Chapter 2 – Heel

Dax

My wolf wants to turn around.

He’s wanted to since we jumped the fence, and he won’t shut up about it, because shutting up isn’t something he’s ever tried.

‘Ours,’ he says, for about the fortieth time. ‘Go back.’

He’s a hunter, I tell him.

He’s trying to kill us. He brings silver and wolfsbane, and he does that whole routine with his breathing before he shoots.

‘He always misses,’ my wolf says fondly, as if that’s Noah Hunter’s most adorable quality.

That’s because we move.

‘We could let him land one. I want to see what he does after.’

We’re not getting shot so you can find out.

‘He’d feel so bad about it.’ My wolf loves this idea. ‘He’d have to make it up to us. At length. Thoroughly.’

Jesus. Stop it.

‘For hours,’ he adds, and goes back to chanting his new favorite word, very pleased with himself.

I shift back at the trees behind the house. For a few seconds I’m a naked twenty-year-old standing in wet grass, losing a fight with the voice in my head.

I’m the youngest pack Alpha anybody can remember. It’s all very glamorous.

The cold doesn’t bother me. Noah Hunter does.

I can still smell him. Clean sweat, steel, and the wolfsbane he smears on his bolts, which should make me want to throw up and doesn’t.

When I pinned him to that tree, his heart went crazy and I got two things off him at once. The first was fear, and fair enough, I’d just taken his knife away. Under that was want. A lot of it, hot and ashamed, and he’d gut me if I ever said so to his face.

There’s also a sharp green note that shows up in his scent whenever he’s lying to himself. Tonight he was soaked in it.

I know what want smells like. Plenty of females have wanted me, and I’ve enjoyed every one of them.

None of them ever made my wolf lose his mind. I never leaned in for a second breath with any of them either, and tonight I did exactly that with a man who’d just tried to shoot me in the heart.

He told me to get off him, please, before he found out if silver works on my balls. I’ve been threatened by even more people than I’ve slept with and nobody’s ever made it sound like foreplay before.

‘He smelled like ours,’ my wolf says. He lies down with his chin on his paws, as if that settles it.

He can’t be ours. He’s a hunter, and he’s human, and he’s got a girlfriend who texts him every night to check he’s still alive.

I read a few of them the night he was careless enough to let me catch him with his wallet and phone on him. She puts two kisses at the end of every message, and I’d love to know why I can’t stop thinking about that.

I’ve never wanted a guy before either, and that’s the part that bothers me least. A guy is fine. A guy who wants me dead is where I should probably draw the line.

There’s a hoodie and a pair of sweats on the porch rail. Coming home naked is not out of the ordinary and I learned a long time ago to leave clothes outside.

I’ve got one arm in the hoodie when the door opens. Finn leans in the doorway holding two beers, with a look on his face that I already hate.

He’s my Beta and my best friend, which makes him second in command of the pack and first in line to give me shit.

“Sooo,” he says.

“No.”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“Your face is saying it for you.”

He hands me a beer and his nose twitches. He’s trying to be polite about it, and he manages for about a second.

“You smell like crossbow guy again.”

“His name’s Noah Hunter. He’s a hunter named Hunter.”

“I know, you’ve told me eleven times. It’s the only fun fact you have.”

He drops onto the top step and pats the spot next to him. I pull the sweats on and sit, mostly to make him stop patting.

“That’s the third night this week you’ve come home looking like a deer mugged you. Do you want to tell me about your feelings?”

“I don’t have any.”

“You’ve got at least four. I’ve seen them.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Sure. And when nothing happened, were you on top of him, or was he on top of you?”

I drink my beer and don’t answer. The truth is that I had him against a tree with my arm across his chest, and I liked it way too much.

I know what an Alpha is supposed to do with a hunter who won’t quit. He scares the guy so badly that he never sets foot in those woods again. My dad would’ve gotten it done in ten seconds and been home in time for dinner.

I had Noah disarmed and pinned, and I sniffed him. After that I told him where to go looking for the people he’s trying to protect, as if we work together.

I’m blaming my wolf. He’s obsessed with the guy and it’s leaking into me. That’s my story and I like it a lot.

My wolf doesn’t say a word. He just lies there wagging his tail, because he thinks he’s already won.

“You went weird just now,” Finn says. “What’s happening in there?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Wow. How does it feel? Is it everything you hoped for?”

“Fuck you.”

He bumps my shoulder with his.

“Seriously, though. He’s been shooting at you for three weeks. Why is he still walking around?”

“He keeps missing.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I know it isn’t. I don’t have a better answer, and I don’t like that Finn’s noticed.

He lets me off the hook, mostly because he can’t stay serious for longer than a minute.

“Okay, but is he at least hot? He’s got to be smoking if you’re letting the attempted murder slide.”

“It’s not a crush.”

It comes out way too fast. Finn’s eyebrows go up, and my wolf’s ears go up right along with them.

“I didn’t say crush,” Finn says, delighted. “I said hot. You’re the one who said crush. That’s so interesting.”

“Drop it.”

Is he hot? He’s got black hair, green eyes, eyelashes longer than any guy needs, and a body that looks like somebody designed it specifically to ruin my week.

He’s also a complete dick. It’s a real shame.

Finn’s smiling into his beer, which means he’s got about nine more questions lined up. I change the subject before he can pick one.

“You said you’d ask around about the people going missing in town. Did you find anything?”

He stops smiling.

“Yeah. About that. I wasn’t going to tell you until tomorrow.”

He pulls out his phone and turns the screen toward me. It’s a photo of a flyer taped to a pole, the homemade kind that somebody printed at the library.

HAVE YOU SEEN ME? There’s a picture of a girl on it with a gap between her front teeth, laughing at whoever’s holding the camera. The name under the picture is Mary Masterson.

“She’s the fifth teenager to disappear since spring,” Finn says. “And they’ve all disappeared from the edges of town. A bus stop, a trailhead, the gas station out on the highway. Nobody ever sees anything.”

He taps the screen.

“Mary was taken from the lot behind the gym. Our gym. It happened on Tuesday, while you were teaching the eight o’clock class.”

My wolf stops wagging. He gets to his feet with his ears flat, and he doesn’t say ‘ours’ again.

On Tuesday at eight I was telling a girl named Bex to stop rounding her back on her deadlifts. I’ve told her about nine hundred times. I thought it was funny.

Somebody took Mary out of my parking lot, right on the other side of the wall I was standing next to, and I didn’t hear or smell a thing.

The teenagers I coach aren’t pack, but they’re mine. Every person who comes near that building is my responsibility. The pack chose me to lead them because of my dad. The gym is the only thing I’ve ever done completely by myself, and somebody’s been hunting right outside it.

That’s on me.

And I just told Noah to look into the missing people.

He’s out there right now, alone in the dark, convinced I’m the worst monster in those woods. If whatever took Mary is still around, I could be sending him straight toward it.

I’m scared for him. I’ve got no business worrying about a hunter, and I can’t stop.

‘Go,’ my wolf says.

For the first time in three weeks, we want exactly the same thing.