Page 87 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
I expected many replies from Lincoln. What I wasn’t prepared for was laughter. It stopped as fast as my anger appeared.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sobering. “I shouldn’t have laughed. It’s just … yes, there are more like me, Vee. A lot more. An entire world of people that you don’t know about.”
“An entire world,” I repeated in a whisper, unable to find my voice. “And out of it, out of all that, you’re here? Why? Whyme, Lincoln?” I asked, my suspicion growing. “Are you here because of my intuition?”
It was, in hindsight, perhaps not the smartest of things to give voice to. I’d already let it slip once, on the back porch, but at the time Lincoln had been preoccupied. Now I was revealing too much.
His brow furrowed in confusion. “What? No. Why would I care about that?”
I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Apparently, he didn’t catch on that my intuition wasn’t normal. I needed to be more careful. I knew nothing about him, his people, or anything really, it seemed.
“I’m here because of you, Vee,” he said forcefully continuing. Grimacing in pain, he maneuvered himself into a proper sitting position, gingerly settling weight onto his ripped and torn side. “I’m here because I’m drawn to you. And I think you are too me as well. I feel it. I know you feel it too.”
The air in my lungs disappeared.
To do that, you must find the guardian. They will be drawn to you—a partnership, a call impossible to ignore. Find the guardian, Vi-vi. That is your next step. Your first step in understanding who we are. Whoyouare.
The words my grandmother had written came surging back to me.
“I’m here.” Lincoln went on, overriding those thoughts, “because every part of me is screaming to just … have you. I’m here because I don’t want to be somewhere you aren’t. I’m here because I want …” He trailed off, looking down for a moment. Then his eyes came up, slamming into me and pinning me to the seat. “I’m here, because Iwant.”
The last word was pure, undisguised desire in four letters. It reached out from his growled tone and plastered itself to me—hot, heavy, and unshakeable. My chest rose and fell. And again. I tried to control the reaction within me, to give in to the call hidden behind his words. It would be easy. So easy. I could stop fighting it. Accept it.
“Say something,” Lincoln said into the silence yawning before us. A silence enabled by my inability to get around the clog in my throat.
“I …” No other words followed. Clearing my throat, I forced more to come. “I appreciate your, uh, enthusiasm, but you’re in no shape to back it up at the moment?”
Oh. My. God. You idiot.
Lincoln stared at me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen his “so shocked I can’t speak” face. But I saw it now. The slight parting of his lips. The tiny wrinkles on his forehead. The lack of focused sparkle in his eyes. It was quite a sight, really.
A second later, he recovered. His head flung back, and he laughed … loudly and heartily. And almost instantly cried out in pain and subsided into a ball on the couch, hissing through clenched teeth. “That was dumb,” he managed to say.
“We really need to get you to a hospital, Linc. You’re hurt.”
“Look at my wounds, Vee,” he said, breathing slowly to help himself relax. “They’re already healing. I’ll be okay. I just need time.”
“What you need is to stop picking fights with things that are a lot bigger than you,” I corrected.
He snickered, the only amusement he could make without triggering more pain. “Sorry. That’s just not in my blood.”
I frowned.
“What? What did I say?”
“Nothing. It’s just … there’s a lot of talk about blood going on lately. Even the tree-thing.”
My grandmother’s notes had started it. The blood that ran through me …
“The tree-thing? What did it say?” Lincoln sounded confused. “Was that shriek when I tore its throat out words to you?”
“No, no, that was just painful screaming. I mean before that.” I shook my head. “You’re telling me you didn’t hear it? Over and over again, the same word. So loud. It was in my head. I assumed everyone could hear it.”
“Hear what, Sylvie? What did it say?”
“Bloodbound.” I repeated the word out loud, trying to make sense of it. “That’s all. The same word. Over and over. I don’t get it. What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Lincoln said, licking his lips. “I’ve never heard it before.”
