Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I stand and stretch, cracking my back. “I promised my mate fresh meat.”
It’s the truth, but every male on the log, including Rodric, looks at me like I’m full of shit. No male would leave their new mate when there’s plenty of good food in camp. Thankfully, Alroy and Khalil arrive. Neither looks good. Alroy is clearly not fully awake yet, and Khalil looks like he didn’t sleep. His dark eyes are red-rimmed, and he reeks of rotgut.
“I thought you were supposed to be the fresh meat, what with the new mate and all?” Khalil slurs as he takes the coffee Tarquin offers and swallows it in a single gulp. Alroy eyes Max’s drink hopefully. Max tightens his gnarled hands around his cup.
“Ready?” I ask, ignoring the remark.
“No,” Alroy groans. Khalil shrugs and stumbles, even though he was doing nothing but standing there.
“Ready.” Max sets his cup down on the log and stands. He twists to crack his own back, winces, thinks better of it, and rolls out his shoulders instead.
“Griff,” he calls to his son who’s poking the fire with a stick a few feet away. “Go tell your dam that I’m going hunting.”
Before the pup can dash off, I quickly add, “And run by my mate’s den and take the box of yarn you find there to her at the females’ tent.”
Griff straightens and tries to hide the wide grin breaking across his face. I sigh inside. I try not to make requests because whenever I do, the younger males always take it as a sign of favor no matter how many times I tell them boot licking makes your breath stink.
“Yes, Alpha. I’ll take it to her straight away,” he says.
“And don’t forget to tell your dam I’ve gone hunting!” Max hollers after his son.
Tarquin snorts. “That boy’s already forgotten.”
Rodric shakes his head. “That poor female will be looking for you all over camp by lunch.”
“Well, then you’ll tell her where I’ve gone,” Max says, tying back his graying locs with a strip of leather.
“Don’t count on me—I’ll have forgotten by then, too.” Rodric cackles, grabs Max’s abandoned coffee, and sips.
“You’ll keep an eye on things?” I ask Tarquin. He nods.
Tarquin has the best sense after Max, and he’s better than all of us at soothing tempers. He’ll listen to each side and ask so many questions, that by the time each person has had their chance to speak, everyone’s either too tired, hungry, or bored to stay mad.
“Well, let’s go get us an elk,” I say, slapping Khalil on the back, snorting when his wolf whimpers. Must be one hell of a hangover if his wolf is feeling it.
I lead the way to the den that serves as our armory and help myself to the best bow and arrow, strapping a quiver across my back. I feel a twinge of guilt as Max grabs the second best, but I know he’d leave the best one behind rather than take it when I’m around. My sire taught me to respect my elders. He couldn’t have imagined a world where they’d defer to me.
I didn’t have my sire long, but I’m one to listen the first time I’m told, so his voice is still clear in my head. That’s why I slow my pace as our hunting band leaves the camp, so we can walk side-by-side, and Max doesn’t have to struggle to keep up.
I vividly remember traveling from our summer to winter camps one year, and how the alpha at that time took the lead of our long line. My sire hung back to bring up the rear, and I was impatient. I didn’t want to be last.
Of course, I whined about it, and my sire said, “Would you rather be in the front with your nose up Alpha’s ass or back here where we can actually see it if a feral snatches a straggling female?” It made sense to me then, and it makes sense to me now, although I think moving as a herd is safer than a line. Much quicker to form a defensive phalanx when you’re already bunched together.
The way to the lake grows more difficult as the hours pass. At first, we travel through familiar woods, but soon enough the terrain gets steeper and rockier as we approach Salt Mountain territory, and I have to attend more closely to my surroundings.
I’m not worried about running into Salt Mountain wolves, but I am worried about the ferals and humans and other predators who’ve taken advantage of the land that Salt Mountain’s left unprotected.
In reality, Salt Mountain doesn’t have a territory beyond their town. The pack only ventures out to the woods to hunt. No patrols, fences, or anything. Our younger males have a game to see who can piss the closest to their front gate, and it’s been doused a few times, and no one’s been caught.
For a long time, all the shifter scents we come across are stale, and we don’t see anything bigger than a possum. The sun is bright, but there’s a breeze, and Alroy keeps his mouth shut. It should be a pleasant hike, but with every mile that passes, my nerves jangle more and more. I’m twitching at everything—twigs cracking, toads honking, birds casting shadows.
My wolf is torn. He loves hunting, but he hates that we’re getting farther and farther from Annie. I don’t like it much either.
He’s comforting himself with the absolutely unfounded belief that he could run back to her in five—ten—minutes flat.
I calm myself with facts.
She’s fine. No one in the pack would let any harm come to her, and the land around the camp was clear of strange scents or disturbance. I hunt or scout all the time. This is no different. If she was my mate for real, I’d hunt. Probably more often than I do now if we had pups. Pups can eat.
But she’s not my mate for real.
Don’t I want her to be? Isn’t that why I kept traveling to Quarry Pack and hanging out in the woods outside their border, sulking and stewing and pissing off the local wildlife?
What am I doing out here?
I should be home, tending to her. Making her more gifts. Listening to her talk, if she has something to say. Feeding her. Coming up with more excuses to sit next to her on my pallet.
It’s not that I don’t want to be doing that—I want it so badly that if I think about it, my chest will get so tight I’ll start huffing and puffing worse than Max.
Shit. Max. I glance behind me. He’s a good yard behind me. I force myself to slow down.
“Do we even want to get there before the sun goes down?” Alroy bitches when he realizes the pace has changed, and he has to wait for us to catch up.
“Sorry,” I say. “Is there a specific time you have to be back to jack off alone in your tent?”
“Where’d you sleep last night?” Alroy asks. “Bet it wasn’t in your den, was it?”
I leap for him, shifting my top half so he thinks I’m letting my whole wolf out, and just like I knew he would, he shifts all the way, and his wolf scurries away like his tail is on fire. I take my skin right back and grab the pants his wolf left behind.
“It’s just too easy.” Khalil snickers.
“Embarrassing.” I shake my head. That’s a prank we played as pups. He always fell for it then, too.
Alroy shifts and strides back, dick swinging, no shame. “If you wanted to watch my fine bare ass, you could’ve asked,” he says, strutting ahead.
Khalil speeds up so he’s ahead of us all. Max lets out a long-suffering sigh.
What am I doing?
Am I such a coward that I’ll go this far to avoid a conversation?
Yes. I suppose I am. I never again want to see the trapped, terrified expression that she wore when she realized she was in heat.
I should have stolen her. It couldn’t have been worse than what happened by the river. At least, she would have had her heat in a real nest in a den.
When do I get to stop feeling like shit about what should have been the best thing that ever happened to me?
I slow my steps so Alroy and Khalil pull farther ahead. When there’s a decent distance between us and Alroy turns his attention to muttering to himself about the unfairness of life, I ask Max, “Do you remember when you mated Elspeth?”
He snorts. “My legs are slow, not my brain.”
“She didn’t want to come with you, right?”
He slides a glance over to me, his warm, brown eyes glittering. “What are you asking, Alpha? You know she didn’t.”
“I’m not the alpha,” I reply without thinking as I try to figure out what it is exactly that I want to know. Has she really forgiven him? How long did it take?
Max blows out his cheeks and stops to catch his breath. Alroy and Khalil keep going.
“You know, I’m an old wolf, and in all my life, I have never met a male who thinks the way you do,” he says. “You’re the strongest male in the pack. It’s not even close. Who would be next after you? Khalil?”
I nod. Khalil can fight. Alroy has the potential to be at least as good, but he’s so fixated on his gripes and grudges that he doesn’t have the confidence to dominate in a real fight.
“And Khalil isn’t even a challenge, is he?”
“He might be, if he were disciplined.”
“But he’s not. Not like you. That’s my point.” Max skewers me with his sharp gaze. “You lead this pack, and you say you aren’t the alpha. You have a mate, and you’re acting like you don’t. The sky is blue no matter what you call it, pup.” He sighs loud and long. “What are we doing out here, Justus?”
I hold his gaze. I might be afraid of my mate, but I won’t bend my neck to any male on earth, no matter how good a point they make. “Hunting elk,” I say.
“Hiding from a female.” He snorts. “And why? Do you even know?”
“I don’t want to let her go,” I say almost under my breath. Not because I’m ashamed, not in front of Max. He’s the one who dragged my wolf out of the crevice I burrowed into at the back of my dam’s den after my parents died. I was halfway feral by then, living in my own shit, eating bugs and slowly starving to death.