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Energized, Zorah rolled to her knees, encroaching on him, a woman on a mission. "Xavi was right. Nico was drowning, and I stood there like an idiot. What if it had been one of the littles?" Her voice thickened with emotion on the wordlittles, and she paused to choke it down. She slid forward on her hands and knees, invading the periphery of his personal bubble but stopping there. "Every time we come here, any of them could wander out too far, and then what would I do?"
"I... I don't know." His mind raced to catch up with the turning tables as her argument built up steam. "Maybe you shouldn't bring them here."
She scoffed like that was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "Not bring them to cool off when it's a million degrees and the only activity that sounds halfway appealing is to commit a murder? Have you ever tried keeping three hot, cranky, sleep-deprived toddlers entertained for an entire day?"
"I —"
"You asked what I need, and the answer is swim lessons. From you." She gave one decisive nod, triumphant in her declaration. "That'swhat I need."
Jake crab walked backward and scrambled upright, panic zipping up and down his spine.Swimlessons? In the water with Zorah? Near her wet body? Breathing her in? Feeling her heat? His hands on her? Was she crazy?
"No." Hell no.Fuckno. He couldn't withstand that. "Absolutely not."
Zorah flinched at his tone but continued undeterred, jumping to her feet to close the distance he'd put between them. Her defiant chin tilted toward his face. "Yes."
He tried again. "No."
She scowled likehewas being ridiculous. "You're not getting this. Not only will it be safer for me, but you saw what happened today." She thrust a condemning finger toward the lake. "If I know, I can teach Nico and Ty and any others, too. It'll be safer for everyone."
Jake looked to the lake, the fading sunlight turning the water from a murky man-made lake to a pool of molten gold. So beautiful but so deadly. Zorah was right. The kids did need to learn to swim, Zorah included.
But he couldn't be the one to do it.
"It's a good idea," Jake conceded, warily meeting her eyes. "But I can't teach you. Ask someone else."
Her chin firmed. "No."
"Yes."
Zorah studied him with pursed lips like he was an exasperating child. Slowly, she sidled a half step closer, till the tips of her bare toes nudged his. A small thing, too minuscule to comment on or even scoot away from, but alone on this deserted beach, it felt significant. Chest to chest, her head reached just above his chin, and despite the generous curves of her body below her neck, next to his hulking size, she was a tiny thing. Her actions, though, were bold and confident, prompting no small amount of respect to bloom in his estimation of her.
Voice steady, she peered up at him and said, "I don't know who you are or where you came from. I don't know why you're an outcast in this Pack. I don't know why you watch me or why I always know when you do. But here's what I do know: you make toys for pups that aren't yours, which makes you at least a little bit good."
Jake opened his mouth to protest and then shut it again when she continued, obviously on a roll.
"And you saved a boy from drowning today, which makes you a full-on hero. But instead of riding that wave of gratitude back to the village to rub it in the other Alphas' faces, you skulked back up this mountain to hide. You're anAlpha." She widened her eyes in exasperation. "But you act like a beaten Beta dog. I don't understand it, and quite frankly, I hate it."
Wretchedness lanced into his chest. Had he thought she'd peered into his scarred, twisted soul and seen him for the mess he was? That would've been preferable. This... this allegation that he was a fuckinghero? That she looked at him and saw something other than a withered husk of a human being? It was so far from the truth as to be laughable, yet a small, sick part of him burned for it to be true. To be the sort of man who deserved her grace and esteem, he would've given anything.
"When you saved Nico today," she continued softly, "I'd never seen anything like that. My village, where I'm from, it's next to a river. I've lived there my whole life, but I've never seen anyone swim like you, so smooth and confident. I'll never be as strong as an Alpha, but I want that kind of confidence in the water, and only you can teach me that."
Jake had been controlled and manipulated by many people in the course of his overly long life. Threatened, coaxed, harassed, beaten, tortured... so many evil techniques deployed to get what they wanted out of him. But never had guileless earnestness been weaponized so effectively. Did she even know what power she held over him? She'd never be as strong as him? Hell, she had ten times his strength in one unguarded, expectant tilt of her brow.
"I'm busy building the watchtower." He scrubbed his palms over his face, the argument souring his stomach even as he forced the words through clenched teeth. "Another Alpha —"
"If I ask one of them," she interrupted, her voice taking on fervency, "they'll all get jealous, and it'll become some whole stupid knot-measuring thing. They'll take it as a chance to flirt with me and feel me up, not to seriously teach me what I need to know."
Jake's jaw tightened to the point of pain. She wasn't wrong. He could predict exactly how another Alpha would conduct "lessons," and it made him want to throw things.
Maybe sensing his concession within her grasp, Zorah continued in a calm, rational tone, "I need to be able to protect the pups around water. Not just the ones here, but the ones at my village, too, when I go back home."
Jake's heart skipped a beat. Or twelve. "You're leaving?"
A cloud settled on Zorah's face, the first waver of insecurity in her impassioned lobbying. Her eyes slid away, and she rolled her lips inwards. "That's the plan, yes."
"When?"
"Before the equinox."
