Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“Nothing now.” She rises to kneel and wraps her arms around my neck. Her big, hard belly butts my stomach. She closes her eyes and moans. Dull pain flows through the bond.
“What should I do?” It doesn’t seem enough to rub her lower back in the circles she loves.
“Just what you’re doing,” she manages through gritted teeth. Her hair is damp, but her braid’s holding. Drona must’ve done it.
“Do you want your sister?”
“No, Abertha’s enough.”
Until Rosie says Abertha’s name, I didn’t notice her in the corner, scrolling through her phone, rocking with a boot heel in the chair she gave us when we celebrated our mating.
“Witch,” I greet her.
“Alpha,” she replies, glancing up and cocking her head ever so slightly to the side. It’s more neck than she ever deigned to bare for my father.
“Is all well?”
“Coming along.”
The contraction must have passed. Rosie’s hanging limp from my neck now, resting her head on my pecs, eyes closed.
I stroke her spine. “How much longer?”
Abertha snorts. “It’ll take as long as it takes. It’s a pup, not a pie.”
Rosie groans, and Abertha seems to take pity. “An hour in my estimation. No more than two.”
“An hour?” Rosie whimpers.
“That’s quick for a first pup,” Abertha says, but Rosie’s moaning low in her throat and squatting back on her heels, bracing herself against my chest. I can’t see anything past her round belly.
I focus on choking off the bond so she can’t feel my stress. Rosie has always insisted on giving birth in our den, assisted by Abertha. I told her Abertha could attend her at the infirmary in Moon Lake.
Since my father’s return, miraculously stronger than he was even in his youth, the ranks have realigned, and those once loyal to the Hughes faction jockey for any semblance of status. My father would guarantee her safety, and she’d have access to anesthesia and human medical intervention. She wouldn’t have to worry about my mother. Mother’s on an extended vacation to North Border territory, or so the official story goes.
Anyway, my plan was to talk Rosie into the infirmary by this point, but she’s stubborn as a stuck jar, and besides, an hour isn’t enough time to move her.
“I wouldn’t leave anyway,” she pants.
“Quit reading my mind through the bond.”
“I’m not. What you’re thinking is written all over your face.” It’s not. That’s one of her favorite jokes. “The first Old Den pack pup is being born in the old den, and that’s that.”
“I still think you could’ve come up with something snappier,” Abertha volunteers from her corner.
“Cadoc came up with it, and I love it,” Rosie says, reaching up to trace the mark she made on my neck the night of our mating ceremony. “And I love you, Cadoc Collins.”
She contorts in another whole-body contraction, so she doesn’t hear me say, “I love you, too, Rosie.”
I know she can feel it singing through her, though, as she hikes her hips, and Abertha snaps on latex gloves and comes to squat behind her.
“Might have overestimated,” Abertha says. “It’s showtime.”
I’m useless and powerless for the first time in my life. All I can do is kneel as Rosie clutches my thighs, and props her forehead on my chest, and digs her nails into my jeans as she pushes our son out into the world.
When it’s done, she collapses, resting her head on my knee, and Abertha lays our squalling, purple pup on her belly.
“Ours,” Rosie says, cradling him close and gazing up at me, stars in her bleary eyes.
“Ours,” I agree.
Our fate. Our choice.
Our new beginning.
Chapter 1
Volume 3
1
MARI, FOUR YEARS AGO
“Holy shit.” Kennedy drops her hoe. “The witch is a cougar.”
“No, she’s not. I’ve seen her wolf,” Annie says, squinting up from where she’s squatting in a furrow, patting soil around a rhubarb plant. She follows the direction of Kennedy’s gaze, and her eyes widen. “Whoa. Is that Darragh Ryan?”
I freeze where I’m standing in between the handles of the red wheelbarrow. My mouth goes dry, and my heart begins to thump like a woodpecker.
It is
Darragh Ryan, and he’s not wearing a shirt. His worn, faded jeans are so low on his hips, you can not only see the muscles cutting an arrow from his hips into his waistband, but I swear, you can make out a dark thatch of hair on the taut, tanned skin above his zipper.
I lick my suddenly parched lips.
Is that the last stop on his happy trail or his wolf’s fur? It’s hard to tell from over here, especially since he’s got a hairy chest. He definitely doesn’t wax for definition like the younger males in the pack.
He’s standing on the top step to the crone’s cottage, surveying the horizon in the distance, shoulders stiff, sipping from a tiny china cup that looks ridiculous in his huge, rough hands.
“Damn, Abertha’s still got game,” Kennedy says under her breath as she scoops up her hoe and attacks the dirt again with a satisfied thwack.
For some reason, my stomach curdles. “He’s probably just visiting.”
“At six in the morning?” Kennedy snorts. “He’s pre-gaming for his walk of shame.”
“Yeah, he was visiting all right.” Annie’s brown eyes twinkle, banishing her usual shyness. “Visiting her vagina.”
Kennedy smirks. “Saying hey howdy to the hoo-ha.”
“Calling on her coochie.” Annie softly fakes an English accent and lets the corners of her mouth sneak into a small smile.
“Shut up,” I hiss. “He can hear us.”
I don’t know why my face is on fire. Usually, I’d be quick with a “high-fiving her downtown” or “saying good day to her goodies”—it’s just too easy—but I can feel him standing there on the creaky porch, barefooted, his wild, snarled hair falling out of the world’s messiest man bun.
He’s way too old for a man bun, mid-thirties at least, but he’s hot enough to carry it off. Well, as hot as a grungy, hungover, sketchy lone wolf can be. As far back as I can remember, he’s never lived with the rest of the pack, but he does come around sometimes to talk to our alpha, Killian, or drop off a kill at the lodge.
He noticed me once about a year ago. I was up in my favorite tree, reclining against the trunk with my legs stretched along a branch, pretending to read but really scrolling on my phone, when he came along the trail on the ridge above our cabin. From his vantage point, he could totally look down and see the phone hidden in the book.
He stared for a few long seconds, and I thought for sure he was going to bust me. You know, females can’t be trusted with phones—we might forget to start dinner or join the revolution or something. But he didn’t, he just got really stiff and glowery and hotfooted it away. I was sweating bullets for the next day or so, though.
He has to see the three of us now. The garden is only a few yards away. He’s ignoring us, but he’s tense. All he’s doing is holding a wee teacup by its dainty handle, but his muscles are bunching like he’s priming for a fight, his shoulders flexing, biceps bulging, abs tensing into sharp ridges.
I swallow, barely. My throat is so tight.
Is he embarrassed he got busted banging the crone? The idea makes me queasy, but not because Abertha’s older. She’s super-hot for fifty or sixty or however old she is, and regardless, I’m not a hater. It’s because—
I don’t know why. He’s just acting weird. Unmated males usually act like King Shit of Turd Mountain when a female’s dumb or desperate enough to let him mount her for fun. They strut and preen around camp; some won’t even shower for a few days just to make sure everyone knows.
I subtly sniff the air. It’s early spring, so there are tons of my favorite scents—tilled earth, fresh air, yesterday’s rain. It doesn’t smell like sex, but there is a strange muskiness coming from his direction. If I had to say, I’d call it a combination of bark, leaves, sunshine, and warm horse’s mane. It’s an outdoorsy smell, and it makes my belly flip and my spine tingle at the base in a weird, unfamiliar way. Kind of like I have to pee, but I don’t.
I step closer to the wheelbarrow as if I can hide myself behind it. Unlike Kennedy and Annie, who are wearing long jean skirts and button-down shirts like normal lone females, I’m gardening in a gauzy, pale pink sundress, floppy straw hat, and army green rubber boots. With my big ol’ blonde ringlets, I don’t really blend into the background. I’m a whole mood.
Darragh’s not looking at me, though. His eyes are glued to the foothills in the west. He’s got a very rugged profile. His jawline is as sharp as an axe blade despite the beard threaded with gray. It’s like all his features were carved from rock—his high cheekbones, his straight nose, his proud forehead, everything except his lips.