She said all the right thing, made all the right gestures, and he couldn’t smell a lie on her. His senses weren’t perfect.  If she was a good enough liar she could fool even him, but he was inclined to think that she was telling the truth, as far as it went.  There was too much loneliness in her voice and her body language.  She craved the contact she’d never had, and the wolf in him wanted to give it to her.  It was the man who was more cautious, hesitant to trust when so many under his care could be affected by his decisions.<br/><br/>In the end it was the almost wistful desire he heard in her question that made the decision for him.  “You can run if you wish, as long as you stay on this side of the river that runs east of her, and you don’t go west of this cabin for now.  Later we can talk about allowing you to hunt if you wish, but we have a herd of non-predatory shifters is on our land at the moment, I don’t want you to accidently bring one of them down,” he warned her, not even thinking that she wouldn’t be aware that there were different kinds of shifters in the world.<br/><br/>He looked her over for a moment before he nodded to himself.  You don’t have to stay away if one of the pack comes close to the cabin, they likely won’t at the moment anyway.  If a pup wanders close I don’t want you anywhere near it, though.  Understand?  Not until I get a better feel for you,” he added as an afterthought.<br/><br/>“I’ll be back in the morning… and you can call me Grayson,” he said after he finished off the beer.  “Don’t make me regret this, Sonora.  I’m taking a risk on your honesty…”<br/><br/><div align="center">~~*~~*~~*~~</div><br/>She blushed slightly, not from the nudity, but his question, though she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of him.  She felt a momentary panic.  She might not have disobeyed the words of her Alpha’s orders, but she knew she’d disobeyed the spirit of them.  She was going to have to deal with the consequences of her actions, but she couldn’t feel sorry.  Not when he already looked better for the meal.<br/><br/>“I w-was told to provide food… but what I could find in the emergency stores wasn’t enough,” she said quietly, trusting that even in human form his hearing was acute enough to pick up her words.<br/><br/>“I thought you w-wouldn’t feel as threatened here if you were stronger.  I don’t want to see Grayson have to do something rash,” she admitted with an even brighter blush that made her freckles stand out against her pink skin.<br/><br/>Her dark brown hair fell into her eyes when she shifted to lean against the trunk of the pine nearest her.  “You just seemed so weak and lost… I couldn’t leave you like that…”<br/>