The Alpha's Hidden Debts

Chapter 3: I'll Bite You

Riven’s Pov

The radio crackled at half past eleven. I was at my desk working through the week's border patrol reports, a mug of coffee gone cold at my elbow. The lodge was quiet at this hour. Most of the pack had turned in and I preferred it that way.

"Alpha." It was Cord, one of my north border men. His voice had that careful quality it got when something had happened that he wasn't sure how to put into words. "We've got a situation up here."

I set my pen down. "Talk."

"Human female. On foot, coming in from the Ironmoor side. She's bleeding, looks like a forearm wound. We tried to approach and she told us to back up before she made us."

I waited.

"She seemed like she meant it," Cord added.

"Don't touch her," I said, already standing and reaching for my jacket off the back of the chair. "I'm coming."

"Yes, Alpha. Should we"

"Just don't touch her. I'll handle it."

I told myself it was standard protocol as I walked out into the cold. Any human crossing into Northesk on foot at this hour was either running from something or completely lost. Either way it needed handling personally. That was all this was. Protocol.

The north border was a fifteen minute drive through the trees. I parked where the road ended and walked the last stretch on foot, following the sound of Cord's radio until I saw the flashlights ahead through the dark.

Two of my men were standing about ten feet back from the tree line. The fact that they hadn't moved closer told me everything I needed to know about how seriously they were taking her warning. I walked past them without stopping.

"Alpha, she said she'd"

"I heard you the first time, Cord."

I crossed the distance and crouched down in front of her, getting to her level.

Up close she was younger than I expected. Dark circles under her eyes, a strip of torn fabric wrapped firmly around her left forearm, a small cut on her lower lip she probably didn't know was there. A bag sat in the dirt beside her. Her clothes were simple and clean. She had her back against a birch tree with her legs stretched out in front of her and she looked like someone who had decided this was as good a place as any to sit, wait and see what happened next.

She looked at me the way she had looked at my men, straight on. Taking me apart piece by piece with those steady eyes and filing it all away somewhere before I had said a single word.

I waited for the fear. It always came when humans encountered me up close. Some deep instinct they couldn't control, the part of them that recognized what I was before their minds caught up. It didn't come.

She just looked at me. Calm, direct and completely unimpressed.

"If you're planning to breed me," she said, "I'll bite you."

Something moved in my chest. Not what I expected to feel.

"We don't do that here," I said.

Her eyes stayed on my face. I could see her looking, searching for the place where the lie lived. I held still and let her look for as long as she needed.

Whatever she found, or didn't find, made her shoulders drop exactly one inch.

"There's a gash on your forearm," I said. "How deep?"

"Manageable."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's not that deep," she said. "I caught it on a fence post crossing out of Ironmoor. I've had worse."

The way she said it, flat and without drama, told me that was completely true. I glanced at the makeshift bandage. Good pressure, correct placement. Done in the dark with one hand.

"You walked from Ironmoor," I said.

"Two miles, give or take."

"On foot. At night, alone."

"You're very observant."

Cord made a sound behind me. I ignored him.

"Why?" I said.

She looked at me for a moment. "Because I didn't want to stay."

"Fair enough." I didn't push it. Whatever had sent her out of Ironmoor territory on foot with a small bag and a self applied bandage was her business until she decided to make it mine. "Can you stand?"

"Yes." She started to push herself up, got halfway, and her face tightened. Just briefly. A slight loss of color around her mouth.

"Easy," I said, and put my hand out.

She looked at my hand. A full two seconds of consideration, like she was deciding whether taking it meant something she wasn't ready for.

Then she took it. I pulled her carefully to her feet. She steadied herself, took one breath, and let go of my hand like she hadn't needed it in the first place.

"I'm fine," she said.

"You're pale."

"I'm always pale."

"You're swaying."

"I'm not." She was, just barely. I didn't argue. She reached for her bag, got a grip on it, straightened up. "Where exactly are we?"

"Northesk north border."

"And you're the Alpha."

"Riven," I said.

Something moved behind her eyes. A small recognition clicking into place. "You were at Ironmoor's gate earlier."

"I was."

"And then you were on the road."

"Same road," I said. "Different reasons."

She opened her mouth to say something else. I watched her decide what it was going to be. Watched her take a breath to say it, then her eyes went unfocused. I was already moving when her knees went.

I caught her before she hit the ground, one arm around her back, her weight coming against my chest all at once. Her bag dropped into the dirt. Her head tipped forward and her whole body went loose, quiet the way bodies did when they simply ran out of road.

I held her and said nothing for a moment. She was lighter than she should have been. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was her scent, hitting me now that she was this close. Something I had never come across before. Something that made every instinct I had go completely and absolutely still. Not in a bad way, more like my whole body had just woken up and didn't know why.

I didn't have a name for it. I buried it and looked up at Cord, who was staring at me with an expression I was going to address later.

"Get the truck," I said.

"Yes, Alpha."

"Cord."

He stopped.

"Nobody touches her," I said. "Nobody asks her anything when she wakes up, nobody goes near her without my word. Clear?"

"Clear," he said quietly, and went.

I looked down at her face. Relaxed now in a way it hadn't been once since I found her. Whatever guard she kept up when she was conscious, it was considerable, because without it she looked younger and quieter and like someone who had been carrying something heavy for a very long time and had only just put it down.

I tightened my hold, picked up her bag, and stood carefully. Something hit against my ribs that I didn't have a name for.

I looked down at her face one more time. Then I looked at Cord. "How far out is the truck?"

"Two minutes, Alpha."

"Make it one."

He jogged ahead without another word.

I carried her toward the lights coming through the trees and told myself this was nothing more than what I would do for anyone found bleeding on my border in the middle of the night. I almost believed it.