Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“When are you taking me home?” I blurt because I don’t dare ask him about beds.
His shoulder blades snap together. That amazement in his eyes flickers out. My stomach sinks. I’ve made things heavy again. I curl my toes into the rug and hug my knees tighter.
“Later,” he says.
Never. They have you now. You’ll never see Una or anyone from home again.
A fresh wave of fear bursts from my pores, overpowering the lingering scent of stew. Justus’s jaw clenches, his lips curling back in a grimace.
“But you will take me back, right?” My voice rises with each word, my anxiety taking off like a shot, running wild, coloring everything until it’s ugly and menacing—the den is a trap, Justus is my jailer, the bed is a threat.
I can’t breathe. I gasp for air, my hands reaching for something to help myself, but there’s nothing, nothing. I look to Justus, pleading with my eyes, my throat strangling my ability to speak.
“I will,” he says, holding my gaze, his face both fierce and terrified at what’s happening to me. His mouth turns down and his skin grows pale like I’ve asked him to do the unthinkable. Like he’s my hostage. “I promise you that I will take you home when you ask. I swear it to you on my dam’s grave.”
My throat eases. Air fills my lungs.
I recover more quickly than he does, but then again, I’m used to panic attacks. There was a time when I’d have them almost daily. The trick is to tell yourself you’re not really dying, and if you are, at least it’ll end. This was a quick one, and I didn’t go into a full-blown meltdown. Thank goodness for that.
I glance around the den to avoid Justus’s eyes. I don’t like that they’re guarded now. It felt safer before, when I could read them.
It was actually starting to feel almost good.
I can’t get in trouble for just thinking it. Not every positive thought can be a jinx. That’s what I tell myself while I practice my deep breathing and search for something to say. My gaze falls on the apple crate.
“Where did you get the books?” I ask.
It takes him a second to realize I’m sweeping the past few minutes under the rug, but considering, he catches on pretty quickly. “The hedge witch. I trade her.”
“You mean Abertha? You know her?”
He nods.
“What do you trade?”
He shrugs. “Meat, mostly. Odds and ends. Herbs. Stones. Eye of newt, toe of frog.”
Oh, gross. “You cut off frog toes?” Our people will eat a fat toad if they come across him as their wolves, but they wouldn’t pluck him apart for pieces. That’s vicious. And besides, do frogs even have toes?
Justus’s lips curl. It’s a bashful smile, not mocking. “‘Toe of frog’ is from a book. A play, actually. It was a joke.” He glances down. “A bad one.”
Now I toss a shoulder, my cheeks warming. “I don’t read plays. Or books like yours.”
“You looked through them?”
Oh, no. What am I doing, admitting I went through his things?
He’ll be angry. Shut your mouth before you make it worse. No. Beg forgiveness. Now. Before he loses it.
“I’m sorry,” I rush to say. “I shouldn’t have.”
“Why not?” he asks. His brow knits. He’s serious.
“They’re your belongings.” I might not have acted like it, but I was raised right. I know to respect other people’s privacy.
“But you’re my mate.”
“But not really, though, right?” Why did I say that? I don’t want to go there. Ever. Certainly not right now while I’m sitting on his bed, post-panic attack, wearing a sheet.
Heat sears my cheeks. I want to close my shutters and shut my door and turn the locks. Tuck myself into my shell.
My gaze dives to the ground. The flush seeping across my chest is so intense that it heats my chin. I don’t want to talk about him and me.
Right?
So why did I say something? It’s like my deepest fears are in charge of this conversation.
“This is real to me,” Justus says, his voice low and even, not accusatory or angry. He leaves it at that, falling silent.
I could stop talking, too, drop the subject and shrink into myself until he gets bored and turns his attention to something else. That’s what I do, right? Hide.
“But you don’t want it to be,” I say instead, and my face bursts into flame.
Justus holds himself very still while he answers. “I don’t want my mate to fear me. Or hate me. Or hate my pack.”
“I don’t hate your pack.” I blink up, accidentally meeting his eye. Instantly, I’m snagged, a fish on a hook, dry drowning.
“Just me, then?” His lip quirks, wry and bitter.
“Not you either,” I whisper. “I don’t know you.”
“Can’t you feel me?” He presses his palm to the center of his chest. My hand rises to cover my heart, mirroring the motion.
The bond is there, aching so very, very faintly, deep in the recesses of my mind with all the other ghosts and bogeymen I’ve shoved down there. And yet, somehow, when I focus on it, the gash the bond makes in my soul is still pink and fresh, the kind of walking wound that makes you fixate on the thinness of your skin and how impossible it is that something so fragile holds all your guts and bones together.
“A little,” I say.
“But you can feel that I won’t hurt you, right? I didn’t ever want to hurt you. Or frighten you. I’m sorry that I did. I—I was rough, and—I didn’t understand that—“
He’s talking about the nest beside the river. No, no, no. I don’t want to talk about that. Not with him. Not ever.
“I’ve never heard of any of these before,” I interrupt, scooting over to the apple crate and picking up the book with the sun on the cover. I thumb through the pages. “What are they about?”
He’s thrown, but again, only for a second. “That one? Mostly about how once an individual claims to own his territory within pack lands, everything goes to hell.”
“So you don’t own this place?”
“I stay here,” he says.
“But it’s your den.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I sniff to check, but no, I’m right—it smells like him and no one else. “Whose is it then?”
“Yours.” He flashes another slight smile.
“You’re playing.” I pull my heels closer to my body. I don’t like being teased.
“Dens belong to females. It’s a male’s honor and duty to provide shelter for his mate and their family, the elders and pups. He can stay, too, if he’s welcome.”
“But you’re the alpha. Aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t matter if I was, and I’m not.”
I’m not sure if he’s lying or not. The pack sure acts like he’s in charge, albeit not at all the way we act around Killian at Quarry Pack. “Your people call you Alpha.”
“To annoy me.” He sighs, leans his head back, and stares at the low ceiling for a few seconds before he explains. “I’ve told them a hundred times—in nature, wolves don’t have alphas or betas or whatever. That’s a human thing. Humans put wolves in cages, and when the wolves didn’t have enough room to breathe, and they couldn’t hunt for their own food, they lost their minds. The strongest took everything he could for himself, and the others lived in fear. That’s where alphas came from, and it’s not the natural way of things. As shifters, it’s sure as hell not our way.”
Yes, it is. That’s exactly our way. The strongest gets whatever he wants, and everyone else gets to be afraid. A snort that I meant to keep in my head somehow comes out my nose.
Justus raises his eyebrows. “You disagree?”
Never. Not with a male his size. I put the book down and pick up the next in the stack. “What about this one? What’s this one about?”