Page 26 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
She nods without meeting my eyes again and leaves with her uncle. The moment he thinks they are out of earshot, I hear his voice rise in sharp, angry whispers.
I stand alone in the darkness, my curiosity about the situation growing exponentially. The previous alpha’s granddaughter, living in exile within her own pack. Missing records that should exist but don’t. A beta who clearly doesn’t want his niece talking to me about any of it, which means she knows what happened.
Whatever occurred here goes much deeper than a simple runaway bride.
I turn back toward the Wyvern Woods, my enhanced senses picking up the faint trail of the masking potion again. Two days old, but still detectable. The scent leads deeper into the forest than most pack members would dare venture.
I’m not a man who likes mysteries. I’ll get to the bottom of this. And if I find that this pack tried to evade the crown’s decree, I’ll skin that alpha and his daughter.
Happily.
It takes me the rest of the night to catch up to Astra, following the trail she unknowingly left behind.
The masking potion has a distinct chemical signature that most trackers wouldn’t recognize, but I’m not most trackers. I can smell exactly where she used it at the forest edge—a calculated move to make it appear she’d entered the Wyvern Woods. Clever, but not clever enough.
Her actual path brought her away from the forest, down the mountain toward human settlements. Even with the masking agent interfering, I can still detect traces of her natural scent—a floral and earthy aroma that is surprisingly appealing.
What strikes me as odd is the complete absence of paw prints along her route. The ground is soft enough in places that any shifter traveling in wolf form would have left clear tracks, yet I see only the faint impressions of boots and what looks like a walking stick. Why would a shifter choose to travel such a distance in her human form? It would be faster as a wolf. More efficient and less taxing.
I find the girl in the early morning hours, sleeping on a thick branch about fifteen feet off the ground. She is curled up with her back against the trunk, a small black cat nestled against her chest. The defensive positioning puzzles me. Why sleep in a tree when she could shift and rest safely on the ground? Any shifter in wolf form would be the apex predator in these woods.
Even as she sleeps, there’s something about her that draws my attention—the way the morning light catches her brown hair cascading over the branch, the peaceful expression on her face that makes my chest tighten.
Moving silently, I leap from branch to branch until I’m positioned above her. From this close, I can see the delicate curve of her jawline, the way her dark lashes fan across her cheeks. Her lips are slightly parted, and there’s something unexpectedly captivating about the way she looks so serenedespite sleeping in a tree. The photograph I found in her bedroom doesn’t do her justice; she’s genuinely beautiful in a way that makes me pause longer than I should. I’m close enough to touch her when she suddenly stirs.
Her eyes snap open, and she strikes without warning, a knife flashing toward me. But I’m already moving, disappearing into the leaves before her blade can connect.
The sudden movement sends her tumbling from the branch. She hits the ground hard with a pained grunt, the cat leaping gracefully clear as the girl rolls to absorb the impact.
“Ow, ow, ow!” She springs to her feet despite the obvious pain, spinning in a defensive circle with the knife still in her hand. “Damn it! That’s going to bruise. Remind me not to sleep so close to the edge next time, Luna.”
She rubs her backside with her free hand, wincing dramatically while scanning the canopy above.
“I know someone’s there!” she calls out, voice steady despite having just fallen fifteen feet. “Show yourself!”
I remain motionless, studying her. She should have caught my scent at once; any shifter would detect another of our kind from this distance. Yet she seems completely unaware of what I am, relying entirely on her human senses.
“Come on!” She brandishes the knife. “If you’re going to attack me, at least have the balls to do it face to face!”
The casual profanity surprises me. Most pack females are more restrained. There’s a rawness to her that is completely different from Harper’s calculated charm. I study her, curious.
I’m not easily intrigued, but this tiny slip of a woman manages to hold my attention.
After searching for another minute, she sighs, sheathing the blade and continuing to rub her backside. “I’m growing more and more paranoid by the second. Sleeping in trees is badenough without falling out of them,” she mutters to the cat. “Sorry, Luna. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
She talks aloud to the cat naturally, without self-consciousness. I find myself leaning forward to catch every word, though I can’t explain why her commentary fascinates me.
She sits down heavily against the base of the tree and rolls up her left pant leg. What I see makes me frown.
Deep gashes run from knee to ankle, the wounds angry and inflamed. They don’t look recent, so they should have healed completely by now. Healers have magic in their blood, healing magic that helps them recover from injuries even faster than a normal shifter. If she’s such a powerful healer, why does she have injuries that appear to be days old?
“Still looks awful,” she mutters, pulling a ceramic jar from her knapsack, which has been leaning against the tree she was sleeping in. “At least it’s not getting worse.”
She applies a green paste to the wounds, her face contorting with pain. The confident way she tends to the injury suggests this isn’t the first time she has had to heal herself.
“Almost out of healing moss,” she says to the cat. “Gonna have to find more soon.”
She digs some berries out of the bag and munches on them while studying a hand-drawn map, everything about her movements suggesting hard-won self-sufficiency.
