The Alpha Who Waited

Chapter 4

I forced my shift behind the tree line, biting down hard on the pain of it because I didn't have time to do this slow.

By the time I stepped out onto the road, I'd already shoved every instinct my wolf was screaming at me down into some locked room in my chest and thrown away the key. Alpha first. Everything else could wait, had to wait, because a family stood in front of me with a stranger's car headlights closing in behind them and I could not afford to be anything but steady.

"Stay where you are," I called out, keeping my voice level. "Hands where I can see them. Nobody moves until I say so."

The man, broad shouldered, gray threading through his dark hair, a slight favor to one leg as he stepped fully out of the car, raised both hands higher and dropped to one knee on the wet pavement without being told twice.

"Alpha." His voice shook, but he held himself steady through it. "I am Ronan Ashworth, formerly of Ashgrove Pack. This is my son, my daughter. We invoke the old right of asylum. We ask nothing but shelter and safe passage."

The old words. I hadn't heard anyone actually use them outside of pack history lessons. That alone told me how desperate this man was.

"Ashgrove," I repeated, watching him carefully. "You're the family Elder Marsh radioed about."

"Yes, Alpha."

"And the second car on your tail?"

"Vance's men. We lost them at the fog line, but they won't stop looking." His hands were still raised, still shaking slightly, but his eyes never left mine. "Please. I'm begging you. My children have done nothing..."

"I haven't decided anything yet." I kept my voice flat, controlled, even as every instinct in me wanted to drop the formality and just get this family somewhere safe immediately. "Your son. Your daughter. Step out where I can see you."

The back door opened. A lanky boy climbed out first, maybe fifteen, jaw set tight in a way that told me he was scared and trying hard not to show it. He moved to stand slightly in front of the car, like he thought that would do something to protect whoever was still inside.

Then the other door opened.

I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I'd braced myself for. But nothing could have prepared me for the moment she stepped out onto the cracked pavement and that scent I'd caught on the wind an hour ago hit me full force, undiluted, close enough now that my whole body locked up trying to process it.

She was young. Younger than I'd let myself imagine while I was crouched in that brush telling myself impossible things. Seventeen, maybe. Her wolf hadn't even woken yet. I could feel that immediately, the absence of any answering pull from her side, nothing but a girl standing scared and cold on an unfamiliar road with no idea what had just happened between us.

My chest cracked open and slammed shut again in the space of one breath.

Second chance mate. The words rose up out of that locked room before I could stop them. And she's a child. She doesn't even know what she is yet.

I forced every muscle in my face to stay still. I forced my voice to come out exactly as flat as it had a moment before, like the ground hadn't just shifted permanently under my feet.

"Names," I said.

"Ronan Ashworth." The father again, still kneeling. "My son, Finn. My daughter, Rhea."

Rhea.

I made myself look away from her before I did something stupid like stare too long, like let something show on my face that I had no right letting anyone see, least of all a girl who had no idea what she was to me and every right to never find out until she was ready.

"Get up," I told Ronan. "All of you, in the car. I'll escort you through the gate myself."

Relief broke across Ronan's face so completely his whole body sagged with it. "Thank you, Alpha. Thank you..."

"Don't thank me yet." I kept my eyes fixed somewhere over his shoulder, anywhere but on her. "You're not safe until you're behind Silverpine's walls, and even then, I'll need answers about exactly what Vance wants badly enough to send men chasing you across pack lines."

He nodded fast, already turning back toward the car.

I made myself walk to my truck instead of closing the distance to her the way every instinct demanded. I made myself get behind the wheel and pull out ahead of them toward the gate like a man with nothing unusual sitting in his chest at all.

But in the mirror, for one unguarded second before I looked away, I caught her eyes finding mine through the windshield of the car behind me, confused, searching, like some small part of her already knew something had happened that she didn't have words for yet, and I gripped the wheel hard enough to hurt, because I understood exactly what I was going to have to do now.

Hide this. Bury it. Protect her from a truth that could get her killed before she was even old enough to understand it.

Whatever it cost me.