Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Cadoc’s lip lifts in the slightest of smirks. His mate steps forward, her arms wound around her massive belly like a winch.
“Hey, Flora,” she says.
“Oh.” Flora blinks, confused, as her roll is slowed. “Hi, Rosie. Whoa. Baby.”
Rosie rubs her belly like a crystal ball. “I know, right?”
“Congratulations. That’s so cool.” Her smile flickers, and her gaze darts to me, and I can read her mind. What if it isn’t cool? What if Rosie was trapped by heat like she was?
My hands curl, and Cadoc’s wolf snarls. I force them to relax.
“So cool,” Rosie agrees. “You got a bun in there, too?”
Flora glances down, and her cheeks go pink. Now she’s wondering if her round belly makes her look pregnant. I hate that I know she’s thinking this, and I really fucking hate that she has the thought, that it hurts her. I had no idea until the bond how many land mines there are in her days.
Her pants stick on her thighs when she’s pulling them on because her skin’s still damp from the pool, and she’s ashamed. The towel doesn’t quite wrap around her hips, and she’s ashamed. She steps into the pool, and the water sloshes over the ledge, and she’s ashamed. It’s like torture, the constant drip, drip, drip.
When I noticed, my first thought was that I’d fix her. She’s down on herself. I have no idea how to fix that in a female, but I’d figure it out.
But then I thought again. Flora’s tough. She doesn’t piss and moan and drag her feet so that someone else does her work or kiss ass for rank. She’s smart. Proud. What makes more sense? She’s ashamed of herself for no reason, or she was taught to be?
“We don’t know yet,” I answer for her.
Flora and Rosie both throw me a look like they’re surprised I spoke. I shrug.
“So Abertha sent you here,” Rosie says to Flora.
“Yeah.”
“But not him.” Rosie nods at me.
Flora gives her head a small shake.
“Nia says you don’t claim him.”
Flora’s face pales. My wolf leans forward. I force myself to be still.
“It’s, uh, it’s complicated,” she says, staring at her feet.
No, it fucking isn’t. I don’t say that, though. I straighten my shoulders and keep my mouth shut.
Cadoc takes a step toward me, holding my gaze as he says, “What are you going to do if we let her stay and tell you to go?”
Flora’s breath catches. It’s so soft, so quick, that if I hadn’t become hyper-aware of every move and sound she makes, I’d have missed it.
I grip my wolf with all my strength, and I play back that little hiccup in my brain as I make myself say, “I’ll go.” My wolf howls, but I’ve got his jaws clamped shut.
Cadoc’s eyes narrow. “Back to Salt Mountain?”
I won’t lie. “No. Probably to the border of your territory.”
“So you’ll stick around. Because she’s your mate. She belongs to you.”
I don’t know why he feels the need to belabor the point. “Because she might need something. She’s gotta eat.”
I feel the twinge in her chest, and I curse myself. Land mine.
“You obviously haven’t cleared all the ferals from these hills,” I begin to bargain. If he makes me go, I’m not leaving, not without Flora, but it’ll be easier if he lets me hang around until I figure her out.
For the first time, there’s a spark of interest in Cadoc’s expression. “That one must’ve resettled after Darragh Ryan cleared that area up by Tall Pines Lake. Isn’t that Salt Mountain territory?”
“It’s close. A few miles past our border.”
“Does Salt Mountain make a habit of ignoring problems on their doorstep if it’s not technically on their territory?”
“Can’t say they don’t.”
Not my problem might as well be the pack motto. For the longest time, there was a bog worm living practically on our border, and sometimes folks would say somebody should really do something about it, but somebody never did.
For a moment, he takes my measure, and I have no idea where I stand. This male has the best poker face I’ve ever seen.
“You’d give up your chance at pack alpha to be Old Den’s plumber?” he finally asks. Shit. That’s the offer. I picture the absolute clusterfuck that these soft and frequently stoned Moon Lake males have made of their elders’ elegant aqueducts.
“I’m gonna need my tools,” I say. “Everything you’ve got is janky.”
There’s another faint gasp beside me as Flora lets out the breath she was holding, and my chest swells. It’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
She doesn’t know that I’d give up anything for her.
No matter what I told myself—no matter how many times I forced myself to picture what it’d be like when she was mated to another male—I was never able to give her up, and I never will.
I can’t.
She’s the sweet in the bitter.
She’s the heart I never had.
Chapter 13
13
Chapter 13
FLORA
Like I have every morning since we came to Old Den, I wake up in the female dorm thinking I’m still back in my twin bed at Miss Nola’s. It just takes seeing the metal bars of the bunk overhead to remember where I am. I scrub my eyes, tug on my jeans, and jam and wriggle my feet until they slide down into my laced boots. Then I shuffle out to the hall, searching for Alec.
It’s become a habit. Since the first morning, my wolf—who’s always more alert than I am in the morning—has insisted we find him before we do anything else.
Alec’s in the hall like usual, tinkering in the area he’s reorganizing into a “proper workshop,” as he calls it. He’s dumped the contents of a huge coffee can onto a table, and he’s sorting the bits and bobs into piles of screws, nails, and other random items. I see push pins, staples, bread clips, pen caps, coins, and about a hundred pull tabs from soda cans.
“Are you sure that’s not someone’s marker collection?” I ask Alec as I squint over his shoulder. The Old Den wolves have an odd attachment to everyday objects, trading and collecting and gifting things like rocks and buttons. It’s a lot like how folks back at Salt Mountain bum tobacco and scrip.
“They can keep the loose shit. I’ll trade ’em working plumbing for the fasteners.” He sweeps the nails and screws into waiting jars and dusts his hands off on his pants. “Ready?”
I nod, but he’s already leading the way to the toilets. I don’t like to go alone. They’re located in a dim, dusty cavern that screams spider habitat. I don’t know what help Alec would be if a spider dropped down while I’m taking a wee but having him looking out by the sinks helps me relax enough to go.
After I wash my face and hands, we make our way to the dining area, and Alec jerks his chin toward the seats we’ve claimed. Mated Old Den females get their own food, but Alec insists on doing it the way we do back home.
I watch him fill my plate from the corner of my eye. He dumps heaps of everything on his own, but he’s careful with mine, snagging me the crispiest pieces of bacon and picking the cantaloupe out of my fruit salad. He’s much more finicky with my food than he was with Isla Sinclair’s.
When he slides my plate in front of me, my chest warms, even though he’s been fetching my meals for a few weeks now.
“Thanks,” I murmur and smile. He grunts, settles beside me on the bench, and dedicates himself to his coffee.
He never has much to say until he’s had his second cup, and then he always quizzes me on the same things.
“What are you doing today?”
“Helping Rae.” It’ll be a good day. I like helping with the elders.
When I first came, I offered to work in the laundry. Rosie said I could if I want, but she’d finally got the males to accept being on the domestic chore rotation, and she’d rather not “set the movement back.” I didn’t know what else I could do, so she and her friends took turns showing me other jobs.
I went foraging with Rosie and learned how to identify ashbalm, dragon’s tongue, and wolf’s bane. I also found out what a “good” rock looks like. Alec didn’t like me wandering so far afield, though. He kept shifting to come check up on me which apparently caused delays to the urgent repairs that Cadoc had set him to doing.