Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I’ve heard this a million times. From her, from Father, from history class.
“If you had ambition and brains, you could rise as high as you wanted.” A bitter chuckle escapes her lips. “But not all the way. Not if you’re female.”
She swirls her drink. The scent is familiar. The whiskey is my father’s favorite year, the bottle he saves for special occasions.
“At the end of the day, we aren’t any better than Quarry Pack with their backwards ways, are we? Why can’t a female be alpha, eh?”
“You think Aunt Dilys should be Alpha?” I can’t believe that. Mother can’t stand her older sister.
“Of course not. Dilys never had the temperament or the interest. It’d have taken time away from decorating her nest and squeezing out a litter of pups.” Mother sneers. “I was my father’s daughter. I would have dragged the Bog trash into this century kicking and screaming. I wouldn’t dither about pack autonomy. Quarry Pack and Salt Mountain would be assimilated as they should have been from day one.”
She’s rehashing another dinnertime argument I’ve heard a hundred times. I’m so damn tired. All I want is to do is sleep.
And it’s going to take me a half hour to get back to the fucking ledge behind Rosie’s trailer.
“Quarry Pack would fight until there were no males left standing.”
She lifts a shoulder, unimpressed. “Lop off the head, and the snake doesn’t fight for long.”
I don’t answer. Anything I say will prolong the conversation. I need to go. It was wrong to come back here.
Mother tilts her chair back, resting her full weight on the tip of one thin heel. “Sometimes I wonder if I chose the right male. Your father was physically the strongest. Mentally, too. But Alban Hughes would’ve done what needed doing without hesitation.”
Holy shit. She’s a lot more wasted than I thought. I grew up in this penthouse with the two of them. I’ve always known their mating was strained. It happens, even when on the surface it’s an equal pairing, but they’ve always made it work. Leadership is sacrifice, right?
“You look surprised?” Mother has turned to me, as if she’s finally remembered she has an audience. “Of course, you are.” She reaches over and pats my knee. “Don’t think too much about it, darling. No one’s asking you to do that.”
She stares back out the window, her eyes catching the sun’s rising rays and glittering.
“I can’t be disappointed in you, can I? We made you exactly what you need to be, the perfect reincarnation of the Great Alpha. Born to lead. Selfless and assured. Unfailingly dedicated to the pack.” Her smile is a sneer.
She’s said all this before. As has Father. It’s been a mantra since before I can remember.
It’s the kind of truth you never question. The color of the sky. The sound of your name.
I am the future alpha of Moon Lake Pack. It is the only thing I am.
It was.
But I am something else now, too, aren’t I?
Something no one ever intended.
I’m Rosie Kemble’s mate.
There’s supposed to be shame in that. At the very least awkwardness. Fate made a mistake, right?
But I search, and there’s no shame that she’s mine, only the knowledge that she’s close, but I’m not with her. Only the memory of her breath quickening. The feel of her in my arms.
This conversation is wrong. What Mother’s saying is right, but the words are like puzzle pieces that should fit, but bend when you try to force them together.
She thinks I don’t notice, or she’s too drunk to care if I do.
I don’t think I’m exactly what they made me to be.
I’m not what I thought I was.
And I have places I need to go. Things I need to do. Elsewhere.
I stand, and Mother startles, her drink sloshing but not overflowing the rim.
“It’s getting late,” I mumble.
Mother narrows her unfocused eyes, and I can tell that although she’s wasted, she’s not so far gone that she can’t tell there’s something wrong. “You didn’t bite the Bog trash, did you?”
Rage rises inside me. I seize it. Stow it away. I’m going to use that later.
I don’t deign to answer her.
“Tread very carefully, son of mine,” she says. “If you claim the scavenger, you know Alban will rally his people behind it. He’ll challenge your father on Brody’s behalf, and your father will lose. His blood will be on your hands. Or do you think you can beat Alban yourself now that you’re all grown? Eh?”
There’s the shame, clawing down my throat.
“Just because you fucked the scavenger, the facts don’t change. Go shower. Pull yourself together. Sleep in your own damn bed.” She sets her glass down with exaggerated care, and then drums her red nails on the leather arms of the chair. “What happens to the bog rat if you’re gone, and Alban installs Brody as the alpha heir, eh? I bet every mid-rank lecher looking for a cheap thrill would just love to bend the dead heir’s female over for the cost of a few canned goods in her donation box.”
I leave before I puke. I collect myself, and I go to my own room. I lay down in my own bed.
But I don’t sleep.
I stare at the white ceiling, and I think for myself.
I think like an alpha.
For the first time in my life.
* * *
I’m invisible to Rosie now. Three weeks later, and when I pass her on the lawn or in the hallway, she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t look down. Nothing.
But she blushes. Angrily.
She hates me.
Not anywhere near as much as I hate myself. She can’t. It wouldn’t be possible.
I have to act.
Twenty years ago, my father fought Alban Hughes at the summer solstice, an epic battle that lasted hours, ending with my father collapsed atop Alban’s unconscious body, blood dripping from his maw, muzzle raised to howl his victory to the moon.
Eighty years ago, Broderick Moore led the pack out of the dens, established a city on the lake.
There are paintings in the boardroom of the High Rise. Songs. Chapters in the history books.
They did something.
And I’m called to—what? Eat shit? Sit on my hands? Watch my mate go quiet and make herself small whenever I’m near?
Fucking heroic.
But what do I do? I rack my brains. I plot and scheme and watch Rosie while she pretends that I don’t exist.
She doesn’t look well. Between blushes, her color’s off. She’s not eating. She hands most of her lunch over to her cousin Bevan.
I have to sit across the Commons and do nothing, so I can’t eat either.
Today, we have art, human sports, and independent study together. She’s excused herself to the restroom in each class. She doesn’t usually do that—at least not since I’ve been tuned into her. When she asks Mrs. Dee to leave during last period and Derwyn automatically looks for my signal to follow, I shake my head.
I give it a few minutes before I excuse myself. Between the bond and her scent, I have no problem tracking her.
I open the bathroom door slowly so I don’t startle her, but she still jerks straight when she sees me, her eyes going wide.
She’s standing at a sink. Her hand drops guiltily. She was wiping her face with a white cloth. It’s the napkin from the Commons. The one she took. No, that I gave her. My stomach clenches.
The strands of hair that frame her face are damp. There’s a sheen on her forehead.