Page 7 of Wild Alpha (Cold-Blooded Alpha #12)

“ I t’s okay if you’re bored,” Fisher says with a small smile, focused on the lake we’ve been sitting in front of for the past forty-five minutes.

I hadn’t thought he even had a fishing rod, but he pulled out one about forearm length from his magical bag. He said it was telescopic, so it could extend to full length.

That was the highlight of the last forty-five minutes: a fishing rod that extends.

There’s been no movement from his fishing line since I sat down beside him and crossed my legs, eager for a fish dinner. I’m starting to think there won’t be.

“It’s okay,” I lie, bored out of my mind.

My wolf was excited about seeing something new. Her excitement lasted fifteen minutes. Now, she’s filling my mind with the soft sound of her snores. I wish I could join her in a nap, but Fisher might notice me flat on my back.

But I want to, boy, do I want to.

I angle my head to the left and yawn wide, hoping Fisher won’t notice I’m over here trying not to catch flies.

“It’s fishing,” he says, his smile widening as if he can tell I’m lying through my teeth. Or maybe I need to be better at hiding my yawns from him?

“It’s supposed to be boring.” He grins at me. “And I saw that.”

“Saw what?”

“The yawn. My dad used to take me fishing, and I’d do the same. The trick is to pretend you dropped something when you yawn. Turning your head to the side just makes me wonder what you’re doing.”

“There’s a skill to it?” I raise my eyebrow.

“There is. It’s a skill I spent an entire summer perfecting. Embrace the boredom.”

If I’d known that when he teased me with the possibility of a fish supper, I wouldn’t have agreed to this. I’d have found a reason to slip away and return with food for both of us to eat. Deer or rabbit or, hell, even a cute squirrel. Anything that didn’t involve such a boring activity.

“Why?” I shift around on the hard ground, my ass falling asleep. My nose wrinkles as the sun sets in the distance, hoping it will hurry up and finish setting. If it’s too dark for Fisher to see, maybe this fishing will end.

“It’s the perfect time to think over all the worries in your mind and figure out the meaning of life.”

I turn to look at him. “What’s the meaning of life?”

He shrugs. “Not sure. I fell asleep right before I figured it out last time and woke up next to a wolf.”

I stare at him.

He laughs. “I’m joking.”

How can someone be this happy? He probably would have been eaten by a bear or a cougar if I hadn’t come along and found him. Yet he’s barely stopped smiling. He’s sunshine, inside and out. And I’m… I’m not sure what I am.

Cynical?

Worn down by seeing the bad side of people instead of the good?

“What?” he asks when I continue studying him.

I shake my head, admiring his profile and the dimple in his cheek. “Just wondered if other people are like you.”

He chuckles. “Nope. If that’s the reason you were up here alone, I promise it’s safe to come to town. I’m the only strange one around.”

“What’s it like?” I ask, the question bursting out of me.

“What’s what like?”

“Hardin. The people here.” What I really mean is the cold-blooded alpha and his pack. This town is so small that everyone must know everyone.

Every shifter has heard rumors about Dayne Blackshaw losing control and killing his alpha and pack members. Since shifters keep our existence hidden, the locals won’t know that he can transform into a wolf. But what is Dayne like when he's out shopping for groceries?

Does he enjoy a slice of pie and coffee at the diner? Does he share a laugh with Fisher outside the store? Do the people in this town think he’s a friendly local with no idea of the violent man in their midst?

"Small. Friendly.” He stares out across the lake. “Small.”

I wrinkle my nose. “So, small is bad?”

He glances at me. “Why’d you think that?”

I shrug. “You said it twice.”

His smile is brief. “I had dreams I’d see more of the world than I have at this point in my life.

Yet I’m still here, twenty-five years old, helping my dad in the grocery store just like I did when I was a kid.

I feel…” His forehead furrows, and he shakes his head.

“Not sure. I’m just not at the point where I thought I would be. ”

Unsatisfied. That’s the word he’s looking for. Or unfulfilled. I know because I feel the same way. Ever since I ran from my pack, my life stagnated.

“But you stayed to help your dad run the grocery store?”

“He needed me.”

That seems exactly like the sort of thing he’d do. “What about your mom? Couldn’t she have helped your dad?”

“She died when I was in high school,” he says, confirming what I’d guessed.

I feel terrible for asking. “Sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

I wrap my arms around my legs and rest my chin on my knees. “So, you wanted to see the world?”

“Yep.” He flashes me a rapid glance too fast to read. “Maybe I’d be with someone.”

“There isn’t a girlfriend waiting for you in town?”

He shakes his head. “The thing with a small town is you know everyone and everyone knows you. When a relationship doesn’t work out, everyone knows about it.

And it’s hard to start seeing someone as something more than a friend when you grew up sharing the same experiences.

Not family, but like family. You know what I mean? ”

I nod. “Where I’m from, it was the same,” I say, talking about a past I never believed I would want to share with anyone.

“Where are you from?”

I hesitate whether to answer, then decide there's no harm. My pack is dead. It’s not like he can do anything with the information. “A small town in Oklahoma.”

“You miss it.”

I angle my head toward him. “What makes you think I do?”

He shakes his head slightly. “Just the way you said it.”

My nerves are on edge, expecting him to ask why I’m alone in the Colorado mountains.

He's already told my wolf that he didn’t think the girl he was talking to earlier was staying at the nearby cabin, so it's only a matter of time before he asks what I'm doing here.

Plus, I'll need to explain what happened to the dress I left hidden in a tree. He’s wearing a spare from his bag, but this shirt belongs to him, and I have to give it back.

“And there wasn’t…” He shoots me another quick glance. “A guy back in Oklahoma?”

He wants to know if I’m single ?

I flirted with some of the guys in my pack. They flirted back, but I never got serious with any of them. Then there was Xavier, but I try never to think of him. “No. There wasn’t anyone.”

“If I were to— oof !” He jerks, whipping his head back toward the lake. His line is taut, and he’s struggling with it. A fish must be pulling on it. With all our talk, I’d forgotten how boring this fishing business is.

I perk up, excited for something that isn’t a granola bar that tastes like sawdust. “You caught a fish?”

His smile is only in profile, but it has almost the same stomach-warming effect as when he smiles directly at me. “The hard work just started, sweetheart.”

I startle at the endearment.

He’s pulled toward the lake so fast that he might’ve been able to save himself if he hadn’t glanced at me just as the fish tugged on his line. Darting forward, I grab the end of his pole and yank him—and the pole—back onto the land before he splashes face-first into the lake.

We both grunt as we hit the ground. The line flies out of the lake, and a silver fish, not as big as I’d hoped with the straining Fisher was doing, flops onto the ground beside us.

I look from the flopping, gasping fish to Fisher.

“You’re stronger than you look,” he says with a smile.

I’m lying on top of him, pinning him to the ground. I’m wearing nothing but his T-shirt, and his palm is hot on the small of my back.

I scramble up, brushing my hands on my thighs and looking everywhere but at him. “Sorry.”

He pushes himself to his feet. “You single-handedly caught us dinner. Don’t apologize. I was impressed.”

I blush. “No, I didn’t.”

He picks up the fish and untangles it from the hook. “Bringing the fish in is the toughest part of the job. It’s like a wrestling match. It pulls, I pull back. We struggle, and more often than not, I yank and there’s nothing on the end of my line but a hook.”

He studies me, his expression impossible to decipher.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I’m starting to think I dreamed you up, and if I look away too long, you’ll disappear.”

I blink, confused. “Because I caught you a fish?”

“Because I came up here looking for answers about what to do next with my life, and I found you. Or you found me. Maybe we found each other.”

Something about his words feels like magic.

He shakes his head, smiling wryly. “Come on. Now that we’ve got our dinner, I bet the fire’s gone out. Have you ever seen a guy rub two sticks together to make a fire?”

“You can do that?” I’m practically bursting with excitement.

This has to be my reward for my ass falling asleep as I stared into a lake waiting for Fisher to catch us dinner.

Back by the fire, which Fisher had accurately predicted would go out while I was being bored to tears, he drapes a blanket over my shoulders, and I sit down on the ground as he concentrates on sparking a fire with two sticks.

I have always considered myself a patient person.

In my pack, I didn’t have the responsibility my brother had, but I was the pack’s best hunter. Turns out that watching a man rub two sticks together is not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be, and I’m not as patient as I always believed I was.

“This is even more boring than the fishing,” I mutter, chin in hand.

He barks out a laugh.

I blush. “Sorry, I didn’t mean?—”

Smiling cheerfully, he continues rubbing the two sticks together. “You’re right. There’s a reason I came up here with a lighter.”

I let my mind wander as he focuses on his task.

He gutted the fish before he started, and I went with him to the creek to fill his pouch with water so that he could wash the fish and his bloodied hands.

As he washed the fish, he told me about all the locals in Hardin, their quirks, and the things they like to pick up at the grocery store. I soaked up all his information like a sponge, craving more stories about the people in this town.

Lost in my thoughts, my wolf growls at me to pay attention.

A small wisp of smoke ascends from the kindling at the base of the two sticks he’s rubbing together. Wrapping my arms around my raised knees, I lean closer to it, not wanting to blink and miss this magic.

It’s a slow, fragile process that seems like one gust of wind could end it in an instant and force Fisher to start over.

A hint of smoke.

A flicker of a tiny red-orange flame.

Fire .

He keeps rubbing the sticks longer than I thought he would need to, then picks up a small stick and feeds it into the tiny flames.

The fire spreads.

“Wow,” I whisper, covering my mouth in case I accidentally blow out all his hard work.

Slowly, carefully, he adds more sticks to the flame until it’s bright yellow-orange and as big as a fist. Only then does he release a sigh and sit back, shooting me a rueful smile. “I was getting worried I wouldn’t be able to impress you.”

I rip my eyes from the flame. “You were trying to impress me?”

“Did I?”

I study him. “Are you flirting with me?”

“You sound surprised.” He places the fish, seasoned with salt, pepper, and herbs, in a pan over the fire.

“Guys don’t flirt with me.” Mostly because I spend all my time running from them or hiding in the forest as a wolf. “Girls must flirt with you all the time.”

He snorts. “Nope. I’m almost always relegated to the friend zone.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Because you’re nice?”

He shrugs. “I’m not what girls are looking for. My life is ordinary, and so am I.”

The girls he talks to must be crazy not to see what I see.

“I don’t mind ordinary,” I say quietly, watching the flames as the fish cooks.

When he doesn’t immediately respond, I glance over at him to find a slight smile on his face as he studies me. “What?”

He shakes his head, looking away. “Nothing. Just amazed.”

We spend hours by the fire, eating delicious fish, drinking water, and watching the flames flicker. His calming presence encourages me to open up, and I share little things about myself—things that won’t reveal what I truly am.

My favorite color. Blue.

My favorite smell. The first spring day.

My favorite food. Deer, which nearly catches me out because he looks at me curiously until I explain that I once went hunting and caught a deer, but can’t remember what meat from a deer is called.

“Venison,” he told me.

I think he believed me, and I hoped he wouldn’t ask more about this hunting trip I went on, because I went on my own, and I wasn’t human at the time.

He tells me about himself, his dreams, and his plans to see the Amazon rainforest and spend a month hiking through it, with nothing but a hiking bag, a compass, and a map.

“Aren’t you afraid of the animals eating you?”

He chuckles. “I’ll have my bear spray. All I want is a month of adventure. If something eats me, then I guess it’s my time to be eaten.”

I smile. “I’ll have to go with you. Protect you from being eaten.”

“I have a house just outside town,” he blurts out.

I raise my eyebrow, surprised by the sudden turn in our conversation. “Why do I need to know that?”

He prods at the fire with a stick, avoiding my gaze. “My dad lives closer to town. He has to be close to the shop because we get deliveries early.”

I furrow my brow. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It’s been a while since I lived with him.” He glances at me. “Something about hitting eighteen meant we got along better when we weren’t living under the same roof.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My house is really more of a cabin. It isn’t much, but you can have it.”

I stare at him. “You’re giving me your house ?”

He chuckles. “A place to stay if you need it. For however long you need it.”

The backs of my eyes prick with tears, and then they burn. I swallow the lump lodged in my throat. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t need to know everything about a person to offer my help.”

The tears I tried so hard to blink away break free at his kindness. I move to brush it away, but he beats me to it, his thumb swiping at the moisture.

But his hand lingers.

His eyes dip to my mouth, and my stomach clenches in response.

We’re leaning toward each other when a crack in the forest yanks my focus away.

I smell them seconds before two wolves burst through the gap between the trees.

I don’t think.

And that’s a mistake.

A big one.