Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
None of this is right.
The ladies make way as I pass, their loving, worried fingers brushing my hair and my arm and the backpack I grab from its hook and sling over my shoulder.
Seth has stepped back so he doesn’t block the steps. He’s stiff and dour, the soldier carrying out an order he considers much beneath himself.
“Is she there?” Cadoc’s voice is clipped.
“Yes. She’s coming.”
Nia winds her arm through mine, glaring at Seth’s ramrod straight back as he leads us toward shore.
I expect the call to end and Seth to tuck the phone away, but he carries it as he picks his way from plank to plank. Shifters have excellent balance, but nobs mistrust themselves. In fairness, plenty of the planks have rotten spots you can’t see ’til you land on one.
I’m generating heat like a furnace again, but the cold air dries the sweat on my bare shoulders and arms, making it a little more bearable.
We’re all the way to shore where the boards give onto the path when Cadoc’s voice comes from the phone. “Is she still there?”
The question’s curt, almost accusatory, as if I was supposed to be talking or something.
“Yes,” Seth answers. He doesn’t look back at us. I slow my steps, trying to escape the intensity of the reek billowing in his wake.
“Do you smell that?” I whisper to Nia.
She looks confused for a second, but then she smirks. “Does he smell like a latrine?”
“More like rotten eggs.”
“Yeah. I remember those days. It’ll go away once you and Cadoc bang.”
My gut flops. “Don’t say bang.”
“Okay. Make love.” She does her Elvis impersonation, and somehow, that makes it even worse.
“What are they saying?” Cadoc interrupts from speaker phone.
“I can’t hear,” Seth lies. We’re only ten feet behind him, and he has shifter ears.
“We talking about how your bitch Seth smells like shit.” Nia cups her hands around her mouth so her voice really carries.
Seth’s spine stiffens, and he picks up his pace.
Cadoc doesn’t respond, and he’s quiet until we’re a quarter mile from campus.
“Did she eat before you left?” The question is begrudging.
Seth shoots us a glance over his shoulder. It’s so weird—he’s a pretty male, dark-brown wavy hair, full lips, dark eyes—and he smells like a sour milk and dog turd cocktail.
“Did you eat?” he asks.
“Sure,” I lie.
Seth raises his eyebrows. I raise mine back. I’m not being cowed by the errand boy.
“Make her eat something before you take her to class,” Cadoc says. “Where are you now?”
“Five minutes away.”
There’s a rumble from the phone. Cadoc’s wolf. My wolf rouses. She’s been kind of flopped on her side, out of it. She answers him with a low, cranky growl.
Are our wolves having a phone conversation? I look at Nia. She shrugs.
“Take her to the Commons,” Cadoc says. “Tell them to make her a steak.”
Finally, he ends the call, and Seth jams the phone in his pocket, tugging his collar up around his ears.
“Oooo, steak,” Nia mouths, licking her lips and rubbing her stomach.
No one speaks for the rest of the walk. Seth takes us the long way, winding through the parking lot and then along the access road that runs behind the lower schools and the Science Hall. I feel like a walking dirty secret.
Before we turn toward the Commons, I catch a tuft of fur from the corner of my eye. It’s Pritchard, skulking several yards back. I should have known he was there somewhere.
Nia follows my gaze and rolls her eyes.
Seth notices and frowns, squinting at the tree that Pritchard is trying—and failing—to hide behind. His tail pokes out one side and his nose pokes out the other. Nia and I move as one, hurrying ahead so that Seth has to turn and catch up with us.
Seth’s established the lead again by the yard where I shifted—was it only yesterday? He bangs on the green metal door, and eventually, an older female in a hairnet opens it. She stops muttering when she sees Seth and inclines her neck as little as she can for it to count as submission.
“We need steaks,” he says.
Her wolf grumbles while she holds the door open for us. As soon as she registers that Nia and I are scavengers, her mouth pinches. “They’re not stepping a foot in my kitchen.”
“You can serve us in the dining room,” Seth answers, dismissing her without another word. He gestures us toward the empty booths on the far side of the room.
I’ve never been in the Commons when it’s empty. The televisions are on, but muted, and a low-ranking female mops under the scavenger tables which have been folded vertically.
She’s listening to music. She spares us one glance, sees what we are, turns up her nose, and goes back to mopping.
I’ve always thought it’d be worse to be a low-ranking nob than a scavenger. We’re more or less left to our own devices. They have to work the shit jobs, kiss ass all day, and try to “better” themselves. No one expects us to climb any ladder.
Besides a Hughes, there’s no nob more vicious than a low-ranking one—but maybe I’d be a dick too if I did everything I was told, and no one ever gave me the “better” they promised.
Seth leads us all the way to the alpha heir’s booth and gestures for Nia and I to sit. We lower ourselves warily. It feels like we’re infringing on another pack’s territory.
Nia takes Lowry’s usual seat. I’m across from her in Brynn’s, my back to the wall. Seth takes his own seat and starts scrolling on his phone, every inch of him screaming his disdain for this babysitting gig he’s been given.
He can deal with it. Alpha heir’s breeder is way worse.
I mean, what’s happening here? I’m being fattened up, right? Like the pig in that movie who made friends with a spider.
Drona’s words ricochet around my skull. Am I okay with my pup being taken from me?
No. I’m not okay with any of this, not sex, not pups, not any of it. But I know she’s right. I have to get real smart, real quick.
How the hell do I do that?
I’m stewing, and Nia’s tapping her claws, pricking threads loose on the white linen tablecloth to annoy Seth, when the older female in the hairnet brings a platter with three enormous steaks on fine porcelain plates and a crystal pitcher of water and matching crystal goblets.
She sets Seth’s in front of him, and plops Nia’s and mine down with a thud. The smell of rare meat, cooked to perfection, mingles with Seth’s stank, and my stomach heaves.
Nia’s eyes light up.
“Nice.” She grabs her ribeye by the bone like a lollipop and rips off a bite. Seth’s lip curls in disgust.
She’s doing it on purpose to mess with him. She uses utensils. She doesn’t like food stuck under her claws.
Seth lays a white cloth napkin on his lap and cuts his meat with exaggerated motions as if to show us how it’s done.
Nia gnaws off another chunk of steak and lets it dangle from the corner of her mouth a little before she slurps it up and chews.
I breathe through my mouth and try not to hurl.
Seth averts his eyes from Nia’s show and notices I’m not eating.
“Is it not prepared to your liking?” His voice drips sarcasm.