Trust (3 page)

G
rowing up
, Alder had frequently been compared to his twin brother Hale. Alder had never minded the comparisons, likely because they always seemed to favor him. Alder was the well-behaved one, the responsible one, and the reliable one, while Hale—who was disrespectful, irresponsible, and prone to breaking commitments and shirking his duties—was largely regarded as his antithesis in every way.

Alder had carried his good qualities into adulthood, and he rarely deviated from them, except for a few glaring indiscretions, all of which seemed to involve human females. In fact, it seemed that every time he involved himself with a human woman, things quickly spiraled out of control.

This particular situation was a new record for him. Taylor had scarcely been in his car for two hours before he’d found himself abruptly thrust into the role of her getaway driver. Not only was he now going to have to miss his seasonal reunion with his family, he was also going to have to travel back to his territory on foot with a human in tow.

More than anything, Alder was pissed off about his truck. Acquiring it hadn’t been easy, and he doubted they’d be able to get another one for several months, which meant that he’d be stuck in Halcyon territory until the end of winter.

They’d only run a few miles when Taylor abruptly dug her heels into the ground. At first, Alder assumed her boots had been caught on something, but when he stopped to look back at her, she was doubled over and panting.

“Time out,” she wheezed. “I need to catch my breath.”

He wanted to resent her, both for putting him in this position and for being weak, but it wasn’t in his nature. When he looked at her, he didn’t see a liar or a potential murderer, but a tired, vulnerable female who was relying on him to protect her.

“We have to keep going,” he said, bending down so that their faces were level. “A mile from here, there’s a river. We’ll need to follow it for another mile, then we’ll cross and it’ll be safe to rest. Do you need me to carry you?”

She blinked at him. “No, I think I can manage, but thanks.”

Alder took her by the hand, pulling her along again, but at a more sustainable pace.

They reached the river a short while later. The rainstorm had caused the banks to swell beyond the rocky shoreline and Alder led her to edge of the water.

“We’re going to go in a few feet and then walk up the river,” he told her.

She hesitated in following him. “How come?”

“The water will help to obscure our trail,” he explained, tugging her forward.

She walked in up to her ankles. “Is it deep?”

“It is in some parts,” he told her, guiding her in a little farther. “The current is fairly strong, but it’s easy enough to swim in.”

Taylor’s free hand gripped at the sleeve of his shirt as they waded upstream. Alder hooked his arm around her waist under the guise of keeping her steady. While she had been uncomfortable with being touched earlier, she seemed to be growing used to it now, and he liked that.

He had no clue what he was going to do with Taylor when he got her back to his territory. The wolf in him was already coming up with a few ideas, but while his animal instincts might have urged him to protect her, to keep her, and to take her as his mate, he knew that things were not that simple. They were strangers.

“Hey,” Taylor said, garnering his attention. “Do you really think they won’t follow us into the mountains?”

He gave a firm nod. “They don’t even know for certain that it was you in that car. I doubt they’ll waste their resources tracking us into the mountains where they run the risk of being attacked by shifters.”

“Are there really shifters in those mountains? Like, you’ve actually seen them before?”

Alder considered the question. He was tempted to tell her the truth about what he was, but the anxiety in her voice led him to err on the side of discretion.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be fine,” he told her.

Before they arrived at his territory, he would have to tell her what he was, but it could wait.

T
hey crossed
the river in a shallow area and made camp another mile down, in a small clearing between a granite outcropping and a cluster of evergreen trees. Taylor flung her bag down, all but collapsing onto the ground beside it. She didn’t give a damn about pine needles or bugs—she just wanted to rest.

Alder sat down next to her, positioning his large body between her and the trees. Her eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, and she could see him watching her, but she didn’t mind.

“Is it safe to take a nap here?” she asked him.

“I don’t think they’ll find us here,” he said.

She tried to relax, but now that they were relatively safe, her pesky conscience had returned, bringing with it a fresh rash of guilt.

Us.

Yesterday, she had just been Devin Taylor Michaels, a college girl with a remarkably masculine name who happened to be wanted for killing a member of congress. Then, she had managed to meet the handsomest, nicest, most perfect guy on the planet, and had somehow turned him into her accomplice.

“Hey, Alder?”

“Hm?”

She propped her head on her elbow to gaze up at him. “What were you doing? You know, before I came along and ruined your life?”

“You haven’t ruined my life.” Before she could point out all of the reasons why he was wrong, he said, “I thought you didn’t like to ask personal questions.”

“I trust you not to lie to me.”

It was only after the words had left her mouth that she realized they were true. Although they’d just met hours ago, Alder had demonstrated an unparalleled level of loyalty towards her. The least she could do was trust him.

“I was on my way to visit family.”

She frowned. “They’ll be worried about you, huh?”

He hesitated, and then said, “I suspect they will.”

Taylor wanted to apologize, but given the circumstances, it seemed like a shallow gesture. She’d never been a fan of apologies anyway.

She said, “You can say that I forced you to drive.”

He gave a dignified snort. “I doubt anyone would believe you could—”

“You can say I held you at gunpoint.”

Alder was quiet for a moment. She glanced up at him, but couldn’t make out his expression in the dark.

“Do you have a gun?” he finally asked.

Taylor closed her eyes. Softly, she said, “It’s not loaded. It belonged to him. The man I shot.”

It was crammed in her bag beneath newspapers and empty pill bottles, the heavy weight of it a constant reminder of what she’d done.

The silence was maddening, and Taylor couldn’t resist cracking an eye open to look up at him. To her surprise, he had lain down. With his head resting on one arm, he stared over at her.

She asked, “Aren’t you gonna ask me why I did it?”

“Why you killed the man, or why you lied to me?”

Ouch.

“Both, I guess.”

“No.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I don’t trust that you’ll tell me the truth.”

There was no malice in his words, and somehow that made them even tougher to swallow.

“I suppose that’s fair,” she said, looking away.

Taylor let out a breath as Alder took her chin in his hand. He gently tilted her face back towards him. Moonlight reflected off his eyes, making them shine in the darkness.

“Stop lying to me, and I’ll start trusting you.”

A
lder woke just before dawn
. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the events over the previous night had been more taxing than he’d realized.

Taylor lay curled up beside him, one hand clutching at his shirt. Her pink lips were slightly parted, and he wanted to reach out and run his thumb over them. Instead, he lay next to her for a few moments, listening to soft cadence of her breathing, until he carefully detached her hand and left to head for the river.

Early-morning fog blanketed the water, and he didn’t have to wade long before it rose up to his shoulders. The cold water did little to cool his heated blood or quell his nagging erection.

Alder fisted his cock, holding it firmly but refraining from pleasuring himself. It was not something he was in the habit of doing. Given his position in his pack, he never went without a female when he wanted one. Not that he wanted one often.

He bathed quickly but lingered in the water until his arousal had subsided. He was still wet when he dressed, and the fabric clung to his skin uncomfortably.

Taylor was awake when he got back. She sat on a slab of granite with her head in hands. Not wanting to startle her, he made sure his footsteps were heavy as he approached the site.

As he brushed aside a tree branch she looked up, her mouth hanging open.

“You’re here,” she said, sounding surprised.

He cocked a brow. “Did you think I’d left you?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Well, okay, maybe just a little. I mean, I would have left me.”

Alder frowned, but he didn’t comment. He sat down next her, grabbing a package of beef jerky from his bag. Most of the things humans tried to pass off as meat repulsed him, but beef jerky had always been a guilty pleasure of his. He broke off a piece, offering it to Taylor.

“No, thanks,” she said, holding up a hand. “I don’t eat meat.”

At first, he thought it was another one of her lies. After quick consideration, he couldn’t imagine any reason she would lie about such a thing, though the statement still made no sense.

“How can you not eat meat?”

She shrugged. “I dunno, I guess I just like animals a lot.”

“So you
choose
not to eat meat?” he asked, still trying to understand.

Taylor pursed her lips. “I’m a vegetarian.”

That was not a word Alder was familiar with, but from the way she said it, he could tell that he should be.

He asked, “So what do you eat, then?”

Taylor tapped her fingers as she ran through the list. “I mostly like peanut butter. I eat spinach, tofu, salads, crackers, bananas, veggie burgers, and lots of protein shakes.”

Alder didn’t even know what some of those things were, but he did know that none of those things were in the forest.

“What am I supposed to feed you?” he asked her.

For some reason, the question made her blush. “You don’t have to feed me. I have some stuff in my bag.”

Alder chewed on a piece of jerky as he watched her produce half a candy bar from her backpack. She finished it in two bites, and he found himself experiencing a strong urge to go hunt for her. But if she wouldn’t accept processed meat, he doubted she’d appreciate a fresh kill.

He put the rest of the jerky away, deciding that he would offer it to her later when she hopefully came to her senses.

“The river’s deep here, if you’d like to wash up before we leave,” he told her.

He could tell that it had been a few days since she’d bathed, and while she didn’t smell bad, he was eager to know what her scent would be like once she had washed up.

Taylor murmured something that sounded so ridiculous he had to have her repeat herself.

“What did you just say?” he asked, leaning in closer to her.

The color in her cheeks darkened. “I said I can’t swim.”

“Everyone can swim.” Even young pups knew how to swim.

Taylor stood and smoothed out her skirt. “Yeah, well, everyone except for me. Shouldn’t we be going?”

“Where are you from that you don’t eat meat and you can’t swim?” he pressed.

“I’m from a lot of places,” she said flatly.

“So you weren’t lying about that,” he said.

She tilted her head. “What?”

“In the truck, you told me that you moved because of your mother’s work,” he reminded her.

Her shoulders sagged. “No, that was a lie,” she said sheepishly. “I grew up in foster care.”

“Where is that?”

“Foster care,” she repeated, rolling her eyes at him.

Alder could tell it was another one of those things he should know, as a human. He wanted to ask her if all humans who came from foster care didn’t eat meat or know how to swim, but he decided to save the question for later.

T
he journey
through the foothills was much less grueling than their initial flight into the forest. By all appearances, they either hadn’t been followed, or their pursuers had gone in the wrong direction. Despite the fact that she was kind of hungry, kind of tired, and kind of had no idea where they were headed, Taylor felt better than she had in days.

They followed a narrow deer trail that wound through the woods. Massive trees shot up from the ground, their leafy branches forming a lush green canopy overhead. Although the trees provided some protection from the sun, the summer air was still thick and humid.

Taylor distracted herself from the heat with bird watching. Every time she saw a new bird, she’d point it out to Alder and he’d tell her what kind of bird it was. Either he was an expert on birds or he was just making up names, and she didn’t really mind either way.

The beautiful red and black ones were scarlet tanagers. The ones that looked like pretty pigeons were rain doves. Her favorites were the towhees, little red-streaked birds that hopped from tree to tree, following them as they trekked deeper into the forest.

“What’s that one?” she asked, pointing to a small bird with a yellow head.

“A black-throated green warbler,” he replied.

Taylor laughed. “Okay, you’re definitely making that…”

The rest of the sentence died in her throat as Alder began removing his shirt. In the day that she’d known him, when she wasn’t fearing for her life, Taylor had given some consideration to what Alder would look like without his shirt. Apparently, her imagination sucked, because the actual sight of his bare chest had her forgetting how to breathe.

There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. His chest was nothing but rows of chiseled muscles topped with broad pectorals. He was hairless, save for a trail of brown curls on his lower abdomen, which disappeared into his jeans.

“You were saying?”

Taylor snapped her head up to find Alder smirking at her. She averted her eyes, running a hand through her hair while she tried to remember what they’d been talking about.

“Are you hot or something?” she muttered, suddenly feeling irritable.

“Aren’t you?”

If she’d been hot before, she was now sweltering, but she wasn’t about to admit that.

“I have a high tolerance for heat. It’s the cold I can’t stand.”

When he didn’t respond, she glanced back at him. Alder had stopped and was crouched down, inspecting a tree trunk. She backtracked, peering over his shoulder to see what he was looking at.

The bark of the tree had been stripped off, from the looks of it by some sort of animal. Alder ran his fingers over the scratch marks.

“These were done by a wolf,” he said.

She frowned. “How can you tell?”

He looked up at her. “I’ve seen marks like this before.”

“How long have you lived in the mountains?” she asked as he stood. They resumed walking, and this time she tried to keep her eyes from drifting below his neck.

“Most of my life,” he told her.

Staring at his gorgeous eyes wasn’t any better than studying his chest, so she focused her gaze on the bridge of his nose.

“You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

“Do you think I’m lying?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. You know too much about the area to be making it up.” She crinkled her nose playfully. “You’re not some kind of werewolf, are you? Leading me back to your den so you can eat me?”

Alder smiled then—a real smile—and her heart stuttered.

“There are much better things to do with human females,” he said.

Her face heated. “I don’t really think you’re a werewolf. You aren’t hairy enough.”

He laughed. “And you’ve seen a lot of werewolves?”

“Nope,” she said, grinning at him.

“What if I
am
leading you back to my den?”

She dared a glance at his gold and blue eyes. There was a mischievous and almost predatory gleam to them. He was flirting with her again, she realized.

Alder intimidated her, and she wasn’t used to being intimidated by anyone. She also wasn’t used to extremely good-looking men flirting with her.

In a blatant change of subject, she asked, “How long until we’re at your town?”

He seemed disappointed. “At this pace, we’ll make it to Mount Ezra by nightfall, then it’ll take another day to go over the mountain. My home is on the other side.”

Taylor felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She should have been relieved that the trip would be over soon, but in reality, Alder’s home would be just another stopping point for her. A place she could stay for a day or two and gather her bearings before she had to take off again. Her entire life was probably going to be like that now, all because of one morally gray decision.

“You think we’re gonna make it over a mountain in a day?” she asked.

He gave her a once over. “Maybe not, but we’ll have to try. If we’re in the mountains past dark, we’ll have to contend with the wolves.”