Capturing the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 1) (22 page)

Indigo sat on a flat rock, her head resting on her hands and a sullen expression on her face. Her violet eyes flickered to Zane as he approached, but she didn’t appear hostile this time, only resigned.

“I wasn’t going any farther,” she muttered.

Exhaling heavily, Zane sat down beside her, close enough so that their shoulders could touch. A week on the tundra during the long days of summer had darkened her tan skin, making her freckles almost invisible. Her chestnut hair, which was always meticulously combed and pulled back, hung in wild tangles around her face. She smelled like mud and tears, and Zane could see the dried remnants of both on her streaked face.

She asked, “Are you angry?”

“Furious,” he said mildly. “There is no one in this world that can make me angrier than you can.”

Indigo rested her head on his shoulder. “That’s because you love me.”

He put an arm around her to pull her closer. For once, she didn’t squirm away. He wondered if her sudden inclination to be affectionate was only a ploy to get out of trouble. Then he begrudgingly admitted to himself that it might work.

“Do you have any idea where you are right now?” Zane asked.

Indigo looked around at the mountainous wasteland. The earth was covered in red and yellow vegetation, and there were more rocks than there were stout green shrubs. In spite of the season, no prey stirred for as far as Zane could see, not even a hare.

She nodded towards the west. “Amarok is that way.”

It was a decidedly vague answer. Zane could have said as much while standing in the den.

“A few more hours and you would be in scent range of their scouts,” he told her. “They’d either kill you or find some way to use you against me.”

The Amarok pack would take any opportunity to subvert him and claim Siluit territory.  Their massive territory encompassed at least six regions that had belonged to the packs that they’d conquered, and their careless overhunting had driven off the caribou herds.

“Maybe,” she said, and her lack of certainty reminded Zane of her naiveté. “All I know is that
he’s
over there.”

This again
.

Ever since the snow had melted, Indigo had been running off, disappearing for days. Each time, he or Breeze had to hunt her down, and each time, she claimed that she’d been following the trail of her mate.

Her insistence concerned him. Indigo was half human, and while that made her blood more pure than nearly every shifter he’d ever met, it narrowed the odds that she would ever become a mother. Further working against her was the fact that she was well past the age by which her fertility would have become apparent.

All of this had led him to believe that her pursuit of a mate was an adolescent act of rebellion, but sitting beside her now, he recognized the pain and longing in her eyes, and it told him that he was facing an even larger problem than he’d thought.

“Indigo…” Her name was a sigh on his lips. “You need to stop doing this to yourself. You can be happy without having a mate or pups.”

“Because that’s working out so well for you,” she said flatly. “My mate is out there, I’ve smelled him and it feels like…like my heart is too big for my chest and it compresses my lungs and I can barely breathe and all of the sudden there’s too much blood in my body.”

Indigo blinked rapidly. “And then I lose the trail, and all of the places where there was so much…
muchnesss
, there’s nothing anymore. And I feel like a husk. I don’t like doing this. I hate it…” She looked up at him, her violet eyes large and watery. “Tell me I’m wrong, Zane. Tell me I’m going crazy and that’s not what it feels like, and I’ll give up, I swear it.”

Zane shut his eyes. From somewhere in the darkness, he heard his dormant wolf let out an agonized whine. He rested his head against hers.

“Please, come home with me for now, and I promise, we’ll figure this out together.”

***

“Thank God, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for two days. Don’t they have cellular service in Edinburgh?”

There were dark circles behind Rita’s crooked glasses and a coffee stain on her blouse. Behind her, Ginnifer could see her apartment, and it was even messier than when she’d left the week before.

Jack had been on the other side of the counter, pretending to organize the rack of overpriced candy bars. He caught Ginnifer’s gaze, his brows drawn together as he mouthed the word
Edinburgh
.

Ginnifer shifter her attention back to the Skype chat. “I’m not staying in Edinburgh exactly, it’s a more rural part of the countryside.”

“Do you at least have a landline number where I can call you?”

Ginnifer thrummed her fingers on the counter. “I’ll look into it later. Right now, I have places to be, so let’s make this quick.”

“Your agent wants me to send her the bonus scenes, but I can’t find them anywhere. I also needed the subtitle text, like, yesterday.”

“Remember what I told you before I left? Everything you need is—”

“On the cloud drive, I know, but you left over a thousand files on here and you didn’t organize anything into folders, and—”

“Do a search for the file na—”

“—none of these files are properly named. It took me five hours to find the final draft and you know what you had it labeled as?
Movie05
.”

“That’s because it was the fifth draft,” Ginnifer said sheepishly. “Okay, okay, I could have made things easier for you and I’m sorry. But it’s all there, I promise.”

Rita’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, I’m so stressed. I wish you could have stayed to help me finish this.”

“I wish I could have, too,” she said with sincerity. “But I couldn’t put this trip off any longer.”

With the counter to shield her from view, Ginnifer pressed a hand to her belly. For the first couple months, it had been a struggle to hide her persistent nausea and her new fondness for rare meat, but her flat midsection had managed to keep the baby a secret. However, once she’d neared the end of her fourth month, she’d abruptly ballooned, and it was getting to the point that no amount of layered black clothes were going to disguise the rounded bulge.

“I’ll be in touch, Rita. You’ve got this.”

As she ended the Skype call, Jack offered her a Sweet Marie, but pulled it away as soon as she reached for it.

“Who was that? Your boss?”

Ginnifer snorted and snatched the candy bar. “That’s my intern.
I’m
the boss.”

“I bet you are,” Jack said with a grin. “So what is it that’s got her so pissed? And why does she think you’re in Ireland?”

“
Scotland
, silly, and she’s upset because I dumped the entire post-production of an independent film release on her at the last minute. Basically, she hasn’t slept in a week, and she probably won’t for the next month.”

“Ouch.”

Ginnifer took a bite of the candy bar, speaking through a heavenly mouthful of nougat, caramel, and peanuts. “If you knew what I was paying her…eh, never mind. Thanks for letting me use your computer, and you know, everything else.”

She put a twenty on the counter and grabbed her purse. Jack went ahead of her to the door and opened it for her.

“See you tomorrow?” he asked hopefully.

She only smiled at him.

With the long winter gone, Nunavut was much warmer than it had been the last time she was there, but it didn’t feel like it. After a Miami summer, the cold, dry air made her shiver even under her heavy coat.

The walk to the clinic was too short for her liking. As much as she’d anticipated the appointment during her trip north, she hesitated outside the door, anxiety making her queasy.

Her steps were a little shaky as she walked inside. The receptionist looked up from her magazine, appearing startled. Recognition flashed over her face, and then she motioned towards the door to the back.

“Uh, Jennifer, right? Genie’s waiting for you.”

Not bothering to correct her, Ginnifer grasped the handle of the salmon-colored door and stepped into a short hallway with kitschy floral wallpaper and a checkered linoleum floor. She gave a small jump as the door clicked shut behind her.

There were only two rooms, and she found Genie in the first, sitting at a desk that was cluttered with paperwork, medical textbooks, and journals. She was a plump, middle-aged woman, with dark red hair and faint wrinkles bracketing her mouth. A Toronto native, Genie went by her first name, because she claimed that even she couldn’t pronounce her Inuit husband’s surname. As soon as she saw Ginnifer, was up from her chair and pulling her into a big hug.

“How are you feeling?”

“Nervous,” Ginnifer admitted.

“Don’t be,” Genie said as she pulled back. “I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

Genie had been her lifeline over the past four months, when she’d been unable to seek prenatal care. Shifters had more protections in the US, but they were still viewed as dangerous and lived preserved land, separated from human society. If she’d gone to a local obstetrician, she would have been urged towards abortion. If she chose to keep her baby, it would have no human rights once it was born, and she’d read nightmare-inducing accounts of women whose babies had been ripped from their arms in the hospital, to be integrated into shifter packs without their consent.

Jack had helped her to get in touch with Genie, who’d been with her every step of the way, answering Ginnifer’s phone calls even in the dead of night. Sometimes Ginnifer had called with legitimate medical concerns, but mostly it was for emotional support, as Genie was the only one besides Aaron who knew that she was pregnant.

Genie guided her to the other room, waving her onto the exam table. Ginnifer removed her coat and cardigan, allowing Genie to take her vitals, first her blood pressure, and then her breathing.

“Lay back and lift your shirt up.”

Ginnifer cringed, but complied. She ran a finger over the purple, bruise-like mark that ran along the bottom of her belly. “I noticed this last night. It wasn’t there last week. The baby kicks a lot, but not
that
hard.”

“It’s a stretch mark,” Genie said as she put her cold hands over the mound.

Groaning, Ginnifer slapped a hand over her face. “I put lotion on every single day.”

She watched as Genie’s hands nudged at different parts of her belly. Unaccustomed to anything but Ginnifer’s soft caresses, the baby wriggled and kicked in response.

When Genie was finished, Ginnifer’s hand went to her belly to give it a soothing pat.

“Does everything feel okay?”

Genie nodded. “Maybe a little on the big side for five months, but everything’s where it should be. How about we take a peek at the little one?”

Ginnifer’s anxiety increased twofold as Genie went to the closet and wheeled out a machine that was almost as large as she was, with an antiquated monitor and numerous cables.

“It’s an all-purpose imaging machine,” Genie said brightly. “Old as dirt, but it’ll do.”

Ginnifer’s anxiety peaked as Genie began setting it up. She swung her legs over the side of the table and said, “I’m not a fan of those things. I wouldn’t want to eradiate the baby.”

With a deep belly laugh, Genie said, “You’d have to live under one of these things around the clock to make it half as dangerous as people think. Your baby will be just fine.”

“But what if it’s not?” Ginnifer asked, her throat tightening. “What if you find something wrong?”

Genie turned to give her a sympathetic smile. “Is that what you’re worried about?”

“I haven’t seen a doctor, I always forget to take those vitamins, and some days I eat cold cuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Genie put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back onto the table. “Relax. I told you that everything seems fine, and if there is something wrong, it’s better we know now so that we can plan for it. Make sense?”

Ginnifer gave a slow nod.

It took a few minutes to get the machine set up, and at Ginnifer’s request, Genie faced the monitor away from her. She squirted a dollop of cold jelly on Ginnifer’s abdomen, and then spread it out with the wand.

Ginnifer was watching Genie’s face, looking for even the slightest trace of concern, when the sound of her baby’s heartbeat filled the room. Her vision blurred over with tears and her chest ached. For the past few months, even as she’d grown more attached to her baby, she’d been dreading the day that it would come. Now, all she wanted was to be able to hold it in her arms.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do yet?” Genie said, her eyes on the monitor. There was a serene smile on her lips that put Ginnifer at ease.

“Boaz will be here tomorrow.”

“You’ll have a tough road ahead of you, but I think that’s the right choice.” Genie’s eyes crinkled. “Now, do you want to know the sex of your baby?”

“Can you at least give me a night of peace before you go running off again?” Zane asked.

Indigo had been looking over her shoulder, her gaze fixed on the west. She’d been doing it for the entire trip back to the den, and Zane was constantly catching her before she tripped over a rock or stepped into a hole.

She looked up at him, he head cocked. “Hm?”

He mussed up her hair. “Sleep in my room tonight, so I’m not wondering where you are.”

“Fine,” she said, bumping her shoulder against his arm.

Winter was still only a whisper on the chilled wind, and the spire that rose up over the den was bare of snow. On their way down the inlet, they’d caught sight of the caribou herd, milling about in the valley of lichen. The sun was still in they sky, where it would remain for the rest of the day and most of what would have been night.

As they neared the entrance to the den, something tickled at the back of his awareness. He lifted his nose to sniff the air, but could discern only the familiar scents of home and Breeze, who waited outside, her hands on her hips.

Breeze was glowering at Indigo, and her thinned lips looked to be repressing a long tirade. Indigo probably deserved every word of what she’d say, but at a firm look from Zane, the beta female stood down.

Indigo cast Breeze a circumspect glance before shuffling by, her shoulders hunched and her hand tugging at her ear. Zane stopped alongside Breeze, not waiting until Indigo was out of earshot to speak.

“I wish I knew how you do that,” he said.

“It’s easy. She’s actually afraid of me.”

Zane gave her an appraising look, arching a brow at the petite female.

Breeze said, “It’s not my claws that scare her, it’s my tongue.” In a lower voice, she added, “But honestly, I hope you’ve thought of some way to discipline her. I’m at my wit’s end, and I don’t know how we’re going to keep her in the den, short of having Roch babysit her.”

“But then who would we have to scrub the floors?”

It had taken Tallow just over a week to find Roch and Coral, trapped in a southern cave by a solitary bear shifter. Tallow had nearly been killed in her attempt to distract the bear, but the bear had fled when Roch and Coral had joined the fight.

Since coming back to the den, Roch had been put on cleaning duties indefinitely, until Zane decided that he wasn’t pissed anymore. Coral had the task of cleaning the kills, a much lighter punishment as it only took a few hours out of her day. After what he’d found out about Sedna, he had not wanted to punish her at all, but he couldn’t risk setting a poor example for other young wolves. It was bad enough that Indigo was constantly running off with few repercussions.

Breeze’s head fell. “I thought for sure that when she got caught in the trap, she’d stop this nonsense. But it’s only getting worse, and with bears roaming all over now… I wish she would find her stupid mate, that way she could be
his
problem and I wouldn’t have to worry about her all the time.”

“You’d still worry.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Breeze gave a heavy suffering sigh as she stared down the passageway, but when she looked at Zane, there was a mischievous glint in her eyes. It was so uncharacteristic that it made him nervous.

She said, “There is one person who might be able to give us some advice here. I seem to remember that your mate got along quite well with your sister. Perhaps I will go ask her what she thinks.”

Smiling, Breeze turned and headed down the passageway. Zane stood still for a moment, his throat working with the effort to swallow. He took a few steps forward and inhaled deeply, taking in a multitude of scents.

Beneath the smells of roasting caribou meat, burning sage, and the sweat of a hundred different shifters, he managed to pick up on a thin tendril of something that had his feet moving forward before his mind had a chance to form the word.

Ginnifer
.

***

“Can you please stop?”

Ginnifer’s steely tone said that it was an order, not a request, but Tallow ignored her. The wolf shifter’s clawed hand darted to the other side of Ginnifer’s belly, pressing down firmly with two fingers. The baby gave a strong kick in response.

“We’re playing,” Tallow sniffed.

Ginnifer swatted her hand away. “For the last time, you’re not playing with the baby, you’re annoying it.”

There had been a time that she’d found Tallow’s obsession with the baby to be cute, though Ginnifer could hardly believe it.

When Boaz and Tallow had come for her at Port Trent, neither had known she was pregnant. She had spoken with Boaz via Jack’s Skype while she was still in Miami, telling him that she’d be coming up to pick up the rest of her things. She hadn’t known how to tell him about the baby, so she’d left that part out, deciding she’d explain things to him once they’d met up in person.

What she hadn’t remembered was that shifters could sniff out the hormonal changes of pregnancy. As soon as she’d met up with them on the edge of town, Tallow had glided over to Ginnifer and fallen onto her knees to rub her face over her belly.

The trip back to the den had taken five days. Tallow had insisted on carrying Ginnifer, leaving Boaz to jog along beside them. Even though they’d been back at the den for three days, his feet were still covered in blisters.

The one good thing about having Tallow around was that she acted as a warder for whichever room Ginnifer was in, barring some from entering, and hauling others out when they overstayed their welcome.

Boaz looped an arm around Tallow’s middle, pulling her into his lap. “Come on. Stop, unless you want her to smack you again.”

The wolf shifter squirmed in his hold, but she could have easily gotten away if she wanted to. The short, awkward man and the leggy, ostentatious wolf were a strange pair, but they somehow managed to fit one another well.

Tallow narrowed her mismatched eyes on Ginnifer. “Know this, human, I only let you get away with hitting me because of the pup. I am keeping a tally, and once that pup is free of you, I’m going to give back every smack, with interest.”

It was also notable that Tallow’s liking for the pup did not extend to its mother.

“I’ll be waiting with bells on,” Ginnifer said, mentally tacking on a “
bitch
” at the end.

She sat up from the bed, just as the pelts over the door drew up. Tallow looked like she was about to protest, but her mouth clicked shut as Indigo ran to Ginnifer’s side.

“I knew you’d come back,” Indigo said, pulling Ginnifer into a tight embrace.

Ginnifer held her just as fiercely, and when they pulled back, she kissed each of Indigo’s freckled cheeks. Indigo’s eyes were already staring down at her belly, a look of wonderment on her face.

“That’s…my brother’s?”

Tallow answered for her. “You think she’d have us bring her back here carrying a pup that wasn’t Zane’s? Clearly you’ve been out in the sun too long and it’s fried your brain.” To Boaz, she said, “
I
didn’t have to ask. I knew as soon as I smelled her that I was going to be an aunt.”

Indigo’s face scrunched with displeasure. “You don’t even like pups and you’re not its aunt,
I
am.”

The young shifter lowered her head to Ginnifer’s belly. “Oh my gosh, I can hear its heart beating. Hello in there, sweet little pup. It’s Aunt Indigo. Your
only
aunt.”

Ginnifer realized that they were well overdue for a snappy comeback from Tallow, but when she glanced over at the shifter, she was looking away from them. Ginnifer followed her gaze, to where Zane leaned in the doorway.

She’d been waiting for and dreading this moment for weeks, playing it over and over in her head and trying to predict how it would go. Already, nothing was as she’d planned. They weren’t alone, and he wasn’t saying anything to her, only staring at her with an inscrutable expression that set every nerve in her body on edge.

And while she’d planned for what she’d say, she hadn’t predicted how the sight of him would affect her. At first, fear gripped her, and it was like falling through a sheet of ice. Then came insecurity and shame, and she landed in a pit of lava. Her insides twisted and churned, and she wanted to throw up and cry.

Tallow pulled Indigo up by the back of her shirt. “That’s enough for now. Mom and dad need to talk.”

Boaz offered Ginnifer a reassuring smile before he left the room with Tallow. When Indigo went to pass, Zane put a hand up to stop her, a statue springing to life.

With a reproving look, he said, “You can take a bath, or go to your room, but do not hang around the corner eavesdropping.”

Indigo made a reply, but Ginnifer didn’t hear it. At the sound of Zane’s deep voice and its familiar authority and calm control, the sinews of her heart unraveled, and she had the desperate need to be close to him, touch him, and smell him.

Once they were alone, she opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to remember all of the things she was supposed to say. How she was supposed to explain to him why she hadn’t come back sooner—
I had to finish the documentary because it was too important. I had to make sure that this was the life I wanted. I had to be certain, because I knew that once I came here, I would never be able to leave you again.

The words were stuck in her mouth as Zane came over to crouch beside her. He ran his fingertips over her belly, and then settled his palm over the bulge. His hand covered well over half of her belly, and for the first time in weeks, she felt very small.

“How?” he asked, rubbing small circles with his thumb.

Her attempt at a lighthearted tone was subverted by the tremor in her voice. “He’ll have your virility and my terrible memory for dates.”

Ginnifer saw his lips twitch, but he was still looking down at his hand over the baby. She wet her lips, and then asked, “Do you hate me?”

His golden eyes moved to lock with hers. He lifted his hand to caress the side of her face.

“How could I possibly hate you?”

With a sob, Ginnifer leaned forward to claim his lips in a passionate kiss. Zane’s arms went around to cradle her back, as his mouth responded in earnest, kissing her back with the fervor of need. His tongue plunged deep, exploring every inch of her mouth before engaging her tongue in a sensual dance.

As their kiss intensified, their hands began to roam, reacquainting themselves with each curve and hollow of their bodies. His hand stroked her neck, and he growled with pleasure as his fingers brushed against his mark.

She whimpered as he began massaging her breast, and she began scooting herself closer to him, until Zane finally pulled her on his lap to straddle him. His pelt had fallen in a pool around them, and she could feel him hard against her.

The need to have him inside of her was overpowering. It wasn’t just the aching emptiness of unspent lust, but something that ran much deeper. She needed to feel reconnected to him on the most primitive level.

As they continued to kiss, she maneuvered her dress out of the way, so that she was positioned directly over him. She rocked her hips against him, and she thought she could feel his solid length throbbing against her core.

She pulled apart from him just long enough to say, “
Tear them
.”

The alpha did not need to ask for clarification. He reached between them, carefully wielding his sharp claws as he sliced her panties apart. Zane grasped his erection, and they both had to arch their hips apart to give him room to position himself against her wet cleft.

Inch by inch, she lowered herself onto him. Pregnancy had significantly increased the blood volume in her body, and it had never been more apparent than it was now. Her passage was tighter and swollen to hypersensitivity. Zane seemed to feel the difference as well, and he had to stop kissing her to suck in a sharp breath. With an almost pained groan, he buried his head in her neck, shuddering as he was planted fully inside of her.

They stayed connected for a moment, with their bodies pressed as closely together as the baby between them would allow. Ginnifer caressed the back of his head, while Zane nuzzled the crook of her neck.

Into his ear, she whispered, “I can go on my knees and you can get behind me.”

“I would be too rough,” he told her, his chest rumbling with another growl. “We will do that again when I properly claim you as my mate.”

Laughing softly, she moved his hand to the side of her belly. “I can’t get much more claimed than this.”

“That is what you think, mate,” he said, giving her neck a playful nip. “But the next time you’re fertile, I will enlighten you.”

Before she could respond, Zane’s mouth closed over hers again. His hands gripped her hips, rocking them in a gentle rhythm that had them both straining to breathe. Wanting them to come together, she squeezed her eyes shut, her hands fisting as she struggled to hold back the tide. It became increasingly difficult as his strokes became faster, and by the time she felt his body going rigid with his release, she was already basking in the ecstasy of her own.