Page 3 of Alphas Never Hide (Willow Lake Supernaturals #5)

Chapter Three

RYLEY

Was this guy for real? His phone suggested he was kind of pathetic. Sure , he looked handsome enough, but he needed a shower. Weren’t there studies out there showing how good-looking people had an easier time making friends? Maybe I was misremembering because his phone told a different story.

He had a lot of contacts, but not a single picture of anything or anyone, not even a pet cat.

The other weird thing about him? Magic clung to the air all around him. I’d never felt anything like it. This was no average wolf shifter. So far, he wasn’t using all that magic against me, but I didn’t want to know what would happen if he changed his mind about me. I definitely wasn’t ready to trust him, though, even if my gut was telling me I could. For now, I needed to gather as much information about him as I could, just in case the situation changed .

I studied him in my peripheral vision. My eyes in my human form couldn’t see shit, but I wasn’t in my human form at the moment. Excellent eyesight was one of the few heightened senses I’d inherited from my mom, but it only worked when I was in my faun form. Guys like this wolf always thought the Eternal Magic had gifted them with the best senses, but they had no idea about the way a faun’s eyes functioned, which worked to my advantage right now.

His big wolf form had been intimidating with all those sharp teeth, and his human body was just as scary. He was muscular, but he didn’t seem the type to work out at a gym, so he must do something physical for work. Based on the streak of grease or oil or whatever on his cheek and the stains on his clothes, I suspected he worked on machines. His eyes were a soft blue color. I couldn’t identify the exact shade with only the stars for light—even a faun’s sight had some limitations—but they were pretty. His dirty blond hair was a mess, standing up in all directions like he’d been pushing his fingers through it all day. He needed a haircut, and his stubble was well on its way to becoming a short beard.

If he didn’t smell so bad, he might even be attractive. For a wolf.

Although , to be fair, I would have smelled a lot worse if I hadn’t spent the whole of my captivity in my shifted form. It was one of the perks of being a shifter that every kid knew about. If you stayed shifted, you didn’t need as many baths. As an adult, I loved showers, but my cage hadn’t come with one. Having a long hot shower was one of the first things I’d do when I got back to civilization.

I clicked through his phone again, looking for hidden apps or secret screens. There was nothing there. What kind of person left their phone empty? Not a grocery list? Or a music app? Or something favorited on their web browser? He didn’t even have a picture of, well, anything. Why even have a smart phone if you were going to treat it like a landline?

He had to be a psychopath.

Wasn’t that just typical of my luck? I’d escaped one psychopath only to be found by another.

I wasn’t about to provoke the man who let me use his phone by asking questions like “are you a pathological liar” or “can you feel remorse” to confirm my suspicions. Nope . I didn’t need to raise his ire by asking questions like that. Besides , only one in every thousand psychopaths gave in to the temptation to become a serial killer. Yeah , okay, that number was something I made up. I had no idea, but it made me feel better to believe very few psychopaths killed people.

In the meantime, I would play his game because I needed help, and this was my best shot. I resisted the overwhelming urge to sign in to my socials and my emails to check if I had any messages. I didn’t want any of my information on his phone, although I doubted he’d know how to find it or use it. So , instead, I tapped the phone number for the police station. It rang and rang and…

Come on, come on, come on. Answer already.

Why was this taking so long? I needed to get away from this guy before he changed his mind about being nice to me. I also didn’t want to stick around in these woods much longer. Those other shitty wolves shouldn’t have discovered I was missing yet, but what if they had? Honestly , escaping from them had been the only thing to go my way in ages. I wasn’t about to trust my good luck to stick around. Not just yet. It could still turn on me any second now.

Someone answered my call. Finally .

“ Where are you, Hayden ?” Wherever this guy was, it was loud. “ Buddy said you had something going on, but I don’t believe it. Get your ass down here. Jeremy is talking about hockey and so far, no one’s let him know we play shinny on the lake every winter. The questions the guys are asking are hilarious. He hasn’t figured out they are pulling his leg yet.”

I pulled the phone away to check the number. Yep . This was the number Supenet had listed for the police department. So …? “ Is this the Willow Lake Police Department ?”

A long pause followed my question. The ambient sound on his end cut off abruptly. “ Who are you and where is Hayden ?”

In the background, I could hear people whispering about an alpha.

“ I’m fine, Van ,” the wolf I’d kicked—apparently his name was Hayden —called out. “ But we need help.”

“ What’s happened?” Van demanded. Even through the phone, his question resonated with thinly contained anger. “ Put Hayden on the line.”

Damn it. If I gave over the phone, I’d lose my advantage. So I ignored his request. “ I need the police. Should I call 911?”

“ Let me talk to Hayden . Are you holding him hostage? ”

“ Seriously ?” I snorted. Like I could hold a big guy like him hostage. What a laugh. I couldn’t even knock him out with my hoof, for Magic’s sake.

“ Seriously ,” the man said sharply.

“ Fine .” I reluctantly gave the phone to the wolf. I scowled at him to make sure he knew he needed to behave. I twitched my foot in his direction, just a little reminder that if he didn’t help me, he’d get another kick. I’d aim for his nuts this time. Hayden leaned away from me and stared at my foot the same way my mother had once stared at a rattlesnake we’d stumbled across in the grass.

“ I’m fine, Van ,” Hayden said.

I couldn’t hear what the other guy said.

“ You know I’m not lying. I was running the perimeter when I scented blood. I followed it to this… I don’t know what he is.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “ Seriously ? I’m a faun or satyr. I prefer faun, which is the Roman name for my kind, but the Greek is fine. And what do you mean you don’t know what I am? Fauns are everywhere. We’re in mythology, The Chronicles of Narnia , Carnival Row , The Mighty Hercules …” I trailed off when he looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.

“ He says he’s a faun,” Hayden said.

Van must have said something, because Hayden nodded. I wished my hearing was better but whatever. I’d learned to live with my shortcomings. “ Yeah . I didn’t know they existed either.”

I stomped my hoof on the ground and regretted it. Pain shot up from my injured ankle and ping-ponged through every nerve in my body. I reached for the tree again to keep myself upright.

Son of a goat herder. That hurt.

“ I need you to come get us.”

Another mumble from the other side of the conversation had Hayden looking around. “ Uh . We’re west of town. Not as far as Robbie’s old pack lands, but out that way.”

I wiggled my fingers at him again. “ Give me the phone.”

“ Hold on, Van , Ryley wants me to give him the phone.” Hayden stretched out his arm, holding the phone out. I scooped it from his hand.

I clicked through his few basic apps until I found a map app. I put a pin in our location before talking into the phone again. “ Can I send a text to you at this number, or do I need to use another?”

“ This one is fine.”

I sent the pin, then reluctantly returned the phone to the wolf. Hopefully if he knew the wolf was working with me, this Van guy wouldn’t come in, guns blazing. And I really, really hoped all of this was legit. If this was some elaborate plan to trick me, I was going to be pissed. I didn’t think this wolf had the know-how to set up a fake website for the Willow Lake PD or redirect calls, so I’d trust him. For now.

It wasn’t like I had much choice. I couldn’t get much further on my own. My leg could barely hold my weight, and I was feeling woozy. I didn’t know if my light-headedness was because so much of my blood was outside my body instead of inside, or if I was in some kind of shock now. Either way, this was my best chance of getting out of these woods before the other bastard wolves came for me.

“ You got it? Okay . We’ll see you soon.” Hayden looked at me. “ And , Van , let Doc know Ryley will need to see him.” Another mumble from the other end of the call. He shook his head, wincing as he moved. “ No . Not me. I’m fine.”

Whatever Van said next had Hayden frowning.

“ Yeah , yeah, yeah. You can say you know I’m lying all you want, but you can also fuck off. I’m alive. That’s good enough.”

He ended the call with a huff. He shoved the phone in his pocket and leaned against a tree. His fingers tapped against his leg in a restless rhythm.

“ They are coming, right?”

“ Yes .” He frowned. “ We should start walking.”

“ It’ll take them longer to find us if we move around.”

“ We shouldn’t have called them,” he muttered.

He dabbed at his still bleeding face again. When he saw more blood on his fingers, he stripped off his shirt. I did a double take. What was he doing?

I couldn’t stop my gaze from drifting over his torso.

I shouldn’t have. It was wildly inappropriate. After all he was bleeding because of me, but my eyes had their own agenda. And then my brain got in on the situation and purred a “ Oh , hello. Yeah , baby.” Which , really? Why did my brain sound like a slimeball?

But the guy looked good.

And I was a normal, healthy guy with a normal, healthy libido, so it was natural I’d notice. Anyone would look when presented with that chest and those arms and all those yummy muscles. But he went and ruined it by rubbing the shirt over his cheek. He was trying to wipe the blood from his face, but he was smearing it everywhere.

And my brain still thought he was sexy.

“ I should be able to get us out of here,” Hayden said as he continued to try to clean himself. “ If you’d trusted me, we could have been on our way already.”

“ Isn’t your pal the Chief of Police ? It is literally his job to help people.”

Hayden shook his head. “ I didn’t want them involved.”

“ Involved in what?” I scowled at him through narrowed eyes. He better not have double-crossed me.

“ Hunting for Robbie .”

“ Who is Robbie ?”

His gaze swept over my chest and all the wounds. He swallowed hard. “ The wolf whose scent you carry.”

I shuddered under the memory his words triggered. A wolf. His teeth dripping with saliva. The pain. The blood. His tongue lapping at my punctured skin. His fucked-up ideas about eating my magic through my blood.

Fresh anger flashed through me. I glanced down at my chest. Those bite marks better fade when I shifted. And I needed a gallon of antibiotics, because who knew what diseases that wolf carried? Supes weren’t supposed to carry diseases, but who the fuck knew with that cannibal?

“ You don’t want them involved in finding the guy who did this? Is that what you’re saying? Are you sure you aren’t in cahoots with those other wolves?” I’d always loved that word. Cahoots . There weren’t enough opportunities to use it in my day-to-day life. “ Because it sounds like you’re out here on your own because you want to join up with them without your pals in town knowing. Oh . Unless you’re trying to get yourself killed.”

“ I won’t die,” he said with complete confidence. What a misguided fool. “ It’s safer if I do this on my own.”

“ You’re such a cliché.”

His frown deepened. “ What do you mean?”

“ You …” I waved my hand at him. “ You’re all, ‘ I’m a lone wolf.’” I’d dropped my voice in an amazingly accurate imitation of him. “ Both literally and figuratively. ‘ I work alone.’ Blah blah blah.”

“ I don’t sound like that.” His nostrils flared, and he clenched his teeth. “ And it is for everyone’s protection that I do this without involving the others.”

“ Right .” This guy had me rolling my eyes so much and so hard they’d be falling out of my head soon. “ And yet, a lowly faun knocked you on your ass. You think you could take on those other turd robbing jerks all on your own? You’re a deluded ass. A deluded ass with a death wish. I need to get away from here. This place is teeming with your kind.”

Although , even as I said those words, I found it comforting to have him here with me. I wasn’t sure what that meant. He might be a deluded ass with a death wish, but I sensed I could trust him to keep me safe.

After my outburst, though, we waited in silence for help to arrive.