The woman stares at me. “I could swear that wolf can understand us.”
“Nah,” says the man. “That's just your brain trying to personify everything. Didn't you tell me that unused coffee mug looked sad the other day?”
She elbows him in the side. “Shut up.”
The man rises to his feet and extracts a cell phone from his pocket. He taps his finger on the screen before pressing it to his ear and walking to the opposite side of the room. He's too far away from me to clearly hear the other side of the conversation, but I do catch his side.
“We had a wolf come in late last night. Hit by a car out near the river.” He nods a few times. “No, nothing that we couldn’t handle. His right rear leg was broken and I casted it. Otherwise, he seems pretty healthy except for how underweight he is. I'm thinking someone kept him as a pet and then got sick of him when he didn't act enough like a dog. He's very alert.” The man’s gaze slides to me. “No, I don’t think he was used for fighting. He hasn't exhibited any blatant aggressiveness, though he was sedated when I first examined him and that is only just now wearing off.” He huffs. “Much earlier than expected.”
He pauses, listening to whatever the person on the other end of the phone is saying. “Okay. We’ll see you this evening then.”
I tune out the conversation and instead watch the woman as she distributes more bowls to some of the other cages around me. The man finishes up his phone call, and the two humans move about the room, caring for the other animals and mostly ignoring me.
At some point, my belly full, I relax enough to drift off, my body giving in to the adrenaline crash now that I’m… not safe exactly, but close enough for exhaustion to take over again.
I’m not sure how much time passes before another person arrives, the sound of voices startling me awake. The new arrival greets the two humans before walking quickly toward my cage, a frown pulling at his mouth. This person is more intense thanthe other two, his gaze steady but curious, and he moves with an inhuman grace.
Which makes perfect sense.
Since he isn’t human.
No, this man is likeme.
And that realization sends an unexpected burst of terror through me, but as he draws closer and his scent reaches my nose that feeling fades.
Beta, my instincts whisper.Not an alpha. Not a threat.
Four
Luke
The blaring ring ofmy cell phone yanks me out of sleep, pulling me away from the weird dream I was having. Still lying on my back with my eyes closed, I fumble around on the nightstand, my hand blindly patting the wood, searching for the stupid phone.
Sometimes I miss the days when there were no cell phones in the Sweet Water pack. There’s definitely something to be said for not having to be constantly reachable, but being so disconnected from the outside world was one of the main reasons this pack had been stagnant for generations, stuck in the dark ages of shifter laws and traditions.
Of course, Randall—and all the Alphas before him—liked it that way. After all, the more isolated from the outside worldsomeone is, the easier it is to fool them, and Randall was all about keeping out any ideas he didn’t like or that threatened his control in any way.
But that was his way, not mine, and a lot has changed since Randall was in charge here. Besides the fact that most of his closet cronies left—some involuntarily—I’ve worked to make sure the pack is no longer so damn isolated and insular. In fact, getting a cell tower put in and making sure everyone who wanted one got a phone was one of my first tasks as Alpha.
That doesn’t mean I can’t curse this stupid, noisy thing sometimes. Like right now.
My hand finally locates the phone, my palm slapping the screen. I drag the still-ringing rectangle across my nightstand, then lift it toward my ear, answering without even glancing to see who it is.
There aren’t many people who have this number.
“Yeah?” I mumble, my voice hoarse with sleep.
“Alpha Luke Anderson?” asks an unfamiliar male voice.
“Yeah,” I repeat. “That’s me.” My brain isn't up to much more response than that at… I peel my eyes open and glance at the clock.Four a.m.? What the fuck?
“Perfect,” says the guy on the other end of the phone. “I, well,wehave bit of an issue up here. How soon can you get here?”
“Huh?” I’m sure the fog of sleep is not helping, but this guy doesn’t seem to be making much sense either.
“To Smyrna,” the guy replies in a matter-of-fact tone that does absolutely nothing to clear things up for me.
“Why would I go to—what was it?—Smyrna?” I drag my hand over my face and sit up in my bed, resting my back against the headboard. “And where the hell even is that?”
