Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I do their laundry, and I keep to myself, and they think I’m worse than worthless.
But you know what? I don’t think I am.
I don’t have to believe what they do, so why do I?
My wolf lumbers to her feet like I’ve got it. It’s time. My brain whirls and puzzle pieces fall into place, one after another.
Alec Cameron is a terrible person. Who would want a mate like that? And as a matter of fact, this pack is terrible.
What am I doing here? Why am I standing here in the middle of this when I can run?
My wolf chuffs like I’ve thought the magic words. She raises her muzzle, howls, and shakes out her coat.
Ready?
I am. I straighten my spine. Close my eyes. Her lips peel back in a wolfy smile, and she runs and leaps. I’m not afraid. The pain, when it comes, is academic. Bones crack. Muscles snap. Fabric rips. I scream.
Her big paws thud to the ground. She snaps her teeth, and the females gasp and shriek, but the noise is already fading. Our paws eat up the ground.
We are fast. And tall. Everything is lower, and colors have changed, and smells have multiplied and amplified like in late fall before the first snow when the air is exquisitely crisp and clear, and you can tease out the scent of folks’ joy and fear from as far away as Quarry Pack.
The world is brand spanking new.
I don’t need to make this body small. I don’t need to fit, to hold it in. There are no eyes judging, despising, pitying. Underestimating.
I am big and strong and free. We follow the river downstream, running through the water, delighting in the spray we send flying with our swift legs. When it gets too deep, we race along the bluffs, sailing over felled trees, faster and faster. The mountain wind whips through our fur, cooling our heated skin, filling our lungs with sweet, crisp, night air.
I want Alec to be running with me.
And that’s dumb, and wrong, and no I don’t. That’s what Fate wants. I’m not her.
Who am I?
I don’t know, and it’s terrifying, and it’s wonderful.
As I come to the ridge that marks the border of Salt Mountain territory, my wolf slows to a stop, her lungs working like a bellows, exhausted and exhilarated and ready for anything. Behind us, the peaks jut into a starless night, the moon hung above like the dot of an exclamation point.
Below, the forest is dense and dark, spreading as far as my new eyes can see. What’s down there?
Why have I never wondered before?
For a second, I imagine taking another step. And another. My heart pounds. My wolf cocks her head, like she’s listening. To me?
It’s late. I can smell sunrise coming, even though there’s no sign of it on the horizon yet.
I left Miss Nola’s dinner back at the gathering place. She doesn’t leave our cabin. She’ll have gone to bed hungry.
I left everyone’s clothes on the ground, too. I’m going to get in trouble for that.
Alec will probably be back to the village soon.
Inside my wolf, my hands ball into fists. Iwon’t care. I drag his cold, distant face up in my mind and force myself to remember how he wouldn’t meet my eyes, not even for a second, not even with this thing lodged in our chests, harnessing us together.
Like I’m a stranger, and we haven’t been sneaking off together for years. Like we haven’t known each other our whole lives.
Like I’m not even a person.
The urge to keep running comes over me again, to just leave it all behind, erase him like he erased me, but there’s another voice inside me now. Not my wolf, and not quite me, either.
Miss Nola needs to eat, the voice says.
And if you’re going to leave, be smart. Get your clothes.
If you leave, don’t leave them a damn thing.
Chapter 2
2
FLORA
When I reach the abandoned fridges and rusted-out car bodies that mark the boundary of the village, I shift back to my human skin. As soon as I do, I get goosebumps all over my arms. What if I run into Alec, coming back from his run?
It’s minutes until daybreak, and the pack has usually returned by now, but it would be my luck to be buckass naked and come across him and all the unmated males. I hustle down to the gathering place, and thank God, it’s empty except for a few chucked cans and a bunch of reeking clothes.
I poke through the jumble until I come across his shirt and tug it on, pulling the collar up over my nose. It’s easy to find. It’s the only one that doesn’t stink.
Of course I’ve heard of mating stench before, but I didn’t realize it wasn’t an exaggeration. Does this mean females aren’t telling tales about childbirth, either?
As I begin to pitch boxers and briefs and tank tops and jeans into a pile on the biggest shirt I can find—probably Bram’s—sweat streams down my face. It isn’t from the work or the heat simmering low in my belly. It’s sheer panic.
What do I do next?
I don’t know, so I put one foot in front of the other. I bundle the males’ clothes into a sack and hoist it onto my back, breathing through my mouth and rushing as quickly as I can down the path that leads from the river to the village.
I pass the Shaw compound first and then the Munroes’. I push myself harder, hurrying past the Cameron place although there aren’t any lights on except for the back of the main house where the kitchen must be.
I’ve never been inside any of the Cameron buildings. His aunt runs their place, and she makes me wait on the porch outside of the mudroom when I pick up and deliver the washing.
I pass the Blackburn compound last before I reach the cluster of common buildings—the hall where we eat, the huge metal garage used as a gym by the males training to fight, the old barn that serves as a grocery, and behind the butcher’s shack, the low cinderblock hut that houses the laundry.
I’m bone tired, and my wolf has conked out, but I make myself sort the clothes instead of throwing the pile in a corner. I’m not one to leave work for others.
Before I go, I crack the windows. Hopefully, the stink will wear off before I come back for my morning shift.
It feels strange walking home along the worn trail that runs beside the creek. I come this way a half dozen times a day, going to and from work. If I’m not schlepping my cart, Brenda wants the main road kept clear. I’ve done my part wearing this rut in the dirt. The sky has lightened, casting a gloomy gray light over the village, but my footing would be sure even if it were pitch black.
The path is so familiar, but
I’m not. My body feels totally different, and it’s not just the waves of heat lapping at me, slowly growing in intensity but not insistent enough that I can’t put it out of my mind if I try.
When my wolf broke out of me, something about me changed. In some unfathomable way, she stretched us out. I’m not curving my shoulders, tucking my ass, and holding in my stomach like I usually do as a matter of course, even when no one’s around.
My arms are swinging free. My hips are swaying. Everything is hitting me differently, from the dewy freshness of morning grass to the bite of woodsmoke in the air. My head’s not down, and my hood’s not up. My hands aren’t shoved in my pockets. I’m not worrying anymore that I’ll run into someone.
Everything is sweeter. Sharper. The world feels wide open.
And then there’s the thing in my chest. It’s like I’ve been punched straight through the sternum, and the fist is still lodged there, but by some miracle, I can still breathe. My heart is still beating. I can walk despite it, and the fact lightens my steps.
I have lived through the worst moment of my life.
I was young when my mom died. I’d been sent to live with Miss Nola when Ma was still holding on, so when she passed, I’d already been missing her for a while. It hit slow, not all at once.
My father never told me he was done with me. One day, I realized I hadn’t seen him in a while, and I asked Miss Nola, and she said he was busy, and I shouldn’t worry about it. So I didn’t. He’d never had much to say to me, and I still saw him sometimes at a distance around the village, so it didn’t feel like a blow.
So, yeah, Alec telling me that I can come over and mount him if I wash myself first while everyone pointed and laughed is the most awful moment I’ve actually lived through.
And it’s over now.
I’m probably in shock.
Maybe shock isn’t so bad.
When I get to our small cottage on the eastern outskirts of the village, I check on Harriet like usual. I approach her hutch slowly, not sure if she’s going to freak now that I’ve shifted. Can she smell my wolf?