Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“Explain it to me.” There’s command in his voice—I’m not sure if he can speak without it—but he’s not demanding. He seems to want to understand.
This is out of character for a nob. Nobs think they know everything.
I’m here, though, and even if being with Cadoc is uncomfortable, the longer we’re here, the less time I’ll have to sweat and shiver in class with everyone staring.
I sigh. You have to make it really simple for nobs, and they still don’t get it most of the time. “We’re pack. The napkin is ours. You handed it to me, so I’ll keep it until someone needs a trade or you need it back or a pup or an elder wants it or whatever. I’m holding it.”
“So, as you see it, the napkin belongs to you?”
“Us.” They are so dense. It’s like they weren’t raised in a pack, but I guess, in a way, they weren’t. The nobs live in human compartments in human buildings and spend their days doing human things.
“So everything in your backpack there, you don’t consider it as belonging to you?”
“I’m holding it.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It belongs to the pack, so yes, it’s mine.”
He blows out his cheeks, but he’s not as tense as he was. “So let me ask you this—did you steal my watch? Give me a simple yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“But as you see it, everything is communal property. Wouldn’t you just be holding the watch, then?” The arrogance he lost when he stumbled over the words “boundaries” and “expectations” is back in full force. Nobs do know it all.
I almost laugh. He has no idea what he’s talking about. “You know my cousin Bevan?”
“The tight-rope walker? Yeah.”
“He lost his front teeth as a pup to bottle rot, so we always called him Pumpkin because he looked like a Jack-o-lantern. That was his name. Pumpkin.”
“What’s bottle rot?”
“When you leave a baby with his bottle all the time, and his front teeth rot, but that’s not the point.”
I ignore Cadoc’s horrified look. You can’t blame Aunt Dru for it. She had five other pups she was looking out for, and Auntie Madwen besides. Everyone got fed. That’s all you can ask.
“Anyway, when Bevan shifted the first time, he decided he didn’t want to be called Pumpkin anymore, so every time someone called him that—” I whap the table with the flat of my hand, and Cadoc startles. Just a little. I don’t let my smile show. “If you called Bevan “Pumpkin,” you got a beat down. Every time. Didn’t take but a week or two before no one called him Pumpkin to his face. Ever.”
“I’m not following how this connects to holding versus stealing.”
I knew I’d have to spell it out for him. “If every time we hold something, a nob calls it stealing, then that’s what it’s called.
To your faces.” I’m not sure why, but I lean closer, and I’m a little more honest with him than I’ve ever been with a nob before. “But Bevan’s still Pumpkin to us, and he always will be, and no scavenger has ever stolen anything from their own pack in their lives.”
Cadoc crosses his arms and his jaw tightens. Nobs don’t like the truth.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” he finally says.
What does that mean?
He keeps on staring at me like I’m part puzzle and part disappointment. I sip some water.
Across the room, Seth reappears and coughs. Cadoc glances over his shoulder, and Seth taps the watch on his wrist.
Cadoc stands, giving his jacket a swift tug to smooth it. It’s a little tight in the shoulders and arms, but it doesn’t have a single rumple or crease. It could’ve come straight off a mannequin in one of those boutiques at the marina.
He’s readying himself to go, and I sure don’t want to keep him, but there’s a tightness in my chest where the bond throbs, and my wolf is rousing herself from her meat stupor.
He exhales.
I rearrange my fork and knife on my plate.
“You’re not gonna hold the silverware, are you?” he says. I think he’s trying for a joke.
“No. They’re dirty.”
He snorts as if that doesn’t make perfect sense.
Then he’s quiet for a few more seconds before he straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin. “Listen, we’re going to have to talk about heat sooner or later. Neither of us wanted this, but we have to deal with it head on. We’re going to—there’s going to be a point when—“
His “grab the bull by the horns, tell it like it is” attitude kind of fizzles mid-sentence. The striated muscles of his neck tense, and his gray eyes deepen somehow.
He lowers his voice. “Listen, Rosie. When it comes to it, I don’t want to hurt you.”
I stare down at my lap. “Didn’t seem to bother you much yesterday when you were sitting here, and I was standing over where you are now.”
I can hear his mouth open, but he doesn’t try to excuse himself. He doesn’t say anything. Maybe that’s why I keep going.
“I don’t want any of this, you know. I don’t want to have sex with you, and I sure don’t want pups or a mate or any of it. If I had an out, I’d take it, same as you.”
I can’t see his reaction. I’m staring at the wrinkled yellow and green and pink and orange paisley swirls of my sundress while I knead it in my damp palms.
The seconds tick by. He’s silent, but he’s also so present
—his pine and wood scent, his steady breathing, the bond humming, undisturbed by all the tension in the air.
“I won’t let it be bad,” he finally says, so certain it’s a vow. That’s another thing about nobs. They don’t know when they’re lying to themselves.
It is a sign of goodwill, though, and I can hear Drona’s coldly pragmatic voice in my head.
You gotta play this smart.
“I don’t want a pup,” I say to my lap.
“What?”
“We have to make sure there aren’t any babies.”
“Will you look at me if we’re gonna talk about this?” There’s a new sharpness in his tone. I must have pushed him too far.
I bend my neck, dipping my chin lower. It’s instinct to appease the angry dominant male, but also, I don’t want to look at him and talk about this.
“Please,” he adds through gritted teeth.
My skin is on fire, my face is blazing, and if I thought getting shut down by the alpha heir in a full dining room was the most humiliating thing that could happen—I was wrong. That’s nothing compared to talking about birth control while we’re alone, and I have wet panties and super-obvious hard nipples.
I force my gaze up. He actually doesn’t look angry. He looks almost as awkward as I feel.
“Condoms,” I blurt.
His forehead wrinkles, and then he seems to follow. “They don’t work all the time. What with the, uh, knot, uh—“
“But it’s better than nothing.”
He nods. “Right. Condoms. Anything else?”
Is this when I get it in writing? I should have asked Drona more questions. I can’t go along to get along anymore. This is high stakes.
“If there’s a baby, you can’t have it.”
His eyes go very, very gray. Has he not considered this? Mates equals pups. That’s the whole point.
His jaw opens, and then shuts. “That is a discussion for another day,” he finally manages. “I need to—” He glances over to where Seth had been skulking. “I have business.”