Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Flora must do the yard work. I can’t see Miss Nola venturing out to do it, and no one comes up this way to help. I’d have smelled them when I pass on the ridge. I take this path several times a day. To avoid the main road.
Where did Flora let Bram fuck her?
An image of her round ass, molded in her skintight faded jeans, flashes in my mind. My gut cramps.
I didn’t see it coming. I had no clue. Flora doesn’t talk to males. She doesn’t show off her tits or sprawl herself out on blankets during cookouts like wares on the mercantile counter. Frankly, whenever she’s with the pack, she always looks like she’d rather be anywhere else. I get it. I feel the same.
Maybe she wanted to be off with Bram.
Maybe that’s where she is now.
I stop in the middle of the yard. Where does Miss Nola keep her tools? I need an ax.
I am not going to storm into the Blackburn compound after my mate. I’ll look like a total asshole, and while I could take a few of them, that family breeds big and beefy, and they all fight on the circuit. Still…
I could take a few of them.
My wolf wants to bolt, too, but he doesn’t want to go east toward the village. For some reason, he wants to head down the mountain. He’s getting more and more agitated as the minutes pass. So am I.
My eyes catch the corner of a battered storage trunk tucked under the back porch. Score. I trot over, tug it out, and fling it open. There’s no lock. In this pack, it’s sheer luck that anything’s left in it. There’s a Weedwacker, pruning shears, some kind of food pellets, and an ax. Nice.
I take off into the woods crowding the yard. I don’t have to go too far to find a trunk that’s been split by lightning, and it’s only a matter of a few strokes before I’ve got it down. As I drag it back to the house, I begin to sweat in earnest. There goes smelling decent.
Flora doesn’t usually mind me a little ripe, though. If I’ve been running around, she likes to run her soft little nose up my thigh, her eyelids fluttering closed, like she’s in heaven. My chest tightens and my gut sours.
If she needed wood or scrip for something, she could have asked. I’ve got enough that I could get her whatever she needs.
But she wouldn’t have asked. She’s not the type. Neither am I.
I cut myself a good base and start swinging. I know it’s stupid as I’m doing it. No safety goggles. Sneakers, not boots. If I don’t expend this energy, though, I’m going after her, and I don’t need to do that. I’ll wait here until she comes back, and we’ll have a calm conversation.
I won’t bring up Bram. Not right away. I’ll make sure she’s eaten, and she’s doing all right with the whole heat thing.
My face burns, hotter than my exertion calls for. I lost my dam when I was twelve, and she never had any but the one heat when I was conceived. I don’t know much about the process except for what males say, and who knows what’s bragging and what’s true?
The females need blankets, I know that. What do they need them for? It’s unclear. I mean, they’re hot, right? It’s called heat.
They say the females get on all fours and beg for cock. They’ll do anything for it—but only if they have enough blankets arranged the right way. See? It’s gotta be bullshit.
Did she get on her hands and knees for Bram Blackburn?
Crack. The ax sends a shard of wood flying.
Did she beg?
The ax gets stuck, and when I try to wrench it free, the chopping block comes with it. I force myself to lower the stump back to the ground and use my foot to brace it and jerk the blade out. I want to fling it as far as it’ll go, over the treetops, see if I can send it all the way up and over the mountain.
I feel like I could do it. My muscles are swollen, stretching my skin, and my blood is surging. Is this rut coming on?
It’s too soon. They say you don’t have to worry about rut for days. Weeks if you’re strong.
You hear about males who have their cousins lock them up until rut strikes. They claim it’s the best sex. There’s nothing like it.
You also hear about females with broken hips. Females who go back to their mothers.
I split the last log, wipe my face with my shirt, make quick work of stacking the wood, and then return the ax to the trunk. A hinge is loose. It’s lost three of four screws. Looks like a number ten. I could run up to the shop.
See if I can scent Flora.
My wolf whines. He wants to go, too, but not that way. He’s straining, all his focus to the south.
How much longer can she be? She’s like me. She doesn’t have friends, and she’s not one to shoot the shit.
I roll my shoulders and tug my shirt a few times to air myself out. It doesn’t help much. I’m soaked with sweat.
I trot up to the front door and give it a quick rap. This time, it opens right away, like Miss Nola was standing right next to it. She still keeps it on the chain, but I take a few steps back to give her space.
Her expression is different, a bit less hostile, a touch more confused.
“Is she going to be back soon, ma’am?”
Miss Nola doesn’t answer right away.
“If you tell me where she’s gone, I’ll just go find her there. I need to go to the shop. Get some screws for that trunk of yours. The hinge is falling off.”
I don’t know why I’m running off at the mouth. It’s not like I’m intimidated. It’s just that Miss Nola’s wariness doesn’t sit well. It makes my skin itch.
“The trunk came with the house,” she says.
I wait, but that’s all she says. She seems to be struggling with something. She keeps glancing past me, over my shoulder. Her brow wrinkles.
“Yes, ma’am. If you’d just tell me where Flora’s gone?”
“You chopped some wood,” she says.
I jerk a nod. “You were getting low.”
“Flora hauls it up from the village. She’s a good girl.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyes cloud. Something tells me to be quiet and wait.
“She deserves better than she’s gotten.”
I don’t clench my fists. I swallow an impatient growl, keep my mouth shut, and listen.
“Y-you don’t d-deserve her. N-none of you do.” Her reedy voice shakes like a tumbler, and she carries herself like she’s holding herself together, chin tucked to her chest, arms clutched tight, her elbows poking from her sweater like they’re nothing but bone. She keeps going, though. “If I could have gone with her, I would’ve. Iw-would’ve.”
Adrenaline shoots through my veins. “Gone where?”
“Away from here. Where they’ll appreciate her. Take care of her.”
“Where
?” My wolf is in my voice.
Her face drains, and I feel like a piece of shit. She doesn’t crumble, though. “I don’t know,” she says with a tight smile of victory. “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.”
And with that, she closes the door in my face again, less gently this time. There’s an audible click.
My stomach sinks.
She ran.
To him? To Bram?
No, Miss Nola said “away.” Bram wouldn’t go anywhere. He wants alpha as badly as Leith.
My heart thuds, blood rushing in my ears.
She can’t have gotten far.
My slow brain ticks through the math. The scene at the river was almost twenty-four hours ago. She could be hundreds of miles from here by now if she drove.