Lailanie had focused most of her attention on the pup’s care. She used steam and pounding to loosen the phlegm, getting him to cough most of it out. They decided to give him an extra dose of the weak medicine.
Tears burned behind her eyelids, and she tried to blink them away. These people were strangers to her, but her soul would have fallen apart if that pup had died. The pack supported each other like a tight family, their love for each other palpable. She sniffed and rubbed her nose.
Compared to the pack, her parents were distant and her only brother cold. She never knew what she’d been missing until the Apisi.
The pack members treated her with respect, not like a stray as the Payami had. If she was trapped on Erothe she wanted friends. She wanted somebody who’d pat her back and help her cough when she was sick. She wanted to be loved.
But would the pack ever accept her?
Sorin entered the chamber. He used to frighten her. Not anymore. Huge for a human, he would have been mistaken for NFL linebacker on Earth. He could tie her in a knot with one hand but after this afternoon’s impromptu picnic, she doubted he’d ever hurt her.
His gentle side posed more of a threat than his feral beast, though. Stoic and loving was a killer combination in a male. Add those amber eyes and dark silver hair, and she was a goner.
Hovering over the sick bed, Sorin watched his sick pack slumber and didn’t notice her curled up against the far wall. Guess she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.
She didn’t mind slipping his detection. The last few days’ events hadn’t given her enough time to observe him. Torchlight flickered and played over his muscles. He still wore the sleeveless shirt with his leather kilt. It gave a woman plenty to imagine.
The kiss they’d shared had curled more than her toes. Hot damn, without Lailanie’s interruption she doubted she would have kept her clothes on much longer.
She’d been with men. Nice men, not the kind to tear your clothes off and take you against the wall. Those types didn’t gravitate to her academic social circles.
Sorin lifted a foot and rested it on the edge of the bed.
“What are you doing?” she tried to whisper but it came out as a half-restrained shout. He shouldn’t expose himself unnecessarily.
“You were so still. I thought you were asleep.”
She struggled to stand with legs gone to sleep. “That’s not an answer.” Slapping her thighs, she tried to get the circulation going again.
He crossed the room and whispered, “I don’t answer to you.”
“Maybe you should.” The words slipped passed her brain-mouth filter. He loomed over her. The unnatural glow of his eyes reminded Susan she dealt with more than a man. She dealt with a wolf shifter. An alpha.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t challenge me. You’ll lose.”
Heat developed low in her abdomen. She allowed her eyes to travel from his rugged face, along his broad shoulders, to his strong chest. Losing could be fun. She shook the thought from her exhaustion-filled head.
“I can’t rest while they need me.” His soft voice broke the spell she’d fallen under. “I’m their alpha. I’m their strength.”
“How?” Did he mean literally or metaphorically? Either could be possible in another dimension. Hell, she was ready to believe anything at this point.
“It’s difficult to explain.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “A connection exists between each pack, a bond. The alpha…” He shrugged. “They’re—mine. I can sense it. My presence offers them—safety? It’s hard to explain, Susan. I can sense they need me. Leave it at that.”
She grimaced and gazed at the bed. “Fine, but they can’t afford to lose you either. A-and I don’t want you to get sick.” The possibility made her nauseated. Placing him in a grave would destroy something new and flourishing inside her.
“I’ve slept with them every night and lent them my strength since this started. I won’t stay away.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. “If I get sick, I trust you to save me.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, savoring the moment. His faith in her was daunting, but she didn’t have the power to stop him. If he caught it she’d be there to support his cough and serve his medicine.
Sorin left her side and crawled onto the bed, settling in the center. The sick moved without waking, as if sensing him. They enveloped his body. The youngest were pushed closest to their alpha.
A pack connection, huh? Just another thing that made her different, an outsider. She hunched under the blanket by herself and rubbed the ache in her hollow chest.
Chapter Twenty
The Temple always offered Kele peace. It was a place she sought whenever she could coerce a hunter to accompany her. Many in her pack didn’t like traveling here. Maybe the loss of their goddess was too much. Maybe they felt abandoned. Sometimes she did.
She trailed her fingers over the flowering vines holding the structure together. Odd how these plants had grown and supported a building that should have crumbled by now. She wanted to change her people’s lack of faith, to bring them hope, but she’d have to resolve her own doubts first. Where had the Goddess gone?
A few shifters from other packs made the journey. She found their offerings on the altar, but mostly, Kele was alone at the Temple besides her guards. Belief in the Goddess had diminished. It might be the reason she’d left or that no one heard her call. Either way, communication didn’t flow between shifters and nature like she’d heard it had. All stories and myth now, but she believed that once upon a time, shifters communed with their land instead of just surviving off it.
Escaping her father’s displeasure, she and Ahote, with two other, younger hunters, had made camp on Temple lands, planning to stay for at least a couple of days. She didn’t think Sorin would allow Susan to return—he’d seemed quite adamant about keeping her—but she’d like to be available to the human female if she escaped and found her way here.
It must have been terrifying to fall into another dimension with no knowledge of the culture or laws. Some part of Kele sympathized with Susan’s plight. In a way the human was like her—a shifter who couldn’t change to feral form, trapped as a civilian.
Her guards hunted the Temple lands for amusement, except Ahote. He sat in feral form on the Temple stairs, jerking the petals off flowers growing on the vines. Stubborn, impossible, pigheaded male wouldn’t talk to her. He preferred the comforts of the den to the wild.
A distant howl carried through the forest. Her guards were on the hunt.
Ahote’s ears perked forward, and he dropped his latest floral victim. “Maybe we’ll have lunch soon.”
At least his mood hadn’t affected his appetite. She strolled between the old stone walls that were broken and cracked.
Carved in the solid walls were faded words, their wisdom lost to time. She couldn’t read the broken symbols and longed for a miracle to bring her understanding. Brushing away the vines, she searched for her favorite engraving, full of twirls and one of the few engravings still deeply scratched within.the stone.
She’d figure it out one day. She’d even brought her paper and pen to copy some of the writing.
From the corner of her eye, she caught Ahote jumping to his feet. He crouched low as if preparing to attack.
Her pulse sped and she reached for her dagger on her belt, suppressing her urge to ask questions. Silence was a predator’s best tool, so she crept toward the exit.
The sound of struggle came from outside the Temple, followed by a body impacting the ground with a grunt.
Fear seized her gut, and she hurried to the stairs. Could it be Susan? She’d only recently made a delicate friendship with her. Such things needed time to grow, and it wouldn’t take much to shred those ties. Stupid males.