Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I know this is nonsense, but it’s helping me pick up the pieces of my pride and duct tape them back together, and I’ll do whatever it takes—tell myself whatever lie I have to—so I never feel like I did in my nest ever, ever again.
So, okay—would I choose Cadoc Collins?
No.
Not in a million years.
Why would I?
Looks, rank, power, money? What do any of those things matter to me? I’m a scavenger. Cadoc and his kind keep trying and trying to get us to forget what’s important, to convince us that we’re the trash they treat us as, but it doesn’t work.
Not on me.
I straighten up and lift my chin.
My dignity was just peeled off me, and turns out, I’ve got strong bones inside, not a squishy center. I hold onto that, wind the knowledge tight like a tourniquet.
I don’t claim Cadoc Collins, and I wasn’t the one who came close to biting—that was him.
I’m pulling it together until I round the bend that leads to the lakeside path, and a dark gray shadow slips from the woods without a sound and bars my way.
In an instant, I crack into pieces, bleeding hurt. My eyes well, and my bottom lip trembles.
“W-What are you doing here?”
Cadoc’s wolf stands between the two dirt ruts, regal and impassive, indistinguishable from a real wolf.
“Get out of here,” I shout.
His black nose twitches. He stalks forward, and shoves his snout in the crotch of my jeans, sniffing.
I scuttle backward, flailing a fist in the direction of his head, but as fast as I am, my aim is shit, and he ducks away before I can nail him.
“You fucker.” I bend and grab a rock, pitch it at his flank overhand. It goes wide. I scrabble for another rock while he stands a few feet away, calmly waiting for me to try to miss him again. There’s nothing but dirt and sticks.
I dig in my pocket, and the siltstone’s still there, not big enough to do any damage, but maybe big enough to sting if I get him in the face.
“You piece of shit. Get away from me.” I throw it as hard as I can, and it lands in the ground by his front paws with a quiet thud.
I burst into tears. “What’s wrong with you? I hate you. You got what you wanted. Can’t you just fuck off?”
He considers me for a few seconds, and then he turns toward the lake, but he doesn’t leave.
He’s waiting. Like he’s offering to walk me home.
“I don’t want to walk with you.”
He stares at me over his shoulder, his silver eyes glowing in the dark.
“I’m bigger than you, you know. If I wanted, I could kill you with one swat.” It’s true, although my wolf isn’t interested in violence in the least. She perked up when she first caught wind of Cadoc’s wolf, but now she’s settled back on her side, all tuckered out from being no help at all, I guess.
Cadoc’s wolf patiently waits.
“Your male self is an asshole.” I start walking because it seems that’s the only way this ends.
He falls into step beside me.
“I wasn’t gonna bite him,” I spit. “He should think about that. He was all up on my neck, but the thought didn’t even cross my mind.”
I’m not sure if raging to Cadoc’s wolf is making me feel better, but I don’t feel any worse, and the tears are easing up.
“I don’t want him for a mate. If he hadn’t bailed first, I would’ve. Tell him that.” I rub my eyes with my sweater sleeve, scratching the puffy, raw skin.
We walk awhile in silence. The wind dries my cheeks.
“He better pray that I didn’t get knocked up.” A streak of fear jolts down my spine. Cadoc’s wolf cuts closer so that his flank brushes my hip every few steps.
I don’t think he understands what I’m saying. Nia and Bevan and all the other scavengers I know have a rudimentary understanding of human language when they’re in their wolves’ skins. Nia explains it as a combination of rote memorization of frequent phrases, the ability to read tone, and common sense.
What else do you say to a wolf other than ‘drop that’ or ‘knock it off’ or ‘come here?’
I bet nobs are clueless. They only run as their wolves for a few hours on the night of the full moon, and they do it as a pack. When would they pick up language?
Cadoc’s wolf probably scented my fear, that’s why he walked closer.
“It was a real dick move, flicking me off like a bug, and being all dramatic. Like, let a female get her clothes on first, right?” I’m faking that I’m not crushed, but faking feels better.
Cadoc’s wolf pads along beside me as we turn onto the path that runs along the Narrows. The surface of the lake is smooth and dark. The woods must be breaking the wind before it reaches down here.
“I regret you, too. Besides all the trouble I’m gonna be in if you knocked me up, you don’t have much of a personality unless you count Land Rovers and fishing as personality traits, and I don’t.”
A howl rings out in the distance. Cadoc’s wolf spins to face the sound, backing me toward the shore so he’s between the faraway male and me. His fur bristles, and his fangs flash white. A terrifying growl sounds in the back of his throat. Instinctively, I shrink back.
“He’s not in Moon Lake territory,” I call to the wolf, striving for a soothing tone. “Sound carries out here. He’s probably a feral out hunting in the foothills.”
Cadoc’s wolf shows no sign that he understood me. He growls a little longer, pacing, keeping me herded between him and the water, and when the howl finally rings out further to the south, he must decide that the danger has passed. He trots over and nudges the back of my hand with his wet nose.
“We can go now, then?” I ask. Cadoc’s wolf is already leading the way.
Abertha has to be right when she says the wolf and the man are two souls, not two sides of a coin. At least she’s right in Cadoc’s case. His wolf is a classic. All wolf. I feel like he’d get along well with Pritchard.
Cadoc the male is a mystery. I can’t begin to understand him, but I don’t need to either. All I need to know is that he’s dangerous to me and my kind. He did me a favor when he bolted from the Airstream like his hair was on fire.
Oddly, even though my pride still stings, and my heart is as tender and bruised as between my legs, I do feel a little better with Cadoc’s wolf stalking along beside me. At least I’m not alone.
I expect him to bail when we get to the Bogs, but he veers off at the entrance, leaping so that he’s ahead of me on the narrow planks, making a beeline for my home. He knows exactly where he’s going.
It’s late, but there are plenty of folks still hanging out at picnic tables on the communal docks or in folding chairs in front of their trailers. A few people wave at me and ask me if I found anything.
An elderly Goff drunkenly quips, “Found herself a heap o’ trouble, can’t you see him? A gray wolf with a white stripe on his side, and he’s got the look of a Moore about him.”
“A Moore would no sooner muddy his paws down here on the boards than a Hughes would,” a Nevitts spouts, weirdly confrontational. The Nevittses are always spoiling for a fight.
Cadoc’s wolf doesn’t acknowledge anyone. He leads me straight to my trailer. For once, Uncle Dewey isn’t hanging out of it. The whole family is around the table, Nia and Bevan included, drinking moonshine, playing dominoes, and looking worried.
Drona exhales when she sees me in the doorway, her worry lifting like a flock of crows.
Loneliness strikes me hard, and love, at the same time.
Cadoc’s wolf is standing guard out front. I guess he’s waiting for me to go inside. It kind of reminds me of the human movies where the male walks the female home and waits until she gets inside. Only it’s nothing like that at all, is it?
It’s just biology.
I take a step back towards the wolf and bend close to his ears so Drona and the others can’t hear. I don’t want to lay anymore on their shoulders.
“You tell Cadoc—if you can understand me at all—you tell him to leave me alone. We’re done. It’s finished.”
I might not have a magical bone in my body, but long after the wolf pads silently away, after my family patches me up with hot water and whiskey with cloves, after I shower and scrub myself raw again, my foreboding has the weight of a prophecy—
It isn’t done.
It’s going to get much, much worse.
Chapter 7