Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“I know,” I throw back, but my heart warms a smidgen. I did do right. I know that, but still—I don’t get told it often. Or ever. No one in my life is the “provides approval” type.
A wave of heat hits me. I whine low in my throat and muss with my curls, trying to get them to stop clinging to the back of my neck.
“It’s coming on faster now,” he observes. I can’t deny it.
I’m not bothering to cover myself as I pace the few feet that the chains allow me to move. I don’t feel exposed. I feel hot and cranky, my mind flooding with a sense of urgency intertwined with impending doom. And just like last time, Darragh is starting to feel like he’s not a stranger anymore. An instinct deep inside me trusts him implicitly, which unsettles the hell out of me.
“I don’t understand their plan.” I really don’t—I was too freaked out to follow what Smith was saying—but I bring it up to change the subject, to buy some time while the clock is inexorably running out.
Darragh’s thrown by the change of subject for a second, but he recovers quickly. “They’re talking about a reverse hunt. Instead of coming after me, they want to use you as bait, so I’ll go to them. The challenge is in the defense, not the offense.”
“Why?”
He lifts a tense shoulder. “Humans. They always pervert natural shit.”
“They want you in rut.” My heartbeat picks up as I inch closer to the sword hanging over my head.
He grunts.
“Why?”
“For the thrill, I guess. They can’t have a clear concept of what a male in rut is like.”
My throat tightens. “What’s it like?”
“I only know what I’ve heard.”
“What have you heard?” When I still went to school at Moon Lake, there were rumors about a female named Izzy. She ended up hooked up to a machine in their infirmary, and her mate was exiled to Salt Mountain.
“I won’t hurt you, Mari,” he says, dodging the question.
“Tell me.”
“No. You don’t need that kind of shit in your head.” He sets his jaw.
I step toward him, scratching my free forearm. The heat is making my skin itch. “Why do you keep thinking you get to decide what’s in my head?”
He shuffles backward a bit. “I don’t think that.”
“I’ve dealt with a lot of shit in my life, you know.”
“I know,” he says, and I can tell he does. In pack life, everyone knows everything. It’s a minor miracle that we were able to keep the fact that we’re mates on the down-low.
“I’ve gone through as much as you have, I bet.” I’m not even sure where I’m going with this or why I’m trying to argue with him. I’ve just got this energy in me, and my inhibitions are falling away by the minute.
He doesn’t answer. He looks grim, like he wishes he were somewhere else. Well, me, too.
“Nothing gives you the right to decide things for me,” I press.
“I’m not trying to do that.”
“You literally just did.
You don’t need that shit in your head.
That was you. Your words.” It feels strange to flat out needle an alpha, but I’m fully invested, and every time he doesn’t rise to the bait, I want to fight him even worse.
It must be the heat. I’m nice and good and easy to be around. That’s my thing.
As sweet as she looks.
“You’re treating me like a pup,” I throw at him.
Darragh braces his shoulders. “I’m not telling you shit that’ll upset you more.”
“Not telling me upsets me more.”
He hikes his chin and tries to fold his arms, but the chains won’t let him. He growls in exasperation and compresses his lips.
I ball my fists. My heart knocks around in my chest, and I don’t feel nice or good or easy or sweet. I feel like I want to fight him.
I feel like for four years, I’ve accepted it—the rejection, the not knowing why, the guilt meat, which was just a constant reopening of the wound, the knowledge that I’ll never have a male and a family and a home of my own, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The fucking helplessness.
“I hate you,” I spit at him.
He doesn’t even have the grace to look down. He holds my gaze, muscles taut, like he’s stoically taking whatever blows I choose to dish out, and that’s not fair—he’s the one who dealt the blows. He’s the bad guy.
“You owe me.” The question just flies out of my mouth. “Why wouldn’t you mate me, Darragh? Because your wolf is crazy, so you won’t even try? Or was it because—” The rest of the sentence gets stuck in my throat.
Was it because I’m not worth the trouble?
Iknow it’s a garbage thought, that it’s my past and my baggage talking, but still, the old question hovers in the back of my mind—am I just fundamentally not enough?
For a long moment, I think he’s not going to answer. Hot tears well in my eyes. I scrub them away with my itchy, pink forearm.
I’m so stupid. What does it matter now?
“My wolf is crazy,” he finally says, slowly, deliberately. “I’d say he’s feral, except he can reason. Strategize. He’s smart, but he wants to destroy everything. Most of the time, I can keep him inside, but once he’s out, I can’t control him, not until he’s exhausted himself. I’ve fucking tried—“
He searches for words, and I force my fingers to unfurl. I try not to care so much about what he’s saying. I knew this about his wolf. This isn’t new. I try to put that distance back between us, but I tore it down myself.
“Mari, you were so fucking young. I mean, you’re still young now, but then—you had little fucking bows on your little pink shoes.” He grimaces up at the ceiling. “I was really gonna take you out to some shack in the woods to live with this” —he gestures angrily at himself— “and an insane killer wolf? That can’t be what’s supposed to happen.”
He shakes his head, and for a second, I think he’s done. He’s said everything that should make me feel better but doesn’t. It’s not me, it’s him. It’s my age. His wolf. Fate made a mistake. It is what it is.
But he’s not done.
“I was wrong. I fucked up. But I didn’t realize it for a long time. I thought I was doing the right thing.” He meets my eyes like he desperately wants to make sure that I understand, but I don’t.
“You were wrong?” My emotion-addled, woolly brain is trying to catch up, but the swirling gold of his irises and the creases in his worried brow and the sudden burst of sunshine scent in this rusty metallic box distracts me.
“It took me longer than it should have to realize what I should have done,” he says.
“It did?” What should he have done?
“I don’t have excuses, but Mari, when we get out of this, I’m going to fix everything. I’ve been working on it. I’ve almost got it all set up. Okay, Mari?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but another wave of heat crashes over me, and I can barely hold on to the thread of the conversation.
What he’s saying doesn’t sound like “I rejected you to save you from my damaged self, which makes me noble, sucks for you.” I want to get it straight in my mind, but my lower belly cramps and warm liquid trickles down my thighs. I glance down, face blazing.
“Oh, crap.” I lock my legs together.
“Mari, we have to talk about what’s happening now,” Darragh says with a voice that’s both carefully gentle and intensely awkward.
I swallow. “I’m in heat.”
“Yeah. And eventually, that’s, uh, going to put me in rut.”
“What do we do?”
For a second, he doesn’t answer. Then, sweeping his chains to the side, he crouches, so when he speaks again, he’s below me, looking up. I think he’s making himself smaller, to reassure me, but a male with his presence cannot make himself submissive.
“If I’m in rut, and those men are between us, I’ll attack them. No strategy, no discipline. I’ll do damage, no doubt, but our chances are going to be a lot worse. I don’t like the odds.”