets. It was a level of respect that I’d never seen from another man. Even Rhyson hadn’t tried to make me feel so at ease back when he thought I was just a poor heartbroken victim.

It was refreshing. Slowly, I stood. “I will go ask.”

“No need,” Juniper said as the door opened and she stepped out. On the other side, Rhyson and Duke exited his cabin. I watched Gideon closely. Rhyson might be hiding the extent of his power, but there was no hiding that he was powerful. It was the same with Duke and Juniper. Every wolf nearby would know that they were not to be messed with.

Gideon didn’t even pull his hands out of his pockets, nor did he straighten. At no point did he feel on-guard or threatened. “Good to know. Rhyson, I came to tell you that the radio I gave you was dead. I’m sorry. I’m tired and a little distracted.”

“It is late. Would you allow us to stay the night?”

“Of course! I was already planning on it. I’m having some food prepared for you. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need, but I’ve already alerted the perimeter guards to allow you to leave whenever you’re ready.”

“Guards,” Rhyson repeated.

Gideon flashed a smile. “They call themselves that, but we’re not that militant. I was hoping that I could speak to Maya here about the creature. It’s the third one we’ve seen this year, and we’re still trying to figure out how they’re created.”

“Created?” Rhyson repeated.

“They’re wolves,” Gideon said solemnly. “The one we had to kill today was Trevor. He wasn’t part of our settlement, but he would come for supplies, especially in the winter when food was scarce. He was only nineteen.”

Nineteen? My heart broke.

“We have no idea what’s turning them or why. Our best guess is magic. Most of them just run and destroy. Trevor is the first to try to take someone.” Gideon turned to me. “Could we speak? I mean, with your permission, of course,” he said to Rhyson. “She is your mate.”

“We’re not mates,” Rhyson said coldly. “Maya can make her own decisions.”

Could I? I almost laughed at the irony. It seemed that no matter what I did, decisions were never my own.

Gideon wanted information, and so did Rhyson. Slowly, I stood and dusted myself off. “Maybe we could take a walk? I need to work out a kink in my hip.”

I didn’t even glance back at Rhyson as I walked down the steps, and nobody moved to stop me. I didn’t have intentions of going far, but I did want to try to get some lay of the land.

“I wish I could tell you that he gave me every detail of the days leading up to his change, but no dice. I’m not even certain that he could talk.”

He fell into step with me, still keeping his hands in his pockets. “You were human. Why didn’t you shift when he attacked?”

“My change is slow. I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself if he caught me mid-shift, and Dante was already unconscious.” I told him how we’d started a fire, and I pulled a log out. “He’s faster than I would have expected anyone of that size to be.”

A path led through the quiet of a patch of woods into a clearing, and immediately, I caught my breath. There were wolves everywhere.

Everywhere.

Young and old, gray, black, and red wolves bounded around. They far outnumbered the human forms walking around. I glanced upward. The moon was almost full, and that was when wolves wanted to shift the most.

“Don’t be alarmed. They won’t hurt you,” Gideon said quietly. “It’s been a long few days with us tracking Trevor. It didn’t end well, but the tension has broken, so they’re free to roam. The little ones are watched more closely when there is danger nearby.”

And he didn’t consider anyone in my group to be dangerous. How interesting.

“So Trevor took you,” Gideon prompted.

I swallowed my fear and tried to think of anything that might be helpful. “He wasn’t randomly crashing through the woods. He turned multiple times to get to the river. When he stopped, he dropped me and sniffed me.” I shuddered at the memory.

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