Chapter 21
When the others stop for lunch, Kira finds Jayden out in the back garden.
He’s cutting wood. He also isn’t wearing a shirt. Sweat drips down his back, glistening on his skin, over the dark tattoos and down channels of muscle.
Kira leans against the doorframe to admire him, but must sense her presence because he turns, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the forearm still holding his axe.
“Sorry,” he says. “I got hot.”
“I can see that,” Kira smiles.
Her tone makes it clear that she won’t rush him into finding a shirt.
“Are you aware that we’re the subject of town gossip?”
As if he’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice, Jayden grimaced.
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
"It’s because I’m the Alpha. Everyone is kind of in my business, all the time. I’ll tell them all to back off if it makes you uncomfortable. You know they’ll do as I say.”
“Noel tells me that, unbeknownst to me, we engaged in some public snuggling, the day you brought me that deer?”
Jayden’s neck flushes. His body is unbelievable, far better than any guy she saw killing themselves at the gyms in the city.
Another drip of sweat runs down his chest, and Kira tries not to look at the way it travels between his abdominals, to the trail of dark hair on his navel.
“I forgot myself that night. You looked so vulnerable when you didn’t know whether to hunt or not; you were whining. It.”
“Triggered your Alpha?” Kira grins.
“Did you want to protect me? Hunt preys for me? Get all close and tactile with me to make sure I feel safe?”
“Are you teasing me?” Jayden says, with a playful glare.
“Do you think I’m beautiful when I’m all wolfed up?”
Jayden drags his eyes up and down her body.
“Let’s just say that my human likes your human. And my wolf likes your wolf.”
The praise makes Kira feel hot all over.
“Noel said there’s never been a white wolf in the pack like me. Don’t you think it’s cute that you’re jet black, and I’m pure white? It’s no wonder people were talking before you even kissed me.”
“Technically, you kissed me.”
“Don’t let anyone else hear you saying that. It’s very un-Alpha of you.”
She has the feeling Jayden is about to say something flirtatious about exactly how Alpha he can be, because his eyes gleam, and his mouth starts to shape the words, but they’re interrupted by a shout from the house.
No one wants to start eating before the Alpha has fed first. Such customs, Kira has come to understand, extend into their human life.
Many customs, she finds, because when they slip inside and everyone passes Jayden plastic boxes containing the choicest portions of the food, he starts to hand them over to kira.
Pointedly.
Aware that people are watching them, Kira looks down. But there’s no hiding it now.
Jayden fusses over her. They sit side by side on the floor, but their thighs press together and each time that she leans over for more food, Jayden squeezes a hand on her leg and everyone can see it.
The two of them curve into each other. Kira is aware of it, and she wishes she could stop because Ava is staring daggers at her, but it’s as if new, strong magnets govern her body.
When Jayden moves, she moves. When she moves, Jayden mirrors her.
Kira catches Noel’s eye across the room and sees him grinning, nudging Chris hard in the ribs.
The conversation hovers on subjects about town. Kira discovers that most of the pack help out with things around the town, though apart from Jayden, they all seem to have separate jobs.
Only Alpha serves as a position in itself. Noel supports the teachers at the small elementary school, and Kira can imagine him there with children clambering all over him, excited by his bleached hair.
Frank works at the library or, from what Kira can tell, he runs the library.
Only Liam drags the subject back to wolf business.
“Tell Jayden what you told me, Sam,” he instructed.
His voice holds none of the power that Jayden does, nasally and turning up at the end of every phrase.
“Tell me what?” Jayden’s fork pauses in the air.
The boy jumps and clears his throat.
He’s so young, not even out of high school. A messy mop of hair falls over his shy eyes.
Kira thinks he ought to be worrying about homework and detention, not full moons and pack politics.
“Oh, it might be nothing. But when I was running on the last night of the full moon, with Hannah, I thought I saw something over the river. We were hunting, and my eyes were on the prize, so I didn’t stop. I’m sorry.”
Jayden is frowning. “Don’t be sorry.”
“I think afterward I thought it was another wolf,” whispered Sam, his eyes full of shame. Jayden’s gaze flits to Liam.
“Other wolves?”
“They’re making their presence known. We need to take a stand in response. These weeks between the full moons are important. You should be patrolling the boundary every night, as the Alpha.”
“Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing, Liam,” Jayden says, and a hint of authority creeps into his tone.
Liam puts his hands up.
“I didn’t mean to impose. I just think it’s important. If you’re scared of going alone, I don’t mind running outside of the full moon. You and I could take a shift tonight.”
The accusation makes Jayden sit up taller, and Kira feels the air in the room shift.
It’s clear that Liam has said something he shouldn’t have.
For a moment, Kira thinks there will be an explosion.
However, when Jaden responds, his voice is quite calm.
He doesn’t rise to the bait and Kira exhales in relief.
“I don’t need a sidekick,” Jayden says, “, but thank you for the offer. I’ll take a walk down the border tomorrow. I have other plans tonight. Their pack isn’t going to make some kind of challenge outside the full moon.”
“You shouldn’t go unprotected!” Liam snaps, his voice rising higher with frustration.
“Noel will accompany me,” Jayden says, and then he squeezes Kira’s thigh.
“Or perhaps Kira.”
Liam and Chris snicker.
Looking as though his birthday has just been canceled, Liam shoots a violent glare from Kira to Jayden and back again before standing to stalk out of the room.