Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
My blood boils, and my chest constricts.
Flora doesn’t talk to males, or anyone, really. She sits by herself or helps clean up. No drama. Even back in school, she sat by herself on the bus to Moon Lake, stayed in her room at the dorms, and always sat at the back of the classroom, her nose in a book.
What the hell was she doing with Bram?
I’m not stupid. I realize if she was going off with me, she’s the type, but damn. I didn’t see it coming.
My guts churn. Creamed chipped beef. Whose idea was dairy after a six-hour run?
I sigh in exasperation. “No one gives a shit who the alpha female is. It all depends on which male wins the challenge.”
I have no doubt I could beat Bram or Leith, separate or together. If I have to do it so I don’t have to bend my neck to an idiot for the rest of my life, I will, but I’m not itching for alpha like they are.
Well, I wasn’t. The thought of ripping Bram’s spine out does appeal more and more as time goes on.
“Mark my words, all the Blackburns and Munroes are gonna be talking about from here on out is that a Cameron is mated to a rankless land whale with no people.” Fraser’s forehead veins are beginning to really pop. “They’ll use this as an excuse to cut you out. Convince Shaw to let Bram and Leith fight each other for heir.”
If Shaw could be convinced, it’d already have been done. That’s all the old-timers like my uncle do. They smoke, drink, flap their gums about what shit needs to be fixed while doing nothing about it, and lobby Shaw about his heir. Gotta nail down who’s going to be King Shit of Turd Mountain.
“So be it.” I sip the last of my cooled coffee. “I’ll fight the winner once Shaw kicks it.”
Fraser’s face flushes so red it looks sunburnt. “Mark my words, son, that arrogance is going to be your downfall.”
I don’t respond in any way. Silence makes him crazy. When I was a pup, I could turn him into a spitting, stuttering mess before he got smart enough to stop arguing and just beat my ass.
“And where is your pride?” he booms. Granddad twitches, but his eyes stay closed. “For how cocky you are, how do you sit there and just eat your food and drink your coffee like Fate didn’t just take a big steaming dump on you?”
My left eye tics. I don’t lose my temper easily. In this pack, if I did, I’d be mad every minute of every day. I’m not arrogant either, no matter what Fraser thinks. I know what I am and what I’ve got, which is not much. A crib of my own with a toilet and a shower and a kitchenette. A job that earns me enough scrip that I don’t have to ask anyone for anything. Work that I don’t hate.
I’ve got a mate.
Holy fuck.
A mate.
Flora’s my mate.
My brain still cannot wrap itself around that fact, but one thing is crystal clear—I’m about done listening to this bullshit.
“Fate decides,” I say. She took her sweet time, but she’s finally spoken. Flora’s mine. Blood rushes to my cock again, a strange warmth infuses my chest, and right on the heels of the sensation, Bram Blackburn’s ugly, sneering face floats into my mind like a specter.
“That’s a copout.” Fraser keeps going. “You should have kept your mouth shut and walked away. You can always fuck her behind some tree somewhere when it comes down to it, but no, you had to give Blackburn and Munroe ammunition. You basically claimed the fat bitch in front of everyone.”
There’s blood pounding in my ears now, too. I’m swelling, and it’s not only my muscles, it’s this roar rising inside me. I can hardly hear over it.
“So lying about the obvious is better? You think you can keep a mating secret? In this pack?” I stand without realizing that I’m doing it. “And what is all this about pig and land whale and fat bitch? Are we human now? When did we start giving a crap about how big a bitch is?”
The rushing in my head is clearing shit up. I’m in the wrong place.
“You don’t see a problem?” Fraser points in the direction of the alpha’s compound, arm straight out like a scarecrow. “They’re laughing at you. This is a joke.”
I don’t bare my fangs. I let them dig into the inside of my lower lip.
“You know this is a non-starter.” Fraser swings his arm to point his finger at me. “Wallace told us what you said to her. You told that dirty bitch to wash herself, and maybe you’d let her ride your cock.”
Everyone around the table snickers, except for Trevor, who won’t look up from his empty plate. A stone forms in the pit of my stomach.
I did say that. Everything was veiled in a haze of red, and with the one brain cell I still had working, I was counting the Blackburns, and how they outnumbered us two to one. Even if the McKays and Sinclairs threw in with us, they wouldn’t be worth much after a day of drinking.
Everyone was crowded around Flora, and she can’t fight. When we were pups, the females would pinch her on the bus, and she never said a word about it. I had to beat the shit out of a half dozen dumbasses until they got the message out to their sisters and female cousins that they don’t need to be messing with each other like that.
Anyway, my wolf was going nuts. He wanted to fight them all, and I was holding him back by the skin of my teeth. And I was fucking furious.
It’s not until I hear the words from Fraser’s mouth that what I’ve done wallops me across the face. I said that to her. I got mad and struck out and that’s what came out of my mouth. My stomach plunges.
“There’s no getting around the fact that this is a mismatch.” Fraser shakes his head, feigning regret. “Best you can do now is fuck her and be done with her. Let it blow over.”
“Maybe trade her to Quarry Pack,” Hamish suggests. “We got some decent gear for that freaky female with the male wolf.”
I’m standing here, listening to this garbage, and it’s like I’m in a wind tunnel, and everything is speeding at my face, and my feet aren’t firm on the ground, and I can’t see anything clearly except ugliness.
The drywall in this room was hung wrong, so there are cracks in the paint. The paint itself has gone brown from tobacco smoke, and even the plastic tablecloth Aunt Shona lays over the fabric is stained yellow. The carpet’s so worn down that the foam padding showing through the bald patches has holes of its own.
“No pack would trade for Fluffa,” Lyle sneers as he scratches his armpit.
The roaring in my head cranks louder and louder. All I do for ten hours a day, six days a week, is keep this place from falling apart. I spent the past month installing steel bracing in Niven McKay’s basement so the house doesn’t collapse, much good it’ll do if he doesn’t address the mold before it climbs up to the second story.
I shim, duct tape, and jerry-rig this place together on a daily basis—listen to this kind of talk day in, day out—and what’s it all come to in the end?
I’m an ugly piece of shit, too, not a damn bit different than any of these males.
“Maybe when you’re done with her, you can send her to Mickey down at the butcher shack, and we can get some bacon.” Wallace laughs, throwing his head back, spittle flecking from his thick, cracked lips.
The rest of them bust out laughing, too, slapping the table, chortling like it’s the best joke they’ve ever heard, like there’s nothing funnier than saying that kind of shit about a female who’s never done a damn thing to them in her life.
And they think I’ll do nothing.
And why wouldn’t they?
The roaring in my head crescendos, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to grab the table and heave it end over end, knocking these laughing assholes over like duckpins. Fraser tries to dive clear, but Hamish is too far up his ass, and they trip over each other the instant before the tabletop crashes into them, nailing them to the ground. Chairs fall. Dishware shatters. Sausage links and soggy toast flies through the air.
It’s not enough. As my cousins struggle to their feet, showing their necks as they desperately scout for a way out, I swing, sending them sailing into the walls. Andrew.
Slam. Glen.
Slam. Clyde.
Crash. He goes through the drywall into the parlor. Trevor drags Granddad, chair and all, out of the path of flying bodies, so I leave him be, but I make short work of the rest.
Mac. Keith. Lyle. Wallace. None of them are laughing now.
I get to the overturned table just as Fraser manages to drag his top half out from under it. He’s contorted, trying to shove himself free, and at the same time, twisting his neck so it’s bared.
And then, from a far corner, a toothless silver wolf bounds onto the top of the table and bays at the ceiling, using his slight weight to keep Fraser and Hamish pinned. There’s a quilt tangled in his paws.
I stop in my tracks, the sight somehow calming the rage inside me. “All right, Granddad,” I say.
He howls louder, and I don’t need my wolf to understand what he’s asking.
Which one do I kill first?
He never did like his granddaughter’s mate.
I look around at the destruction I’ve wrought. It’ll be two days’ work easy to patch the walls, and probably at least a hundred human dollars for materials. At least the table’s undamaged. That’s Old World craftsmanship.
I sigh. This is why I don’t lose my temper. If you’re the one who has to fix things, it’s not nearly as satisfying to tear shit down.
Flora’s face comes to mind, unbidden. Not her beautiful, drowsy eyes when she’s sucking cock, but her expression right before I said what I did. She was looking to me to protect her.
She thought I would.
And all I could think about was Bram fucking Blackburn.
There’s a busted chair missing two legs by my feet. I grab it and throw it through a piece of sheetrock hanging by a thread from a wall joint.