Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“It’s got all our stuff.”
Our. The rage slips a little more.
“Come on.” I catch a glimpse of the river up ahead, a place where the edge is flat and the water isn’t running too fast, and I know exactly what we need.
“Alec, you’re acting crazy,” she ventures in a small voice.
“I know,” I growl, hauling her into my arms.
She squeals and slaps my shoulder. “Alec, put me down!”
“No.”
“You can’t carry me.”
I toss her in the air a little, and as she shrieks, I catch her and tuck her even closer to my chest, just to remind her that I’m not weak, and yes, I can carry her.
I haul her over the sharp rocks along the shore and stomp into the stream, setting her down when we’re deep enough that the pebbles are smooth under my soles. She drops to her feet with a splash, stumbles, and steadies herself with her palms on my chest.
The red tint fades from my vision. I catch her hands with mine so she can’t take them away.
She blinks, glancing around to orient herself. We’re in the middle of a lazy, thigh-high current, crystal clear and cold as hell. If you look upriver, you can see the river’s source high in the tallest peaks of Salt Mountain. Southward, the river disappears around a bend.
Flora’s lower lip trembles. “It’s f-freezing.”
“We’d better wash quick, then.” I squat and dig sand from the bed to scrub the dried blood and dirt from my skin until it doesn’t smell like anything but the outdoors in early spring.
Flora eyes me warily, but she lowers herself to a crouch, and after a few seconds of swishing water over the tops of her floating breasts, she lets out a little sigh and closes her eyes. The pink flush she’s been sporting since I found her begins to ebb.
“I was so hot,” she says, dipping her head back to soak her hair. It’s loose now. I like it this way. She’s pretty all the time, but when her hair’s down, she looks pretty and—I don’t know how to describe it—laid-back. At home. Like she’s dropped her defenses, and I’m the only one who gets to see her this way.
“Sorry.” I sink down too so my stiff cock isn’t waving in her face.
“For what?” She doesn’t say it like she thinks I don’t have anything to be sorry for, but like she wants to know which thing I’m sorry for. Fair enough.
“If I hurt you.” I nod toward the arm she’s slowly gliding through the water.
“You lost your shit.” Her expression is odd. Dreamy. Her tits are floating, her fat rosy-brown nipples hard and dark, and she’s making no move to hide them.
“Yeah.”
She lets out a quiet giggle, arching her back to dunk her hair again. Her tits thrust high, and they’re so big and slick and wet. My mouth waters.
“My wolf could’ve handled it, you know. She’s huge.” She peeks at me, her eyes light with a hazy twinkle. “You got in her way.”
I want to be mad, but I can’t be when she’s looking at me like this. “It’s not your job.”
“It’s yours?”
I grunt, letting my body float closer to where she’s lazily swishing her head from side to side through the water. She doesn’t move away. My cock has never been so hard, nor my balls so shriveled. The river is fucking frigid. Flora doesn’t seem to mind at all. She’s in heaven.
“What is?” she asks idly.
My face burns. “Protecting you.”
“You suck at your job.” She gives me a faint, disappointed frown, and I want to fight myself.
“Maybe.”
For a second, the dreamy, vague expression in her eye clears, and she looks at me like she used to, before I screwed up our mating, before I dropped her for Isla. It’s this confusing combination of awe, gentleness, and knowing.
“You shouldn’t always let your pride tell you what to do.”
Immediately, my ire’s pricked. My defensiveness. Bitter, hateful words spring to my tongue.
Where was your pride when you were on your knees with my dick in your mouth? When you were fucking Bram Blackburn in a closet?
Because that makes sense—swinging on Flora who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Turning everything ugly. Making her pay for my mistakes.
I’d say I don’t recognize myself, but I do. Graham Cameron’s son.
I let my legs float and lean so the back of my head dips in the freezing water, staring up at the stark blue afternoon sky as I say, “Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t.”
She offers me a small smile, and I take it. For a while, we’re quiet as we paddle and soak. I don’t get too close, but I don’t venture too far from her either. Her face relaxes into that dreamy, hazy look again, and her hands begin to wander. She skims her fingertips along her collarbone, and her nipples pucker so tight she’s got a band of goosebumps around them.
I love her breasts. I love how she whines from the back of her throat when I play with them.
She cups herself, squeezing, her head thrown back and her eyes shut.
Something’s happening.
Heat.
Under the water, she’s sliding her legs together, and her breath quickens.
I need to do something. Take control. I rise to my feet, water sluicing down my sides. Flora blinks up at me, her hands still overflowing with her gorgeous milky white tits.
This is happening.
It’s time.
We don’t have enough blankets. We’re in the middle of nowhere. She hates me.
Fuck.
Flora’s brow furrows with worry.
I need to pull it together. Take care of her.
“Come on. Let’s go get the backpack.” I offer her my hand.
She frowns at it. “I feel weird.”
“Yeah. Heat.”
She screws her eyes shut. “It’s too soon.”
“It’ll be okay.” I can’t help but sound gruff. I don’t know how to sweet-talk. I never chased pussy, except Flora, but she never made me work for it. She wanted it as bad as I did. Well, she used to.
I squat so we’re eye level again, fish her hand from the water, and squeeze until she looks at me. “Remember the ropes course?”
She nods. It’s a Moon Lake Academy tradition. Freshman year, they ship everyone to this outdoor adventure park. It’s supposed to be so that kids from the different packs get accustomed to sharing territory and interacting with the human students. Apparently, it always devolves into a pissing contest between the packs—in a few cases, literally.
Flora was on my team the year we went.
“Remember when you were stuck?”
Her face crumbles, a sheen of tears appearing in her eyes. I said the wrong thing again. I’ve already stepped in it, though, somehow, so I’ll explain, and she’ll understand.
The element was called the treetop railroad. There were two parallel ropes, and you had to use them like rails to climb from the top of one tree to another about twenty feet away. For some reason, Flora got stuck halfway across. It wasn’t because of a lack of upper body strength like with some of the human females. She just got so far and wouldn’t go any further.
She’s glaring at me now, her look not unlike it was that day.
“I got you, right? I got you to the other side.” This really isn’t going like I planned. She’s not reassured. She’s wrapping her arms around her slick breasts.