Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“Okay. See, there’s this one with a man and his nephew. And they journey to the center of the earth. And there are dinosaurs. And a tornado? Shit—” The brow furrows again. “It might have been a tsunami. Something like that.”
“A tornado in the center of the earth?”
“Yeah.”
“How was there enough air down there for a tornado?”
“There were caverns.”
“How do the men get down there?”
“Uh, they rappelled.”
“Okay.” I’m starting to feel woozy.
“And at the end, they’re spit out of Stromboli.”
“Like the food?”
“No, it was a volcano. Its name was Stromboli.”
“What’s the book called?”
“Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
“Makes sense.”
It’s the strangest conversation I’ve ever had, but I’m calming down again, and I’m not thinking about the spike in my temperature or the massive thing connecting this male to me. This complete stranger.
“Tell me about another one,” I ask.
He looks surprised that I asked—heck, I am too—but he starts on another without hesitation.
“So there’s this doctor. His name is Jekyll. He drinks a serum so he can do evil things.”
“He wants to do evil things?”
“Yeah. And he turns into a man named Hyde. He, uh, tramples a girl.”
“Tramples? Like a horse?”
“Yeah. And then he gets caught, more or less, and he transforms in front of this guy Lanyon who dies from shock.”
“An electrical shock?”
“No, an, um, emotional shock.”
That story reminds me of the taser, and I crane my neck to check out the burns on my sides. The pain has dulled, but if I wasn’t in emotional shock myself, it’d probably hurt like a bitch. Darragh catches the direction I’m looking, and for a moment, fury darkens his face.
“It doesn’t hurt much,” I tell him. I’m not sure why I feel the urge to reassure him. I just do. He’s angry, and even though it doesn’t scare me, I don’t like it.
“I’ll tear those fuckers apart,” he says. Other males would say it with their chest, but Darragh mutters it to the floor, furious and grim and utterly sincere, and then he spends the next five minutes straining against his bonds without me counting to three.
I don’t understand him.
In my head, I’ve built him up to be the world’s biggest asshole. He rejected me because he’s a tormented loner or whatever, which holds no water with me because my father tried to kill me when I was a baby, and my mother chose the freezing river over her only child.
I’m tormented, and
Ididn’t give up on him without a second thought.
Or maybe it was because his wolf wants me dead, but who knows if that’s the real reason? He didn’t even bother telling me why. Clearly, he can be around people sometimes. But with me, he wasn’t even going to try.
So he’s a fucked-up asshole, right? Another Quarry Pack tough guy who’s too broken to function.
And underneath all these assumptions is the idea that I wasn’t worth the effort to him. Just like I wasn’t worth it to my mom.
That he could have made it work if he’d tried.
But this male in chains across from me—he came for me. He put his body between them and me and flung his arms wide, even though he must have known he was outgunned and outnumbered. And now he’s making himself summarize classics to keep me calm.
“Why are we talking about books?”
The brow furrows again. “You asked me. Remember? When you came to my place that day. You asked me what books I like.”
“I did?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t remember. All I can clearly recall is the embarrassment and the sight of his back as he led me all those miles back to camp. That’s what that afternoon was for me—humiliation and rejection.
What was it like for him?
Why didn’t I ever wonder before?
I shift my butt to rest on the other calf. “So what’s the name of the story with the guy who wants to do evil things?” I ask.
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The corner of his lips twitch.
Mine soften. “Makes sense.”
“Want to hear about
Ivanhoe
?” he asks, and from his tone, it’s clear that he’s not excited about the prospect of telling me, but he wants to do it. He wants to comfort me.
I can’t untangle it all—the fear, the strange swirling in my belly, the heat in this box, the way his gruff voice makes me feel small and safe, even though I know I’m not.
Darragh is sweaty, too. He’s not dripping with it, but there’s a sheen on his chest that makes the ridges of his abs glimmer. They catch my eye, and I know I shouldn’t stare, but it doesn’t feel like staring. It feels like admiring. The heat in here itself is beginning to feel less oppressive and more sedative.
I slip into a dull, drowsy haze while Darragh tells me about a knight who is disinherited because he supports the wrong king or loves the wrong woman—or both—it’s unclear, and how the knight won tournaments in a secret disguise, and he’s wounded, and another woman comes into it and is mistaken for the first woman…
I don’t know how the story could make sense even if Darragh is telling it right, but I’m only paying the barest bit of attention. I’m watching the sunlight coming through the bullet holes play on his sweat-slick muscles. His bare chest is different from the males who strut around camp. His skin is tanner, more weathered, like it’s spent more time in the elements, like it’s tougher.
Darragh gestures to show how the knight pierces another with a lance, and his biceps and forearms flex. I love his forearms. There’s a spasm low in my belly.
The air rushes from my lungs. Shit. This is heat. I’m in heat.
I can’t pretend it’s not. It’s heat, and it’s not coming on, it’s here.
I tense. I was resting to the side on a hip, arm draped across my boobs, and I straighten, tucking my legs tight to my chest, clutching my shins tight.
Darragh immediately tenses, too, searching for whatever changed, but nothing has. We’re still speeding somewhere, stuck in a box. I’m just royally screwed.
“What’s wrong?” Darragh asks.
I look down at my pale knees. There’s a dirt smudge on the right one.
I can’t bring myself to say it. Why can’t he smell it? He sure knew last time. He skulked around camp until it took over, and I didn’t have a choice anymore. Until I lost control. My nose burns with gathering tears.