The Stargazer's Alpha

Ch. 2: Into the Woods

Blake was looking for a fated mate.

That's what he'd said, and he thought I was it. Before I could process all this weirdness, he went back to his truck, and anxiety immediately twisted my stomach into a knot.

"Where are you going?" I said in a barely audible whisper.

Fated mate sounded like a euphemism for a playmate, so if I had an ounce of wits, I should have been running away from Blake, but with each step he took away from me, I became more agitated.

What if he leaves for good? My father did this to me, so why not Blake? The fear that gripped me was akin to a primal terror of being left behind, alone in the dark, when the rest of the tribe walked away with the fire.

I climbed out of my car and followed Blake, while my mind desperately tried to make my need for him to make at least some sense.

"Mr. Villar? Do you have a list of qualifications for the ah...position that I can take a quick look at? The temp agency already sent me out of town when I asked for Seattle, so who knows what else is screwy?"

Everything was screwy about this situation, except Blake. Blake was flawless and beyond.

He lifted a five-gallon jerry can out of the back of his SUV so easily, he probably only needed his little finger to handle it. Muscles moved underneath his shirt, gray like his hair. Except, it wasn't the salt-and-pepper gray of middle age. Oh, no. This man just happened to have smokey gray hair, completely natural, and just as completely impossible.

That wasn't a human hair color. It was the color of a wolf's coat. And I loved it.

Blake turned to me and frowned. "A job?"

I glanced at his striking green eyes—also impossibly vibrant, like a wolf's—and almost lost the thread of our conversation.

"Do you think I intended to pay you for something?" he pressed me.

I gave myself a shake to focus away from the woodsy scent that coated him. "Well, not you...but The Olympian?"

He walked back to the Honda, the jerry can in hand.

I shuffled after him toward my Honda. "You...you didn't? You don't? They didn't?"

God, he had a wide back. The widest I'd seen. And, at this particular moment, the stiffest I had ever seen. "So, you got all cagey because you think that what I'm looking for is a paid date?"

In my defense, it wasn't unheard of, even if he was far too hot to pay for sex. And the thought of him doing it with other women felt like a kick to the gut. But...what else was I supposed to think? He was talking about finding a mate.

"I'm not cagey!"

His shoulders lifted in a tectonic shrug. "Huffy then." This man was used to getting his way.

Absurdly, I liked it about him, which was a giant red flag. I still stood as close to him as I could, inhaling his scent. Whenever I took in a breath, it filled my nostrils, and my brain activity stopped and something primal took over, telling me to come even closer to Blake. Closer...

I tried not to breathe to clear my head. "So...if it's not dating for money, what's the job?"

He popped open the fuel cap and tipped the can. Fuel splashed into the tank, but he half-turned away from the car to study the epic blush spreading over my face and neck.

He couldn't know that, but some of that heat was reaching lower. Much lower. Christ!

"You have no idea who I am," he said.