Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Alec’s going to punch him, and he’ll probably knock Bevan out because his alpha blood is true, and then the Old Den shifters will pile on, and eventually, Alec will have to show neck, and they’ll throw us out, and all of this will have been for nothing.
Bevan bares his gold teeth and throws his arms back, shaking his shaggy head, welcoming what he must see coming, too.
The males shuffle forward, their wolves stirring, rumbling at the promise of a challenge.
I reach for Alec’s arm.
Before I can touch him, he turns.
He turns his back on Bevan. On all the Old Den wolves.
His dark eyes are blazing, his nostrils flaring, every one of his muscles rigid, angrier than I’ve ever seen him, angrier than any male I’ve ever seen. He glowers down at me, and my stomach twists.
He grabs my hands, one of mine in each of his, and pushes me backward toward the entrance tunnel.
I’m too stuck between fight, flight, and freeze to do anything but follow his lead. It feels like what we did in Human Sport during the square-dancing unit. I never understood how dancing was a sport since no one wins, but as Alec maneuvers me into an alcove, hidden from the larger cavern, and he backs me against the cold wall, I get it—he definitely has the upper hand.
He leans down and presses our foreheads together, hard, splaying his hand over my heart like he’s staunching a wound.
“No, Flora. Stop. You don’t feel hurt. I fucked up. I was wrong. I’m the asshole. You don’t feel bad about that.” Alpha tinges his voice, and every sentence is domineering and brusque, an apology without the slightest hint of sorriness.
He’s trying to command my feelings.
He walked away from a fight. Salt Mountain males never do that.
He’s pinning me to this wall with his whole body like he doesn’t want to give me the narrowest chance of escape.
“I don’t understand you,” I whisper.
He shakes his head dismissively. “Nothing to understand. You just need to know that I’m the asshole, and you have no call to feel like this. You’re—“
He runs out of steam from one word to the next, and as he growls in frustration, he cups the nape of my neck and presses a hard kiss to the place where he’d just been pinning me in place with his forehead.
He kisses under my eye, on the socket bone.
He kisses the tip of my chin.
I’d say he’s missing, but I don’t think he’s aiming. His breath is ragged, his wolf still kicking up a ruckus in his chest. The bond is an undertow, sweeping me out of my head and into this moment.
He kisses the divot beside my nose.
I reach up and rest my hand on his, and instantly, he moves so his is on top, twines his fingers with mine, and squeezes tight.
He backs up a few inches. I can see his eyes now, burning black, staring me down with blown pupils like I’m a bomb with its timer running down, and he’s got a pair of scissors, a choice between two wires, and no clue.
He searches my face, but I can’t help him. He lost me when he didn’t knock Bevan out.
“You’re the good one,” he says, and then he firms his jaw, closes his eyes like he’s going to jump from an airplane, and slowly, softly, presses his lips against mine.
I’ve been waiting.
For years. Ever since that third or fourth time we hooked up in the janitor’s closet when he cut straight to dropping his shorts, and I thought it was a fluke, and he was just overeager, but then he never bothered to kiss my lips again.
And years ago, I stopped waiting, too. I figured out that fairies and elves were stories, and no one was going to miraculously see that I’m beautiful on the inside, and Alec Cameron was never going to kiss me again.
But he is.
Like he’ll die if he doesn’t.
Like he’s telling me something.
He is bad with words, but this—
His mouth is so sweet. His lips are so gentle. So demanding. Not at all hesitant like I remember.
He slips his tongue past my teeth and steals my breath.
He wraps his arms around me, gathering me as close as he can, lifting me onto my tiptoes, kissing me until I can’t help but understand that the longing in me is somehow, impossibly, inexplicably inside him too.
He’s kissing me like he just found me, and he’s been missing me as long as I’ve been wanting him.
“Why did you stop?” I ask, breaking away. He frowns. “You kissed me the first few times, back in school. And then you didn’t. Why?”
His frown deepens. “Your mouth…it’s too close to your neck.” He shakes his head as if to clear it and tries again. “If I kept kissing you, I would’ve ended up biting you.”
“You wanted to bite me?”
“Every damn day.”
I don’t even get the chance to wrap my brain around this when a throat clears.
Nia pokes her head around the corner. “Weird turn on, getting shat on by Bevan Nevitts, but I’m not one to kink shame.”
“What’re they doing?” Pritchard’s head pops up next to hers. She elbows him away.
“Give the newly-mateds some privacy.” Nia grins, making no move to retreat. “You can come back now. I sent Bevan to cool off. I had no idea he had a thing for Flora.”
I don’t think he does. Back in school, Bevan was a joker—and a toker—but he was a noticer, too. He was the kind of chaos agent that bends the arc of the universe toward good in the dumbest ways—picking the lock on the snack machine and leaving it open, telling substitute instructors his name was Brody Hughes, the school’s biggest bully, whenever he got busted breaking rules.
Bevan was always kind, but not because he had the hots for me. Because he noticed how I was treated, and he felt sorry for me.
I was grateful for his kindness then.
Now, I feel ashamed that I needed it.
Alec’s wolf rumbles a quiet warning. I think he’s reacting to how my smell just changed, but there’s no one to warn away, only bad thoughts.
I wipe my hands on my jeans and straighten my shirt by tugging the hem. This is not the first impression I wanted to make.
Alec straightens himself, too, and grabs my hand, leading me back into the cavern, blocking me from curious glances. If he’s embarrassed, he doesn’t let on.
For a few long seconds, we stand there, and the Old Den folk who haven’t already lost interest stand opposite us, and we all stare at each other.
It’s Pritchard who breaks the silence, slapping his thighs. “All right, Cameron, since you’re here, and since we’ve got to wait for Cadoc and Rosie to come back before anything gets decided, you might as well come with me and take a look at the demon clog from hell. See what you think.”
Alec winces at “demon clog.”
“I’ll show Flora around,” Nia offers quickly.
Alec glances over and checks with me. I lift a shoulder. A tender, scared,weak part of myself doesn’t want to let go of his hand, but I need to get things back on track. I came here for me, to find myself a new home. I can’t lose track of that. Alec isn’t on my side.
He’s proud to be seen with me now, in a strange pack, when he has no choice but to claim me if he wants his pup. I can’t let a kiss erase years of hiding me like a dirty secret or sucker me into forgetting everything that happened before he caught up to me on the trail here.
I drop his hand and go to Nia. “I’d like that,” I say, offering her a tentative smile.
I let her lead me off without a backwards glance.
* * *
The best thing about the old den is how it smells, like wolf and earth and home scents like baking and cut flowers and fresh cut wood. The main cavern looks like a haphazard campground or flea market, but as Nia takes me around, I begin to see how things are organized.
Close to the entrance, there are racks for hanging clothes and containers for shoes—bushel baskets, an old wooden barrel sawed in half, and shelves made from weathered two by fours and bricks.
Just like the shoe containers, everything in the place is motley and makeshift. Further into the cavern, there’s a gathering place, a circle with every type of chair you can imagine, folding and beach and recliner and stool, a few obviously stolen from the Academy classrooms at Moon Lake, a rocker or two, a glider, benches. The chairs that can be stacked are piled in Seussical Leaning Towers of Pisa. I hold my breath when I scurry past them.