Page 27 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
“See through it. It’s nothing but a ruse, a spell she’s cast on you, to bait you.”
“I smell no magic about her. Do you smell it about me?” I challenged.
“I can smell nothing over her scent,” Germander shot back, a point I could not argue. I had basked in her scent.
“Witches’ magic is foul,” I said. “I have smelled the magic of the Gonagall sisters on the occasions they come down from their perch atop the hill. That magic is unmistakable.”
“Perhaps her scent is so strong to cover it up.”
I clenched my jaw to stop myself from an instant retort. It was a valid point, and one I would make to anyone who came to me if I were on the other side.
“Perhaps. But I don’t sense any malevolence from her. No evil.”
“Of course you can’t,” Germander said, shaking his head. “But make no mistake. Youknowwho she works for and the purpose behind it all. Which you know I cannot discuss further in a setting like this. You aren’t ignorant, Lincoln. When you became alpha after your father, you learned the truth from Elder Jackson.”
“I know what he told me, yes,” I said, reminded of the session with Rome’s grandfather. “But what I don’t understand is thatit didn’t used to be this way, with us and humans and the bloodline. What changed?”
“What changed? Whatchanged?”Elder Germander’s eyes opened so wide I could see the whites. “What changed is that a century and a half ago our pack was nearly wiped out because of it all. Because ofit, andherbloodline. It took nine decades for us to learn and to withdraw from the humans. For the past sixty years, we have finally hadsanity.You know the history. You can’t dispute it. Alpha or not, Lincoln, if you continue to protest this, youwillhave trouble.”
He growled.
My answering growl was louder, ripping through his like it wasn’t even there as I stood, towering over the elder.
“I have heard the stories. ButElderGermander,” I said, stressing his title with dripping scorn, “something about this is wrong. And I intend to prove it.”
Germander glared up at me, but credit to the old man, he didn’t back down or step away. He sat in his chair and waited for me to make the next move.
“I’m on night patrol tonight,” I said at last. “I need to get some rest.”
The elder understood that our meeting was at an end and conceded the point with a sharp, short nod. “Yes. In these troubling times, we must all do our part to be alert and ready for what is coming.”
Chapter Eleven
Lincoln
This is getting to be a bad habit.
Elder Jackson, or Germander for that matter, would have a fit if they could see me now. Not out on watch like I should be, setting an example, but instead at the edge of the forest.
Watching her.Again.
I should be setting that example. Patrolling against danger, known or unknown, and keeping our pack safe. That was my duty this moonless night, and I wasn’t doing it. Not quite. In some twisted way, perhaps I could justify the surveillance as keeping my people safe by making sure the woman was not up to anything.
No. Not the woman. Her.
Sylvie Anne Wilson.
I knew her name, though she didn’t know mine. I watched her from the edge of the forest, confident that she could not make out my form, or my eyes, in the cloudy dark. I watched her as she sat on the porch, in the same chair her grandmother often sat. Looking out at the forest while it looked back on her. She was staring right at me without seeing.
What is this pull that drags me back to you?
In time with my thoughts, a frown creased the delectably smooth skin of her face, wrinkling around her mouth and eyes and reflecting the unhappy thought within. I leaned forward, fighting the need to go to her. To fix it. To make whatever was bothering her better.
I disliked the way her strikingly beautiful features were marred when she wasn’t smiling. It twisted the curves of her jaw and hid the wonder of her eyes under the scrunched-up brow. I wanted to see her smile again. If she did that, I could go, I told myself, go and return to what Ishouldbe doing.
Perhaps I am under her spell. The old me would never have dreamed of doing this. He would be on patrol, keeping his people safe from the things that have started to stir in the night.
The gloom deepened as the height of night approached. Around me, the forest was still, drawing breath and waiting for what would happen next. I almost expected a fog to roll in, creeping through the underbrush to reduce vision and foreshadow something big.
