Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Oh dear God. She’s asking for belly rubs. He looks like he might bolt at any second, like this is the strangest interaction he’s ever had and he’s never seen a bitch on her back before, and my wolf is wriggling in the dirt, batting his hand with her snout in the direction of her smooth white belly.
He sighs and the corners of his lips curve the slightest bit. “Is this what you want?” he asks.
He scratches the exactly right place, the exact right way. My wolf spreads her legs—all the way open, no shame—and rumbles her complete satisfaction. If I was combustible, I’d explode into a million tiny pieces from the embarrassment.
Close your legs. Close your legs. I plead with her, but she’s on another plane.
She’s not the least bit worried about exposing her belly to him—mate or no, he’s a big, scary stranger—all she cares about is that he keeps scratching. With his nails. Right there. Over a scooch. Yeah, that’s the spot. Her low growl sounds exactly like a purr.
His fingers slow way too soon, and my wolf whines from the depths of her soul as he gives her belly a last pat.
“Time to go inside, princess,” he says. His deep voice is rusty. From lack of use or is he still hungover? It takes a hell of a lot for a shifter to get drunk. I don’t smell liquor on his breath, only on his unwashed jeans.
“Come on.” He scoops my wolf up as he rises to his feet, cradling her tight to his warm, broad chest.
She nuzzles her snout into the crook of his arm. Impossibly, she’s even more blissed out than when she was getting scratches. She breathes him in, loving how she can feel his steady heartbeat against her flank. It’s such a weird feeling—like we’ve been at sea our whole life, and we’re feeling firm ground underneath our feet for the very first time.
My brain is still catching up when he opens the door and gently sets my wolf down on her dainty paws just inside. She turns to go after him, but before she can even lift a paw, he says, “No. Stay.”
Then he shuts the door and his feet sound on the steps.
My wolf blinks at the closed door and pads over to scratch the wood. She whines, confused. She doesn’t understand why he left, so she waits for him.
Minutes tick by, but he doesn’t come back. Eventually, she kind of gives up, lays down, and retreats, relinquishing our body. After another wave of exquisite pain and cracking bone, I’m lying naked on the rag rug in the living room.
Kennedy pads down the hallway, toothbrush in her mouth, and tosses me a white T-shirt. “The key is don’t forget your clothes,” she mumbles around the handle of the brush. “Or if you do, remember where you left them.”
If she smells Darragh, she doesn’t say anything. She’s really good about privacy.
I tug on the T-shirt, stagger to my aching legs, say goodnight, and go lie down for the hour or two before we have to be at the lodge to start prepping breakfast.
As I lie under the pale-pink canopy that hangs from a hoop above my bed, I admire the fairy lights I’ve strung across the ceiling and let my mind wander.
How should I feel? Abandoned? Rejected? Protected? Insulted to be treated like a pup?
Mates aren’t supposed to leave each other once they find each other, not until the female’s knocked up. Darragh’s walked away from me twice.
But then again, mates are supposed to do a lot of things. They’re supposed to back each other up come hell or high water, but look at my parents. In the most likely scenario, Declan Kelly raped my mother while she was pregnant with me, and my father decided that she was a dirty cheater because that was easier than confronting his alpha. Then, to hide the shame of it all, he tried to kill me. Not Declan Kelly. Me, the baby.
Mates are supposed to be together forever, soulmates, right? But I can list at least a half dozen people off the top of my head who are either stepping out on each other or strictly-for-heat. Liam. Rowan. Haisley. Dermot. R?an. Dierdre.
I’m not going to panic because Darragh Ryan, the pack hermit, isn’t doing things the way you’re supposed to. He gives a good belly rub, and somehow, his presence helped my wolf come out. That’s two points in his favor. Plus, he’s hot, he smells good, and I’m kind of into the older male thing. Shifters aren’t like humans. We get stronger as we age until we hit late, late life, so Darragh actually has more bulk than most males in the pack.
And apparently, I’m into muscle. Biology must be changing my tastes. All the guys I have pinned on my vision board are more shy and soulful types.
I’m okay with taking it slow for now. My skin’s definitely a little sensitive, and my nipples are hard and achy like it’s mid-winter, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Maybe the joke will be on Fate for once. Maybe if I give it time and don’t panic, everything will turn out all right.
Chapter 2
2
MARI
I give it a whole two days of radio silence—not a single hide nor hair of Darragh Ryan around camp—before I decide to take matters into my own hands.
“Do you think he’s in there?” I whisper to Kennedy’s wolf, nodding toward the rickety structure in the clearing below.
He snorts an affirmative.
“It looks abandoned.” The shelter tilts slightly starboard, and the branches woven into a roof have grown a lush blanket of moss. A cluster of mushrooms sprout from the peak. It’s picturesque in an ominous fairy-tale-witch-with-an-oven kind of way.
Kennedy’s wolf paws the dirt. He’s anxious to bail. He doesn’t like being around other males, especially those higher up in the hierarchy. Darragh might not quite be pack, but he still ranks. You can smell it on him.
“You can go,” I tell the wolf. Before we set out, we decided I would talk to Darragh alone. Even though I’m quaking on the inside, I know I’ll be safe with him. Mates can’t hurt each other.
Kennedy’s wolf growls low in his throat. I stop myself from giving him a reassuring pat. He’s got too much dignity to accept it.
“I’ll be fine. Go catch rabbits. Darragh will bring me home.”
Or maybe he’ll want me to stay. My cheeks, already flushed from the trek up here, blaze. Excitement stirs in my belly, even though I don’t really want to go inside the shack. It looks like a strong wind would blow it over, but then again, those roof mushrooms look very healthy. To get so big, they must’ve weathered more than a few storms.
“It’s cool.” I smooth what’s left of my periwinkle tulle skirt after the pricker bushes got to it and begin to pick my way down the slight incline to the mossy clearing. “He’s my mate. It’ll be fine.”
I bet he doesn’t have indoor plumbing in a shack like that, but I hope to hell he has water. I emptied my bottle a way back. Darragh’s place was a lot further than I’d thought.
It’s a good thing I brought Kennedy for her nose because the vague directions I got from Old Noreen at breakfast would’ve never been enough. We’re at least three miles from Quarry Pack camp, and this place is tucked in a hollow surrounded by a thick stand of sycamores and tall pines.
At least it’s shady. As Kennedy trots off, I take a moment and fan my face. I’ve looked better. During the hike, I sweated my ringlets into a wild dandelion fluff and discovered that my new whimsical sheer white blouse sucks. The elastic in the puff sleeves cuts into my upper arms, and the fabric doesn’t wick or breathe—it’s sealed my perspiration against my skin like a rubber suit, and yet, my pits are somehow wet.
I’ve definitely felt prettier, but I don’t need to worry about that. Mates find each other irresistible, and besides, I’ve decided that I dress for myself, not for the male gaze.
That’s what I’m telling myself as my heart thumps faster and I try in vain to smooth my curls. I pause a few feet outside of the opening that serves as a door. Darragh must have scented our approach and heard us at least a quarter mile away. I’m not the stealthiest hiker. I’m kind of surprised he didn’t come out to greet us. This entire clearing carries his scent, so my human nose is blind to his exact location, but Kennedy’s wolf thinks he’s inside, so he’s inside.
Do I knock?
I should knock.
What do I knock on? There isn’t a door, just an opening where the wall doesn’t go all the way to the corner. I’m getting more freaked out the longer I stand here, so I clear my throat, take a deep, steadying breath, and step out of the sunshine and into the gloom.
A wolf’s snarl erupts from the shadows across the room. I yelp and jump backwards, stumbling so I hit the wall instead of toppling outside.
The snarling rises, and my heart slams against my ribs. The sound isn’t a warning or a threat, it’s the clamor of a raging wolf attack, only somewhat muffled by the thick muscles of Darragh’s chest.
Is his wolf going to tear out of his skin and eat me?
Instantly, I become prey and freeze, plastering myself against the rough boards. My chafed thighs clench and I fight the sudden, overwhelming urge to piss myself. The thump in my chest turns into a pounding. My wolf whines and cowers in a far corner of my insides.
“Hi,” I whimper. “I’m so sorry.”
As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I make out Darragh standing by a rudimentary fireplace, as far as he can get from me in the cramped shack. His muscles are tensed like he’s priming for a fight, his wolf’s vicious snarling rattling his ribs, his body angled and his gaze averted so that he’s not looking at me. He’s glaring with a desperate intensity at the packed dirt floor, hands balled into fists, veins popping on his forearms.
He darts a glance at me out of the corner of his eyes, and my breath catches. His irises are wild—a hypnotic bronze and golden swirl. Somehow, despite the clanging of every one of my survival instincts, my chest bursts with a strange warmth, almost a glow. I’ve never seen eyes like his before.
“I didn’t knock because, uh—” I toss a glance at the opening directly beside me. “No door.”
How can I feel absolutely terrified and like a complete idiot at the same time?
He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. He stands there, hulked out, while his wolf snarls and growls like he’s trying to chew his way out of his chest.
My wolf trembles, her head bowed, her throat bared. My mouth is bone dry with thirst and fear, and my skin is still clammy with sweat.
What do I do?
Excuse myself and inch back out the door? Sink down the wall so I’m lower, so I make a smaller target, so I’m less of a threat? He can’t possibly be afraid of me. He’s a foot taller and at least seventy pounds of pure muscle heavier than me. My brain is fritzing from the adrenaline.
“Can I go?” I ask, my voice somehow both raspy and breathy. I sound five years old.
His wolf’s snarling swells, and his chest vibrates. That would be a firm no.
He’s shirtless again today, and he’s still rocking yesterday’s jeans. At least I didn’t catch him with his pants off.
Like when I was marching my dumb butt down into this hostage situation, an unfamiliar heat blooms in my cheeks, and a squirmy feeling erupts in my lower belly. I’m scared, but I’m also something else. Something weird and new and reckless.
“Okay. I’m not going anywhere. See?” I raise my palms in a sign of submission.