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But, when Micha had mentioned the word Alpha, even he had shuddered.
Through the fog and rain, Loren couldn’t make out much of where they were headed. All she knew was that Kyle skirted through the back of New Walsh, toward the country roads and just kept driving north.
Black Mountain, Micha said. The place where McGoven and Sonia had grown up.
“Is it cold there?” she found herself asking, barely audible over the staticky radio currently broadcasting show tunes. “This Black Mountain?”
“Oh yeah!” Micha turned back around, this time sticking his head between the two front seats. “I think so. I never really noticed before.”
Loren raised an eyebrow at that. What kind of person lived on a mountain and didn’t notice the obvious difference in the weather?
Obviously, Micha was not the brightest tool in the toolbox. But he seemed nice—which put him a cut above everyone Loren knew. He also apparently loved to talk. So, she decided to take the risk and draw out as much information from him as she possibly could.
“What’s there?” she asked. Sonia hadn’t given her much of a description of the place. “A town? A city?”
The questions earned her another impish grin and an incredulous look. “The territory,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Is there a school?” Loren wondered, thinking of the massive pile of work sitting on the end of Officer McGoven’s couch. She only had a few months left, but already, after a few missed days, graduation seemed light-years away.
Micha nodded. “Of course! And a post office, and a town hall and all that boring stuff. But there’s so much land. Lukka has more territory in this area than anyone else in the region. Well, maybe except for the Eislander pack—”
“Lukka?” Loren seized on the mention of the name and ran with it. “Who is he? The mayor?”
Obviously, he wielded some amount of clout. She recalled how Sonia had defended him to Bill—even when it seemed like she didn’t exactly want to.
“Who is Lukka?” Micha’s dark eyebrows shot right up into his dense tangle of hair. “He’s the Alpha.”
There was that word again. Micha didn’t seem to notice her reaction.
“He controls Black Mountain—the entire pack,” he went on. “He’s probably the youngest Alpha in a century to dominate so much territory. He succeeded his father, who is a legend. Lukas Grehmaine. I’m sure you’ve heard of him, right? My mom told me stories when I was a pup about how he rebelled against his Alpha and forged his own territory. I heard rumors growing up, too, in a territory miles from here. About Lukas and his prodigy, Bill—”
“Bill?” Loren practically lunged out of her seat. “A prodigy?”
“Yeah,” Micha said, frowning. “It’s crazy how things worked out. That’s why we had to come here. If you leave the pack, you leave our ways—all of them. He isn’t allowed to hunt, or even marry. Especially not take a mate—”
“That’s enough.” Kyle reached and deliberately flicked the radio dial until the sounds of wavering country music filled the cabin.
With an apologetic frown, Micha shifted in his seat, and Loren couldn’t silence a hiss of disappointment. At least for now, she wouldn’t get anything else out of him.
What she had learned just confused her further. Prodigy. Pack. Mate? She didn’t understand. Putting it from her mind, for now, she settled for staring from the window, trying to remember every detail of the landscape whizzing by.
The next few hours passed in utter silence. Micha had drifted off, resting his head against the window. Kyle just drove without so much as an attempt at conversation.
A part of Loren wanted to risk his ire just to asksomething.More about Lukka, maybe?
She inhaled deeply to gather the nerve, but then her thoughts derailed entirely.Pine. That pure scent carried with it the wild aroma of the forest, faint musk, and the fresh flavor of the wind that whipped through the trees…
Wham!
She must have drifted off—somehow—because the next thing she knew, her body was being flung forward through the gap in the seats.
Quick thinking from Micha was the only thing that saved her from a bloody nose—his thin arm shot out, slowing down the momentum.
“What the hell?” he murmured sleepily. “What’s going on?”
Loren was in awe of how quickly he’d reacted while half-asleep, and even more impressed once she realized why they’d stopped. The truck was stuck in a ditch. Hissing, Kyle jammed his foot on the gas, only to send mud churning from the wheels.
“Fuck. Something ran me off the road—”
