Page 13 of Alpha Unbound

I get dressed fast, each movement sharp and efficient, like routine can cage what she’s set loose inside me. My fingers tremble as I pull on my boots—damn near unforgivable. I breathe deep, trying to shake the heat she left behind.

The hike back to my truck is all cold air and snapping branches, but it doesn’t calm the pulse pounding in my neck. It’s not adrenaline from the run.

It’s her. It’s always her.

It’s not just that she’s in my blood now—she fits there as if she always belonged. Every step I take away from her only makes the pull stronger. It doesn’t matter that it’s inconvenient. It doesn’t matter that it’s dangerous. It doesn’t even matter that I’ve spent years convincing myself I didn’t need this—didn’t needher.

The way she looked at me. Her scent. That stubborn tilt of her chin. The way she held her silence longer than most warriors I’ve interrogated. She doesn’t flinch—she calculates.

She’s not just bothering me—she’s unraveling everything at my core.

Back at the station, the board’s half-full of tacks and string. I wasn’t sure if it was smuggling, surveillance, or something darker. But people were disappearing, and the McKinley name keeps showing up more often than coincidence should allow. On shipments. Old logs. Property lines. Witnesses who suddenly don’t remember what they saw.

Nothing’s conclusive. Nothing solid. Just a pattern of half-trails and old grudges. But something was there. A buried link between the missing goods, the erased boundaries, the silence around Luke McKinley. What I’d seen earlier wasn't backwoods bootlegging. Someone was watching. Stalking. And Kate’s name kept surfacing like a dropped match in dry grass. Whether she was bait or blind, I didn’t know yet.

And now someone’s carving up pack stones on their land—markers that haven’t been touched in decades, defaced like they mean nothing. It’s not just disrespect. It’s a message. And whoever’s sending it is smart enough to know exactly what those stones mean to us. Sacred ground. Boundaries drawn in blood. You don’t scratch at old walls unless you want war.

Kate says she didn’t mean to cross that line. I almost believe her.

But belief doesn’t keep people alive.

I lean over the table, palms braced. My jaw’s tight enough to crack, my wolf restless just beneath the surface. Not from anger. Not really.

From instinct.

She shouldn’t have been out there. Not alone. Not now.

Kate’s smart, capable, tough as the bones under this mountain—but this? This is something bigger. Someone’s making moves in the dark. Quiet, deliberate ones. Her family name keeps turning up in whispers from old pack members, scrawled in ledgers that don’t match up, and muttered in places where silence used to reign. And now it’s showing up in places it shouldn’t—on broken stones, in old boundaries, spoken by people who should know better. That name—McKinley—is right in the damn middle of it.

I need to find out who’s behind it and how deep it goes. First step—track the names tied to those old sites. Second—figure outwho benefits if the McKinleys take the fall. And third? Keep Kate out of the crossfire, even if it means dragging her out myself.

I don’t know if she’s tangled up in it by accident or if someone’s using her family’s name to stir old ghosts. Either way, the risk is rising.

So is my blood pressure.

“Morning, Sheriff.”

I look up. Deputy Morris stands in the doorway, coffee in one hand, folders in the other. The kid is earnest. Good instincts, green enough to still believe in rules.

He nods at the board. “You figure out anything new?”

“Depends. You find anything in those reports?”

He hands them over. “Couple of complaints from the hills. Someone poking around abandoned sites. Weird tire treads, too. Didn’t match the usual ATVs.”

I scan the notes. The locations match old McKinley territory.

“Locals talking?”

“Some. But most clammed up the second I mentioned anything serious. Lot of old loyalty still wrapped around that name—fear, too. Like they’re not just protecting a neighbor, but guarding something no one wants dragged into the light. Especially when the name McKinley comes up.”

I snort. "That figures. I guess I should take some small measure of comfort that some things never change."

The front door creaks.

“Sheriff.”

Elena Clark. Bookstore owner. Human. All-seeing oracle of small-town gossip, complete with her long dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, held in place with a pencil.

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