Filed to story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
We’ve never found the bodies, signs of struggle, clothes, or personal effects. After Rosie, Cadoc’s new mate, recounted all the people her folks have lost—it would be impossible to hide so many dead on pack land. That means we’re looking for a predator that can transport its victims.
The bog worm is out as a suspect.
As I throw the last vertebra, pitching it so it buzzes the kid’s ear to see what kind of reflexes he’s got, I allow myself a small measure of satisfaction.
Another threat down.
She’s safer.
I give myself permission to listen to the bond for a second. It’s like the insides of a seashell, empty but full of sound. The peacefulness hits like a drug, loosening the vise that constantly squeezes my chest, and at the same time, slipping another blade between my ribs, pricking my heart. This is all I can have.
I accept it. It’s on me. It’s my burden.
I shouldn’t have insisted on talking to her yesterday. It made her unhappy. It was selfish.
She didn’t want the pheasant. Why would she? No one wants to waste their time picking out birdshot. I should’ve fed the bird to my wolf and gone after the elk I saw signs of last week near Tall Pines Lake. I was putting the hunt off because I don’t like venturing so far from camp for very long.
She didn’t seem interested when I mentioned the elk. She just wanted me gone, which is fair.
Maybe she’d like some salmon. I’ve never really brought her fish. The best spots are further up the mountain, and I don’t like being so far afield, but if I knew Killian was in camp—
I still wouldn’t go. Not that far. Not when there’s this invisible threat out there, leaving no scent, no tracks.
She might really be into fish.
For the first time, I take a good look at the kid Killian’s brought. I recognize him. He works in the kitchen with her. She’s not afraid of him, and he doesn’t touch her, so I haven’t had to worry about what to do with him yet.
He looks dumb and overconfident.
“Can you fish?” I ask him.
He blinks up from watching Killian prod around in the bog worm’s innards with a stick. “I never have. Is it hard?”
I sigh. Well, there goes that idea. I stalk over to the hand pump and rinse my hands, although as I figured, water does nothing to cut the grime.
“He know what he’s in for?” I ask Killian, jerking a nod at the kid as I rub my hands dry with a rag. The fabric sticks to my skin.
“I don’t know. Lucan, you know why I brought you up here?” Killian’s smirking. He loves this shit.
To his credit, the kid doesn’t lose his nonchalance. “To feed me to this motherfucker?” He flashes a wry grin.
Besides cocky, he’s wiry. Hopefully, he’s fast, too. He has a better chance of surviving my wolf if he’s fast.
Killian slaps his back. “I won’t let his wolf eat you.”
“How are you going to stop him?” I ask. The wolf doesn’t recognize Killian as his alpha, and Killian knows it.
“You don’t think I could take your wolf?” Killian arcs an eyebrow.
“You think you can?” I’m genuinely curious. Killian and I have been sparring in human form for years, and it’s usually a toss-up, but for obvious reasons, our wolves have never fought. I don’t want to accidentally end up as Alpha of Quarry Pack.
“Is that a challenge?” Killian’s smile stretches to his ears.
“I thought you wanted me to fight the kid?” I brush my palms once more on my jeans, as much good as it does. “Shit, I guess I have time to whup you both.”
Killian bursts out in laughter, and a few seconds later, the kid joins in, but his nerves are showing now.
“So what’s the agenda? You want the wolf to take the kid down a peg, or is this about facing his fears?” I crack my neck and roll my shoulders. My wolf rumbles in my chest. The kid’s face grays, and my wolf lets out an unearthly howl. He’s caught the scent of prey.
I lead the way to a patch of even ground upwind from the bog worm carcass.
“You know who this kid is?” Killian asks me.
I shrug. “I’ve seen him around.” Truth be told, the younger pack males are interchangeable. They all wear baggy shorts with elastic waistbands and smell like armpit and the shit that humans sell in aerosol cans.
“He works in the kitchen with Mari.” Every muscle in my body tenses. Obviously, I know that. And obviously, Killian can say her name. That’s fine. There’s no reason I need to kill him because he said her name.
But the urge to do it is hard to tamp down. I grit my teeth and shake out my arms, twist a few times at the waist. Not that I need to warm up. The wolf is always ready.
“His name’s Lucan.” Killian keeps running his mouth. “He tried to overthrow me, didn’t you, dumbass?” Killian whacks the kid upside the head. The kid ducks and flushes.
“I didn’t think they were actually going to do it.” He has the sense to look ashamed. “I thought we were just blowing off steam.”
Killian tosses a shoulder, fundamentally unconcerned. After the attempted coup, he and I had many long conversations about whether or not to let the tagalong males like Lucan live. In the end, it came down to numbers. Kill too many pack males, and we’d have to thin out patrols, leaving us more vulnerable.
It was an unacceptable risk, so I agreed to go along with Killian’s rehabilitation plan with the understanding that if any of the half-assed conspirators shows the slightest sign of fucking around again, my wolf gets him.
“Well, it wasn’t blowing off steam, was it?” Killian’s eyes narrow, and he gets right in the kid’s face. “You put our females at risk.
My female. Annie. Mari.” He draws out her name and watches my reaction from the corner of his eye.
He’s fucking with me.
“You tried to sell sweet little innocent Mari to the Last Pack as a whore.”
The wolf rattles my chest as my nails dig into the flesh of my palms.
“Enough,” I tell Killian, my voice so distorted by my wolf that the word is nearly incomprehensible.
Killian smiles at me, snaps his teeth, and winks. “I’m just messing with you, man. Get that blood flowing. You’ve got the chains?”
It takes a few seconds to pull myself back from the edge. Killian’s an asshole. He’s riling me up to get a better show. I don’t dance for him. He’s not my alpha. He’s the male that leads the pack I don’t quite belong to, and I can never bring myself to leave.
I wave him away and give him my back. “Too late. Take the kid home. I got shit to do.”
It’s not a lie. Winter is coming, and I wanted to be much further along on construction than I am. I’m always losing work days when the wolf demands to run, and I have to borrow a truck and drive my ass all the way to the far side of Salt Mountain before it’s safe to let him take our skin.
He makes a beeline straight back here—to her—and he holds nothing back so he’s dead on his feet by the time he limps his way over the border to Quarry Pack, and I wrestle him back inside. The next day, I have to get Liam or Tye to drive me all the way back to the truck and return it to camp, and that’s two whole days gone.
And that’s not even accounting for the time I lose over bog worms, and tracking ferals who wander too close, and chasing down rumors about whatever’s picking us off.
I don’t have time for Killian Kelly’s bullshit, too. I go back to the worm carcass, careful to breathe through my nose. How much lighter fluid will it take to make it go up all at once? It’s not going to be a good smell. Better to have it burn hot and quick.
A footstep sounds behind me, and Killian clears his throat and waits. That’s as close as he’ll ever come to an apology.
“Fuck off,” I tell him.
He comes to stand even with me. “What if I take care of this for you?” He nudges the carcass with his foot.
“I’m looking forward to doing it myself.”
Killian slides me a glance. You can see the wheels turning. “You know Dermot’s a good hand at fishing. What if I send him up the mountain? Have him bring you down some fat salmon.” The corners of his mouth rise. He knows he’s got me.
It’d bother me more if I didn’t know he’s as bound as I am by this thing
—this bond that hurts worse than any wound, but that I wouldn’t sever for anything in the world.
He’s a luckier male than I am, but he also knows the bite of this trap, the brutal sharpness of its teeth. It changes everything, but for me, it’s fixed nothing.
I sigh. “You want me to fight him?”
Killian grunts in the affirmative. “As the wolf.”
“I want a fuck ton of salmon. Enough for the whole pack.” If I don’t give her enough to make a meal for everyone, she won’t eat any of it herself. If it’s pack dinner, she might.