Beau

Her nest is perfect.

The angles, the careful attention to detail, it's so Rhea that it makes my heart soft.

She's curled at the center of it, deep in sleep, the faint rise and fall of her chest the only sound in the dim cabin. Watching her, surrounded by softness and warmth, it makes something in me ache. Not the wolf, but the man. The part that wishes I could give her something simple and safe.

But my wolf...my wolf is content. He rumbles low in my chest, tail thumping lazily along my ribs. He likes her here. Like this—her wildflower and rainstorm scent in the air, the warmth of her body in the bed, the soft order of her nest. If the bruises on her body didn't fill us with such self-loathing, he'd be begging me to lie beside her. Protect her. Claim her.

I rub my face.

Nothing about this is simple.

If she were human, Rhea would have died. She wouldn't have survived that fall. If I had been slower, she wouldn't have made it out of the forest alive.

But she did, I remind myself. She's safe. She's here. And she's not human.

I wasn't completely sure when I first saw her. Fuck. Wearing her little skirt and blazer, legs going for miles, taking on a hostile room with an ice-cold poker face like the angry buzz of wolves about to tear through skin was nothing to worry about.

She didn't react to the bond between us.

A wolf would have felt the undercurrent of anger, the brittle hold on control. A wolf would have recognized me—dominant, powerful, silently commanding my pack.

And a wolf would have recognized her mate.

My wolf whines at that, still hurting with her repeated half-rejections of our bond. He doesn't push for control, however, he's fully aware that Rhea needs the man right now, not the wolf.

That night at the town hall, though? I'd never been so close to losing control. Not since I was a teenager. I didn't shift, no, but I shouldn't have ran after her, shouldn't have gotten so close that the smell of rainwater and wildflower petals and sharp, green spring was forever burned into my bones. I should have let her—the strange little human-wolf—leave, but I couldn't. And with her perfect scent haunting me, I hadn't let her leave my thoughts.

And then she'd shown up on Marcus' doorstep, smelling like desire. The sultry alto pitch of her voice, the wicked edge of her humor. If my uncle hadn't have shown up, I'd have pushed her up against her car. Taken that sharp little tongue with my teeth, marked her right then and there.

She became my obsession.

I'm not proud of it, but I'd followed her. Watched her. I'd promised that I wasn't going to contact her. I wasn't going to interrupt her life. I told myself that I was trying to figure out what she was. Human or wolf. Because humans don't smell like her. Humans can't take something so wild and perfect and free and bottle it up like that. And if there were wolves living out in the human world, on the verge of exposing our secret, we needed to know if we were at risk.

As always, I needed to protect the pack.

At first, I was convinced that she was human, no matter how right she'd smelled. She lived in a city. A boxy apartment so removed from the natural world that any wolf would have lost its mind. She worked hours and hours and hours in an ugly building with ugly-souled people who fought to destroy forests and mountains and rivers.

But then I'd noticed the signs. When she was stressed, that rainwater scent of her sharp with worry, Rhea organized the chaos. She straightened papers, mopped her floors. And then she started getting restless. Started moving furniture, cleaned out her cupboards, ran and ran and ran. I wondered how long the little wolf trapped inside a human body had taken to nesting behaviors, to running when life became too stressful.

In just the glimpses through her window, my soul, my wolf ached for her. She didn't know how to soothe herself, my strange, cold mate. She'd separated herself from the world. No family, no friends. If she'd been in a pack, we'd have run with her. The community, the comfort, the physical touch, all the things that wolves crave would have kept her from getting to the point where she finally broke and retreated to the wilderness without understanding why.

It was lucky, that day. That black wolf had been circling our territory for a few days, sniffing at the borders with his pack.

An odd pack. All male. All unmated by the scent of them. Though their scents were difficult to pick, faint and fading even when they'd just been spotted.

I'd assumed they were looking for female wolves, hoping to pick them off us. The Yellowstone Pack had mentioned some males shadowing their territory. We'd known to be ready.

I was tracking him that day, when Rhea was alone in the woods. So close to the human trails, I'd been following his tracks in my human skin. Volunteering for the National Parks, the Recreation services bought me a lot of leeway when it came to showing up to all sorts of places in the wild country. And I'd never before had issue keeping my wolf contained. We had a strong understanding—him and I—there were some things that a man could do that a wolf could not, and some where only a wolf would do. He understood that exposure would mean the death of the Teton Pack. He deferred to my judgement on how to best protect us from being discovered.

But then the smell of rainwater and wildflowers floated on the breeze. My wolf had nearly torn through my clothes trying to get to her. I'd barely managed to convince him to let me unlace my boots, that getting caught naked in human territory would spell trouble for us.

Rhea in the forest, her dark hair gleaming with sunlight, the little patches of her midriff exposed was tempting. As was the emotion so close to the surface. She was someone different. Not a wolf, but also not the icy paralegal. Not the workaholic. She was... raw.

And my wolf took the reins, let her see him standing by the creek. All the while glowing with the arrogance that she'd not run. That she was brave.

It was straight luck that we were there. That I was able to convince my wolf to give me our skin so that I could protect Rhea. Because the black wolf was near. And he was also curious in Rhea's scent. Curious enough to give a little chase, but careful in how he was leading her further from the trail. Herding her. To what, I didn't know.

My wolf had demanded to challenge him, to rip his throat out, but Rhea didn't need two alphas fighting it out. She needed Beau. A guide out of the forest, away from the danger.

Even if she was mostly human, she deserved that much.

On that trail, she was so different. Oh, the bite was still there, that sharp tongue, but she was softer. And it finally made sense. She'd lost her family, the tiny pack she'd had. Wolves don't do well on their own. Isolation makes us into unhappy creatures. It was no wonder she'd turned into a cold, snarling thing.

And then the slashed tires on her car. I couldn't smell the strange wolf, but he must have beaten us back on four legs. Or perhaps one of his pack mates meant to cripple Rhea's escape. At the time, I assumed it was just curiosity in a human who smelled like a wolf. I assumed they weren't seriously interested in pursuing someone who was so clearly not one of us. Just like I had told Caleb I was going to seriously pursue my assumedly human mate.

She'd spent the night in my bed. She'd worn my clothes, wrapped herself in my scent. Despite her otherness, I imagined a future with a mate like Rhea. No pack runs. She'd always be at risk. But I found excuses to peek on her, listening to the way her voice changed when she spoke with her colleagues, her clients, versus the way she spoke to me. She couldn't shift, no, but Rhea is a shapeshifter of a whole other kind. I was desperate to know her true form.

Seeing her fall so easily into place with the pack, it'd filled me with a hopefulness I couldn't shake. Nothing riled her, nothing phased her. Like water, she didn't fight the current. She accepted my clothes, my touch. She didn't cower with Nora and Caleb's radiating dominance. She was kind to Lila, teasing with Owen. Despite the pack's curiosity, their incessant questions, she was calm under the pressure. Even when I could feel the prickle of her insecurity through the weak threads of our bond, she never let it show on her face.

Even if she couldn't shift, she would make a perfect mate, an excellent alpha. My wolf had been so content to just watch her, that we'd missed the signs of Owen's faltering control.

Lucky.

We were so lucky. A shifter, lost to his wolf, can be a dangerous thing. Owen's never had a good handle of his emotions, and his wolf is just as reckless as the man. Rhea, as an outsider, would have been an easy target for him: either as a perceived enemy or as an unmated female. I'd been far too cavalier, brining Rhea to the pack before we were mated. Before I could truly protect her. I'd put both my mate and my pack at risk.

Because if anyone touched her, I'd have ripped them to shreds.

I'd scrambled for how I'd explain my world to her, how I could convince her to take a chance on something so surreal and dangerous for someone who'd grown up safe in the tamed, human world. It didn't matter. As if her human intuition knew she was in danger, Rhea had pulled away. She had put distance between us.

And it made me understand the truth.

She wouldn't choose us.

She wouldn't choose me.

Her wolf was too far hidden beneath human skin. Her instincts were too deeply buried.

It would be best, I'd decided, if I let her go.

Truly let her go.

My wolf had howled and fought and battered against the inside of my chest with a fury he'd never shown, but I'd held firm. I kept my skin. And I convinced him that letting our mate leave was the safest thing we could do for our pack. The best thing we could do for her.

I focused on the black wolf, on how to deal with Crestline when even the lowest on the list of lawyers Rhea had provided would bankrupt us. I repaired water tanks and laid new pipe and took extra cooking shifts and hunted and ran with the pack.

I ignored the agony of her trying to sever the mating bond.

Unintentionally, I knew, but still painful, just the same.

And then, she pulled on it. Not hard. Not with purpose. But with the lightest touch, and it rang with her laughter. Happiness associated, somehow, with me. It was a moment of weakness, a bright rush of euphoria after weeks of that aching, miserable void next to my heart. So I'd sent reassurance back through, affection and comfort and joy. But it quickly faltered. In that glimpse of the bond she'd been so determined to ignore, I could feel the tension under that brief spark of her happiness.

Doubt filled me. My wolf growled and snapped, full of the wordless indignation that he was right, that she was not better without us.

Rhea was hurting and lonely and a little scared.

And she was in heat.

I told myself I was just going to check on her. Just to see if I could help her through the worst of her heat. I wouldn't complete the bond. I wouldn't touch her... but it was so close to the full moon, I was hesitant. Normally, I didn't worry about my control. But my wolf was living so close to my skin those days, I wasn't certain I could hold him back. I knew I couldn't if I decided not to go.

The SUVs following her home was a surprise. As was her belief that it was Crestline trailing her. I couldn't see the drivers, but I know wolf when I smell it. Still, I told her to stop trying to help us. If Crestline posed any threat to her, I couldn't protect her when she was determined to live in the city.

I'd meant just to check on her, but with that tangible threat to her safety, there was no way my wolf would let me leave. So I stayed.

Her scent was madness.

If she had been any less upset, I'd have fucked her right there on the floor. But though her body screamed of desire and lust, though it begged for release, Rhea wasn't ready. Even my wolf was agreeable to waiting, to meeting her at her level. Touching her smooth skin, holding her while she slept...that was enough for a little while.

I didn't think I could resist the temptation of sleeping in her bed, of being surrounding by her smell, her softness. So I slept in the truck, like a coward.

I'd meant only to watch over her for the night, to drive home with the sunrise, but Rhea'd come out with coffee. With cinnamon.

That wasn't instinct. That wasn't our mating bond. That was a purely human detail.

The human cared for me.

I should have left, but I leaned into that human affection like a moth to flame. I took her hiking, promising myself that I only meant to help ease the burden of her heat. That being with her was altruistic even as I drank in every minute of her smile, every ounce of her sun-soaked laughter. Because, my wolf decided, she was ours. And we weren't going to let her go.

I'd—we'd—marked her with our scent next to the lake. Made sure that any wolf sniffing around her would know that she was ours, and we protected what was ours. Basking in her little cries, coaxing out pleasure from her heat-fueled body... nothing could have made us happier. Save for claiming her right then. Fucking her. Knotting her. Filling her with our seed. Sinking our teeth into that little spot on her neck.

And then Nora had called with an emergency. The outsiders were close. Had tried to separate Lila from the safety of the pack.

Anger and shame rose up in me like wildfire. Anger that I couldn't choose Rhea over the pack. That being alpha meant I had to put the pack first. Shame that I wanted to put Rhea first. That I'd left my pack unprotected.

So I left her.

I fucking left my mate, thinking that she'd be safe in her human world, and she was hurt. Scared. She'd pulled so hard on the mating bond, her wolf howling for help, that I'd been pulled from my wolf skin to my human one in the middle of the hunt.

I was in the middle of the wilderness by then, having chased the black wolf, his pack, for days, through the full moon, half-lost to wolfish instincts. We abandoned the hunt, returned to our territory.

I'd run back, paws bloodied, trying to send strength, comfort through the bond. But that connection between us, the one I'd been ignoring during the chase, was quiet. I feared the worst.

When I called, begging she'd pick up, I'd never known such fear. I'd left the voicemail, voice shaking, hoping she'd call back. I nearly killed the suspension on the truck racing out to Jackson, determined to make sure she was, at least, still alive. I begged gods I didn't believe in to let her have severed the bond, but let her be okay.

And I watched her through the window, like I promised myself I'd never do again. All the lights on: hell for a nesting wolf, but a comfort to scared human. I watch over her apartment through the night, parked down the street because I don't know how to confront her. Because I read the little text message she sent me, and I don't want it to be over.

It feels like an eternity ago when it was just this morning. I'd woken up with a sore neck and a plan to win her back, only to find her car missing, her scent fading. I'd yanked on our severed bond, demanding to know where she was with only a quiet void to tug on.

I'd used my dominance, commanded a reluctant Caleb to help me track her scent deep into our territory, into the Teton Wilderness. Marcus, despite his age and his weakening wolf, came to stand with us. We'd found her. Almost too late.

Rhea shifts restlessly in her sleep, murmuring something incomprehensible. I realize that I've stopped purring. My throat is hoarse with the effort, but it seems a small price to pay for her comfort.

I want to stay. I want to make sure she sleeps through the night. I want to curl myself around her nest and bare my teeth at anything that even thinks about waking her.

But I can't.

The pack needs me. Caleb and Marcus and Nora will be here soon. We still don't know what exactly these wolves are hunting, how far they've pushed into our territory, if there are more of them. And now... now I have something new to protect.

Someone.

Rhea is mine. Ours.

She murmurs again, softer this time. Her fingers stretch toward me.

There's a part of me that wants to step down as alpha, to stay here with Rhea, to let her be my only priority. To lie beside her until she wakes. To press kisses to her bruises, to run my hands through her hair until the lingering scent of fear is gone. I want to hear her laugh again.

But that's not the kind of man I am.

And it sure as hell isn't the kind of alpha this pack needs. Not when we've had to scrape and scrap to survive. Not with enemies at our door.

I brush a piece of hair away from her cheek. Her skin's warm. Her scent is growing stronger—still rain and wildflowers, but there's something deeper threading through it. Something wild. Feral. She might not believe in wolves, not yet, but the one sitting in her chest is making itself known.

Without a sound, I leave her tucked in the dark. I can feel Caleb lingering out front. Nora's approaching with Marcus. My seconds.

I meet them on the porch.

"You smell like regret," Nora says softly, her voice low and dry.

"Not yours to sniff out." My voice is quiet, soft, but laced with an edge of dominance that would make other wolves tuck tail. Nora's never been afraid of me, not before I had to take the mantle from my father and certainly not after. Hard to be afraid of your baby cousin, I suppose.

Plus, her wolf's a real bitch.

She flashes me a smile that has no humor in it.

I know I'm not going to like what she has to say.