Alphas burden

2AVERY

“What are you doing out here?” Caden demands.

His sharp order is bolstered by his mighty presence. His voice is domineering, expecting compliance, and his broad stature towers over me, jaw set. He’s every bit the alpha I’m meant to bow for.

I swallow, slowly lifting my face to meet his stormy blue glare. Tousled dark brown hair falls across his forehead. This close, his masculine woodsy musk that used to be a comfort to me is overwhelming, even to my muted senses.

This is the first time he’s been near enough to look at me in ages. It still hurts the softest parts of my heart and my pride to see his ire directed at me when he used to look at me so differently.

Back when we were friends. Before he was the one to argue with his father exile was too harsh for three young girls, only to convince him we deserved to be sent to live in the old cottage at the far edges to the north of the packlands, high up the mountain surrounded by hard soil inhospitable to any food I might grow.

My throat stings with the memory of him dragging our things from the nice cabin we lived in after the judgment, burning the broken pile of furniture outside. My childhood home’s been given to someone else now.

Caden must believe he spared us certain death. He only made my life hell after his father killed mine.

His piercing gaze narrows when I remain stubbornly silent. He searches our surroundings as if the trees will whisper my transgressions.

They won’t—or rather, can’t turn their backs on me the way he did. They remain as silent as me, branches creaking and swaying with the breeze. According to the legends shifters pass on to their pups of this land’s history, dryads, the trees’ spirits that once nurtured and protected the natural land from those who would bring harm, fell into deep slumber, long before the maiden of the moon descended from the Heavens and granted the first wolves our ability to shift forms between animal and man.

When I was a girl, I used to murmur to the trees hoping a dryad would talk back to me. It was one of my favorite stories my mother told us when we were small. The idea of ancient magic fascinated me for the vastness of its possibilities.

There was a time it was richly infused all around us. Only witches and other supernatural beings remain to keep it alive.

Caden cocks his head, waiting. His impatience is palpable, an invisible force pulling taut between us to make me answer.

His jaw works, cheek spasming. He folds his arms, the thin material of his shirt stretching over his sculpted biceps and shoulders. His muscles bunch and bulge larger with the low warning rumble vibrating from him. I snap my gaze up to meet his surly expression.

“I don’t have time for this. What,” he repeats, slow and firm, “are you doing all the way out here, Avery?”

The roughness of my name leaving his lips makes my breath hitch. I haven’t heard him say my name since we were teenagers. It’s tinged with his Alpha command, compelling me to obey his wishes.

“Nothing, Alpha Blackburn,” I finally answer after the longest stretch I can get away with, offering the barest dip of my chin.

The title leaves my tongue thick and heavy. It’s difficult to say anything else as bitter memories stir a pang in my heart, flitting through my mind. Ru

My father clashing with his. Claws slicing through skin. My attention cut to his shoulder, pulse going jagged as our past haunts me.

He’s dissatisfied with the answer. “That doesn’t tell me why you’re out here. Explain yourself.”

I almost choke the liatris clipping when I yank it free of my bag, tucking the satchel behind me. If I keep him distracted, he won’t ask to search it.

“Just on a walk to gather herbs and medicinal plants. Sir,” I tack on after a beat.

My throat stings, clogging with my buried emotions. I deaden my heart to every member of the pack…except when it comes to him.

He glances from the flowering purple stalk in my clutches to my patched up hiking boots, giving me a slow once over, frowning.

“Alone?”

I blink. “Of course.”

It’s not like anyone in the pack other than my sisters would be caught dead hanging out with me. Except Taryn, but she’s a wild she-wolf who just likes the thrill of anything illicit and off-limits.

Another disgruntled rumble leaves him. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to question me further, then tears his attention from me, swiping a hand over his stubbled jaw. I’m reluctant to admit he looks ruggedly handsome when he does that, and my bitter hatred for him grows a new thorn.

“Don’t cause me any more problems than you already have,” he says.

I bite back the caustic reply I want to sling at him, though I can’t quite keep my face clear of my outrage. He gets in my face to intimidate me into submission. I hold my ground, daring to maintain eye contact instead of lowering my gaze.

I shouldn’t even try him like this. He’s the pack alpha. Has been for four years since his father passed.

Giving Caden Blackburn an ounce of attitude, or anything less than my absolute loyalty, is a terrible idea.

At my insolent display, he huffs, carved body seeming to grow larger—the universal sign amongst shifters that they’re feeling their wolf because of high emotions. Still, I don’t give him an inch of ground, instinct pushing me to get closer. My chest rises and falls faster and I slip a hand into my pocket to wrap around my shears. Without the true increased power a wolf would grant me, they’re all I have to defend myself with.

As Alpha, he could decide to make my situation worse whenever he wants for any reason, I remind myself.

Scream it at myself, really, because for some insane reason, I find myself succumbing to instinct by leaning in another inch, daring him to close the scarce gap of space left between us rather than trying to end this so I can get as far from him as possible.

His pupils dilate, blue swirling with the gold of his wolf. I lick my lips, lost to the thrall of the strange moment we’re locked in. We breathe the same air, an invisible tether drawing us together.

My heart pounds, stomach tightening as he begins to dip his nose.

Is he going to scent me?

He lingers at my jaw, chest rising and falling. Awareness of him tingles through me, warmth pooling in my core.

The broad expanse of his rugged body.

The heat of him bleeding through my clothes.

The taste of his spicy musk on my tongue.

Caden jerks back with a grunt before reaching my neck, coming to his senses. I release a shaking breath, unsure what just transpired between us.

Or why part of me…wanted him to graze his nose along my neck to mix our pheromones together so I’d smell like him. I blink rapidly, ignoring the flush spreading through my body.

He stares at me, eyes narrowing at my hand still in my pocket. I step back too slowly for his full shifter speed. His grip yanks my arm free, growling when he sees the shears.

“You’ve always been your father’s daughter, haven’t you?” he accuses.

“No,” I grit out.

“No?” His handsome features contort with anger. “You weren’t trying to get close enough to stab me with these? That’s not how challenging the alpha works.”

He wrenches them from me with little effort and brandishes them in my face. I foolishly try to snatch them back. He blocks me with his arm. I retreat, blowing out a frazzled exhale.

“It’s not—I wasn’t.” I rub my forehead and screw my eyes shut as I push out the words. “I wasn’t going to use them. You know I’d never be a match for your strength if you… They were only meant for protection.”

He goes rigid, scrutinizing me in stony silence for several harrowing heartbeats. I can’t read his expression.

“Go home, Avery,” he bites out at last as he tosses the shears to the ground.

He storms past me, ru

I scrub at them and push to my feet with a huff. That was reckless, but I survived it. At least he didn’t find out about the actual rules I broke by going to town.

Seizing my abandoned shears, I spot the trampled cutting I dropped when Caden grabbed me. One of us stepped on it from the looks of how crushed it is.

Sighing, I brush it off as best I can. Hopefully I can salvage something useful out of it.