Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
There’s a rickety stool outside the den with a book sitting on it, a paperback that’s gotten soaked and dried at least once, opened like a fan. A bookmark made of braided grass is tucked between the pages.
He reads?
What is he reading? My wolf can’t read. All she can do to satisfy my curiosity is sniff the pages. They smell like they’ve been dew-dampened and baked in the sunshine many, many times. She bumps it off the chair with her enthusiasm, and Justus rescues it from the ground.
“Go on in,” he urges her, nodding toward the low entrance. His voice has dropped an octave, but it’s also shaky, in a rough, raspy way.
Is he nervous? He can’t be, right? He’s the male, and this is his territory. I’m female, smaller and weaker and surrounded by his people. And if I walk into his den ahead of him, I’ll be trapped.
Still, I think he’s uneasy, too. He thumbs the pages of his waterlogged book and stands in a very posed, very nonchalant way. Like he very much wants me to go into his den, and he’s very worried I won’t, and he doesn’t want me to know that.
What’s in there?
My wolf prowls a few inches closer to the entrance and pokes her nose in. It’s dark inside and smells even more like him than the grove out front.
As my wolf’s eyes adjust, the outlines of objects rise from the gloom. A pallet. A big, round woven basket with a lid. An apple crate full of books. A braided mat made of rags.
My wolf sniffs and takes a step forward. The pallet smells like sweet grass, and linen, and Justus—like the things he must do there, under the sheets. My cheeks heat. Whatever he does, he does it alone. His scent is the only one in the den. My wolf is pleased. She draws in another, deeper breath.
The basket is willow. The books smell like the one on the stool outside, but these also have a hint of tart sweetness, maybe from the apple crate. The rag rug looks clean, but it smells exactly like a long-faded version of the scent of the whole pack gathered around us—wolfy and earthy and warm. Homey.
Without a second thought, my wolf pads over so she can get a better sniff.
No! Stop! It’s a trap!
My wolf whirls, but it’s too late. Justus has followed us in, blocking the entrance. My fear explodes, the stink obliterating the straw, the apple, the mat, the sweet grass, the linen—everything.
Justus immediately drops to a crouch and raises his hands, but for once, his face doesn’t show even the slightest reaction to the smell.
He’s blocking the exit. You’re trapped. Hide. Hide!
The voice shrieks, but my wolf doesn’t take her eyes off Justus. She’s well aware that there is nowhere to hide. She stands in place and waits.
We’re afraid, but then again—we’re not. He’s not going to hurt us. She knows.
I know.
The voice is incapable of knowing that we’re safe. It’s a blaring alarm. That’s all. It doesn’t have some kind of insight that we don’t have.
The night of the coup, when our cabin caught fire, Fallon rolled up on his ATV, saying Killian sent him to take us to safety, and the voice didn’t warn me that he was part of the plot.
It can’t see the future, and it can’t read minds. It can only scream in the back of mine.
“Annie, please come out. Talk to me,” Justus says, deliberate and calm, but rough underneath. Not with impatience. With yearning?
He lowers his arms to brace them on his thighs. My wolf is very quiet, like she’s faded into a spectator.
“I’d like to hear your voice again.” His lips curve in a rueful smile, there and then gone.
His eyes are so somber.
Behind him, the sun has sunk, its last rays backlighting him, falling across the center of the den, and illuminating the faded colors in the worn rug, so clean despite the packed earth floor. He must shake it out a lot.
The sun picks out gold streaks in his long brown hair. It’s not groomed, per se. He clearly hasn’t done more than run his fingers through it, but it isn’t hopelessly matted like it was when his people tried to trade the Byrnes for us.
Come to think of it, none of the males in the camp are as unkempt as that crew. Last Pack males don’t look nearly as recently showered as Quarry Pack males do, but they’re not dirty dirty. I guess they look like folks who live in dens, bathe in a stream, and spend most of their time naked and outdoors.
“Where’d you go, sweetling?” Justus asks, a brief, soft twinkle in his eyes. “Won’t you come out?”
How did he know I drifted off?
I’m so curious, and I’m not used to it. I don’t usually have the bandwidth to have questions. I have to keep my eyes peeled. Be ready. Run down the list of all the horrible things that can happen, over and over again, ticking them off like the elders with their prayer beads.
“I won’t hurt you,” he says. A shadow crosses his face. Regret? Shame?
There I go, wondering again.
I could shift. Talk to him. Ask him when he’ll take me home. If it goes to hell, I can shift back.
I prod my wolf for reassurance, but she remains quiet and passive. She’s tired. She’s had our skin for such a long time now. Quarry Pack wolves don’t spend this much time in our fur. I’m going to have to shift back at some point.
Don’t. You need claws. Fangs.
Even the pecking voice sounds tired.
If I shift, I’ll be naked. In this small den. With a male. My mate.
The last rays of sun outline his wide shoulders. His upper arms. Sinewy. It’s such a funny word, but that’s what describes him. Sinewy and self-possessed and still.
“Listen,” he says, rising to his feet. “I’ll go get our dinner. You can think about it.”
No.
My wolf stiffens. She doesn’t want him to leave us alone, but he’s already turning, and then he’s already gone.
She whines and lowers herself to her belly. The silence is heavy. At the entrance, the wind blows faintly and the cedars’ needles rustle, but the center of the den has that close, warm quiet that you make when you pull your winter comforter over your head.
Out of habit, I scan my surroundings, but there’s no place for anyone to hide. I suppose a wolf could hide in the big basket, but I don’t smell anyone except Justus.
Better check it anyway to be sure.
I don’t see how I can unless my wolf knocks it over. The lid is battened on with straps looped over the handles. If she knocked it over, he’d know we looked.
Still, better check. It’s a big basket.
There’s no nefarious, scentless wolf hiding in a basket. I’d hear him breathing.
Better check now.
This is the kind of baseless worry that I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring. My common sense tells me it’s bullshit, and the voice’s heart isn’t really in it. She’s just doing her job.
But what is in the basket?
And what books does he have in that apple crate?
If I shift, I can snoop. Not in the basket—that would be an invasion of privacy—but the books are out for anyone to see.
But I’ll be naked.
I could shift right back after I take a peek.
Justus has to walk all the way back down to camp and back up again. I have time. And my wolf needs a break. Is it fair to keep hiding inside her, especially now that she’s dragging ass?
Curiosity wins.
I don’t really take our skin. The instant I make the decision, my wolf dissolves into a puddle of fur with a huge sigh, and I have no choice but to mold us into legs and arms, rising up until I’m standing, shivering on two bare feet.
My body feels strange and rubbery, and my knees sway when I step toward the apple crate. The clock is ticking. My heart speeds up.
Run now. He’s gone. It’s your last chance. Run!
Through his entire pack, pups and elders and all? With these rubber legs? Butt naked?
I sink to my knees beside the crate and pick up the top book, a small white-covered paperback with a surreal picture of a sun with a human face on it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s