“What about the alpha?”
Strangely, when she said those words, the danger that hit her memory wasn’t the experience of what they called acclimating. No, it was her other exposure to the alpha’s gaze, and she shuddered as she felt it all again—standing in the shadow of his massive frame, looking up into a pair of feral amber eyes as that awful rough voice gave a growl exponentially more terrorizing than Aaron’s disapproving rumble. Her shoe slipping and leaving her foot, her lungs constricted by the expectation of imminent death, and her body pitching over the side of the porch, almost a relief as she left the alpha’s shadow.
“You mean, is he safe?” Quinn said.
She nodded. Her throat was too tight for words.
“For us, he is. For anybody else, it depends.”
“On what?”
Quinn reached down and took her hand, and she remembered a hundred times she had taken his when he was little—to lead, to comfort, to pull him back from traffic.
“It’s okay, Aunt Em.”
She tried to nod.
“I know he seems scary to you, but he’d only hurt an outsider if they were hurting one of us. That’s what Aaron says.”
“But he’s not scary to you?” How was that possible?
Quinn shook his head. “No way. He’s my alpha.”
Tears rose in her eyes at the lifting of a terrible weight that had rested on her for the last four weeks. She wasn’t ready for trust, not after a single morning, but she would approach her time here with hope the wolves would prove trustworthy. With hope that when the time came to leave, she could do so knowing Quinn was safe…with his pack.
“Will you tell me now why you wanted me to leave before the full moon?”
“I…I guess not. And don’t go thinking anything bad, like the pack threatened me or something. They didn’t. I just don’t want to talk about it, that’s all.” He released her hand and wrapped her in a hug. “You don’t have to worry about me. But thanks for coming after me.”
The moment she hugged him back Quinn retreated several steps, his face bright red.
“Sorry,” he said. “Nobody’s hugged me since I’ve been here. I didn’t know it would be too much.”
“I smell, huh?”
He grinned. “Not bad. But yeah. I get the worst headaches sometimes when the whole pack gets together because people smell stronger than anything else. But Aaron says he did too. He says I’ll adapt in time.” He gave a huff. “That’s like his favorite phrase with me. ‘In time.’”
“Seems like a good phrase.”
“I guess. I want to adapt now. But Aaron says ‘you get further when you’re patient.’”
The opposite of her motto. Weird.
They walked for hours through woods and clearings, up hills and down, across small valleys with creeks smaller than the one Quinn had designated his favorite. The conversation rarely strayed from his new role model.
Ember would have happily trekked another few miles if they’d thought to bring food along. “Aren’t you starving, Quinn?”
“Kind of. We get a lot hungrier than…” He blushed.
“Than vanillas do.” She laughed.
His smile was sheepish. “I’m not supposed to call you that. Not to your face, I mean.”
“So on top of all his other brilliant lessons, Aaron Reed is teaching you courtesy too.”
He shrugged.
“If we won’t reach the fiftieth acre before afternoon, let’s head back to the house and eat.”
