Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
A mirror must be held up to show them their own disgustingness. For their own good.
And if the little girl crumbles under it all, turns to food because it makes her feel good when everyone makes her feel like an outcast, well, she should work on her self-esteem. That’s what caused the problem in the first place. Low self-esteem.
I can still hear Brenda’s voice, years later, when I skipped the brisket at a full moon cookout and piled my plate with the salad that never gets finished, not at any pack gathering I can remember. “Good choice, Flora. See? You just need to start taking some pride in yourself. That’s all.”
I remember hiding behind the house later that night, crouched under the kitchen window, cramming Miss Nola’s coffee cake into my mouth, the one she was saving for Sunday morning, hating myself, hating that I let my pride be so easily crushed.
I remember lying in bed, dreaming about sleeping in Alec Cameron’s arms, keeping his house, bearing his pups. Being the only one who could make him smile, the one he cared about when he didn’t care about anyone. Dreaming about being where I am right now.
With a baby in my belly.
Maybe a girl.
Maybe a shy, chubby, hardworking girl. Good with her hands. Good to people.
Am I going to take her to a brand-new pack, where I have no blood ties, on the word of a hedge witch?
Am I going to take her back to Salt Mountain, where my blood ties want nothing to do with me, to be the mate of a male who’s treated me like a shameful secret?
Where they messed up my head so bad that Ilet him treat me like a shameful secret?
I rest my palm on the round swell that Alec was messing with earlier and strain to hear a clue that there’s another being alive in there, but all I hear is the bond, rushing strong and certain, oblivious to the conflict in my mind.
No matter what I always told myself in my daydreams, a mate isn’t going to make everything better. He isn’t going to change the pack or how people think.
There’s no going back.
Only forward.
With or without Alec Cameron.
Chapter 9
9
FLORA
Alec sleeps like the dead. As soon as he conks out, he stops spooning me and sprawls out on his back like a drunk starfish. I sleep lightly, waking at first light, and with him gone to the world, it’s easy to slip my leg out from under his, change into a fresh T-shirt and jeans, and stow the rest of my clothes in the backpack. I take a few minutes to reknot the straps to shorten them and then consider the quilt.
It reeks of sex, it’s got crusty patches that make my face burn to think about, and Alec is staking it out like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, except with no circle drawn around him and a much bigger, harder dick. It’s pointing skyward, kind of twitching. Watching it makes my face burn hotter. That was inside me.
Stuck inside me. It made me feel ridiculously good.
I sling the backpack over my shoulders. I’ll have to leave the quilt. It sucks, but I can’t run the risk that Alec pulls some kind of alpha move and kidnaps me back to Salt Mountain. I’ve made up my mind.
So why don’t I walk away? The day’s not getting any younger as my dam used to say.
He just looks different like this. He’s always so self-possessed. I’d call it wariness if he didn’t come off as such a dick. Passed out like this, he definitely doesn’t look innocent or boyish or anything females say about the males who nod off in their folding chairs by the bonfire. Alec looks like a worn and weary soldier, old for his age, who’s set down his weapon to steal a few winks before he’s got to get up and march on.
What is so hard for him? The females fawning? The males kissing his ass in case he comes out the winner in the stakes for the next alpha?
Or something I can’t see, that I don’t know about?
I steel myself with a deep breath and force myself to look away. It doesn’t matter, and if it did, I’d know it after all these years, wouldn’t I?
Shouldn’t I? There’s nothing here for me.
It’s time to go.
I orient myself, put the mountain at my back, and with a soft tread, I continue downhill. The sun rises, yellowish orange and round as an egg yolk, and the further I get from the feral’s territory, the more chirping and rustling I hear. I find the river again, and between the daytime critters stirring and the water rushing, I can almost ignore the bond, stretching like a piece of bubble gum.
Alec can do whatever he wants. It’s nothing to me. I’m going to the Old Den Pack. If Abertha’s map is even somewhat accurate, I should reach it later today.
My blisters still hurt, and my body aches—and stinks—but I feel better as the sun and activity limbers me up.
I’m not making a terrible mistake. This is just what being brave feels like.
I didn’t leave anything behind, except Harriet and Miss Nola, but once I get settled in, I’ll find a way to get them.
I’m strong enough to do this. If I’m not, what were all those years of bullshit for?
I pump myself up and trudge along, my palm clasped like a tourniquet to my chest where the bond tugs and twinges.
I hike for an entire hour before I smell raspberry jam on the breeze. My heartbeat picks up while I take a deep breath to try to regulate my panting.
He followed me.
My wolf alerts and lifts her muzzle, and although my body smothers most of my wolf’s howls, I hear a muffled answering howl from Alec’s wolf about twenty feet behind me. For the first time since we left him, my wolf shakes her fur, casts off her guard stance, and plops down at the border between us to watch what happens next.
I keep walking, but slower. I don’t want him to come up on me while I’m huffing and puffing. I’m not out of shape, no matter what Brenda and Greer and the others say. It’s just this pack is so damn heavy and awkward. I’m not only carrying it, I constantly have to keep it from falling off one side of my back or the other. My obliques are working harder than they ever have.
If I’m honest, I’m not surprised he’s here. And if I’m really honest, I’m not disappointed.
I can’t trust him, but I’m not stupid. He’s a good fighter, and I’m a lone female in strange territory. And he’s Alec. For all that he’s screwed everything up.
He overtakes me like an angry bull. I shouldn’t have worried about my panting. He’s huffing and puffing and glowering and stomping, the quilt folded lengthwise and draped over his shoulder like a Roman senator, my yellow sweatpants slung low on his hips. He still looks like a Greek god.
“What the fuck, Flora?” He lifts the backpack off me in one smooth motion, drops it on the ground, and proceeds to shove the quilt in while he shoots daggers at me from under his long black eyelashes.
My belly tingles.
“Give it back.” I stick my hand out.
He ignores it, cinching the pack closed and slinging it over his shoulders. For a moment, we stare at each other. Well, I stare. He glares. His ire burns my nose, acrid and heavy. My wolf whines.
“Enough of this,” he says. “We’re going back to Salt Mountain.”
“No.”
“We’re mated. You wear my bite.” His body vibrates with contained rage, and so help me, it gives me shivers, the good kind. It might just be biology, but he cares. A lot. “You might be carrying my pup in your belly. Enough of this childishness. You belong with me.”
“I rode your cock,” I throw back. “Our business is done. We can go our separate ways now.”
“Is that what this is about? What I said at the run? How many times do you need to hear I’m sorry?” He’s shouting now.
“How about once?” My voice rises as loud as his.
He grinds his teeth and spits out, “I apologized.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘Do you want me to say sorry? Is that it?’ That’s not sorry.”
“Well, Iam sorry,” he roars.
“Because I won’t do what you want.”
“Because I hurt your feelings.”
White rage inflates me like a balloon. “Oh, shut up. You used to hurt my feelings like it was your job, and you didn’t notice, and you never cared.” As I’m saying it, I’m admitting it to myself, for the first time. “How do you think I felt when we were done, and you never even talked to me?”
“I don’t talk to anyone.” There’s a second when he seems utterly confident in what he’s said, and then his eyes flicker, he grimaces, and he throws his palms up like I’m a truck backing up that he’s trying to stop. “Hold up. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did, but I’m not just anyone, even before we were mates, and you should have talked to me.” It’s clear now, and I can’t think too much about why it didn’t occur to me before, or I’ll lose track of this argument, and I’m going to win it.
“What was I supposed to say, Flora?”