Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
7
CADOC
It’s almost daybreak when I push the elevator button for the penthouse. I touch the siltstone in my pocket. I went back for it after I convinced my wolf that Rosie was safe with her family. I’d have gotten back to the Tower earlier except it was a devil to find a small rock in the dark without my wolf’s vision.
He’s gone again, a dark blur behind a thick, clouded pane.
I’m exhausted and wired and I feel like shit warmed over.
I check my phone. There’s a picture of Derwyn’s wrist with his watch reading 4:29 a.m. in the foreground with the outline of Rosie’s trailer behind.
Same.
It should reassure me, but frustration—the fundamental sense of wrongness
—scrapes my nerves. At least Rosie’s asleep now.
Her hurt is quiet for the moment.
She doesn’t think I can understand her as my wolf, and if she were another female, I probably couldn’t, but she discounts the bond. I don’t think it’s as strong in her as it is in me.
I can feel what she means when she speaks. I felt everything—her shoulder hit the wall, the betrayal, the crushing hurt, the anger she summoned up to protect herself.
I felt her scrub me off of her skin until it stung.
If I shoot up some of my father’s dragon tongue, will it numb the pain for her?
My hands shake like an addict, and I can’t formulate a plan.
I am in the wrong place. My wolf knows it. When I was standing in the woods, feeling her fingernails scrape at the tender tissue between her thighs, fighting myself so I wouldn’t go back to her, disgusted with everything that I am—what I have to be—he knew.
For the first time in my life, he came forward of his own accord. He prowled to the boundary between us, the impenetrable, soundproof pane of glass a foot thick, and so help me, I was weak, and when he demanded our skin, I gave it to him.
I hoped he wouldn’t give it back.
She hurts.
She’s so soft.
She was walking funny, and her pussy smelled faintly of blood. Which is natural. She was a virgin, and she took my knot. My cock jerks, remembering.
She gasped and whimpered, but she didn’t struggle. She sunk back into me and clung to my neck.
If I had damaged her, I would know.
My wolf would have scented it.
I do not need to turn around, run to the Bogs, and stand guard.
Derwyn is there.
It’s not a reassurance at all anymore. It’s another thing tearing at my flesh that I have to ignore.
The elevator dings and the door glides open. The foyer and hall are illuminated with low light from crystal sconces. A Powell and a Rosser are on sentry duty. I acknowledge them with a nod.
Tomorrow, I’ll go to Killian. Enough playing around. I either figure out how to beat Alban Hughes, or I end up in a bone pile. That’s my future.
And if Alban wins, who will take care of Rosie?
My heartbeat—not steady since I got the call from Derwyn that Rosie was ready—picks up.
Rosie rambles through the woods alone like a lost lamb, looking for who knows what, not even blinking when ferals howl less than a mile away. I’d think she was moon mad if she wasn’t so damn sweet and easy.
Her temper has the force of a small pup’s, and she can hold onto it about as long.
She’s delicate and warm, her every feeling as plain as day.
Her eyes rounded in wonder when she came on my cock, and afterwards, she purred like a kitten. She smiled like I was what she always wanted, cuddling into my chest. She trusted me. She was happy.
And I lost control of myself, for a split second, and her eyes went dark with pain. I did that.
I hurt her, after I swore to her I wouldn’t.
I drag in a ragged breath, steel myself, and swallow down the self-loathing.
Leadership is sacrifice.
It’s my duty not to claim her. I did what I had to for the pack. For the good of her kind.
She doesn’t have to understand that. She doesn’t have to be strong. She’s safe, and that’s all that matters.
Fuck, I need something to stop my brain.
I pass my father’s study and step inside with a half-formed idea of helping myself to his whiskey. It seems to numb him. I’m across the threshold before I realize I’m not alone.
My mother is sitting in my father’s leather chair. There’s no fire burning, and the lights are out. She’s gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows at Moon Lake glittering in the starlight, a snifter in her long fingers, her legs folded.
She’s already dressed for the day in her usual tailored suit, or maybe she never got undressed for bed. Her bracelets clink against the glass as she lifts it to sip.
“You smell like scavenger whore,” she drawls.
She’s drunk. I tamp down a flash of anger. “I didn’t know you were in here. I won’t disturb you.”
She pivots the chair on the pointed toe of her stiletto to face me. “Oh, no. You aren’t disturbing me. Come.” She feigns a smile. “Sit by me. Keep your mother company.”
I don’t know why I do. The manners drilled into me by my father, I suppose. Habit. She’s ugly when she’s wasted. I’ve long since learned to steer clear.
But I take my usual seat. I wait for her to get whatever it is off her chest.
“Don’t worry. I won’t push a drink on you. I know you don’t indulge.” She smirks at me over the rim of her glass. “How Madog and I raised such an—upstanding—male, I’ll never understand.”
I incline my head. It wasn’t a compliment, but I’m aware I’m expected to acknowledge it as such.
“You didn’t do something as stupid as bite her, did you?” she spits suddenly.
I clench my jaw.
“Good. I shouldn’t have worried. You’re a dutiful son, aren’t you?”
Again, it isn’t a compliment. She’s in a strange mood. She rarely concerns herself with me. Hasn’t since I was old enough to go to the Academy.
“You never knew my father,” she says, turning again to look out on the downtown skyline. The black outline of modern condos and office buildings emerge against the lightening gray sky. At the marina, the white sails are stark against the dusky lake.
“No.” Broderick Moore died years before I was born.
“He was a great man.”
I give my usual noncommittal grunt. That’s what everyone always says.
Mother’s face hardens. “He had the foresight to realize that no matter how many humans we ate or how deep we buried their bones, they would just keep coming, keep digging. The era of the werewolf as a campfire tale was over.”
She must be wasted. She doesn’t generally speak so openly about the old days.
“My father brought us out of the dens on his terms.” Pride laces her voice. “He established a new order. Rank according to contribution to the pack, not mere strength. Mere viciousness.”