THE WOLFLESS ALPHA

CHAPTER FIVE THE FIRST TO FOLLOW

The rogue lasted less than a mile.

Cole heard its injured leg drag twice, then a heavy body struck the ground behind them.

He turned.

The gray wolf lay on its side between two trees. The trap wound had opened again, leaving a dark trail through the snow. It tried to push itself up when Cole walked back, but the damaged leg folded beneath it.

Adam kept going.

Cole looked after him. “You heard that.”

“Yes.”

“You’re leaving it?”

Adam stopped without turning. “Are you?”

The wolf’s lips pulled away from its teeth when Cole came closer.

It had followed him willingly. That did not mean it trusted him.

Cole stayed beyond the reach of its jaws. “Its leg is worse.”

“Silver trap.”

“I know.”

“No, you know it was caught in one.” Adam came back and crouched several feet from the wolf. “There’s still silver in the wound.”

Cole looked at the torn flesh around its front leg. Beneath the blood and gray fur, something pale caught the light.

The rogue snapped when he leaned closer.

Adam rose.

“If the silver stays in, the leg starts dying. Then the poison moves higher.”

“How long?”

“Maybe a day.”

Cole stared at him. “Take it out.”

“It followed you.”

“You know how.”

“So do you.”

“I’ve never cut silver out of a wolf.”

“You’d never opened a hunter’s trap before yesterday.”

Cole looked at Adam’s belt. “Give me the knife.”

Adam drew it, but he did not hand it over.

“What happens when you touch the leg?”

“It bites me.”

“What happens if you use whatever stopped it last night?”

“It stays still.”

“Does it?”

Cole remembered the wolf trembling beneath his command. It had obeyed, but only for a few seconds.

“I can make it.”

Adam’s expression sharpened. “That isn’t what I asked.”

The rogue tried to stand again. Its claws scraped across the frozen ground before it collapsed.

Cole held out his hand.

“Knife.”

Adam turned the handle toward him.

Cole took it and approached from the wolf’s uninjured side. The rogue followed him with its eyes. Its ears lay flat, and a growl moved through its chest.

“I’m trying to help you.”

The wolf snapped at the air between them.

“That’s not helping.”

Cole crouched and touched the tooth beneath his shirt.

Adam noticed.

“Don’t reach for everything at once.”

“I don’t know how much is everything.”

“Then find out before you tear the door off.”

Cole thought of the feeling from the trap—the resistance beneath his ribs, something large pressing against something stronger.

He did not pull.

He reached just far enough to touch it.

Heat moved through the tooth.

The rogue stopped growling.

Cole felt its attention lock onto him. Not the animal’s eyes. Something underneath them.

His voice came out lower than he intended.

“Stay.”

The wolf’s body went still.

Miles north, Mira was standing beside a stone table when pain cut through her wrist.

Her hand buckled.

A cup slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor.

The guard outside the room cursed and ordered her to clean it up.

Mira pressed her sleeve against the blood appearing beneath the iron around her wrist.

She did not call for help.

Cole slid one hand beneath the rogue’s injured leg.

The wolf trembled but did not move.

“Good,” Adam said. “Hold it there.”

Cole parted the blood-soaked fur with the tip of the knife.

A broken silver tooth was buried deep beside the bone.

He angled the blade beneath it.

The heat in his chest weakened.

The rogue’s claws dug into the ground.

“Stay,” Cole repeated.

The command came out harder.

The wolf flattened against the snow, but pain flashed across Cole’s ribs. Not from the stitches.

From deeper inside.

His hand shook.

The knife slipped.

The rogue twisted and snapped at his face.

Cole threw himself backward. Its teeth closed on the sleeve of his coat instead of his arm.

Adam caught the wolf behind the jaw and forced its head away.

The rogue fought him with a violence it had never shown Cole.

Adam released it and stepped back before its claws reached him.

Cole stared.

The wolf had lowered itself for Cole.

It had tried to tear Adam’s hand off.

“You could have held it,” Cole said.

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

“It chose to follow you, not me.”

“It just tried to bite me.”

“You hurt it.”

“I was removing the silver.”

“The wolf doesn’t know that.”

Cole looked at the knife in his hand.

“Then I’ll command it again.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough.”

“And if it isn’t?”

Cole did not answer.

Adam pointed at the rogue. “Power made it stop. Power did not make it trust the knife.”

“It doesn’t need to trust me.”

“Then why did you save it?”

The question irritated Cole because he did not have a clean answer.

The rogue had tried to kill him. He owed it nothing.

But it had followed when he walked away.

Cole crouched again, this time outside the reach of its teeth.

He placed the knife on the ground between them.

Adam said nothing.

Cole took a strip of dried meat from the leather bag and tossed it near the wolf’s muzzle.

The rogue smelled it but did not eat.

Cole tore off another piece. He held this one in his palm.

The wolf’s gaze moved between the meat and his face.

“You can bite me,” Cole said. “But then the silver stays.”

Adam folded his arms. “Strong argument.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Cole moved his hand closer.

The rogue growled.

He stopped.

When the growl faded, he moved again.

The wolf’s nose touched his fingers.

Cole kept his hand still while it took the meat.

Its teeth scraped his palm but did not close.

He offered another piece.

This time, the wolf took it without growling.

Cole reached toward its injured leg.

The wolf bared its teeth again.

“I know.”

He left his hand where it could see it.

“This will hurt.”

The rogue watched him.

Cole picked up the knife.

It did not lower its head in submission. It did not look away.

It simply allowed him closer.

Cole slid his free hand around the injured leg.

The wolf’s muscles tightened.

“No command this time,” Adam said.

“I know.”

Cole cut into the wound.

The rogue screamed.

Its back legs tore at the snow, and its teeth snapped inches from Cole’s wrist.

He nearly reached for the thing beneath his ribs.

Instead, he pressed his forearm against the wolf’s neck and kept working.

The broken silver tooth shifted beneath the blade.

“Almost.”

The wolf did not understand the word, but it understood that Cole had not let go.

The silver came free.

Cole threw it into the snow.

The rogue collapsed, panting.

“There’s another piece,” Adam said.

Cole looked at him. “You could have mentioned that.”

“You hadn’t found it yet.”

Cole wiped the blade on his coat and searched the wound again.

The second fragment was smaller and deeper. He had to widen the cut to reach it.

The rogue’s claws raked across his boot.

Cole stayed beside it.

When the second piece came out, the wolf’s body jerked.

Bones shifted beneath its fur.

Cole moved back as the gray coat pulled inward and its limbs changed shape.

A young man lay where the wolf had been.

He looked older than Vance but not by much—perhaps sixteen or seventeen. He was thin enough for his ribs to show, with dark hair stuck to his face and old scars across both shoulders.

Adam removed his coat and threw it over him.

Cole stared at the ruined leg.

The wound looked worse in human form.

The young man’s eyes opened.

His hand shot toward the knife.

Cole caught his wrist.

The rogue was weak, but he was still stronger than a ten-year-old boy. He twisted, rolled Cole onto his back, and reached for his throat.

Adam did not move.

Cole drove his knee into the injured leg.

The young man cried out and fell sideways.

Cole grabbed the knife first.

He came up with the blade pointed at the rogue’s chest.

The young man looked at him.

Fear sharpened his face.

“Don’t make me kneel again.”

Cole’s hand stopped.

“You remember?”

“I remember all of it.”

“You were trying to eat me.”

“I was starving.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“No.”

The young man looked at the knife.

Cole lowered it, but he did not put it away.

“What’s your name?”

The rogue hesitated.

“Mason.”

“Which Pack?”

Mason’s expression closed.

“None.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“It’s the answer.”

Adam crouched beside the injured leg and examined the cut Cole had made.

“Silver’s out.”

Mason tried to pull away.

Adam caught his ankle.

“Move again and you’ll tear the muscle.”

Mason smelled him.

His entire body went still.

“You.”

Adam looked up.

Mason’s fear changed.

Not submission.

Recognition.

Cole noticed.

“You know him?”

Mason did not answer.

Adam tightened the bandage around his leg.

“I asked you a question,” Cole said.

Mason kept staring at Adam. “I know what he is.”

Adam tied the bandage.

“And I know what you are. A half-starved rogue who attacks children.”

Mason’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t know he was a child.”

“You smelled him.”

“I smelled Alpha blood.”

Cole’s hand moved to the tooth.

Mason noticed.

“The rest of him was wrong.”

“What does that mean?”

“No wolf scent.” Mason looked at Cole. “Nothing where it should be.”

The words struck the same place as the laughter in the Awakening Circle.

Cole kept his face still.

“Then why did you follow me?”

Mason looked away.

“My wolf wouldn’t let me leave.”

Adam stood.

“That is not the same as choosing.”

Mason’s eyes flashed. “I didn’t ask to follow anyone.”

“Then don’t,” Cole said.

Mason looked at him again.

Cole put the knife into the sheath at his belt.

“You’re free.”

Adam’s gaze shifted toward him, but Cole ignored it.

Mason laughed once. “Free to do what?”

“Whatever you did before.”

“Starve?”

“That sounds like your problem.”

Cole picked up the food bag and removed half of what remained.

He set it beside Mason.

The young rogue stared at the dried meat.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you following me because your wolf is forcing you.”

Mason looked at the food, then at Cole.

“And if I take it and leave?”

“Then you leave.”

“And if I come back?”

Cole remembered Adam’s words.

Anything that chooses to follow you becomes your responsibility.

“Then it’s your choice.”

Adam said, “We need to move.”

Cole stood.

The stitches in his side protested, but he ignored them.

Mason watched Adam hand Cole the food bag.

“You let him carry that?” Mason asked.

“He dropped it yesterday.”

“I threw it.”

“You left it where hunters could find it.”

“I went back for the wolf.”

“Which is why you dropped it.”

Cole adjusted the strap over his uninjured shoulder.

Mason looked between them.

“You’re training him?”

Adam started walking.

“No.”

Cole followed. “He is.”

“No, I’m trying to keep you alive until you become less determined to die.”

“That sounds like training.”

“It sounds like failure.”

They left Mason beside the trail.

Cole did not look back.

He listened.

At first, there was only Adam’s steady pace and the uneven rhythm of Cole’s own steps.

Then the dried meat bag rustled behind them.

A few minutes later, Mason’s scent began moving in the opposite direction.

Cole kept walking.

Adam glanced at him. “Disappointed?”

“No.”

“You expected him to follow.”

“I told him to choose.”

“That does not answer the question.”

Cole did not give him one.

By late afternoon, his side burned with every breath. Adam finally stopped beside a narrow stream and handed him water.

Cole drank, then looked north.

Mason’s scent had faded hours ago.

The rogue had made his choice.

Cole told himself that was good.

A branch cracked across the stream.

Cole reached for the knife.

Mason stepped out from behind the trees.

He had tied Adam’s coat around his waist and used the empty food sack as a sling beneath his injured leg. In one hand, he carried a bundle of bitterroot and frost moss.

Adam looked at the plants.

“Where did you find those?”

“Near the trap line.”

“They’ll slow the silver damage,” Adam said.

Mason crossed the stream.

He stopped several feet from Cole.

Cole lowered his hand from the knife.

“You went north.”

“The hunters had a camp there.”

“You went back to the hunters?”

“They had medicine.”

Adam looked at the torn edge of Mason’s sling. “And now they have one less blanket.”

Mason shrugged.

Cole looked at the herbs.

“You could have kept them.”

“I only need half.”

He divided the bundle and held the rest out to Cole.

“For your stitches.”

Cole took it.

Mason did not lower his head.

He did not expose his throat.

He simply fell into step beside Cole when they started walking again.

After several minutes, Adam glanced back.

“You following him or me?”

Mason looked at Cole.

“Him.”

Cole waited for the strange force beneath his ribs.

Nothing moved.

The tooth stayed cold.

Mason had chosen.

Adam faced forward again.

“Then keep up,” he said.

Three of them continued south.