Page 13 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

“I did.” Reeve’s eyes narrowed. “At least, I thought I did.” He sighed. “She suspected something, huh?”

“Weeks ago.” Darion ground his teeth. “I only wish I’d acted then. Maybe I could have averted some of this disaster—”

“It’s not a disaster!” Reeve threw his hands up, rolling his eyes with exaggerated frustration. “Claire’s a beautiful, intelligent, interesting woman with an adventurous spirit and an incredibly high tolerance for grumpy jerks. She’s perfect for you, and I’m not apologizing for introducing you to your soulmate.”

“To my—!” Darion bit back a wild laugh. “You’re delusional.”

“Sure,” Reeve said, shrugging magnanimously. “But my hunches have never steered me wrong before, brother of mine, and this is the biggest one yet. Hit me if you like,” he added, nodding to Darion’s clenched fists. “I’ll take a hit, but I don’t regret what I did, and I wouldn’t change it.”

“You stand by the decision to ruin that girl’s life? You stand by the decision to endanger us all?”

That caught Reeve’s attention. He frowned, folding his arms across his chest. Darion could see him shivering a little, the thin fabric of his shirt not doing much against the cool night air. “What kind of paranoid leap of logic has brought you to that conclusion?”

“You brought a human to Kurivon. A human. You of all people ought to know how reckless that was.” It had been Reeve who had told them most of what they knew about the humans of this world, the strange population of individuals who couldn’t shift at all, who spent their whole lives in one body. But nevertheless, they dominated this world, ruled it, controlled it, unaware of the population of shifters that lived invisibly among them. At least, unaware until now. “If she shares details of what she’s seen here—”

“So you told her?” Reeve tilted his head curiously. “You told her what we’re doing here? Told her about shifters, about Halforst, about the whole situation?”

“Of course not.” He grimaced. It had been difficult, telling her the story of his and his brother’s upbringing without mentioning any information he didn’t want her to have. The intent way she listened, the magnetic weight of her eyes on his face…“I want her to be able to return to her life. As it stands, she knows relatively little about this place. You’ll still need to see to it that she’s watched for the rest of her life,” he added darkly, “but—”

“You’re that keen to send her home already? She only just got here.”

“She doesn’tbelonghere,” Darion growled, trying not to rise to Reeve’s obvious bait. “And the longer she stays, the more we risk her seeing something she shouldn’t. Something that could put us and her in danger. You will arrange whatever you need to arrange to get her home.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“She leaves first thing,” Darion snapped. Once Claire was safely out of here, there would be a much longer discussion to have with his brother. “I’m sure it goes without saying that we’ll be discussing this with Renfrey.”

He watched his brother’s face closely when he mentioned the name of the island’s Alpha, the wolf who’d been put in charge of the mission here, and sure enough, a flicker of guilt confirmed his suspicions. Reeve hadn’t cleared this ridiculous operation with Renfrey, which meant that nobody else on the island knew about the human who was currently sleeping in Darion’s guest room. That was good, at least. They could keep this contained.

He walked Reeve back to the cottage, glad to notice that his brother had lapsed into sullen silence. But nothing could stop Reeve from getting the last word in. Before Darion was out of earshot, he heard Reeve chuckle, and despite his better judgment, he stopped.

“You seem to feel pretty strongly about this ‘complete stranger’,” Reeve said idly, amusement dancing in his voice. “Are you absolutely sure you’re not sending your soulmate away?”

Before Darion could react, the door clicked shut. He stood in the darkness with his fists clenched for a few breaths, fighting the urge to tear the door off its hinges. Only his reluctance to wake the baby again held him back. He turned and stormed into the dark of the trees, heart thudding furiously in his chest. Why had he expected Reeve to be anything other than smug and unrepentant? He’d spent his whole stupid life meddling in Darion’s affairs. But what Claire had said kept creeping back into his mind. Reeve wanted Darion to have the same happiness he’d found with Lyrie and their growing family. Maddening, the way that thought kept taking the edge off his anger, leaving him in an uneasy middle ground of ungrounded anger and confusion.

It must have been past midnight when he got back to his cottage—he could hear the last strains of the town’s bells dying away as he emerged from the trees, and the distant thud of pawsteps told him the evening patrol was on their way back home. He paused on the path, old instinct telling him to check in with the patrol. It had been months since anything more interesting than a fallen tree had been reported, but Darion hadn’t let his guard down in years and didn’t intend to start now. Two shaggy shapes appeared around the corner and he raised a hand in greeting as they padded closer, their easy body language telling him right away that there was nothing to report.

At least, not until a piercing shriek ripped through the air. Darion’s hand flew to his hip, reaching automatically for a weapon that wasn’t there. The patrolling wolves’ heads had snapped around, hackles rising as a figure in white came running down the steps of Darion’s cottage, arms outstretched as she shouted a warning, urging him to back away from the wolves on the path.

“No,” he started, realizing too late what was about to happen. “Claire, go back inside—”

She was at his side now, breathing hard, her eyes on the wolves and her body trembling with fear. Darion saw the patrol relax, their alertness replaced with curiosity as they took in the sight of the stranger. And then, inevitable as breathing, shifter etiquette took hold. The two wolves stepped forward, shifting back to their human forms to allow them to make a polite introduction.

But there was no need. Because Claire had taken one look at the wolves and fainted clean away.

Chapter 7 - Claire

Strange dreams, Claire thought drowsily as she stirred from her sleep. She’d been having a lot of those lately. Probably something to do with the massive upheaval she was experiencing—leaving her apartment, leaving the city, flying out to the middle of nowhere to be rejected by the most fascinating man she’d ever met—she supposed it made sense that her sleep would be a little troubled. This one had beenvivid, though. She turned over in the warm embrace of the bed, closing her eyes tightly against the creeping sunlight through the window. She’d always had a fondness for pressing the snooze button, but the uneasy memory of the dream kept her from slipping back to sleep, and it wasn’t long before she sat up in bed, grimacing at her reflection in the mirror on the far wall. Her hair was a mess, and her brush was on the other side of the room.

Claire slid out of bed, wincing at the sandy scrape of her feet against the soft carpet. What had she been thinking, running around barefoot on the road like that? She was always so reckless in her dreams. Blearily, she picked up first one foot, then the other, checking the soles for any injuries. No wounds, just dirt, and a fair bit of sand from the road outside. Would Darion mind if she had a shower before she left? Surely—

Wait.

Claire dropped the hairbrush she was holding as the realization hit her, torn between embarrassment at her delayed response and utter shock at the ramifications. It hadn’t been a dream. She really had been outside last night. She’d gone down to the kitchen for a glass of water, then stepped out onto the front porch for a breath of that beautiful night air…that much, at least, had made sense. But what had happened after that was another story.

Claire dressed quickly, the question of a shower forgotten in her urgency, and hurried down the steps to find Darion pacing back and forth in the kitchen. His eyes flicked up to meet hers the moment she appeared, and she realized he was in the same clothes he’d been in the night before. Had he slept at all, she wondered? It wasn’t hard to imagine him simply pacing back and forth in the kitchen all night, waiting for her.

“Good morning,” she said faintly. No matter how weird things got, there was always time for manners. “Um. This might be a stupid question, but did you happen to put hallucinogenic drugs in anything we ate last night?” Darion hesitated, and she felt strangely victorious to have put him off balance at least a little. “No. I didn’t think so. Follow-up question, then—what thehellwas that? And don’t tell me it was a dream,” she added sharply, pointing at him in warning. “I saw them. I heard them. I smelled their fur. There werewolvesout there.” She took a deep breath, summoning the courage she needed for the hardest part. “And then there—weren’t.”

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