Page 35 of The Alpha Dire Wolf (Bloodlines & Bloodbonds #1)

Sylvie

M y entire musculoskeletal frame groaned in relief as Lincoln’s weight disappeared, following his body down onto the couch in my grandmother’s living room.

It was still her house, in my mind. Which is why I winced so hard when the furniture protested loudly under the sudden bulk deposited onto it.

The wood creaked, and for a second, I thought it was going to give out.

Lincoln more fell than anything, but the couch held together, for now.

Letting out an audible noise of relief, I gently stood up straight, my hands on my lower back to help stretch it out.

Getting Lincoln back from the forest had been a blur of grunts, groans, yelps, and sweat, earned one shaky, wobbly step at a time.

It would have been hard enough on solid, even ground, but to move him through the forest? Pure hell.

The only way we’d even made it was because he’d regained some strength partway through. Not much but enough that my spine wasn’t slowly being compressed like a spring anymore. Not fully, at least.

“Are you okay?” Lincoln asked now, staring up at me from his makeshift throne of blankets, made double-thick to act as a protective layer for the couch itself. “Did I hurt you?”

“Maybe my ego,” I muttered, still stretching. When I straightened again, the floor seemed an inch or two farther away as my spine unclenched. “I always told myself I was decently fit, that in a fire if I had to, I could haul a man out of harm’s way. But now …”

Lincoln smiled, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I am … larger than most men.”

Don’t look. Don’t look.

I was so tired and sore, I managed to follow through with my mental process. I didn’t look at his groin from the obvious double entendre. I did, however, end up having to tear my eyes away from his biceps. His gouged and bloodied biceps.

That recognition brought me right back to the present, snapping me out of whatever spell his voice had tried to cast on me.

“What you are is a man who is no position to make jokes,” I said, my hands on my hips, glaring down at him. “You need to offer up some straight answers, or I’m calling an ambulance right now. No hesitation. I’ll tell them to send the police too.”

Lincoln’s eyes had never left mine, but now they darkened, his face tightening into a straight-mouthed stare that reflected the mood change. The ice in his blue eye hardened. The fires in the other danced higher.

“You don’t have to call them,” he said slowly. “I told you that already.”

“No?” I said, crossing my arms. “Maybe I should call the pound instead.”

There it was. I tossed the crazy idea out into the air between us, finally vocalizing it.

Lincoln didn’t seem shocked by the suggestion. He did blink, very slowly, taking his time. “Why would you call them?”

Anger surged up, burning away the tired ache in my muscles and sending fresh frenetic energy to my brain. “No,” I snapped, stabbing a finger at him hard enough he leaned backward.

“No?”

“Yes. I mean, no. No more of that, Lincoln. You aren’t going to do that to me, not anymore. No more gaslighting. No more distraction. No more avoiding the question, hoping I’m too stupid to push it. I know what I’m seeing.”

Lincoln rubbed his jaw, wincing as his fingers found yet another bruise. “What are you seeing?”

It was another question, not an answer, but perhaps it was fair I answered it.

“First, there’s this, this thing that comes out of the damn tree in my yard after a lightning strike from a storm that never actually existed.

It kills the tree dead. Doesn’t burn it, just turns it to dead black wood.

Then of course the trunk splits apart, the monster you fought comes out and chases me into the forest. That’s the first fucking thing I’m seeing. ”

His lip quirked ever so slightly as I swore. I couldn’t help it. I was worked up. I was angry. Most of all, I was terrified . Of the monster thing. Of the wolf. Possibly of Lincoln himself. The thing I was the most scared of, however, was that I was losing my mind.

“Don’t you laugh,” I snapped. “This isn’t funny to me, so don’t act like it’s nothing.

This is insane enough on its own. Then you can add in the giant, or bigger than normal, I know that, maybe not giant, wolf, that came out of nowhere to fight it.

To save me. Which is not the first time it’s done that. ”

I paused to take a breath, to organize my words better. I had started to ramble there and get sidetracked, and I needed to stay on track.

“Okay.” That was all he said, giving me that time to continue.

“Now this is the extra super insane part. If the whole thing isn’t mega-nuts.

Maybe the tree-thing is more insane. It’s not human or normal in any way.

A giant wolf is weird, but it’s still a wolf.

At least I know of those. But Lincoln, that wolf has the same eyes as you.

It has the same wounds. In the same places.

Call the white coats on me if you have to, but I don’t think you do.

I’m not losing my mind, I know what I saw, so don’t tell me I am! ”

I was yelling by the end. Lincoln didn’t interrupt. Didn’t make a face. He stood there, and let me unload my emotions on him. Supporting me, like he always had.

“I’m not crazy,” I repeated in a forceful whisper.

Who was I trying to convince more of that? Him, or myself?

“What aren’t you crazy about?” Lincoln said, his mismatched eyes boring into me.

I hesitated.

“Say it,” he pressed gently. “Let it out. Voice what you’re thinking.”

Taking a deep breath, I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Frustrated, I clamped my jaw shut. Lincoln was as patient as ever. Waiting. Watching. Letting me work through it. I took two more breaths, preparing to try again.

“The wolf—” I broke off in a high-pitched laugh. “No, this is crazy. I’m insane. I have to be.”

“Do you feel insane?” he pushed, again in that gentle, calm, encouraging voice.

“Not at all. But also completely.”

“Then say what you’re thinking. It’s got to come from you, Vee. You have to speak it out loud. Acknowledge it.”

“Fine. I can do that. I can say it. I’ll just, speak the words.” I bit my lip. Fuck it. “The wolf. It’s … you. Somehow. Isn’t it?”

There was a long pause. Lincoln’s eyes all but glowed. Then so slowly I could have missed it, his head moved up and down.

“Holy. Shit.” The whisper filled the room. “How? What? What is going on here, Linc? What does it all mean? The tree-thing? You? Are you all related somehow?”

Lincoln’s growl banished my whisper to the ether as it ripped from his wounded chest. It filled the room and then the entire house to the point the nearest windows rattled. “I would never want to hurt you,” he snarled with such extreme emphasis I stepped back, stunned by the outburst. “ Ever .”

The possessive, protective desire embedded in those words reached out past the shock of the outburst and found its way past my defenses. The words reached into my center, curling around one another to light a warmth fueled by the memories of his wolf protecting me. Saving me.

“Whatever that thing is, and I did not lie when I said I had never seen or heard of such a thing, it is foreign to me. I’ve not come across its like.”

“Right,” I said, still trying to work past the pit of warmth his words had evoked. I cautiously sat down on the chair behind me. “That first time with the bear. That was you. Right?”

He nodded.

“I never got a chance to thank you for that.” I started to laugh, but cut it off at the brittle, hysterical notes entering it.

“Are you okay, Vee?”

I looked down, noticing my hands were continually wringing and twisting within one another. “I don’t know. Physically, I’m fine. You ensured that. But … what is okay, Linc? How can one be okay after all this?”

I ran my hands back over my hair, settling it into place. “Does anyone else know? About whatever you are, I mean?”

The shrug was far more casual than I would have thought for such an explosive secret. “You mean besides my pack? Like people in town?”

My jaw dropped open. “Your pack? There are more of you ?”

I expected many replies from Lincoln. What I wasn’t prepared for was laughter. It stopped as fast as my anger appeared.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sobering. “I shouldn’t have laughed. It’s just … yes, there are more like me, Vee. A lot more. An entire world of people that you don’t know about.”

“ An entire world ,” I repeated in a whisper, unable to find my voice. “And out of it, out of all that, you’re here? Why? Why me , Lincoln?” I asked, my suspicion growing. “Are you here because of my intuition?”

It was, in hindsight, perhaps not the smartest of things to give voice to. I’d already let it slip once, on the back porch, but at the time Lincoln had been preoccupied. Now I was revealing too much.

His brow furrowed in confusion. “What? No. Why would I care about that?”

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Apparently, he didn’t catch on that my intuition wasn’t normal. I needed to be more careful. I knew nothing about him, his people, or anything really, it seemed.

“I’m here because of you, Vee,” he said forcefully continuing. Grimacing in pain, he maneuvered himself into a proper sitting position, gingerly settling weight onto his ripped and torn side. “I’m here because I’m drawn to you. And I think you are too me as well. I feel it. I know you feel it too.”

The air in my lungs disappeared.

To do that, you must find the guardian. They will be drawn to you—a partnership, a call impossible to ignore. Find the guardian, Vi-vi. That is your next step. Your first step in understanding who we are. Who you are.

The words my grandmother had written came surging back to me.

“I’m here.” Lincoln went on, overriding those thoughts, “because every part of me is screaming to just … have you. I’m here because I don’t want to be somewhere you aren’t.

I’m here because I want …” He trailed off, looking down for a moment.

Then his eyes came up, slamming into me and pinning me to the seat. “I’m here, because I want .”

The last word was pure, undisguised desire in four letters.

It reached out from his growled tone and plastered itself to me—hot, heavy, and unshakeable.

My chest rose and fell. And again. I tried to control the reaction within me, to give in to the call hidden behind his words.

It would be easy. So easy. I could stop fighting it. Accept it.

“Say something,” Lincoln said into the silence yawning before us. A silence enabled by my inability to get around the clog in my throat.

“I …” No other words followed. Clearing my throat, I forced more to come. “I appreciate your, uh, enthusiasm, but you’re in no shape to back it up at the moment?”

Oh. My. God. You idiot.

Lincoln stared at me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen his “so shocked I can’t speak” face. But I saw it now. The slight parting of his lips. The tiny wrinkles on his forehead. The lack of focused sparkle in his eyes. It was quite a sight, really.

A second later, he recovered. His head flung back, and he laughed … loudly and heartily. And almost instantly cried out in pain and subsided into a ball on the couch, hissing through clenched teeth. “That was dumb,” he managed to say.

“We really need to get you to a hospital, Linc. You’re hurt.”

“Look at my wounds, Vee,” he said, breathing slowly to help himself relax. “They’re already healing. I’ll be okay. I just need time.”

“What you need is to stop picking fights with things that are a lot bigger than you,” I corrected.

He snickered, the only amusement he could make without triggering more pain. “Sorry. That’s just not in my blood.”

I frowned.

“What? What did I say?”

“Nothing. It’s just … there’s a lot of talk about blood going on lately. Even the tree-thing.”

My grandmother’s notes had started it. The blood that ran through me …

“The tree-thing? What did it say?” Lincoln sounded confused. “Was that shriek when I tore its throat out words to you?”

“No, no, that was just painful screaming. I mean before that.” I shook my head. “You’re telling me you didn’t hear it? Over and over again, the same word. So loud. It was in my head. I assumed everyone could hear it.”

“Hear what, Sylvie? What did it say?”

“Bloodbound.” I repeated the word out loud, trying to make sense of it. “That’s all. The same word. Over and over. I don’t get it. What does it mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Lincoln said, licking his lips. “I’ve never heard it before.”

“What have you heard before?” I asked, suddenly deciding I was ready for more in-depth answers. “What is this other world you talked about? What exactly are you, Lincoln?”