Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Nia waggles her eyebrows as she gestures me through a beaded curtain into a large cavern. Metal bunk beds line both sides of the space, probably two dozen altogether. There are containers at the foot of the beds—steamer trunks, plastic tubs, shelves.
“This is one of the female dorms. There are a few free beds.” She points to a bare platform with boxes and bags stacked on it. “Folks’ll bitch about moving their stuff, but them’s the breaks.”
My heart rises. “You think Cadoc will let us stay?”
“You? Definitely. Your mate?” She lifts a shoulder. “I couldn’t say.”
Inexplicably, my stomach sinks.
“You can smell the alpha on him, and he doesn’t fight on the circuit, so he’s not a known quantity. He doesn’t exactly come with a recommendation, either.” Nia casts me a speaking glance.
I stare at the brushed concrete floor, ignoring the knot in my gut and pondering the topsy turvy-ness of it all. At Salt Mountain, I would never be called on to speak for Alec Cameron, not in a million years. His value and my lack were a given. More than given. Inherent.
“I don’t think he wants to be alpha,” I venture. “He doesn’t really like people very much.”
Nia nods politely as if this is indeed a mark for him when we both know it makes him sound even worse.
“Back home, he runs the crew that fixes things. He’s good at that.”
Nia’s nod is a little more speculative this time.
“He doesn’t get into fights or beat on people.” He cracks skulls when the males play sports, but he doesn’t throw his weight around at other times like Bram and Leith do.
“You ever consider that your standards are low?” Nia raises her palms and flashes a disarming smile. “No offense. We’re working on raising our own standards around here on the daily. But if the best you can say for a guy is that he works hard and doesn’t beat on people, that’s not much, right?”
I know she doesn’t mean to be unkind, but still, my hackles rise. I didn’t even know I had hackles. “Well, he killed a feral for me.”
“No shit.” Nia’s whole demeanor changes, her eyes lighting. “How’d he do it? By himself? No shit. Where were you? Oh my god, did you know it?”
I tell her, and by the time I’m done, my hackles are rising for a whole other reason. Nia keeps shaking her head and saying, “Damn, what I wouldn’t give to have seen that. Damn.”
I knew it was a big deal—I was there and scared out of my mind—but something about Nia’s reaction squirms in my chest. Even the males are told to run for the village if they ever encounter a feral out in the woods. Don’t try to fight. But Alec went for him.
Alec’s wolf went for him.
I fall quiet, and Nia takes the hint to move on. She gestures for me to lead the way out of the dorm, and I do, but I don’t get far. A male is leaning against the hall opposite the door, a foot propped on the wall, clearly waiting for us.
He grins and his gold teeth glint, even in the dim light of the bare bulbs.
“Is there a problem, Bevan?” Nia asks.
“I don’t know.” He tilts his head, looking at me from under his long wolfish lashes. “Did I cause you a problem?”
Nia’s eyebrows rise, her mouth pursing, deliciously scandalized, the diamonds over her lips twinkling in the creases.
Bevan straightens, shoving his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans. “Mind if I walk you back, Flora?”
Nia looks at me, rounding her eyes.
“Sure,” I squeak. All of a sudden, I’m very aware of my body—the dirty film on my skin, the lankness of the hair I’ve got tied back at the nape of my neck. It’s been a long couple of days, a long time without a proper shower.
“I’ll go find Lowry and tell her she’s got to find a new home for her shit,” Nia says, and without further ado, she lopes off up the tunnel.
Bevan faces me. I face him. He gives me a funny little bow and hitches his head toward the main cavern.
I blush, and we begin to walk together. He’s intentionally slowed his bouncy hustle, but unlike when Alec matches his pace to mine, it doesn’t feel forced. It’s like Bevan can actually downshift and stroll.
“I wanted to, um, apologize. I was out of line earlier. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass you.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed,” I rush to reassure him before I’ve had the chance to consider whether I was or I wasn’t. I take a beat, drawing on the new sturdiness inside me. “Yeah. Actually, I was. That wasn’t cool.”
Under his wolfy beard, his cheeks flush. “I know. It’s just—” He’s staring straight ahead up the corridor, avoiding eye contact. “You never saw anyone but him, and he had this beautiful female looking at him like he hung the fucking moon, and he treated it like it was nothing.”
Beautiful?
What?
Did I read him wrong?
I peek at him. He’s got a very un-Bevan-like expression on his face. Sober. Bashful. He’s still got his hands mashed in his pockets.
“You know, it’s different here than at Moon Lake. We choose our own path.” He shoots me a glance, his clear blue eyes overflowing with trepidation and daring. “We don’t have much, but I can do a hell of a lot better for you than squirrel. If you wanted.”
I don’t know what to do.
A male has never said anything like this to me before. Even in my dreams, my fantasy Alec sounded nothing like this. That male would sweep me off my feet, declare that I belonged to him, that he cannot live without me a moment longer, and he’d carry me off to make sweet, miraculously tidy, not-at-all-awkward love to me. I never had to say anything.
“You don’t have to give me any kind of answer,” Bevan goes on. “I know things are complicated for you now. With the—” He gestures at my belly. I suck it in before I realize he means the pup that may or may not be in there.
I forgot.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry. I had it in my head to set him straight, and it didn’t occur to me until it came out of my mouth that you didn’t need to hear that, and you sure as hell didn’t need me to say it in front of a bunch of folks you don’t know yet. I was a dick. I’m sorry.”
It’s an apology. A whole one, and he’s sincere. He’s looking at me like what I say next really matters.
“You think I’m beautiful?” I know it’s not the point, and utterly embarrassing to say, but my brain is swinging off that part like a wriggling fish on a hook. As soon as it’s out of my mouth, my cheeks blaze.
“Yeah. Since I first saw you.” He’s not lying. Bevan’s face has the kind of openness that can make you wince. I’m not unfamiliar with that particular disadvantage.
We’re approaching the main cavern, and I don’t want anyone to see me with Bevan, blushing like a ripe tomato. I don’t want Alec to see, and I can’t begin to unravel why that is, not when I’m in the midst of rebuilding my entire concept of self with the revelation that a male thinks I’m beautiful. And he’s thought so since he first saw me.
“My face, right?” I ask. My mother always said I had a pretty face.
“Yeah, that, too.” Bevan grins and knocks me in the upper arm with his shoulder. I feel a rush of pure affection for him for not making this more awkward than I already have.
“I’ve got to, uh—” He jerks his head toward the hustle and bustle over by the den’s entrance. “Make my escape before I, uh, talk too much and totally ruin my chances.”
He ducks his shaggy head and smiles up at me, both sheepish and serious, and I’m slack-jawed. He gives me a weird salute, pivots on his heels, and bounds off for a large group gathering on the far side of the cavern. It looks like they’re stripping off for a run, even though it’s only late afternoon and nowhere near the full moon.
I quickly drop my eyes before I see Bevan drop his pants, the corners of my lips sneaking up.
A male thinks I’m beautiful.
He really, seriously does.
The chaser comes fast and bitter.
That means I am not totally, utterly repulsive. Right?
The reality is that I’m gross. Tragically or unfortunately or shamefully or inexcusably—opinions differ—but the truth is irrefutable. Like bog worms and vomit and pus, my body is objectively disgusting.
Right?
But Bevan likes it. And Alec too. All along, Alec has liked it. Not enough to let people know, but enough to want to see it.
What does it mean?
It can’t mean much. Everyone else thinks I’m gross, even the folks who loved me. My mother. My aunt who sewed tucks into my shirts to “give me a waist.” Miss Nola who told me black was slimming, and that I should tell Rhona and the other mean girls that people might not be able to help how they look on the outside, but they’d be ugly in their hearts until the day they died.
It doesn’t really matter, I guess, if two males in the whole world don’t mind looking at you. It doesn’t change the facts. It sucks, though, that being called beautiful can make you feel so goddamned sad.
I’m standing there, deflated and numb and at a loss for what to do next, when I notice Alec making a beeline for me, scowling, with wet hair and a new pair of men’s sweatpants.
So help me, a part of me reaches for him.