Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I’m gonna pass out. Shift. Puke. Cry. All of the above, all at once.
I’m gonna fight off Seth Rosser in the middle of the Commons because I can’t bear his touch and smell.
I force myself on, holding my breath until I can’t anymore, retching when I’m forced to inhale a lungful of Seth’s stench and the other males who have somehow developed a collective stink like moldy, wet garbage.
The puke is surging up my throat when out of nowhere, my very own pierced angel storms over and shoves Seth in the chest with two stiff arms. When he lets go of me in shock, Nia flings me into Bevan’s arms, and then she gets right up in Seth’s face like they taught us to do when blocking in Human Sport.
“Don’t touch her, alpha’s bitch.” She spits at him.
Bevan rushes me toward the exit while the other scavengers crowd around Seth, driving him back into the main dining area, heckling and hollering and busting jokes at the top of their lungs.
“Hey, Seth, how many nobs does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
“Nobs don’t screw light bulbs; they screw scavengers.”
“Hey, Seth, did you lose something?”
“Hey, Seth, come on down to the boards tonight and leave me a little something in my donation box.”
“Yeah, a little something. That’s what I heard.”
A Nevitt shoves a Wogan playfully, a Scurlock joins in, and the jostling becomes roughhousing until a full-blown food fight breaks out.
The Goff hanging out as his wolf raises his muzzle to the ceiling and bays. The monitor gets on her walkie talkie.
My people are creating a diversion so I can get away.
My family. My folk. My stomped and squashed heart flops once with a faint sign of life.
Bevan shoves me out the door into the courtyard with the delivery truck bay and the big green Dumpsters. It smells better than Seth Rosser. I stand numb for a moment, my eyes adjusting to the sunlight, my brain reeling.
My wolf chooses that moment to launch herself forward. I stagger a step.
Out.
I stumble backwards. “Oh, shit, Bevan. My wolf. She’s coming.”
The back door slams, and Nia hurries to my side. “I’m here. It’s okay. The fam won’t let anyone out. You can shift. It’ll be fine. I promise.”
I’m slow to register the meaning of her words, but I cling to the tone. Nia’s not panicking, so I don’t have to either. My wolf lunges again and adrenaline shoots through my veins.
There’s something wrong with my muscles. They’re stretching, but I’m not doing anything.
“Nia, I’m scared.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes. “It’ll be okay. Want me to shift, too?”
“Y-Yes.” Tears flow down my cheeks.
“Turn around, Bevan.” Nia unbuttons her striped man’s dress shirt with nimble fingers.
“I’ve seen it before, Nia,” Bevan says from behind us. He’s leaning against the door to block it.
“Oh, no. My clothes.” My wolf flings herself into the barrier between us and my jeans rip. “Oh, crap. No time.”
My bones crack all at once. Sharp white pain blanks my brain. My muscles shred. I can’t work my arms, but suddenly, they’re not arms. They’re legs. Paws. Claws. My skin stretches impossibly tight, and I scream, but a howl rings out against the high, windowless brick walls.
Another howl echoes all the way to the foothills, mournful, indignant, demanding.
It’s coming from me. And I’m not there anymore. I’m inside. I’m the co-pilot now. I look down. And down.
And down.
Why am I so high up?
Why is Nia so small? She has her snout tilted all the way back, squinting up with her gold eyes. I step so my paw is next to hers.
Why does Nia have little bitty baby paws?
“Damn,” Bevan says. “Plot twist.”
My wolf faces the building. She considers for a minute before she pads to where Bevan guards the door and gazes down at him. Bevan cranes his neck and whistles.
“Don’t eat me,” he says. “I got metal in my mouth.” He smiles to flash his gold fronts. “It wouldn’t settle right in your belly.”
My wolf rumbles. The door rattles in its frame. Bevan leaps aside and sweeps his hand for her to enter. “Go on, hoss. By all means, Godzilla in Tokyo those motherfuckers.”
Mate.
My wolf lets out a resounding howl, calling Cadoc to come outside to her. The ground trembles under our paws.
She has no doubt that he’ll come. She paces back a few steps and lowers herself to wait.
She doesn’t understand. We got rejected.
Nia’s mottled gray-brown wolf pads over and plops beside me.
My wolf howls again.
Bevan busies himself collecting our clothes and shoving them into his string knapsack. We all know Cadoc’s not coming, but my wolf howls and howls, each one louder, more confused.
A flock of geese takes off from the lake. A car alarm whoops in the nob’s parking lot.
Nia nuzzles my haunch and licks my fur. It tickles like a mouse’s tongue.
Finally, my wolf falls silent. A terrible, cold wind blows through the cracks between our ribs. A sharp something has lodged in our sternum. It throbs. It pierces.
My wolf hacks and gags, but she can’t dislodge it. She lumbers to four legs, and she howls one last time, furious and bereft.
Bevan, Nia’s wolf, and mine stare at the faded green metal door on its rusted hinges. It stays closed.
My wolf sniffs and narrows her eyes.
For a moment, white hot rage battles with bone deep grief, and I brace myself for her to plow through the door like a bulldozer.
But then, by some miracle, the feeling ebbs, and she lets out a wolfish snort. I swear, she says, “His loss.”
She looks down at Nia. Nia gazes up, baring her fangs. I bare mine back. And we run. We race hell bent for leather, paws pounding, tongues lolling to taste the wind. We bound free of the high brick walls, tear across the open lawn, past the bronze statue of the Great Alpha, puny compared to me. A toy.
I veer off the path, charge through the tree line, crash into the shadowy woods, leaping ditches and crushing fallen limbs, delighting in the cracks and snaps.
Nia tries her best to run at my side—I slow so she can keep up—and behind us, the joyous yelps of Bevan’s wolf grow louder as he joins us. We’re a pack of three, free and wild.
Fuck our clothes. We have fur ruffled by the wind. We have sunshine and a million scents dancing, bright as shapes, colorful as songs.
We can outrace rejection. Our paws scramble on mossy inclines and sail over twisted roots.
Fuck Cadoc Collins.
I don’t want him.
I don’t want anything but this, living full in myself, as fast as I am in my dreams, as wild as I am in my soul.
I don’t slow until we reach the river. Nia, Bevan, and I trot along the bank in single file. I lead. Bevan brings up the rear, darting off after shrews in the leaves and fat birds perched on branches too low to the ground.