Page 3 of Wild Alpha (Cold-Blooded Alpha #12)

A bird is chirping.

Loudly .

My wolf wants to eat it.

If it doesn’t shut up, she soon will.

Stretching and rolling my neck, I turn to check on the injured human.

He’s wide-eyed, sitting up straight, gripping a rock with one hand, and holding onto the blanket I wrapped around him last night.

We both freeze.

I’d rather not get a rock in the head, even if it won’t kill me. Shifters heal fast. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain, and I’d prefer not to start my day with a headache, brief though it may be.

“I didn’t expect to wake up next to a wolf,” he whispers, breathing fast.

The scent of his fear is overwhelming his faint dog smell. The dog smell isn’t pleasant, but the scent of his fear is worse, and I don’t want him to be afraid of me.

I don’t think he’ll throw a rock at my head, but I stay still, not wanting to scare him more than I already have. I wag my tail and relax my ears, giving him all the signs I’m a content wolf and not an aggressive one. He has nothing to fear from me. That chirping bird though…

After another two beats, the scent of his fear fades a bit. It’s still there. Just a little less intense.

“I’m going to assume that you’re not about to attack me?”

I shake my head.

A flicker of amusement lights up his brown eyes as he loosens his grip on the rock. “If I set this rock down, you won’t rip out my throat, will you?”

Again, I shake my head, and his amusement grows.

He drops his rock, muttering, “I can’t believe I’m talking to a wolf. I've always wanted to get closer to nature, but I never imagined it would be this close.”

It’s early. The sky is dusky dark blue, and it’s cool. I’m not too cold because of my fur, but when he shivers slightly, I get to my feet, and he freezes, eyes wary.

As I pad away from him, I’m conscious he’s watching me.

I pick up the rabbit I hunted last night, but couldn’t cook because starting a fire was beyond my capabilities. I return to him, dropping the rabbit just inches from him before backing away.

He looks from the rabbit to me and back again, the scent of his fear fading further.

This new smile isn’t as wary as the one before. “You brought me breakfast?”

Hunted it .

My wolf is proud.

I nod.

It isn’t often that I’ve been able to help anyone. Helping myself has been hard enough, but it feels good to have been able to do something for him.

“I suppose you prefer it raw, huh?” he asks, raising an eyebrow and not doing nearly a good enough job of hiding his disgust.

Yes, I prefer my rabbit raw, but he wouldn’t. And this rabbit is for him. I can always hunt one for myself later when he’s asleep. I use my nose to nudge the rabbit toward the pile of sticks.

He laughs. “My kind of wolf. Let me start a fire and make us breakfast.”

I settle down on the ground, not too close that I scare him. It’s human nature to be afraid of predators, and a wolf will always be a predator to a human.

“I’m Fisher,” he says with a smile. “Figured I should introduce myself to the wolf that saved my life and kept on saving it, huh?”

I like the way he talks.

When he smiles at me, I want to trust him, and I can’t imagine him hurting anyone in the world. He seems like the kind of person who, if he found a spider sharing his pillow, would scoop it up and carry it outside instead of smashing it to pieces the way I would.

When I continue looking at him, he laughs. “I guess you can’t tell me your name, huh?”

I shake my head.

“Well, I’ve never seen a red wolf with silver eyes, so I’m torn between calling you Silver or Red. Red feels too ordinary.”

I haven’t thought about my name much over the last three years. Survival has taken precedence. Now I do.

I’m Averie Rowe, the only daughter of Pack Rowe's alpha, who died protecting me from an abusive shifter who would have killed me by the end of our first year together.

“You look sad.”

I blink at the man wrapped in a blue blanket watching me.

I am sad. But since no one can give my dead family back to me, I nudge the rabbit toward him again, more insistently this time when his stomach grumbles.

He glances around for the first time, his eyes widening at the pile of sticks I built. “You brought me to an old camp?”

No.

I can’t tell him this work was mine, because then I’d have to tell him I can be human and wolf, so I look at him until he gets the message.

“I can light that if—” He stands up, his face turns pale, and he tips over.

I’m under his right hand before I was conscious of moving, steadying him before he could fall. My breath is in my throat as his fingers tighten around the fur on my back.

It's been so long since anyone touched me. Woman or wolf. I have been alone for so very long.

He smiles wryly at me. “I probably shouldn’t get up so fast, huh, Silver?”

I shake my head.

“Friendliest wolf I’ve ever met. Almost as friendly as Jett,” he says, stroking my fur.

He moves slowly toward the small pile of sticks. It’s just three steps, and he’s breathing heavily, face pale, gripping me tightly by the time he reaches them. I have a feeling that if I moved, he’d be on his face a split-second later.

He kneels down in front of the twigs and lets go of me to dig through his backpack. “Thanks, Silver. I'm not sure I could've made it without you.”

My eyes stay fixed on him as he works, barely blinking, just in case he accidentally falls into the fire he’s trying to light, and I need to yank him out quickly.

I’m not sure why it’s so important that nothing bad happens to this man, but it just is.

“Jett is more my dad’s dog than mine,” he says, digging through the smaller pockets of his backpack.

That explains his faint dog smell. It’s not unpleasant, just noticeable. He’s around the dog often. Not enough for him to stink of it, and not so much that I want to sneeze from dog smells my wolf doesn’t like.

I watch him curiously, head tilted, ears up, eager for a magic show.

I’ve seen nature shows before of people who live in the woods and rub sticks together to make fire. Is that what he’s going to do now?

He takes out a small silver lighter, flicks it to ignite the flame, and lights a stick.

My ears drop, disappointed.

That’s it ?

A lighter?

He glances at me and starts laughing. “I disappointed you.”

When I look from him to the sticks on the ground, silently communicating the magic show I thought he was about to perform for me, he laughs again.

“Starting fires with sticks is hard work—harder work than I can handle right now. A lighter is easier. Maybe when my head isn’t pounding, I’ll show you.”

My ears perk up with excitement.

When Fisher shivers, I drag his dropped blanket to his side.

He takes it gratefully, wrapping it around his shoulders. “Thanks, Silver.”

Nodding, I settle beside him as we watch the pile of sticks catch fire.

After several minutes, as if he’s sure the fire won’t go out again, he pulls the rabbit close and skins it with a small, sharp knife he draws from his bag.

The work doesn’t seem that difficult, but he’s sweating when he’s done, and I worry something is wrong inside him. Maybe worse than the cut on his head. Maybe he’s hurt, and that's what caused him to fall beside the creek.

He catches me eyeing him, and he reaches over to scratch my head. “I’m okay, Silver.”

I’m not sure why I let him. Maybe for the same reason I lean into his touch, as if I crave it. After another scratch behind my ears, he returns to the rabbit. I watch him take a small silver pot from his pack and place the rabbit pieces into it.

He carefully balances the pot at the edge of the flames, saying, “If I put it in the center, it’ll cook too quickly or fall in. I’d rather not be fishing my breakfast out of the fire, and threading the meat onto skewers seems like more trouble than it's worth.”

He rinses his hands with water from a pouch he pulls out of his bag and dries them with a towel.

Soon, the scent of roasting meat fills the air.

My wolf prefers raw rabbit, but Fisher needs cooked, so I sit on my front paws and I don’t even growl as the meat cooks.

He slumps forward.

I growl.

He jerks upright, blinking rapidly and scrubbing a hand over his face after glancing at me. “Shit.” He shakes his head. “Never thought I’d be so glad to hear a wolf growling from inches away. I must be more tired than I realized.”

I study him carefully, my concern growing.

Hitting your head can mean your brain rattling around. And humans are fragile in a way shifters aren’t. What if he’s more injured on the inside than I realize? Shouldn’t I be going to get help instead of staying here with him?

He peers into the pot and nods once. “Looks like it’s cooked. More well-done than the medium I was going for, so we could both have it half the way we like it.”

If I were human, I’d have smiled at that.

Neither of us would have been happy with it, but we’d both have something a little closer to what we need.

He reaches into his bag, which is starting to resemble a magical hat because of how well-prepared he is, and pulls out two silver bowls, then divides the meal between us.

“Here you go, Silver.” He sets my bowl down in front of me, and I eat each bite. It’s overdone, but it’s meat.

He’s yawning before he finishes his last mouthful.

I growl at him when I catch him tipping toward the fire.

He jerks upright, his fingers tightening around his blanket. “I hope that’s a friendly growl and not because you’re still hungry.”

I shake my head and walk over to him, dragging his blanket over his leg and looking significantly at the ground.

The smile I like best makes a reappearance. “You want me to lie down?”

I nod.

“You should get some sleep, too,” he suggests, yawning into his hand.

I turn to the forest, keeping my eyes open.

There are predators around, and I won’t sleep until they’ve moved away. They smell me and I smell them. It’s the only thing keeping them at a distance. For now, I’m the bigger predator, so they stay away.

The next time I look at Fisher, he’s snoring.

I walk over to him and sniff his face. He doesn’t smell sick. Just faintly of dog, cooked rabbit, and the blood which has seeped through his Band-Aid.

I hope he wakes up. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.