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Lucas turned to her, removing his sunglasses. The sun was setting, casting the beach in a rosy glow. The radiance washed over the edges of Lucas’s face like a stunning rock formation. Eliana strained to keep herself from gulping.
“Potentially. There’s room to grow with a lot of shifters, but that growth doesn’t always mean they will grow into an alpha. Usually, alphas are born with the potential. You see it early on, even at a toddler’s age.”
Eliana laid her head on the steering wheel, fascinated.
“Is that what you were like then? Born with the potential?”
He smiled at her, trailing a finger around his chin and dark beard. The silence hung for what felt like forever, giving Eliana the urge to hop out of the car and flee.
“Well, I’m not here to toot my own horn. But, yes, I think I was born with it. There’s also the grooming, of course, that takes place at a young age which makes it all the more likely.”
“And do you like being an alpha?” Eliana whispered.
Her voice had descended as the night had, a dark, sensual cape. She felt she had no control over it; merely looking at Lucas made her gotherein her mind and body.
Lucas sighed, gazing away from her as he mused. She smelled his lovely scent filling the car, that charming sweetness.
“No one has ever asked me that. But yes, I suppose it’s a position I enjoy.”
Eliana nodded, then caught herself staring as he continued to trail his fingers along his beard, a seeming habit of contemplation. She wanted to put her lips on his, achingly, desperately, and ask him to show her exactly what an alpha was.
He was doing something to her body, which she both hated and loved.
Eliana peeled her eyes off the gorgeous man and started the engine, buckling in her seat belt to change the mood.
“There’s a few more along the shoreline here. They are quite young, but I suppose you will be the judge of what that means.”
Lucas shuffled his notebook and buckled himself in before Eliana took off once more. These next few men were really boys, but it was clear that Lucas knew far more about the subject than she did. He had the process narrowed down to a science.
“Why do you think finding an alpha has been so difficult? I ask as a visitor.”
He’d spoken abruptly when Eliana was ruminating in her mind about both her attraction and the increasing anxiety about their alpha problem. She focused on the road and the spill of the rosy sunset over the asphalt.
“Well, a lot of men have left the island for opportunities for work, other relationships, and experiences. It’s a modern problem, which I don’t blame them for.”
Lucas nodded along, listening while his hand stroked his beard.
Eliana continued. “Most people, the wolves, I mean, who live on this island, would stay here for the rest of their lives. But now, with social media and the internet, the younger shifters know there is a bigger world out there. And they want to explore it.”
Eliana felt a longing in her stomach, one which she often disregarded as romantic bullshit. But she, too, had yearned to explore outside her own home despite the infinite love she had for her people and her family. She felt guilty about that and had never shared it aloud with anyone.
“I see,” Lucas remarked. “That would certainly make finding an alpha much harder for a modern pack.”
Eliana didn’t say anything more as they drove to meet the last two male shifters on the island. She was starting to lose hope that Lucas would be able to find anyone suitable, not even someone who could be trained or groomed into the position. It tied her stomach into knots, but then, of course, there was the flip side.
The flip side was that Lucas was there with her. There was a pull between them, something she could wallow in while the potential for her pack’s legacy faded into darkness.
SIX
LUCAS
They didn’t have a lot of options for alphas. And so far, what he’d said was true: everyone they had come across were betas.
There wasn’t even one that made him think they could possibly do it. They all gave him a beta vibe.
He inhaled the fresh air, running his hand over his face. He didn’t know exactly what to say to her.
He wanted to tell her they might have to look elsewhere for an alpha. Looking outside the island and bringing someone in seemed like it might be the only option she had. She would be extremely unhappy with him.
