Entangled With My New Alpha Mate

Chapter 2 New Territory

Amber POV

I woke up in a bed that was not mine, in a room I did not recognize, with my shoulder wrapped in clean linen and my boots set neatly by the door as if someone had taken care to remove them without waking me.

For a moment I forgot everything. Then it came back in pieces, the letter, the kiss, the rejection, the wolves in the dark, and I sat up too fast and regretted it immediately when pain shot through my shoulder where one of the wolves had caught me before that voice stopped them.

The room was plain but well kept, stone walls softened with heavy curtains, a fire burning low in the hearth though I did not remember anyone lighting it. I swung my legs off the bed and tested my weight on the floor, and that was when the door opened without a knock.

He filled the doorway the way some men fill a room without trying, tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair pushed back like he had run a hand through it recently and forgotten about it. His eyes were the kind of gray that looked silver in the firelight, and they moved over me once, quick and assessing, before he spoke.

"You are awake," he said, as though I might argue the point.

"I am," I said. "Where am I?"

"My territory." He said it like it explained everything, and I supposed to him it did. "You crossed the border last night. My men do not take kindly to strangers wandering through unannounced, especially not at night."

"Your men tried to kill me."

"My men followed their orders." He crossed his arms, and I noticed the way the firelight caught the muscle in his forearms before I made myself stop noticing. "You are lucky I was close enough to call them off before they finished the job."

"Lucky." I let the word sit bitter on my tongue. "Is that what you call almost being torn apart by wolves who cannot tell the difference between a threat and a woman walking alone?"

Something flickered behind his eyes, gone before I could name it. "What is a woman doing walking alone through unfamiliar territory in the middle of the night with no escort and no weapon?"

I did not owe him an answer, and I told him so with my silence, lifting my chin and holding his gaze even though every instinct in me wanted to look away first. He seemed almost amused by that, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was fighting a smile he did not want to give me.

"You have a name?" he asked.

"Amber." I did not offer more than that. "And you?"

"Alpha Kaelan Voss." He said his title the way other men might say their own name, without weight, as though it had simply always belonged to him. "This is my pack, my land, and as of last night, apparently my problem."

"I never asked to be your problem."

"No," he agreed, "but you are lying in my bed, wearing bandages my healer wrapped, so for now you are exactly that."

I felt heat rise in my face that had nothing to do with the fire, and I pushed myself fully to my feet despite the ache in my shoulder, because I was not going to let this man look down at me from a doorway like I was something to be managed. "Then let me relieve you of the burden. Point me toward the road and I will be out of your territory before noon."

Kaelan's eyes narrowed slightly, studying me in a way that made me feel like he was reading something I had not meant to show him. "You are injured, you have no pack marks I recognize, and you walked into my land from the direction of the Brighton territory looking like you had run the whole way. I do not think you are simply passing through."

I said nothing, because he was not wrong, and I hated that he was not wrong.

"I did not ask for your life story," he said, when my silence stretched too long, "but I am not in the habit of releasing strangers back onto the road without knowing what they were running from."

"That is not your concern."

"It became my concern the moment my men found you bleeding in my forest." His voice hardened, and for the first time I heard the Alpha underneath the man, the authority that made grown wolves fall silent. "You will stay until my healer says you are fit to travel, and you will not test my patience by trying to leave before then."

"You cannot keep me here."

"I can do whatever I want within my own borders." He said it simply, without cruelty, as though it were the most obvious fact in the world, and that arrogance needled at me more than an outright threat would have. "But if it eases your pride, consider it hospitality rather than a cage."

"Hospitality does not usually come with guards outside the door."

"No," he said, "but strangers who cross my border in the dead of night usually do not come without a reason, and until I know yours, the guards stay."

I wanted to argue further, but exhaustion pulled at me harder than my pride could fight it, and I sat back down on the edge of the bed instead, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me sway on my feet. He watched me for a moment longer, something unreadable passing over his face, and then he turned toward the door.

"Rest," he said, not quite gently. "You are no use to anyone half dead, least of all yourself."

"Is that concern, Alpha Voss?" I could not keep the edge out of my voice. "I thought I was only your problem."

He paused in the doorway, and when he looked back at me there was something sharper in his eyes than irritation, something that looked almost like he was surprised by his own answer before he gave it.

"Careful, Amber," he said. "Problems that stay too long in a man's territory have a way of becoming something else entirely."

He left before I could ask him what he meant by that, the door closing with a quiet finality that somehow felt louder than if he had slammed it, and I sat alone in the firelight with my heart doing something I refused to name and the ghost of his voice still hanging in the air around me.