Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Your mate can smell you. Once he mounts you, he can track you by the bond. Pull you by the leash. You’ll never get away.
My trembling hand grabs the knob, and I can’t stop myself from pushing the door open. I’m not going to run away. I don’t do that anymore. The last time, Una had to trek all the way up to the blackberry bramble in the west woods before she found me, and her bad leg was so sore the next day, she couldn’t make it up to Abertha’s cottage. I’ve outgrown running away. Years ago. I can control myself.
I venture to the edge of the deck and lower myself to sit at the top of the steps that lead to the small yard. The earthy smell is stronger now. I breathe it in, and for some reason, it slows my thudding heart. My wolf drops to her haunches and peeks out at the physical world, eyes narrowing, ears perking.
Someone is out there.
I steel myself for another round of run and hide, but she’s quiet. She cocks her head.
I scan the yard, the beds of purple phlox and salvia—not long for the world now that the first frost is coming any day—the sunflowers and pink panicle hydrangeas, the yellow strawflowers on the slope leading up to the ridge above our cabin.
The sun is sinking in the west, but it’s not reached that angle yet where the rays are blinding. There aren’t stark shadows cast on the grass. It’s like someone’s turned down the dimmer on the world, so the outside seems mellow and lovely and close and safe.
I take another deep breath. It feels amazing. Like my lungs can suddenly hold more.
It’s a trick. There’s something out there. Lurking. You just can’t see it.
It’s stupid to feel safe. It’s a delusion. I know that. No female is ever really safe. The reminder should spur my wolf back to her pacing, but she stays still, listening. Her nose quivers.
I take another look around, slower this time. Blades of grass flutter in the faint breeze, and so do the flower petals.
And so does the fur on the strange wolf hiding in the strawflowers.
Watching.
With gold eyes.
Every muscle in my body freezes.
Inside my head, I scream, but my throat has choked off my air. My lungs have seized mid-inhalation.
Don’t make a sound. Don’t move an inch. Don’t breathe.
No, no, no—this is the moment to run. I need to run.
I can’t. I don’t have the strength to stand. My legs are weak from terror. A droplet of warm pee dribbles down the crease of my thigh.
The wolf in the strawflowers rises to his four feet, up and up and up. He’s huge. A full-grown male. I can’t see his teeth, but they’ll be razor sharp. His ears are up and canted forward, like he’s listening for something.
My lungs seize.
My heart pounds louder, too loud. It thunders in my ears, ready to burst into mangled, meaty chunks.
The wolf lifts himself even higher, his head swiveling on his neck, scanning the horizon. He’s scouting for danger. Are there others?
I track his gaze, but I don’t see anything except flowers and shrubs and the shed where we keep the mower.
He lifts his snout in the air, his nostrils flaring. His furry brow knits. He’s confused.
He strides forward. I shrink in my skin. I want to squeeze my eyes closed, drop to the ground, and curl into a ball, but I can’t move, and besides, I need to see it coming for me.
It’s worse if you don’t see it coming.
I brace myself, pulse pounding, as he bulldozes his way through the bed of phlox and salvia, his huge paws trampling tender stems into the dirt. I cower in place, frozen and quaking at the same time. At any second, he’ll be on me. His teeth. His claws.
He pads across the lawn. A yard away. Ten feet. Five. A soundless scream escapes my throat, nothing but air.
At the last moment, he veers right and dashes to the perimeter of the yard, following it until he disappears around the cabin. Before my lungs can finish a gasp, he reappears around the other side and skids to a halt in front of me.
He stares at me, his bushy brow furrowed, leans forward in my direction and sniffs. His lip curls, showing black gums and shiny white fangs. I whimper.
His head snaps left, then right, like he’s trying to catch someone sneaking up on him. Finally, he bounds away up the slope to the ridge and stands there, outlined by the setting sun, surveying the landscape in three hundred and sixty degrees.
What is he looking for? What’s out there?
I need to run while he’s distracted, while he can be a decoy for whatever bigger danger he’s looking for.
I dig deep inside myself for the strength to move, but all that’s down there is blind terror, so I stare at the strange wolf, helpless and small and frozen.
Again.
He’s huge. Well, not as big as Killian, but still—massive. And he’s mangy. His mottled fur sticks up randomly in tufts, and it’s matted along his left haunch. Is that a twig stuck in it?
He’s not a natural wolf—he doesn’t have that way about him—but he’s not a pack shifter, either. Is he feral?
The sunset bathes him in light, and I can make out smaller details. The edges of his ears are ragged, and he has a bald patch on his side that runs on either side of a puckered scar. He’s young, not much older than me, but his body is battle worn, like the older generation in Quarry Pack who came up under the old alpha. They had to fight for food. Not in a ring, but for real.
How did this wolf get onto pack land without the patrols catching him?
The bottom drops out of my stomach. If he’s here, so far into our territory, I’ve been right all along. Safety is an illusion.
Patrols can be dodged, locks won’t hold, doors won’t stand in anyone’s way, the alpha’s assurances are lies.
The voice is right. It knows.
I need to call for help, but the fear strangles my throat too tightly.
High on the ridge, the strange wolf takes a long final look around and trots back down the hill. When he comes to the yard, he keeps coming, but he slows down. Like he’s trying to be stealthy.
Like he’s stalking prey.
No. That’s not exactly right. He lifts his paw so carefully that the move is almost comical, and then places it daintily down before he lifts another. A wild thought pops into my mind. He looks like a pup playing red light, green light.
What is he doing?
He reaches the circle of dead grass where the bird bath used to be before Kennedy’s wolf accidentally bowled it over during one of her angry shifts. He’s close enough now that he could be on me in a single bound. My shoulders rise to my ears while my hands curl into fists.
He stops, his eyes trained on my face. The gold is so smooth and bright that they hardly seem real. They certainly don’t match the raggedy rest of him.
Slowly—very, very slowly—he lowers his hulking body to his belly.
I let out a shallow breath that I can’t hold anymore.
With exaggerated slowness, he rolls onto his back and cocks his rear leg.
I can see his butthole. And all the rest of his business, too. My face catches fire.
He cranes his neck and studies me, his ears perked.
His belly fur is filthy. The small patches on his back and haunches that aren’t matted and caked are a nice pale tan, but there aren’t many of them. It looks like he deliberately rolled around in a mud puddle.
Is he a lone wolf, on his way to going feral? Or is he Last Pack?
I desperately try to remember everything I’ve heard about them. They sleep in dens and feed on rodents and grubs and the occasional deer or hog. They live like animals, spend most of their time as wolves, and they kidnap females, who are never seen again.
What happened to their own females?
You know what happened. They killed them. You know what males do.
Another wave of panic crashes through me, spiking my blood with a fresh hit of adrenaline.
The wolf sniffs, his face screwing up like he’s caught a whiff of something foul. A tendril of embarrassment worms its way through my panic. My fear is really pungent.
He stares at me. I stare at the ground, neck tilted and bared, but I track him from the corner of my eye. He sprawls on his back and wriggles in the grass, his enormous balls drooping, not an ounce of shame or modesty. He’s not afraid.