“But it really used to be that way, back in the old days?” Burton asked.
“Well, if you think about it, it does make more sense,” Marco said. “Organizing a pack with the alpha as the central figure requires the alpha to subdue all the other members of the pack, right? A strong alpha will be able to keep a fairly large pack together, probably, but you only have to look at all of us to see how it has the potential to go wrong. Ryker broke away from the pack he was born into when he was a child. Sophie defied her alpha as an omega. All the betas were able to leave their alphas. None of that should be possible, in theory. But it’s just too hard for any alpha to compel a large pack to stay together. Eventually, some of them will want to wander.”
“And you think our system is more solid?” Burton asked.
Marco glanced over at him. “Are you ever going to leave this family?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Burton answered anyway. “Of course not,” he said. “You know I can’t leave Sophie.”
“Exactly,” Marco said. “None of us can leave her. It’s a much stronger bond than being compelled to stay by an alpha’s order could ever be, because we don’t want to leave.”
“What about the betas, though?” Burton asked. “I suppose they could leave. They haven’t imprinted on Sophie.”
“No, but they’re also here because they want to be,” Marco said. “Submitting to one alpha is something that happens all the time, but our betas have submitted to all three of us. They had to do that willfully. And our combined authority—yours and mine and Ryker’s—ought to be enough to keep the pack strong and whole.”
“Which means that our pack can grow bigger than any of the packs in the south,” Burton said. “And be stronger.”
“And stay together longer,” Marco agreed. “Southern packs fall apart all the time, but it would be impossible to tear us apart.”
Burton grinned. “Not that anyone would ever dare to try,” he said. “Not after the way we dispatched those bears. No one will mess with us ever again.”
Marco nodded slowly.
He wanted to believe that his friend was right. But a small, nameless fear lurked in the back of his mind. He knew that Burton and Ryker felt completely safe now that the bears were gone, and most of the time, Marco felt the same way.
But sometimes, he felt a vague, creeping fear that there was still something out there that had the ability to harm him and his pack.
It’s always best to keep our guard up. I’m sure everything is fine. But we can’t allow ourselves to become complacent. That’s all.
“Want to give him back to me?” Burton asked, holding out his arms for Caleb. “Today’s your day with Sophie. You ought to be getting ready.”
Marco nodded. “I guess I should get something to eat.”
“You definitely should,” Burton said. “You’re going to work up an appetite.”
Marco laughed. “Don’t be crude,” he said, but the truth was that he didn’t mind at all. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of Sophie since the moment she had arrived in the clearing, and he was very much looking forward to his chance to take her back to the cave.
God, she’s beautiful in that dress. He gazed at her across the lawn. She was walking by the river’s edge, plucking berries from her pocket and eating them. When the wind blew, he could see every curve of her body beneath the thin fabric. It was all he could do not to sprint across the clearing and grab her right then and there. He felt as hot as if he were running a fever, just looking at her.
He got to his feet. “Maybe I should see if she’s ready to go,” he said, doing his best to sound casual about it.
Burton was obviously not fooled. “Have a good time,” he said, showing his teeth.
Marco jogged over to where Sophie stood. Coming up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Hey,” he said.
She leaned back against him. “Hi,” she said. “This is amazing.”
He didn’t want to drag her away if she was still enjoying herself. “Do you want to stay a while longer?” he asked her.
She looked up at him. He could see that she was doing her best to assess his mood.
Marco couldn’t help it. He hitched his hips against the swell of her ass. She pressed back into him, and he knew she was feeling how hard he was.
“You’re ready to go,” she breathed.
“I’ve been ready for days,” he admitted.
She nodded. “Do we need to do anything?” she asked. “Say goodbye to anybody? Or can we just leave?”
“We can go,” Marco said, his hand sliding down the front of her thigh. It was all he could do to keep himself from grabbing her skirt and hitching it up. “I think we should. Before we’re seen.”
She nodded. “Quickly, then,” she said and smiled.
Chapter Five
SOPHIE
They ran hand in hand, away from the clearing, through the woods. Sophie felt positively wild as the forest fell away on either side of her, as her alpha’s strong hand clung to her, towing her forward. Her entire body felt like it was throbbing with desire.
After a moment, she noticed that they weren’t moving toward the cave, but she didn’t have it in her to question or to object. Whatever Marco was doing, wherever he was taking her, was fine by her as long as he planned to quench the fire that was growing within her.
She knew he did. She could hear the way he was panting as he ran alongside her. He wasn’t out of breath from running. That rasp was born of desire.
Not to mention the way he had pulled her up against him back at the clearing. God, he is hard. Poor Marco. To think that he had been waiting all this time for his turn to be with her. He must be half out of his mind by now. Sophie knew that she would have been if she’d been forced to wait that long.
Hell, I’m practically losing my mind for him as it is.
He stopped running suddenly, pulling her to a stop beside him. She looked around. It was a part of the forest she knew well enough, but they were miles away from the cave.
She didn’t ask. She didn’t care. She just wanted.
He lifted her up so high that her waist was at the level of his head, and then she felt the rough scrape of tree bark at her back. A moment later, she was seated in a tree, in the fork where two branches split to form a Y shape, a good five feet off the ground.
She stared at him. What was this?
He stood back and looked at her, appraising, evaluating, almost as if he was seeing her for the first time.
“Marco,” she said. Didn’t he understand how desperate she was—how desperate he had made her, when he had grabbed her that way in the clearing, when he had let her feel his desire for her? Didn’t he understand that she needed him now, that that was the whole reason she had run away with him?
He smiled at her but said nothing.
“Marco, please.” She started to climb down out of the tree.
He shook his head. “Stay right there,” he said.
She was stunned. It was an order. Her alphas almost never gave her orders. Only when they were concerned for her safety.
Or, very occasionally, her pleasure.