Filed to story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
The voice keeps up her ranting, but somehow, it feels almost…obligatory. Like even she wants to know what happens next.
If I were in my skin, there’s no way I’d be going along with this without a fight. I’d be curled in a ball or tearing through the undergrowth.
But I’m not me. I’m my wolf, and whatever they say, the man and the beast definitely aren’t one and the same. My wolf is a hundred times braver than me.
“Ready, sweetling?” Justus asks, cracking his neck to finish his morning warm-up. “I’ll catch you something to eat along the way. How about a fresh fish?”
My wolf wrinkles her nose. She’s not a fan of fish.
“I tell you what—in a few hours, we’ll pass a supply cache. There should be flint. If you can hold out that long, I’ll roast you a bird.”
My wolf rumbles happily.
“Or a snake. Whatever comes to hand.” He smiles.
My wolf’s rumble turns displeased. His smile widens. “All right, then. I’ll catch you a plump, juicy bird.”
She rewards him with a yip, and excited by the prospect, she confidently takes off southward.
He whistles before he scoops her up, so she isn’t startled. “Not that way, pip. We’re headed north.”
She yaps at him for awhile so that he knows she knew that, but he should have told her before she set off half-cocked anyway, and she’s hungry, and she doesn’t need him to carry her, but she’ll let him for now.
Every so often, he murmurs soothingly. “All right then, pip. Just as you say. Not long now. We’re making good time.”
He’s so different than he was when we mated, but what did I know about him, really? All I had to judge by are those horrible moments beside the river that I’ve tried so hard to scrub from my memory.
At Moon Lake Academy, we learned in science that a memory forms when your thoughts travel a particular neural pathway over and over again. I figured if I didn’t let my brain do that, I could cut the thread, and all the bad things that happened in the past would float off into oblivion, but it didn’t work. I’m so careful not to remember, but the bad memories loiter right at the edge of my awareness as if they’re locked in orbit by the gravity of what happened.
I don’t want to relive my mating. I refuse. But was he like this at all back then?
He was almost feral, wasn’t he? Rough and cruel and single-minded. He hurt me. Took what he wanted.
My head aches, and my wolf squirms.
“Restless, eh?” he says and sets her gently on her feet.
She dashes ahead. The landscape is changing. We’re following a deer path through meadows dotted with clusters of scraggly pines that rise from sprawling thickets.
She darts around a bush and hides, peeking behind to watch Justus. He hikes past, unconcerned, ignoring her and continuing northward. She lets him get a few yards and then races after him.
He strolls on, glancing down at her, bemused. “You’ve got a lot of energy for a wolf who slept rough,” he says approvingly.
Does that mean he isn’t accustomed to sleeping in a dirt dugout? Doesn’t the Last Pack live in dens?
The question spurs a dozen others. The textbooks made it sound like Last Pack spends most of their time as wolves, but Justus hasn’t shifted yet, except for his ears and fangs. Why is that?
And how does he keep his ears pointy? The low-ranking kids at Moon Lake would do that, too, wearing a tail or claws or chest fur while in human form. It was frowned upon, but I think the powers-that-be kind of liked it, too, since it gave them another reason to sneer at the ones they called “scavengers.”
And why is it that Moon Lake pretty much forces its low-ranking pups to go to the Academy, as well as pups from Moon Lake, Salt Mountain, and North Border, but they leave the Last Pack alone?
Are they really as uneducated as everyone says? When we played “Last Pack” as pups, we’d always grunt and speak in monosyllables. Where did we get that idea? Justus is just as articulate as any Quarry Pack male. Maybe more so, honestly. We were probably imitating our own males with the grunts.
I’m still terrified—about ferals and his pack and what if something happens to him and I’m left alone—but for the first time in maybe forever, I’m also curious.
It’s a good feeling. Different. But good.
At noon, like he promised, we reach a Last Pack supply cache. I was expecting at least a shed, but it’s not much more than a lean-to made of stripped branches and woven vines, built against the side of a deep gulch.
Inside, there’s a barrel packed tight with tools, clothes, and other supplies, including matches wrapped in oil cloth. Justus builds a fire, and my wolf naps beside it as he hunts down the plump, juicy bird he also promised. He plucks its feathers—and plucks off its head—before he returns, so my wolf is happy to snarf it down after a cursory browning over the flames.
Apparently, she’s not too fussy about whether her meat is cooked through.
She shows no concern that she’s leaving none for Justus, but it makes me deeply uneasy. At the lodge, we serve the males first. They cause less trouble when their mouths and hands are full.
Justus doesn’t seem to mind that my wolf is saving none for him. He watches her eat, arms folded, mouth lazily curved as he sits, resting against a tree trunk.
My wolf is pleased to let him watch her eat. I don’t understand that at all. I can’t eat if someone is watching me.
After the meal, my wolf lets Justus carry her again, and she snoozes in the mid-day sunshine. By the time she wakes up, yipping to be let down, the landscape has changed again. The meadows have disappeared, and the fields have turned into rolling hillocks, mossy and deep green. By late afternoon, we’re hiking strictly upward, winding between rocky outcroppings and evergreens at least three stories tall.
The trees cast shadows, and my wolf’s steps slow. She can smell his pack now. We’re on his territory.
No one will find your body. Not out here.
The pecking voice, ever helpful, has found her second wind.
He’ll throw you from one of those outcroppings. Break all your bones. The moss will cover you. No one will ever know what became of you.
Justus must sense my growing wariness. His wolf rumbles at mine to stop, and he squats so we’re closer to eye level.
“All right, pip?” he asks, wiping his brow. It’s not hot, but we have been walking all day, and he did carry my wolf for quite a bit of it.
My wolf yips dramatically and plops on her rump, panting like she’s also carried a grown female wolf for hours and hunted a partridge and went without lunch.
She’s actually more or less fine, but I’m not all right. The stronger the scent of other wolves gets, the tighter my nerves stretch. I want to go home. This has been enough adventure. I want a cup of tea. My room with its locking door. The tire iron that I snuck from Liam’s garage that I keep under my bed.
“I think—” He pauses like he’s searching for words. His expression seems deliberately mild. “I think you should shift to two legs to meet the pack.”
No.
There is no way.
Not ever.
No way.
No how.
I jam myself in a far corner of my psyche. My wolf physically backs away from him.
He blows out a long breath, raising his palms. “They’ll want to talk to you, get to know you, find out how you came to be here. You’ll want to talk to them, right?”
No.
I won’t.
I only ever want to talk to Una, Mari, Kennedy, Old Noreen, and Abertha when she’s in a good mood. There are literally no other people on earth Iwant to talk to.
And they’ll want to know how I came to be here? I was kidnapped.
Well,
Iwas. I’m not sure about my wolf anymore. I feel like she went rogue somewhere along the line and decided she wanted to see the world, but I’m a hostage.
I could’ve fought her harder, though. I could have run, even if I didn’t have much of a chance.
Why didn’t I?
And what does “find out how you came to be here” mean? Do I need to say the right thing or else? Or what
?
Is my wolf really going to strut into the midst of another pack? The