Chapter 49: Here an Alpha, There an Alpha

~ SASHA ~

Despite the subject, everything Zev had said was so sweet—and so tinged with doubt about her and what she would think.

She knew that look on his face—a combination of love and concern, the prickle of desire and butterflies of nerves—and it touched her heart that she still knew. It was moments like this that she saw the old Zev, the sweet, thoughtful young man who had set her heart and body aflame. Hope took her in its arms when he got that soft smile.

She'd put one of her hands to his chest and was about to tell him so, when a haunting howl rose from very close in the trees off to their right and Zev froze like he'd been shot.

Then he cursed under his breath and turned, putting her behind him.

"What is it?" she asked, peering around his arm, expecting to see some creature prowling out of the forest—one of these 'failures' of the experiments he had mentioned, that were going to give her nightmares, she was sure.

Zev tipped his head, listening as the howl faded, then cursed again. "Lhars," he muttered.

"Who is Lhars?"

He turned his head, looking at her over his shoulder. "He's one of my brothers."

He didn't use the word like he had with Yhet, or even Dunken. She was about to ask what he meant, when a tall form appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and Sasha's stomach tingled.

She turned with a gasp as the shadowy form of man slipped between the trees. Then she blinked and he was there, standing just inside the last line of trunks, staring at them.

Zev pulled out of her grip to drop the bags and stood with his hands at his sides and posture loose, but she could feel the tension in his back.

Which was when she realized she might have been clinging. Forcing herself to put space between them, to stand on her own two feet, she shifted her weight backwards.

But one of Zev's hands came back to cup the side of her thigh and keep her there.

Something in Sasha warmed, even as she swallowed nervously.

The guy standing just off the trail, one hand to the trunk of a tree, was tall and dark like Zev. In fact, she realized, his features were similar enough that he could have been Zev's actual brother. Except Zev didn't have any of those.

Did he?

"That's not a face I expected to see when I woke this morning," the guy said quietly, his face expressionless.

"You and me both," Zev said warily.

"What are you doing here?"

Those little muscles at the back of Zev's jaw flexed, but he didn't move. "I'm home," he said.

The man's face didn't change, but she had the distinct impression that he was shocked—and not happily so.

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"Does Xar know?"

"Wouldn't he have told you if he did?"

"You never can know with a cat."

Both their mouths twitched as if this were some kind of inside joke. Sasha looked back and forth between them, confused.

Then the man's eyes snapped to her face. His nostrils flared and the tiny smile was gone. "You brought a human to Thana?" It was the first real tone he'd used—shock, and disgust.

*****

~ ZEV ~

Yhet and Dunken had stopped further up the trail and turned to watch the brothers reunite. They wouldn't step in, he knew. It was up to him to navigate this. He was the one who'd abandoned the Chimera three years earlier. He would face the consequences for that. It was only right. At least Yhet would look after Sasha if something happened to him.

Zev took a deep breath, reminding himself that this had been his land, his people three years ago. They had moved on in his absence because they hadn't had a choice. But he hadn't been challenged. He was not… reduced.

"She's not part of the team," Zev growled. "But even if she were, from what I hear that wouldn't be a problem?" he said pointedly.

Lhars' eyes went flat and Zev's heart sped. His brother was cunning and ambitious. A deadly combination. What he didn't know was whether Lhars was working with the humans, or against them. The thick disgust in his scent didn't mean he wouldn't hold his nose and use them for his own ends. Lhars was a firm believer in the ends justifying the means.

Then Lhars pushed off the tree and started towards them, and Zev braced, stepping to the side so he was fully between Sasha and Lhars and praying she'd take the hint. She'd been peering around him to stare at his brother. He pushed away the niggling thoughts that she might be liking what she saw.

"What's her name?" Lhars asked as he prowled closer.

"Sasha," Zev said tonelessly.

Lhars stopped walking. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"This is the infamous Sasha?"

"Yes, and if you so much as sniff her without her permission, I will take your throat, Lhars," Zev said quietly.

Lhars didn't like that at all. Immediately the air zinged with the electric crackle of males on the edge of violence.

"You leave us, abandon us, then show back up without warning, and you think you can threaten me? As if I am the one with answers to give?"

"No, Lhars. I left and I have returned. And I know you. She is mine. If you so much as force a meal on her that she doesn't want, I. Will. Have. Your. Throat.." Then Zev smiled—another thing he knew his brother hated—and set his weight on the balls of his feet, just in case.

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