Shifting the Night Away (75 page)

Quest of the Alpha

By

Claire Ryann

"Just choose from the females in the pack." Diego said it flippantly, as though it were a foregone conclusion.

Lane couldn't fault him for his thinking, it was only logical. Summer was drawing to a close, the females would go into heat in a few months and he needed to choose a new mate. It only made sense to choose from the girls in the pack. He didn't know how to explain it to Diego, he only knew that none of them were right.
 

"We need an alpha." Lane had said it before but no matter how many times he explained it to his brother, Diego couldn't seem to understand the dilemma. "A natural alpha. The girls in the pack are more wolf than woman, their cubs won't even be able to shift. We need to introduce
new blood
into the line or we are going to be just another pack of wolves roaming the mountains, worrying about starving through the winters or being hunted damn near to extinction again."

The younger man shook his head at his brother's lecture, he'd heard it a hundred times. He understood Lane's reasoning but if they didn't have a breeding pair soon it wouldn't matter what their blood line was comprised of,
 
their pack would be nothing more than a footnote in the history of their kind. "Lane, you're the eldest, you're our alpha, everyone is counting on you."
 

Lane nodded at his brother. "I know. I know. I just need some time." With that he turned away and shifted on the bound, his wolf nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of gray and black as he disappeared into the woods.

Diego watched him go. He knew his brother would be gone for days. Sulking, mulling it over, maybe looking for his mysterious mate that he kept insisting was out there. Diego returned to the pack, prepared to step in for his brother in his absence, prepared to explain it to the others one more time.

The pack was getting impatient. Usually when a wolf loses his mate he finds a replacement soon, but Lane had been hit hard by the loss of his family. That was one downside to being a shifter, having to balance human emotions with your animal instinct, but if Lane was going to retain his alpha status over the rag tag crew they called a pack, he would need to prove to them that he was worthy of the position.
 

The others wouldn't mate till he did, no matter how badly they wanted to and when the females went into heat in late winter, Diego knew he would be his brother's biggest threat. He didn't want it, but he knew he wouldn't be able to resist Zaia for another season. His brother needed to find this "alpha female" he was looking for or Diego himself would be challenging him for the top spot.

Tara eyed the alpine lake and new energy rushed through her tired legs. The 30 pounds of pack she was carrying suddenly vanished from her consciousness as she turned off the trail and all but ran for the water's edge. 20 feet or so from the shore of the small lake, she let the pack drop off her shoulders and slide to the ground.
 

She looked down at her boots, high ankled things that couldn't just be kicked off like lightweight trailrunners. Why did she have to have these stupid princess and the pea feet? Other hikers virtually floated through 30 mile days in little more than flip flops while she had spent years finding a pair of boots that didn't give her blisters just walking to the ranger's station from the car for her wilderness permit.

Tara sighed, decided to be grateful for the boots anyway, and gingerly sat down on the cool earth and started unlacing them. All she wanted to do was put her feet in the water. 15 miles of trudging uphill in the baking sun of late August and her feet felt like she was dragging lead weights through molten lava.
 

Carefully laying her sweat soaked socks over the boots, Tara heaved herself back up and marched to the water's edge. There wasn't much slope to the bank, she had about 3 feet of rocky slope where she could stand not quite knee deep before a significant drop into deeper water. The water was clear for several feet down, revealing a granite bowl filled with house sized boulders and occasional small fish swimming by where she'd disturbed the water. She found a large rock where she could sit with her feet in the water and look out over the mountains.

The lake was little more than a large pond. Wide, grassy meadow strewn with rough boulders here and there surrounded the lake on three sides, the west shore rising up in tall boulders and rocky cliffs that melted into the rising mountain side.

The trail was several hundred yards away, following a natural contour along the edge of the meadow and disappearing where it started to wind around the base of a rising peak on the east. Only a few stunted trees clung to life in the crags of the piles of granite so far above tree line.
 

She was utterly alone out here. She hadn't seen another human being in the last 3 days, since turning off of the more popular trail onto this spur that wasn't even marked on the newer version of the maps.
 

Tara appreciated the solitude. She enjoyed the backpacking because it got her away from the noise and lights of the "real world" but she enjoyed backpacking alone and away from other hikers because she got tired of the glares from the perfectly fit Abercrombie models with their toned thighs that didn't rub together and the girls who wore makeup on 30 mile
day hikes
without sweating.
 

Yeah, that's right, sister. The fat girl hikes.
Tara couldn't help but think as they passed her both going up the trail and again on their way back.
This plus sized goddess hikes, and she carries her own pack, and she sleeps alone in the middle of the woods with the bears and the coyotes.
She thought smugly as she watched all the Barbie perfect girls bouncing along the trail in their shorts and their Tevas while their boyfriends carried their gear for them.

Tara carried herself proudly past the other hikers, feeling self righteous for her ability and willingness to do the things that made other women squeal with disgust... but she couldn't help but notice that while she disparaged the girls who had their boyfriends carry their gear for them, they had boyfriends
to
carry it for them. Tara was happy to carry her own gear, she just wished she had someone who
wanted
to carry it for her.
 

She'd long since given up hope of forcing herself into the image of perfection. She hadn't entirely given up hope that someday she would find find a man who appreciated her just the way she was, but she wasn't holding her breath either. In the meantime, she wasn't going to sit at home and wait for Prince Charming to come knocking on her door.
 

Tara looked around and took in the beauty of the high Sierra around her, the clean air, the untouched wilderness, the solitude. Then she decided this cool alpine lake felt too good to just dip her feet in. She stood and moved to the edge of the water and pulled off her shirt and her pants and then, one more look around to make sure she really was all alone, and she deposited the sport bra and panties on top of the pile of clothes and walked back purposely to the place where the land dropped off into deeper water.

The water was warm near the surface after long summer hours in the sun, but about 3 feet deeper it turned chilly. There was still a lot of geothermal activity in these mountains with hot springs dotting the landscape here and there, maybe that's why some of these small lakes didn't seem as cold as they ought to be? Tara didn't put too much thought into it she just enjoyed the mildly cool waters and giggled as the schools of tiny fish tickled her feet where her sudden movements stirred them up.
 

After her swim, Tara left the lake and lay on the shore. It felt so good to feel proud and confident in her nakedness out here where there was no one to glance disapprovingly at her size or whisper rude remarks. No reason to feel ashamed or embarrassed here, the rocks and mountains didn't care what she looked like. She unfolded her foam sleeping pad and stretched out to let the sun dry the water from her skin.
 

She must have dozed off briefly. Tara woke with a start to realize the sun had made significant progress toward the western horizon and a cool wind had picked up, making napping naked a little chilly. She got up and started toward the pile of clothes she had left by the edge of the lake when she saw it. On the other side of the lake, probably only a few hundred yards away, lapping at the water when it suddenly sensed her presence and lifted its head to steady its gaze.

Tara gasped slightly and held perfectly still. She always loved encounters with wildlife, but something about the canine figure wasn't registering in her mind.

It wasn't a coyote. For one thing, she knew coyotes well and this wasn't one. Plus she was too high in elevation for coyotes. Everything in her brain screamed "wolf!" but everything she knew about the area told her she was hysterical. There were no wolves in the high Sierra.
 

Maybe someone had lost their dog, maybe someone had abandoned a dog. But it sure looked like the gray wolves she had seen in Yellowstone. A big one, mostly gray with black tips on its ears and paws. But it was the way it stared at her that made her heart beat faster. It held its head low but its gaze didn't waver, it definitely saw her. It saw her and it was looking at her, studying her.
 

The moment of magic and awe faded to the back of Tara's mind as she mentally flipped through her personal index of wild animals and what she knew about them.
Wolf: pack animal. Rarely hunts humans, but will. Pack animal. Mates for life. Hunts...pack. Not seen in California since the early 1900s. Pack.

The word "pack" kept popping into her brain, battling with the "not in California for a hundred years" information. Pack. They are pack animals, they live, move, and hunt in packs. If there's one wolf, there are more wolves.

She broke eye contact with the animal across the lake to tentatively look around. Where would the others come from? Would they hunt her? What's she supposed to do? Stand her ground? Run? No. Stand.

Tara suddenly snapped to her senses and looked one more time at the creature opposite the lake from her.
It's not a wolf, stupid
. She shook the notion from her head. There are no wolves in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and certainly none in California. Whatever the thing across the lake was, it wasn't a wolf. That meant there probably weren't any others and even if there were, they were unlikely to go after her. There was plenty of natural prey up here for any predators. It was probably watching her because it was scared stupid. It was probably someone's dog that had run off or been left behind and gone feral.
 

Tara grabbed her clothes and started getting dressed, still watching the dog watching her. It looked like it had adapted well to life in the mountains, but if it had been someone's pet, it might associate her with an easy food supply. She mentally patted herself on the back for carrying her food in a bear safe container, and made a note to be especially careful not to leave food out.
 

With the sun dipping below the western range, she decided to call the lake home for the night and set about putting up her small tent and making camp on the level ground along the lake's shore.

Lane had been roaming the mountains for the last few days. There were no humans in this part of the mountains and he could let his wolf run freely without concern of being spotted.
 

Usually.

He came down to the small lake to drink but had been caught quite off guard by the movement on the other side. He was well above the elevation where beers would be an issue, he was prepared to see a startled deer. Instead, he was the one who was startled. It was a human. A human female. He lowered his head and froze. Too late, she had seen him.