20
Sheila looked at me, then over at Alec. Then her eyes found the broken cot.
“I knew it!” Sheila said.
“Fine, yes, you were right. Can we get a couple of minutes?” I asked.
“This is my tent,” she teased.
“Please,” I said.
“Fine, I’ll wait outside,” she said dramatically. “Next time put a sock on the door or something.”
“Is that even possible on a tent flap?” I asked.
“Alec does live alone, just saying,” she said on her way out.
I looked over at Alec and the two of us burst into laughter. “I guess we weren’t fast enough.”
“What did she mean by that?” Alec asked. “When she said she knew it?”
I rolled my eyes. “She’s been saying the two of us should hook up for a while.”
“She’s smart,” he said.
I pulled my shirt over my head. “She’s pretty great.” When I poked my head out of my shirt, Alec was glaring at me.
I looked around. There was nobody else in the tent. That look was aimed at me. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes moved down to my still naked hips. “Were you going to tell me?”
I looked down and caught sight of the mark. “Fuck. I forgot about that.”
“This is why they’re after you, isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re marked as an alpha. How could you not tell us? You put all of us at risk.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not like that. I didn’t even know this mark was here until after I arrived.”
“I can’t believe how foolish I was,” he said. “You can probably shift, too, can’t you.”
“Are you kidding me right now? You think I’ve been lying to you?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. How could he think I’d do that to him? “Why would I do that? How would that benefit me?”
“If you show up in Wolf Creek with that mark, they have to hand the pack over to you. Is that why they wanted you dead? To keep you from taking over?”
“You’re not listening to me. I didn’t even know until I got here,” I said “And I can’t shift. No pack would have me as their alpha even if that’s what I wanted, which I don’t. You believe me, don’t you?”
He leaned down and grabbed his jeans, then pulled them on.
“Alec, talk to me. You have to tell me you believe me,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, his voice tense. “I believe you.”
He said the words, but it was clear he wasn’t being honest.
“Don’t do this to me,” I said.
He turned and grabbed his shirt from off the floor. In the dim light of the lantern, I could make out a familiar mark above his right shoulder blade. The same crescent moon surrounded by a circle. The mark I wore on my hip. The mark of an alpha.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”