“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it!” Dakota called over her shoulder, and hurried over to him.
He smelled of male musk and a woodsy cologne. As usual, he was wearing jeans, and a T-shirt that molded to the curves of his biceps. He stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets and favored her with an aw-shucks grin that wasn’t fooling her in the slightest.
“Looks like you’ve got the kids under control. They haven’t tried to steal anything since you’ve been here. I’m impressed,” Miles said, nodding with admiration. “You seem kind of soft and pampered. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Dakota snorted. “Looks like you haven’t killed anyone yet today. You seem kind of feral and crazy. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“The day is still young. Also, you thought that was an insult, but it wasn’t. Anyway, I came to formally show you around the pack property. Don’t get all swell-headed or anything – it’s just standard protocol from the Alpha Prime.” But he winked as he said it.
He didn’t offer to show Naomi or Macy or David, Dakota thought to herself as she followed him.
The property was sprawling, gorgeous and largely untamed. On its outskirts, forested slopes swelled into the foothills of the mountains, which rose into an impossibly blue sky. Wisps of cloud clung to their peaks. Trails pushed into the undergrowth, disappearing into the foliage-dense darkness.
Cabins were tucked away here and there, some half built. It didn’t surprise Dakota that many of the shifters chose to live away from the town. New packs and new territories tended to attract oddities and loners and those who didn’t play well with others. Miles would have to be strong to pull them all together.
Erratic boulders had been dropped among the hollows of the hills by retreating glaciers tens of thousands of years ago. Miles and Dakota skirted a head-high rock furred with emerald green moss, then strolled along the gravel track that turned into the main road into town. This was where the couples and families and the more sociable shifters were clustered together for companionship and community.
A lot of the pack members were in town, working construction. They were putting up houses that would be occupied by new arrivals, or clearing roads. There was a garden towards the back of the property, and a chicken coop with a few dozen chickens. Those were both tended by the pack’s cook, Kace, and his life mate, Hazel, who bore a fresh-looking claiming mark on her neck. So they’d met up here, apparently.
Hazel’s stomach was gently swollen, and she broke into a smile when she saw Dakota glance at it. “It’s going to be the first Granite Flats baby,” she said.
“May your cub be healthy and fierce,” Dakota said, reciting the typical wolf shifter congratulations.
After they were done touring the garden, Miles led her down to a clear, running stream towards the back of pack property. Downstream from them, a couple of pack members were splashing naked with two women who’d been on the shuttle bus.
Miles gestured at a fallen tree trunk, furred with thick green moss.
“Have a seat,” he said, and they settled in. He was so close to her that she could feel the energy flowing from him. There was a tightness, a tension that lay underneath his joking exterior. Why could she sense that? She was way too attuned to this man’s presence…like a life mate would be.
Alpha Primes tended to keep their emotions to themselves unless they were using them in a fight…or for seduction. But when an Alpha Prime formed a bond with his mate, he shared his feelings with her freely. It was an instinctive thing – the Alpha Prime’s mate was the one he trusted completely..
But maybe they did things differently up here, she thought uneasily.
Miles was staring off into the distance, not really saying anything. She found herself opening up to him, reaching out and letting calming energy flow into him. It intermingled with his tension and absorbed it. Bit by bit, as they sat there in silence, she felt some of the stress leave his body, and the frown lines creasing his forehead smoothed a bit.
It felt too good, too right. It couldn’t last. Even with him relaxing a little bit, she could still feel the walls that he’d built up around his emotions, hard and stony and impenetrable.
She shifted on her seat and cleared her throat.
“So. What’s on your mind these days?” she said.
“I’ve been wondering. Why did you agree to come here?” Miles asked her. “I mean, I know you literally drew the short straw, but you could have just run away. Gone underground.”
Which was exactly what Jamie Roberts had done. Dakota understood not wanting to go through with a ridiculous death challenge, especially when it was to defend the “honor” of a loser like Shaun. However, sending Dakota up here to die in her place had been low.