Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I refocus on his dangling cock because I’m awkward and a complete idiot. It twitches.
“Flora, why are you staring at my junk?”
My eyes screw shut, my cheeks bursting into flames. “Just get out of here. Go back home. No one asked you to come after me.”
Or did they? Did Alpha Shaw tell him to go bring his mate back?
I look him straight in the eye. “I’m not going back to Salt Mountain. Not ever.”
“Flora, you’re acting crazy.” He says it very carefully, like he’s breaking bad news.
“No, I’m not.” I lift my chin and stare him down. Funny. I don’t feel the slightest compulsion to bare my neck. Is it because we’ve left pack territory? Or because my wolf knows she’s bigger than his?
He shakes his head and begins to pace. An owl lets out a squawking hoot in the distance. He stops mid-step and cocks his head. When it hoots again, loud and clear this time, I guess he’s satisfied there’s no threat because he starts pacing again.
“It’s not safe out here,” he growls.
“You can go back.”
He snorts, paces a few more steps, and shoots over his shoulder, “What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. I want you to leave.”
“Do you want me to say sorry? Is that it?” He runs a hand through his hair. He genuinely seems harassed, like I’ve lost my mind, and I’m holding something hostage.
“I already heard what you had to say.”
I’ll let you ride my cock. Wash it real good first, though.
It’s on a loop. I’ll get it out of my head, though, if it’s the last thing I do on this earth. If I have to walk forever to leave it behind.
“Flora—” He grinds his teeth and glares at the ground at my feet as if it did something to him, and he cannot bear to meet my eye. “It all came out of nowhere. I thought—” He exhales and switches to glaring up at the darkening sky. “Well, for one, I didn’t think you were fucking Bram Blackburn.”
“It’s not your business who I was fucking.”
His glare finds me in an instant. “Who else?”
I press my lips together and go to cross my arms, but I’m still holding the knife. Now I feel stupid. I dip and tuck it back in its sheath.
When I straighten, Alec’s gaze is still boring into me. “Who else, Flora?”
“Whoever I wanted. Just like you. Whoever I wanted.”
He snarls, doesn’t even try to smother it, and then he pivots and stalks off, but when he comes to the edge of the clearing, he comes to a halt like he’s reached the end of a leash. He puts his hands on his hips, and looks up at the sky again. His perfect ass flexes. His whole body vibrates with frustration.
I bet he’s frustrated. I always do whatever he wants.
Open your throat, Flora. Take it deeper. Look at me. Don’t swallow. Hold it in your mouth. Show me.
My pussy spasms. Traitor.
Or maybe there’s something in my head that likes being treated like that. Something that asks for it.
Maybe I believe that’s the best someone like me can hope for.
I shiver. With the sun all the way behind the mountain, the breeze from the north has a bite. Suddenly, I’m so damn tired. I sink back down to the quilt, drawing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my shins. I try to make myself small, but all I do is squish my boobs and belly.
Alec turns to face me and strides back over, his exasperation mastered, his face cool and stern again.
“Flora, enough of this now. We need to go back. It’s not safe out here. We’ll shift and run. It’ll only take a few hours. We can figure it out when we get home.”
Home.
A longing pierces my heart. How I want to go home. But it’s crystal clear now that home is not back in Salt Mountain, no matter how hard Miss Nola tried, no matter that she did the best she could.
Home is years ago, when my dam stood between me and the world, before I knew that my body is a despicable thing, a failing that I should be made to suffer for, that I should never be at peace with, not for a second.
“I’m not going back,” I say quietly, staring at the worn knees of my jeans.
“Flora,” Alec snaps, sharp and irritated, as if I’m a pup. Irrational. Out of line.
The rage wells up in me like something from a science textbook—magma, a geyser, something hot from deep below the surface, impossible to hold back a second longer. I did nothing to him, to any of them, except for what they told me to do.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere with you if you dragged me. You’d have to kill me first.” I look up, right at him, even though I can’t see clearly through the sudden blur. My voice rises, and it wavers, but I keep going. I want him to hear this. Hear me. Because I mean it down to my soul. “I hate your guts. You, and Bram Blackburn and Leith and Rhona and Greer and Brenda and Alpha Shaw. I hate every single one of you. I would die before I ever spend another day with any of you hateful, nasty, wretched people, so you can just turn around, Alec Cameron, because I will never be your mate, not in a million years. I would rather die.”
My cheeks are dripping. What’s happening?
Alec’s wolf howls, rattling his ribs.
One second, he’s scowling. The next, he’s stricken.
What happened?
My gaze flits around the clearing, but his entire focus is on my face. He sinks to his knees. Now we’re eye level.
He raises his hands, palms up, as if I’m a wild animal about to bite. I’m not. I haven’t got any bite left. It’s all out, and I’m crying.
“I don’t cry,” I say, wiping my face. My fingers come away wet.
“Okay,” Alec agrees without hesitation, the entire musculature of his arms and chest flexed, bracing for something, an attack, an explosion.
“I-I can’t stop,” I whimper. It’s coming out of my nose.
Alec swipes at his front, catching a handful of air and blinking down in frustration when he remembers he doesn’t have a shirt on.
“Hold on.” He hooks my backpack and drags it to him, plunges his arm in and wrestles out a pair of my white cotton underwear.
A wail comes unbidden from my throat.
He stuffs them back and reemerges with a pair of sleep shorts, thrusting them toward me. I snatch them from his fingers, wad them up, and scrub my face.
“You’re okay. You’re fine. You’ve got to shake it off.” He shakes out his arms and rolls his shoulders, demonstrating. “Just, uh, breathe. Deep breaths, Flora. Maybe, uh—“
The shorts aren’t doing anything. The fabric’s too silky. I drop them.
Alec is kneeling on the ground in front of me, thighs spread, propped on the balls of his feet as if he’s about to sketch some kind of game plan in the dirt. That’s how he looks—like it’s the last down or inning or whatever, and we’re behind, and he’s about to tell me how we’re going to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.
He’s not angry.
“Press the shorts—” He gestures at his eyes. “Like press them down. Hard. That might, uh, get it to stop.”
I’m crying, for the first time since I can remember, and it is freaking Alec out. A random sob escapes my lips.
“Shit, Flora. Everything is going to be fine, okay?” It’s not quite a plea, more of an order. It has that sharpness, but there’s an underlying—I don’t know—panic?
“N-No, it’s n-not.” How could it be?
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You f-fucked everything up.”
His head drops, his fingers spearing in his hair, for a moment lost. Then his shoulders firm. “You’re hungry.” He nods to himself. “You need to eat.” He sets his hands firmly on his thighs. “I’m gonna, uh, skin this squirrel, and we’ll get some protein in you, and it’ll be fine. I’ll get a fire started, and, uh, it won’t take but a minute.”
I don’t do anything with the shorts. The tears are slowing on their own. The balloon has burst. All the things I’ve never even let myself think too clearly have formed into words and gushed from me, and now, when I should be turning my back or walking away with my head high, I’m huddling on this quilt, too baffled and wrung out to do anything but watch Alec get to work.