Page 11 of Alphas Never Hide

“What?What’shappening?”Ryleyasked.Helooked around, trying to see an invisible threat.Interesting.Ryley’shearing must be as dull as a human’s.

Cardoors slammed.Acacophony of chatter and footsteps tumbled toward us.Irubbed my forehead.IfRobbiehad been trackingRyleyhere before, he wouldn’t need to now.Mywould-be rescuers were making enough noise to wake every creature in the forest and scare everyone else away.

Ogdenopened his mouth and flicked his tongue through the air.

“They’reours,” he said, likeIneeded the confirmation.

“Yours?”Ryleyasked. “Youhave a thing about ownership, don’t you?Doyou hoard people?”

Ogdenrolled his eyes likeRyleywas being ridiculous, but he still deigned to clarify by adding, “Ourfriends.”

Lightflickered through the trees as the others drew closer, soVanandDillonmust have been in their hellhound forms.Mysuspicions were confirmed when they burst through the last few trees separating us.Magicalfire lapped over their inky black fur, but nothing around them caught fire.Thefire from their hellhound forms filled the air with the scent of ash and smoke, soIcouldn’t distinguish between them based on their scents.Ash, the fire mage, clung to the back of one, though, so that must beDillon.Ashwouldn’t be able to touchVan’sfires without injuring himself.

Afew steps behind them wasAdrian, a wolf who’d recently moved to town.Hecarried his mate,Jeremy, on his back.

Wasriding each other like horses a mate thing?Icouldn’t imagine what it’d feel like, say, ifRyleyclimbed on my back, butIwishedIhad thought of that earlier.Icould have carriedRyleyout of here on my own andVannever would have needed to know about what’d happened.

Jeremywas busy talking toAsh, and neither of them had noticed us sitting in the shadows yet.Ryley, on the other hand, definitely noticed them.Witheach new arrival, he hunched lower and pressed harder against me.

“Ididn’t thinkI’dlike riding onAdrian’sback, butI’mchanging my mind.It’spretty wild, andIbet we look amazing.Maybethis should be one of the competitions?”Jeremysuggested. “Weshould take a selfie and use it for promotion.”

“Istill don’t understand how a discussion about hockey changed intoWillowLakeholding its ownSupernaturalTrackandFieldDay,”Ashmuttered.

“Well, count me out of that riding competition.Centaursaren’t horses,”Isaacsaid as he came last.Inhis centaur form, he towered over the others.

Ididn’t hear anyone else.Good.Ididn’t need everyone in the whole town out here.Therewere already too many people making way too much noise.WhenDillonandAdrianquit walking, their mates sat up straighter and glanced around the area.Theyboth had weak eyesight and probably couldn’t see much pastVanandDillon’sfiery fur.Ashwaved his hand through the air and a glowing fireball appeared above us, bathing the area in its warm glow.

“Alpha!”Jeremyslid off his mate’s back and dashed to me.

“Notthe alpha,”Icorrected him.

Adrianshifted and grabbed for his mate as he scowled atRyley, butJeremywas too quick.Ihadn’t knownJeremyfor more than a few months, but he treated me like he’d known me his whole life.Hedropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around me.

Fora guy who was mostly human, he had quite the bear hug.Andhe was definitely a hugger.I’dbeen on this side of one of his hugs a few times now.Istill didn’t like them.

“WhenVangot your call, we were all so worried,”Jeremysaid.

Hepulled back and looked at me. “Youlook like shit, and you smell worse,” he said. “Whathappened to your face?Andyour shirt?Shit.That’sa lot of blood.Wereyou stabbed?”

Ryleyhuddled closer to my side, as if worried about what my friends might do to him when they found out he was the one who’d hurt me.

“Moveaway from them,”Vancommanded as he shifted into his human form.

“Who?Me?”Jeremyasked. “Orthat guy?”Jeremy’sgaze drifted overRyley’sbody. “Socool.Ihave so many questions.Like, how do you balance on two hind legs like that?Iknow trick dogs can walk around a bit on their back legs, but not like always, right?Theyusually go around on four when they aren’t performing.SoI’mcurious?—”

“Jeremy,”Adrianbarked out.

“Fine, fine.”Jeremyhuffed.

“Now’snot the time.”Thewolf tugged his mate away.

Jeremyfrowned as he took out his notebook and started scribbling in it.Yeah.Thatwas more like him.AsVanapproached us, he inhaled deeply, not bothering to hide what he was doing.Ryleyswallowed.

“Yousmell likeRobbie,”Vansaid.

“Hesaid the same thing.”Ryleypointed at me. “ButInever caught the guy’s name.Hewas too busy gnawing on me for introductions.Like, seriously, who does that?I’mimplementing a strict no-gnawing policy from here on out.”

“Areyou working with the wolves?”Van’sgaze drifted over the faun, cataloguing the injuries.Therewere a lot of them, but they were mostly superficial.Itwas as ifRobbiehad wanted the injuries to look worse than they were, soVan’squestion didn’t surprise me.