AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You were hurt.” She vaguely remembered him bleeding last night, but up close, the wound looked nasty. Way more debilitating than her ankle, but he hadn’t even limped.
“You’ll need to take care of this,” she blurted, reaching automatically for the med kit and a bottle of antiseptic. “You don’t want it to get infected. Or leave a scar.”
“You know your stuff,” he said. To tease?
Her cheeks flamed as she remained silent. Years of tending to her own injuries had taught her a thing or two. With a honed practice, she soaked a cotton ball in alcohol and cleaned the wound.
It had to hurt, but he didn’t even flinch. His lips were quirked, seemingly with amusement. Her belly flipped with a sudden thought—hehadbeen teasing her.
“It seems you didn’t need my help after all,” he said, presumably referring to his prior attempt at first aid.
“You may need s-stitches,” she stammered while bandaging the width of his calf. “But I don’t think that…”
His hand caught her wrist, and she broke off as a foreign emotion shot through her belly. Shock? Fear? Orsomething elsethatmade her bare toes curl against the floor as he dragged the pad of his thumb carefully over the fragile bones?
At first, she wondered why, until she saw the way he stared, eyes dark with confusion, at a jagged section of skin that encircled each one. Scars, though far less pretty than the ones he sported. Hers were thinner, raised like bracelets formed of flesh.
His gaze found hers, silently questioning, but Loren just drew her hand away. The cause of those scars was one of the many secrets she’d shoved to the back of her mind—too dangerous to ever recall. Instead, she leaned back against the couch and sighed.
“Who is Lukka?” Her voice came out tired and strained.
Rather than deflect, McGoven copied her, sitting close enough that his shoulder brushed hers.
“He’s the leader of a track of territory to the northeast of here.” Loren sensed he deliberately avoided using another word—Alpha. “It’s a place called Black Mountain, where a small community of sorts lives in relative isolation. Not a town like New Walsh. We have another name for it.”
“You mean a pack,” Loren said, utilizing that strange word Micha had.
Like wolves.
He nodded, gazing through the window as a flicker of lightning sparked over the horizon. “One of the largest in this region. At least five hundred strong the last I checked. Maybe more now. It doesn’t sound like much compared to any town you’re used to, but as far as our kind is concerned, it’s massive.” The words came hesitantly as if he expected her to argue. When she said nothing, he soldiered on. “Lukka controls hundreds of miles of territory. That’s almost unheard of. Those born on Black Mountain can trace their bloodlines back generations. Centuries. The elders on his council have a wealth of knowledge between them. As far as packs go, his is the best around, especially for a young wolf. At least on paper.”
The genuine admiration in his voice softened some of the sting of his reluctance to let her stay. He truly seemed to believe she would be better off at this place. One word, however, stuck out to her. “Controls?”
That definitely didn’t sound like the political makeup of new Walsh.
McGoven nodded. “It might sound blunt, but that is how we live—under one set of laws, enforced by one person, the Alpha. Lukka has only been in power for a few years, but already things have…changed under his leadership.”
He didn’t elaborate on how. Sonia alluded to some of the changes, though. Lukka alone could decide if Loren would be welcome there or not—and that seemed to annoy them both.
“We have different ways of doing things,” McGoven admitted. “But we don’t turn our backs on our own. Never. The second I sensed the change in you, Lukka should have come to assess you himself that very night. Nothing could be more important than that. No fucking red tape.”
It was like he’d read her mind. The intensity in his voice diminished more of her doubt. Crazy or not, he seemed to care about her. More than a stranger should, in her experience.
“If you think I’m…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, so she tried a different route. “Was my mother from there? My father?”
McGoven frowned. “Your mother could have been. Humans are sometimes allowed to live on the outskirts, but Fred Connors was one of Lukka’s.”
She didn’t miss how he avoided calling him her father—though that wasn’t the strangest revelation he let slip.
“You mean he was like you?” she asked.
“No.” McGoven flinched as if the comparison were an insult. “Not like me at all. He was a made wolf—someone bitten by a full-blooded lycan. The Alpha accepted him into the pack out of duty years ago, but the bastard broke the rules and was exiled.”
That sounded like him. No wonder he seemed to loathe New Walsh.
“It’s the worst punishment among our kind,” McGoven explained, his tone grim. “We are social creatures, more so than humans. Pack bonds are stronger than any other connection you can think of. We need it. We need to be surrounded by our own kind. Being excommunicated is a fate worse than death. In fact, most wouldpreferdeath over it.”
“Why aren’t you there?” Loren asked.
