Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“They won’t come down here.”
He’s not reassured. He stalks forward to stand between me and the tree line, obviously standing guard, and that’s where he stays while I finish the grid. It’s uncanny. If not for the slight rise and fall of his flanks, I wouldn’t know he was alive.
I’ve never met a quieter wolf. In my experience, wolves are always in motion, snuffling or running or tousling or gnawing.
Cadoc’s wolf is a sentry. A sculpture.
After a while, as the shadows lengthen and the crepuscular animals get their burst of twilight energy, the awkwardness wears away. Cadoc’s wolf begins to feel less like an interloper and more like when you find something unexpected and rare in a familiar place. Mushrooms in a hollow log. An egg in a nest.
He keeps watch while I search for treasure, and it seems fitting that he’s doing it, as if he’s slipped into his proper role.
I’d call it biology, but Cadoc’s wolf isn’t behaving like an animal reacting to his mate. He’s maintaining his distance, and there’s no aggression in his stance. It’s not our bond making this feel right, either. The connection is pretty much inert at the moment.
If he weren’t Cadoc Collins, and I wasn’t a scavenger, I’d almost say we were making friends. It kind of reminds me of when Nia and I were pups. She first glommed onto me when I became Abertha’s apprentice. Nia thought she could get something out of it, so she’d meet me on my way home, pester me with questions, and nag me to ask Abertha for one thing or the other.
It didn’t work out for her—Abertha’s only generous with unsolicited advice—but Nia and I discovered that we liked each other’s company, so we kept up the habit until we became pretty much inseparable.
Nia and I are as strange a pair as Cadoc and I.
Nia’s a fighter. She’ll never give in and make the best of things like Drona and Arly. One day, I’ll wake up, and Nia will be gone. It’ll break my heart, but not as bad as if I woke up thirty years from now, and she shuffled across the boards to my trailer, coffee mug in hand, her rings and studs all gone.
Cadoc’s nothing like Nia. If she’s the round peg in the square hole, he’s the status quo. The final word. He’s the thing she fights against that’ll grind her down if she doesn’t find a way out.
I’m not like either of them.
I don’t want to fight, but I can’t seem to be happy going along to get along either. I do it, but I hate it. So, maybe I have more in common with Cadoc at the end of the day. I’m lost and stuck, too, but at least I know it.
The shadows have grown long enough to cast the thicket in shade. I like to quit before it gets too dark. My night vision’s fine, but whatever trawls the border of Moon Lake territory gets bolder the later it gets, especially on a moonless night.
Cadoc’s wolf seems to notice the shift in atmosphere. His ears perk. Most wolves would be growling—mine is rumbling low—but he just listens.
I go to stand beside him. He moves so his bulk is between me and the tree line.
“They won’t come this far down.” I don’t know why, but I run my fingertips down his spine, smoothing the ruffled fur. I can feel how tight his muscles are strung. “But we should go back anyway.”
He likes that idea. He nudges me with his nose back in the direction of Abertha’s shack, trailing me a few steps, shooting glances over his shoulder up at the foothills turned purple against the sunset.
I don’t take the most direct route back to the Airstream. I have to check on the dragon’s tongue, and if it’s finally dry, I have an hour or two with the mortar and pestle in front of me. I’m not gonna hurry up for chores.
Now that the breeze no longer carries a threatening scent, Cadoc’s wolf is walking beside me. It’s kind of nice. It’s like walking with Nia, Bevan, and Pritchard. It feels safe.
Of course, it isn’t really. Cadoc’s not a chill wolf with nothing better to do than be my bodyguard. He’s the nob who’s gonna knock me up and ruin my life.
Even though his wolf is somehow more of a statue than Cadoc the man, I like him better with four legs. With the wolf, there’s no master of the universe crap. The wolf isn’t hiding the fact that he’s clueless. He’s just rolling with it.
It’s weird—usually the wolf is recognizable as the man. Two sides on the same coin, right?
Not this fella. I’m sure I’ve never met the wolf before.
“You know,” I tell him in a rush of sentimentality as we come to the worn path that leads past Abertha’s to the lake. “If you weren’t my mate or the alpha heir, it’d be all right—going finding with you.”
My cheeks blaze. It’s a dumb thing to say, which hits me the moment we come around a bend and see the crone herself standing on her front porch, wielding a gnarled walking stick like a wizard’s staff, a convenient wind just then whipping up, rustling her long silver hair and patchwork skirts, tinkling the bells threaded along the seam.
Cadoc’s wolf shoves himself in front of me, primed to fight.
Abertha steps down into the dirt. The wind dies down. She’s so obvious.
She doesn’t need the walking stick, either, but she likes to whack things—and people—when she’s making a point.
“Alpha Heir.” She drops a desultory bow while she examines him from the corner of her flinty eye. Her gaze flicks to me. “I see it’s all come to pass.”
Did she know Cadoc was my mate?
Cadoc’s wolf doesn’t stand down or move forward, so I skirt around him.
“You’re back?” I ask.
“In the nick of time.” She offers Cadoc a smile that doesn’t meet her eyes. “Would you like to shift and have a cup of tea, Alpha Heir?”
I glance back. Cadoc’s wolf is staring off toward the lake.
“Ah. You’re going to be late for a council meeting, aren’t you?” Abertha taps her bare wrist. “Tick, tock. Duty calls.”
Cadoc’s wolf looks back at me. I wish I could read his eyes, but they’re a blank slate.
His chest rumbles for the first time since he chased off Derwyn. I can’t pin down whether it’s a warning or a rusty purr, whether it’s meant for me or Abertha.
She’s the one who acknowledges it, though, with a slight dip of her chin. “Give your father my regards, Alpha Heir,” she says as Cadoc’s wolf strides off toward the lake. “And your mother,” she calls after him.
Apprehension creeps down my spine. She’s in an odd mood. Besides the usual patchouli, she smells bitter. And treacherous.
“Well,” she says, pointing toward her door with her walking stick. “Go put the tea kettle on. I brought the dragon’s tongue in from the Airstream. You’ve got some grinding to do tonight.”
* * *
Abertha’s shack is bare bones. There’s a narrow cot in the corner, a fireplace with an old iron pot crane to hang her cauldron, and the walls are lined with cabinets and shelves made from old stacked milk crates and a library card catalog. She has a beat-up wooden table and leather trunks she uses as benches.
I’m pretty sure she has a nicer place somewhere else. I’ve seen her in things—like her muskrat coat—that there’s no room for here.
I flip on her electric kettle. The place is rigged for electricity although there’s only one outlet, and it’s missing the plate. Abertha’s brought the dragon’s tongue in and broken it into chunks with an ice pick. It’s waiting for me. I plop down on a trunk.
“Weren’t you supposed to do this this yesterday?” she asks.
“It wasn’t hard yet.”
She snorts. “Likely story. You did something wrong. Did you stir it too fast?”
“I used a metronome.”
“Did you drink some of the liquor instead of pouring it all on the earth?”
I didn’t, but for all I know, Nia did.
“Well, let’s hope no one notices if it’s shit.” She glances meaningfully at the mortar and pestle in front of me. I push up my striped shirt sleeves and get to work.
The kettle’s tab clicks, and Abertha busies herself pouring two cups of tea. I grind. Dragon’s tongue isn’t hard, but it clumps, and it needs to be an even consistency or the nobs think there’s something wrong with it.
Eventually, she sits, passing me a cup already milked and sugared. I finish the batch I’m working on, pouring it into the funnel stuck in the mouth of one of the blown glass vials Abertha trades for at the human farmers’ market in Chapel Bell. I don’t see why we don’t stick the stuff in one gallon-sized plastic baggie and call it a day, but she says the nobs will trade twice as much if it’s in cute little jars.
Once I’ve corked the vial, I blow on my cup. The steam warms my cheeks. Across the table, Abertha stirs her tea, tapping the rim with her silver spoon, measuring me up.
There’s a scratching at the door. I turn and let Apollonia in. She darts past me to leap into Abertha’s lap. Abertha smooths the top of the cat’s head and watches me like I’m about to do something interesting.
I sip my tea.
It’s awkward, but it’s not unusual. Abertha’s always waiting for me to do something that I don’t ever do. Eventually, she’ll huff, let it go, and give me a chore, but today, she breaks the silence and asks, “Is there something you want to ask me?”
I have a mouth full of chamomile. I take my time swallowing.
Do I have questions?
Hell, yes, I do.
Why me?