STRONG SCENT

CHAPTER THREE

STRONG SCENT

(Ava's POV)

He supported me. I could feel the power in his hand. His face was right there in mine. Although his golden eyes were nearly black in the dim light, they were burning.

“I was focused,” I whispered, trying to pull away. It was all just a bit too much.

“You were paying attention to me,” he corrected me instead, his thumb pressing slowly against my hip.

I quickly moved over to the next rock, breaking contact with him. Then, struggling up the last bit to the shore, I turned, puffing.

“Oh, dear!” he exclaimed, and he followed, making two giant strides across the creek without touching the water. In an instant, he was right beside me.

"Stop making this seem personal… about you," I said, straightening my jacket. "This is what I should do. I'm your guide."

”Everything is personal,” he snapped, pushing past me into the darkness beyond. ”You are walking behind me now. You smell too much of the human world. I cannot really trust you...”

“Fine,” I growled, and followed him down a narrow, winding path.

What's with the trust issue? I wondered, but then I remembered he had to have a secret identity—waiting to be revealed.

The path was filled with thorns and heavy with the weight of silence. Orion rushed through the trees, escaping from branches that caught my hair and clothes.

He was right. In the deepest woods, he walked faster than I expected.

Finally, after the difficult five-minute walk, we emerged at a treetop gap. It was a very small side of the woods. There were large, old white pines encircling the area, their dark bodies reaching for the sky.

“This is the place,” I said aloud. “The White Pine Clearing. Nothing has used this place but shadows for a very long time.”

Orion entered the center and stopped there. He breathed heavily and unevenly. “It smells like the past,” he said, turning very slowly as he closed his eyes.

He was looking for something. I knew it, but I held back, trying to blend into the sides of the trees.

Finally, he opened his eyes to look at me. To gaze into that gold—it was painful. "Thank you, Ava," he said, his voice deep and sincere. "You brought me here."

"So, I’m done?" I asked, already backing away.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The most important point of your journey is about to happen. I brought you here because it is the last person they would ever think of. I want you to stand by the way. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t let anyone pass through.”

“Wait for who?” I asked in frustration. “Who’s supposed to be”

“My pack,” he said, turning away, his face lost in the darkness. “And they’re coming for me,” his voice ringing out alone.

I froze, caught between the chill and the shock of knowing him. I was more than a guide. I was surprised to see him try to claim me.

I didn't move. I stayed hugged against the trunk of the large tree, breathing in the scent of its dry trunk and observing Orion. Orion stood frozen in the middle of the clearing. Instead of looking like the powerful Alpha that he could and should have been, he looked like a statue waiting for a storm.

“Your pack is coming for you?” I finally whispered, the sound echoing in the woods. “What do you mean? Are you in trouble?"

"This is what it means... I left the territory without telling them," he said, still not looking at me. "I broke the line. They will want to know why. They will want to know about the scent I was following," he said again.

He paused, but I understood what he meant this time. My scent.

"I have to speak with them alone," he continued. "Seeing a human, especially you, would make it more complicated. Do you get it now, Ava? Do not move. Do not make a sound," he repeated.

"You want me to stand guard while you fight your pack?" I asked, a hint of rising anger in my voice.

“Not a fight,” he corrected, turning his head. “Just a negotiation. But they're shifters, and first instinct is always harsh. But yours is the first outside scent I've brought back in years.”

The air thickened. There was a weight on my chest, as if the atmosphere itself was melting with a strong, unseen force.

“They’re close,” Orion muttered to my ears. He closed his eyes, and his chest expanded as a shuddering breath escaped his lips. Then he opened his eyes again, and the gold brightened, becoming more focused.

"I can't stay here," I told him, feeling an overwhelming rush of fear in my mind. "I need to leave here right now. I cannot go with you."

"No!" He ordered, his tone biting, like shattered glass. "You want to stay? I'm all I've got to keep me from making a mess of things in this space. I need you to protect me from myself. And you will watch the trail. Warn me if it's anybody besides me who tries to follow it. Don't you get it?"

He didn't give me a chance to speak my mind. He turned his back on me completely, his back toward the opposite side of the clearing, toward the dark, forbidden woods. He dropped his eyes to the ground, his entire body tensed as if waiting.

I was shaking, but I held my ground. Now a hundred dollars seemed like something else. I was caught between the Alpha and his rage-filled pack.

Then I heard them.

Nothing of footsteps, but the deep sounds of large bodies in perfect march. A low wind blew through the trees. And then the smells—confusing and mixed sand and water, and the same scent as Orion, yet a bit different. A number of different aromas, all strong, all wild.

Three wolves appeared from behind the trees right at the spot. They were large, imposing figures in the darkness.

One was a woman. She was tall with light hair and a face that was hard and beautiful. The man sitting with her was older and stronger. The third was young with a lean face and eyes of gold fixed on Orion with curiosity.

Orion did not move. He did not turn to acknowledge them.

“Brother," said the older man, speaking in his deep, measured way, “You are out of bounds. You were summoned, hope you know?"

"I know where I am, Matthias," Orion said, his tone calm but battered with strain. "I came to this place to meet you. It's neutral ground."

“Neutral ground smells of humans,” the young one, whose name I did not know, sneered, his anger showing clearly in his voice. “It smells of a female human. Weak and powerless. What have you brought for us?”