Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I say show me where the lock is in a sheer glass wall.
Besides, that’s blasphemy. The wolf and the man are one. Two sides of the same coin.
My wolf’s maw widens, his neck straining, black lips peeling back from sharp fangs. Unlike in the library, his howl doesn’t escape the wall between us. The locker room is silent except for the drip of a shower.
I scrub my eyes, and when I look again, there isn’t a mark on my face. My wolf is still as stone again, the very image of my grandfather’s statue.
A burning rage tears up through me out of nowhere, too quick, too unexpected to wrestle down.
My fist flies at the mirror.
It shatters. Glass slices my knuckles.
Fuck.
Shit.
Rosie.
Do not be alarmed, female.
The bond trills as I pluck shards from my skin and shove more gumwood in my mouth, chomping like a mad man. I smear it on my knuckles, spitting and hacking to clear the aftertaste.
What the hell am I doing?
I cannot afford to lose control. Especially not now. I straighten my back, school my face, and remind myself of the basic truths of my existence.
Everything rides on me.
Every wolf’s life. The unity of the pack. The survival of shifters as a species. Nothing beyond that matters.
Not the fact that I have a mate who’s soft and odd and a scavenger to boot. She’s called Rosie, but her real name is Briallen. It means primrose. Hence the nickname, I assume.
Seth found out everything there is to know about her.
Her parents abandoned her as a pup, or rather, they “went for a walk” as her people say. Her sister is Geralt Powell’s natural mate, but there’s no decent blood in her line. Not even a distant mid-rank relative. She’s bog all the way back to when the pack left the dens.
The only unusual thing about her—and it’s not inconsequential—is that she’s apprenticed to the witch. Wise woman. Whatever.
Rosie doesn’t look like a hag. She has thick blackish-brown hair and lips red without lipstick. She’s got the big breasts and ass of her kind. A stripper Snow White in mismatched secondhand clothes.
And she blushes like crazy. Not just her cheeks, but her whole face, neck, chest, everything visible. Even the tips of ears. She smells like mulling spices—cloves, cardamon, and star anise.
She seems reserved. At least she’s not as vulgar as the usual scavenger.
I never noticed her before. It seems impossible—like having never looked up at the sky. Biology is powerful, and it sucks as a matchmaker.
My mate is a scavenger. A thief. One of Moon Lake Pack’s unsolvable social problems. And if I claim her, I’ll give Alban Hughes’ followers a reason to believe that my father and I intend to mess with the hierarchy as he’s been claiming for years.
It’d be the spark to start a war that destroys the pack and triggers human intervention in shifter affairs, leading to the eradication of our entire way of life.
Humans have shown their cards a hundred times. Given the slightest provocation, they’ll take our wealth, assimilate our young, and harvest what they can from our bodies.
I didn’t need Father to spell it out for me, although he did in his study the other night. I understand what I need to do. What I cannot do. I am the heir to the Great Alpha. The future of Moon Lake Pack and the shifters of North America.
As I wash my hands, the soap burns the few scratches that haven’t fully healed yet. Shit. I blow on my knuckles to take away the slight twinge.
I listen to the bond. It hums quietly. She’s fine.
There’s a thump, as if a body was heaved at the door. It creaks opens, and Seth eases his head in. I guess they finally got tired of arguing with him to come get me.
He coughs. “Uh, ready, man?”
“Give me five.” I still need to shower.
Seth winces at the glass on the floor. “I’ll get someone to clean that up.”
I grunt, and he leaves.
He’ll ring the sub-basement and have them send up two of the scavengers who do odd jobs. It’s Mother’s dictate that they work in pairs. She has the building manager offer them twenty dollars to snitch on their partners.
She thinks she’s clever, but the manager doles out plenty of twenties, and we’re still missing tons of shit.
I suppose it’s better than teaching them to rely on charity. Or worse, working on all fours.
Nausea rolls through me.
Does Rosie do that kind of work?
No. She didn’t smell of male seed. Only potting soil and pizza sauce.
Besides, she’s the witch’s apprentice. She wouldn’t have the time to turn tricks.
How fucked up is that? I’m relieved that the future mother of my pups spends her time cooking potions instead of on her knees.
She is nothing like I would have imagined for myself.
I figured I’d mate a female like Brynn Owen, a member of the five families, top of her class, ambitious but chill. There’s never been a mixed-rank mating in either of my parents’ lines. Mother’s been planning my mating ceremony for years.
She wasn’t there last night when I told Father. She must have lost her mind when he caught her up. Plans have obviously changed. I’m not exchanging vows with a scavenger on the lakeshore with a string quartet and fireworks at sunset.
I peel off my shirt and shorts and step under the hot stream, scrubbing Seth’s dried blood off my forearms and neck. The locker room is wired for sound, and my music echoes off the shower tile, the reverb eerie and raw. I like lo-fi, dreampop, indie pop—that kind of shit. I don’t need more noise in my head. I want something pretty.
I want to float. Drift. I want to be washed away.
Spin the hands of the clock backwards until they’re a blur like in a movie.
I’m sitting at my table in the Commons. Rosie winds her way through the crowded tables. I see her before she notices that I do. I see how her fingers tremble where they peek out of the worn cuffs of her oversized red hoodie.
In the here and now, my cock twitches. I lean back against the wet wall and let the water flow down my pecs.
Her doe eyes rise, searching me out, and I stand. She can’t stop looking and blushing. She flashes me a soft, secret smile.
I go to her. She waits for me, nervous, her even white teeth worrying her plump lower lip.
I don’t give a shit about the pack. They’re gone, disappeared in a blink. We’re alone.
I say, “Hey.”
She lowers her eyes, her dark eyelashes sweeping her pink-stained cheeks.
“Hi,” she whispers back. She can’t help but peek at my face. My chest. The tent in my pants.
In the showers, I stroke my cock. I’m harder than I’ve ever been, abs clenched, eyes screwed shut.
“What do you need?” I ask her.
“You,” she says. “Please.”
In my mind, Rosie reaches up, winding her arms around my neck, holding tight as I lift her. She wraps her legs around my hips and raises her smiling mouth to kiss my jaw, my neck.
I carry her to a dark corner, set her ass on a ledge, and her fingers scramble at my shirt buttons, her lips seeking mine, opening for me without prompting, and I take whatever I want. She offers me everything.
“I want you so bad,” she pants. “Make it feel better.”