Page 10 of Alpha Rising (Secrets of the Northland Shifters)

I pushed up on my elbows and glanced around at what seemed to be an old log cabin, dully lit by the sunlight struggling to get past its dirty windows.

I didn’t see anyone, but I could hear deep and steady breathing from another room, so I knew I wasn’t alone.

“Hel-lo?” I called out, my voice breaking, and I prayed, prayed,prayedI hadn’t actually woken up in the middle of my own true-crime show.

No response.

“Who’s there?”

I realized then I was lying on a thick pile of blankets near a wood-burning stove. Two more blankets were layered on top of me: one a worn patchwork quilt, the other a densely knitted wool.

Without looking to check, I knew I was naked underneath. This was mainly because I could see my wet dress, bra, and panties hanging over the arm of a rocking chair that was pulled up close to the stove's heat.

My other clue was that my nerve endings were alive and firing. Every fiber of the wool blanket prickled against my bare skin.

I clenched the blankets tighter, pulling them up under my chin. “I know you’re there, whoever you are. I can hear you breathing.”

It was quite possible I was shaking more now than I had been in the rain. I never should have watched so many episodes ofDateline. I thought I’d been desensitizing my nerves for the day I testified against DaBruzzi. At the very worst, I thought I was learning how to survive if I was kidnapped.

The shows had done nothing to prepare me for this. I couldn’t tell if I’d been taken prisoner or rescued. I didn’t know if this had anything to do with DaBruzzi or Reese. For all I could tell, some whack-job in the wilderness had brought me to his bunker to keep me as his pet.

My body shook, and I twisted in my supine position to look for the door. I found it on the wall behind my head but saw no coats or boots or any sign of a resident. Although one of my own flip-flops was lying upside down, several feet away.

I twisted the other way, toward the small kitchen. There was no food on the counter. No dishes piled up in the sink. Everything was bare with no evidence of life.

Was it possible I’d imagined the breathing? I couldn’t hear it anymore.

I sat up higher, and the quilt slipped from under my chin, settling on my breasts.

“Don’t be afraid,” said a man’s voice from another room.

“Jesus!” My heart lodged in my throat before I recognized the low, rumbly tone and exhaled. “Reese?”

“Don’t be afraid,” he repeated.

“I’m... I’m not,” I lied, suddenly remembering Toby’s warning that Reese might not be his normal self.

He snorted, as if the truth was more obvious to him than it was to me.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Around the corner.”

“Why?”

“When I shifted three days ago, I left my clothes behind. I haven’t had reason to go back for them yet. Obviously that was a mistake. I wasn’t expecting company.”

Yikes. A naked Reese. I’d gotten a quick glimpse of that the day I caught him shifting from a mountain lion into a man. The impressive image of all that beautiful flesh was burned on my brain.

“Well,” I said, trying to play it cool despite my racing heart, “we’ve got a level playing field. I think I’m naked, too.”

“Your clothes were soaked,” he said. “I didn’t want you to get sick.”

“Youtook them off me?” If my heart was racing before, it was now in hyperdrive, and I really wished I’d put on a nicer bra and panty set.

There was a long pause before he said, “I didn’t look when I did it. And it was dark so...”

“That was nice of you.” I didn’t want him to feel bad, regardless how awkward the situation.

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