Page 40 of Alpha Rising (Secrets of the Northland Shifters)

I thought nothing could rival the fear I’d felt when I realized she was missing. But then I entered that liquor store. There—amongst the smell of alcohol, refrigerator coolant, and cardboard boxes—was the spiked scent of Sarah’s terror.

And when she’d thrown herself at me—clinging to my arms like her life depended on it—I thought my heart would crack in two.

Now she was safely tucked into my side. In her bed. In my old room. How many nights had I stared at my wall, knowing she was on the other side, and pictured her sleeping here? So many times. Too many times.

But this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

The possibility that I might have never learned what happened to her… The possibility of searching but never finding… Or worse.

She thrashed with yet another nightmare. I pushed away my own morbid thoughts, drawing her even closer to my body. It turned out to be a physical impossibility.

Her hand lay across my abs, and she dug her fingers into my skin like a kitten extending and retracting her claws, kneading my muscles as if looking for comfort.

I’d promised to protect her and failed. Whatever comfort my body could offer her now, it was hers for the taking. If I could take these nightmares from her forever, I would.

The alarm on my phone went off. I’d forgotten it was automatically set, and I cursed, rolling away to grab it from her nightstand.

I turned it off before it had beeped three times and believed, somehow, that I’d avoided waking her.

But then she murmured, “Reese?”

I let out a breath. “I’m here.”

“Okay.” She seemed to fall asleep again. Her breathing evened out, and her body remained warm and supple.

As she dozed, I stared out the window at the trees that were lightening with the dawn. I played over all the possible scenarios for what had happened the night before. The first—the one Sarah believed, so the one I gave the greatest weight—was that the criminals she’d witnessed in Chicago had discovered her hiding place and planned to either threaten her into non-compliance with law enforcement, or make her testimony forever impossible.

I hoped for other options, namely that she’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this had nothing to do with her. The assailants could’ve been connected to whoever sabotaged the ropes course—like Toby had hypothesized, which was why I’d brought him with me after we got the call.

Or, they could’ve been associated with whoever shot Dad. Maybe his death hadn’t been an accident, and he’d only been the primary target and now the hunter was back for me.

The possibility of a true shifter hunter had crossed my mind plenty of times before, but now the idea was back and taking up primary real estate in my brain.

“You’re tense,” Sarah said, her voice rough with sleep and her breath brushing across my skin.

“Shhh.” I squeezed her shoulder. “It’s still early.”

“I’m awake. Had a weird dream.”

“Just weird? Not a nightmare?”

“Not this time,” she said.

“Good.” She had plenty of reasons for her nightmares, and it would be some small conciliation if I’d had something to do with her sleeping so peacefully. I’d thought my protective urges toward her had been bad before. This latest incident put them into hyperdrive, and I imagined how I could keep her cocooned in these blankets forever.

“I wish I could remember it,” she said, sounding annoyed.

I smiled at that, then did a mini-ab crunch so I could kiss the top of her head. “It’ll probably come back to you when you least expect it.”

“Maybe.”

She lifted off me like she wanted to sit up, so I pushed myself up first and adjusted the pillows. I was in nothing but my briefs. She was wearing the white cotton panties and Albert Einstein T-shirt I’d found in her drawers last night. When we’d got back to the lodge, her adrenaline levels had remained so high, I’d had to help her change.

Sarah eased herself into a seated position, then turned to her side, curling into me again and resting her head against my shoulder. “You said something about a cousin last night.”

I ducked my chin to look down at her. “That’swhat you were dreaming about?”

She expelled a laugh through her nose. “No. I just remembered you saying it.”

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