I Don't Need No Alpha Brothers novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Across the Tamarack

Hunted by the twins, Lainey swims the freezing river and is hauled out by the rival Alpha, Keir Scanlon, and the mate bond hits them both; he tells her he means to use her.

I didn't wait to see them shift.

I kicked off my shoes on the porch of the hall and ran.

The moon was still high over the larches, which meant I had maybe two hours of hunt left.

The river was three miles west.

Black Fork land was on the other side of it, and the Brodies couldn't follow me there without starting a war.

Behind me, the hall erupted in howls.

Not all of them were the twins.

Some of the pack had decided to join in for fun.

I hit the tree line and pulled the blue dress over my head without stopping.

The shift came hard, the way it always did when I was scared.

My spine cracked and lengthened, my hands split into paws, and the cut on my palm screamed as it became a pad.

Then I was on four legs with the night opening up around me in smells.

Pine pitch. Wet stone. Elk somewhere north.

And the twins, coming fast, one on each side.

They'd hunted with me a hundred times.

They knew every trail I liked.

So I didn't take one.

I went straight down the scree slope behind the old mill, where my paws slid and the rocks rolled out from under me.

A wolf yelped behind me as he lost his footing.

I didn't look back.

The cold hit my nose before I saw the water.

The Tamarack in late October was black and fast and only a few degrees above freezing.

I'd swum it once in August on a dare from Lorne, and I'd nearly drowned.

The twins broke out of the trees above me.

One of them was limping.

The bigger one, the gray, put his head down and came at me.

I went into the river.

The cold stopped my heart for a second.

Then the current had me and I was paddling with everything I had, being dragged downstream faster than I was crossing.

My head went under.

I came up choking.

The far bank was a wall of mud and tree roots, too steep, and my claws couldn't grip it.

I tried twice.

The second time the root I was holding tore out of the bank and I went under again.

I didn't have the strength to hold the wolf.

I came up as a woman, naked, gasping, my bleeding hand slapping at the mud.

A hand came down out of the dark and closed around my wrist.

It was huge and warm.

Something went through me from that hand to my chest.

He felt it too.

I heard him suck in a breath.

Then he hauled me out of the river in one pull and I landed on my knees on the gravel at his feet.

I couldn't stop coughing.

A heavy jacket landed on my shoulders.

It smelled like woodsmoke and cedar and something underneath that made my wolf go still and quiet inside me.

I knew that feeling.

Every wolf grew up hearing about it.

I'd just never believed it would happen to me in a river at midnight with my own pack hunting me.

"Mate," the man said.

His voice was low and rough, and he sounded angry about it.

I looked up.

He was very tall, crouched in front of me with his forearms on his knees.

Dark hair to his collar, a short beard, a nose that had been broken at least twice.

Gray eyes catching the moonlight.

I'd seen him before, across the river, standing at the head of his pack at the border.

Keir Scanlon.

Alpha of Black Fork.

The man Conrad had spent my whole childhood calling a thief and a savage.

"No," I said.

He raised an eyebrow. "No?"

"I'm not doing this tonight."

"I don't think the moon cares what you're doing tonight."

Across the river, the twins came down to the water's edge.

They'd shifted back.

They were naked, breathing hard, the gray one bleeding from his knee where the scree had opened it.

"Scanlon!" the bigger one shouted. "That's Brodie property. Send her back."

Keir didn't stand up.

He looked over his shoulder at them.

"She doesn't look like property."

"She's a thief," the other twin yelled. "She tried to kill a girl. The Alpha wants her back."

I started to stand.

My legs didn't hold me.

Keir caught my elbow and set me on my feet.

The current of that touch went through me again.

He let go fast.

"Did you steal something?" he asked me quietly.

"No."

"Did you try to kill a girl?"

"No."

He looked at me for a long moment.

I didn't know what he saw.

My hair plastered to my face, my blood dripping off my fingers onto his gravel, my teeth chattering.

He turned back to the river.

"Tell Conrad she's mine now," he called across the water. "If he wants her, he can come and ask me himself."

The twins looked at each other.

Then the bigger one spat into the river, and they went back up into the trees.

My shoulders came down.

My knees wobbled again.

"Thank you," I said.

Keir zipped the jacket up to my chin with one hard tug.

He didn't smile.

"Don't thank me," he said. "I'm going to use you."

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