Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
To not dare take anything away from that small and wobbly, but fierce,
I am not worthless.
I don’t know what to say, so I just start talking. “Isla told me she felt her heat coming on. For me.” I didn’t know a female would lie about it. I didn’t ask questions. I was just pissed at Fate.
Flora stares at me, her eyelids puffy like a chipmunk. She doesn’t say anything.
I clear my throat. “You remember my dad. And Shelly.”
She nods.
Everyone remembers Graham Cameron. He was a loudmouth piece of shit. When he found his mate, he already had a female who knew how he liked it, Shelly, and he saw no reason to give her up. I spent my first ten years listening to my dam cry in the bathroom, in the pantry, in the closet under the stairs.
When my dam came down with wasting sickness, Graham didn’t waste a minute before he bailed and shacked up with Shelly. The joke was on him. When he got sick a few weeks later, Shelly dropped him right back off on our front porch.
Ma was too far gone to take care of him, but she told me to let him stay. She outlived him, much good it did her. It was like losing him was a tear she couldn’t mend, and the rest of her life kind of leaked out, slowly but surely. She was dead before my first shift.
Everyone knows the story.
“I wasn’t going to do what he did,” I say. “I wasn’t gonna disrespect my mate like that.”
Flora’s back bows, as if she’s absorbing a blow, pain shining in her brown eyes. My chest feels like a railroad spike’s been driven into it, straight through, cracking my sternum. Everything inside her flows into my punctured heart, and I can’t fight it or fix it.
“I screwed up. I thought if we were mates, it would’ve happened already.”
For a second, her eyes fill almost to overflowing, but then, she clenches her teeth, scrubs her face, rises to her feet, and makes herself tough again. She’s not. She’s gentle. Soft-hearted. I’d bet all my scrip that she found that rabbit of hers wounded and nursed it back to health.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, fussing with settling her backpack and rubbing her eyes. “That’s the past. Daylight’s wasting. I’m going to the Old Den Pack. Keep up or go back.”
She draws in a deep breath and takes off down the path, even slower than before, all her weight on the balls of her feet. The boots must be rubbing her heels.
Screw this.
I jog to catch up. “Let’s shift. It’ll be easier going.”
She blinks over, her brow creasing. She didn’t really think I’d bail?
She shakes her head. Whole chunks of hair have come loose from her rubber band. Kind of makes her look nuts. Or freshly fucked. I swallow a groan.
“It’ll be quicker.” My voice is weirdly deep.
I can scent her suspicion. “I don’t think my wolf will carry the pack.”
“Mine will.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’ll take the pack and leave. So I’ll have no choice but to go back.”
I’d never leave her alone. I haven’t been able to since I hit puberty. She’d never believe me, though. “I’ll shift first. If you think my wolf’s acting dodgy, you can catch him.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw your wolf. At the run.”
“You did?” She thinks I’m lying.
“Yeah. Dark gray and white. ‘Bout yay high—” I hold my hand up to my neck. “Fast.” I feel my lips curve, remembering. Her wolf’s a beauty.
She scowls. “You were bolting in the other direction.”
“I looked behind.”
Her frown deepens. I shouldn’t have brought that night up.
“I shouldn’t have left you.” How do I explain the rage still burning in my guts? Out of nowhere, Fate had given me what I’d always wanted, and she followed it with a “and your female fucked Bram Blackburn” chaser.
And there was Bram with his shit-eating grin, knowing that if I threw a punch over a female who fucked around on me, I’d be a bitch forever, no matter if I won. Every Cameron would slide down the ranks like greased pigs, and we’d have to fight every day to keep what little we have, and every family with ambitions would come for us like vultures—the Campbells, the Scotts, the Boyles.
I can’t explain, and besides, I don’t want that in her head. I’d rather be an asshole.
“No worries.” She lifts her chin. “I’m leaving you now.”
I don’t smile, but my jaw softens. “Come on, Flora. Doesn’t your wolf want to run?” When I first shifted, mine wanted our skin twenty-four seven.
She ignores me, but she’s barely hobbling along now. I want to pick her up. Lay her down somewhere soft and clean.
I want her to look at me like she usually does.
She stumbles over an exposed root, and before I can steady her, she catches herself, letting out an exasperated growl. “It’s just so hot.”
She glares at me in utter distress, her sweet brown eyes so big and round and perturbed that I would never in a million years say that it’s not even sixty degrees out.
I reach for the backpack. By some miracle, she lets me ease it from her shoulders. “Come on, Flora. We’ll run for a while. It’ll cool us down. You can leave me afterwards.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be.” I know I’ve got no sense of humor. “I’ll shift first. You settle the pack on his back.”
She’s far from sure about this, but when I kick my sweats off, she’s so flustered by the sight of my cock that she quits arguing. It is bigger since I recognized her as my mate. The base, where my knot will swell, is so sensitive that it’s a relief to be free of the fabric.
My heartbeat quickens. We’re going to run. Alone. Her and I. No one to demand we bare our necks, no one we have to glare into submission. Nothing but tall trees whipping in the breeze and the rocky river rolling down the mountain.
I’ve never let myself picture this, but if I had, it’d have been this kind of day. I take in a deep breath of spring air as I surrender to the wolf. He bursts out with zero chill.
He races to Flora, zooming a few figure eights around her before he snuffles her ankles and leaps, landing with his paws on her tits, licking her face like a dinner plate. She squeals, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
I’m about to pull him off when she plunges her hands into his coat and shoves her nose into his neck, laughing softly in his ear. I drop the reins.
“Hey, you,” she whispers into his fur. I can hear the smile in her voice. “You’re back.”
He howls to the bright blue sky, an unbridled hell yes.
Here’s how I know the elders lie when they say the wolf and man are one—I’ve never been as happy as my wolf is in this moment.
He jumps down and goes back to herding her in random zigzags, yapping at her wolf to come out. She giggles, trying to settle the pack on his back, but he’s rolling around, being totally uncooperative, until she drops her voice, and says, sterner than I’ve ever heard her, “Come on, now. Stop playing.”
He instantly becomes the best boy. He stands perfectly still as she balances the pack, raising his legs one by one so she can slip the straps over them. When she leans over to tie them together to secure the load, he doesn’t even take the opportunity to slurp her face. He wants to, but he restrains himself.
After testing the rig with a few tugs, she stands and frowns at her handiwork. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”
My wolf snorts. It’s cumbersome as hell, but it’s nowhere near the maximum he can carry. My wolf is lean, but he’s strong. He yips at her to shift, eager to run.
She blushes and slaps his haunch. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”
He does not follow directions, Instead, he shuffles on his feet, watching her and yapping his impatience.
“At least turn around.”
He checks over his shoulder, sees nothing, and turns back to face her.
She exhales, rolling her eyes, and peels off her top. My wolf’s adrenaline rushes. He’s about to see fur.
She shucks her pants, bra, and panties, folding them into neat squares, and tucks them into the pack, all while trying to cover her boobs and keep her pussy hidden by squeezing her thighs together.
I almost rip our skin back, but I’ve got some sense left. And I don’t want to give up this giggling Flora quite yet. It occurs to me that I haven’t seen her smile in years. When we first started hooking up, she’d be smiling when we’d meet up in the band storage room or wherever. Somewhere along the way, she got serious.