Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I think back, trying to do the math, to remember when Christie McKay had Wally, and how old he would’ve been at midsummer. It takes a minute, but I figure it out.
“That was when you were with Isla Sinclair.”
His chest rumbles kind of ominously. I elbow him in the belly.
“You were with her, but you were watching me.”
“I always watched you.”
“Why?” To catch my eye and jerk his chin toward the woods, right?
“Nothin’ else I wanted to look at,” he says, almost muttering, and then he huffs and hauls us both upright, effectively putting an end to the conversation. I scramble to grab hold of him, but he’s got me, and he doesn’t let go until I’m steady on my feet.
He fetches my towel, and after I wind it around myself, he hovers as I pick my way back to the ledge. Then he stands guard, blocking me from view while I dress. He tugs on his sweatpants over his wet legs while I comb my clean hair with my fingers, tie it back into a ponytail, and clip a rabbit barrette above each ear.
As a cacophony of feet sound in the entrance tunnel and the Old Den pack spills into the cave, loud and happy from their run, Alec draws me close. He peers down at me and adjusts each rabbit a bit with the tip of his finger.
“You miss Harriet?” he asks.
“Hey, you remembered her name.” I smile up at him, teasing, but his eyes are dark and worried and waiting for an answer. “Yeah. Of course. She’s been a good friend.”
He nods, and then I hear Pritchard call, “Cameron, come over here and meet the alpha.”
The change is instantaneous and so subtle that I almost don’t notice. The dark in Alec’s eyes that has been swirling with feeling becomes cold and impenetrable. The tension in his muscles becomes menacing. The rigidity that I realize I’ve been reading as the weight of the world begins to look like a mantle of power.
For the first time, I see what the others at Salt Mountain must when they see Alec—a natural leader. An unknown. A threat.
I see a male who has no choice but to be hard.
He turns, takes my hand, and yet again, puts his body between mine and what’s coming.
And as he leads me through the gathering crowd to meet the male who’ll decide our future, my flighty brain gauges the difference between “beautiful” and “nothin’ else I wanted to look at.”
I’m beginning to understand what growing up in Salt Mountain has done to me.
What did it do to Alec Cameron?
What did it do to Alec Cameron and me?
Chapter 12
12
Chapter 12
ALEC
I have never before given a shit if a male liked me or not. Granddad’s the only male I know whose opinion is worth anything, and he likes me fine as long as I put his tools back where I found them.
So this is new.
Cadoc Collins checks me out, head to foot, his face blank. His wolf is close to the surface, so I stand still, arms loose at my sides, and keep my eyes off his mate. Hard to miss her gargantuan belly, though. It’s like she’s got a watermelon smuggled up her shirt.
My wolf is wary, and for once, I don’t have to wrangle him back. He’s happy to play this my way. I think Cadoc’s wolf freaks him out. The animal has a strange vibe, like someone buried him, and he came back wrong.
I’m relieved my wolf doesn’t want to fight him. He’s always wanting to challenge Bram and Leith. It was a mess until I figured out that beating them at human sports chilled my wolf out. Last thing I wanted was for Conall Shaw to decide I’d make a great alpha because my wolf can’t help tearing chunks out of my cousins.
I don’t want to be alpha of Shit Mountain. And now I have to convince Cadoc Collins that I don’t want to be alpha of this fixer-upper either.
Cadoc finally speaks. “You’re Cameron.” His people have long since grown quiet, so the statement causes a wave of whispers to fan out through the gathered crowd. Everyone’s turned out to see the showdown.
I grunt.
“You carry Malcolm Shaw’s blood,” he says.
I nod.
“Your father was Graham Cameron.”
I don’t bother responding. I get it. He’s going to say what he wants to say.
“My father knew him.”
They must’ve gone to school together. Madog Collins wouldn’t sully himself by attending a shifter fight, and that’s the only other place Moon Lake and Salt Mountain mix.
“My father didn’t have much to say for him.” Cadoc watches my face.
So the first test is whether or not I realize that my father was a piece of shit. I shrug. “There’s not much to say.” Some of us should’ve never been given a human skin.
“You ran the woodshop at the Academy.”
I wasn’t sure he’d remember. When I did my time, he was younger, but already much too important to spend time in the “vocational technology wing.” You can fancy up the name, but learning to drill is learning to drill. Way below the richest pack’s heir apparent.
“Yeah,” I say.
“That what you do in your pack?”
Behind me, Flora’s anxiety is creeping higher and higher, rousting my wolf. I breathe through my mouth, but the scent still messes with my head.
“Pretty much.”
Cadoc raises an eyebrow. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
Cadoc’s mate, Rosie, snorts. He clenches his jaw, and she whispers, “Sorry.”
He exhales. “So what are you doing here?”
His people would have told him already. My mate ran away, and I followed her. He’s sized me up, though, and I don’t know whether it’s the alpha blood or what, but I know he recognizes something in me, the way I recognize him.
He’s not stupid. He knows I could’ve hauled Flora home at any time, and he also knows I didn’t. If he knows why, good on him, ’cause I sure as hell haven’t figured it out.
“So far? Fixed a clogged pipe that’d been backed up for months, if I’m not mistaken.” I’m not. I dragged decades worth of sludge out of that pipe with a flat tire, a chain, and a little elbow grease. Could anyone have done it? Yeah, but they didn’t.
Cadoc’s mouth softens. “I was told. You know what I mean.”
“You’ll get no challenge from me.” I tell him what he really wants to know.
He draws himself up and stares me down, his wolf in his eyes, a growl rattling his chest, and I let him. I don’t bend the neck—I don’t have it in me—but I let him make his point.
He’s about done when Flora pops out from behind me and says, “H-He’s here with me.”
I reach to drag her back, and she smacks my arm. “He’s only here because I came, and he’s my mate. He doesn’t want to take over or anything. He doesn’t even like people.”
It’s like someone unclogged her. She just keeps going.
“H-He’s not a jerk or anything—well, I guess that’s debatable, kind of depends on who you ask—but he won’t cause trouble and neither will I. Abertha sent me. She said you’d take me in. I have money. Human money. And we can both work. Or, well,
I can work. I can do laundry, cooking, cleaning, mending, sewing. Basically anything with fabrics. And I can fix washers and dryers and vacuums and other small appliances. Probably. I haven’t got much experience except for vacuums. And Alec can work. I don’t mean to suggest he can’t, I just don’t want to speak for him. I don’t know if he wants to stay or…”
She’s stripping my pride, just tearing strips from it. My mate’s begging, pleading with another male to see her worth, telling the whole fucking pack Ican work, but she doesn’t know if I will.
“Flora.” I infuse my voice with alpha command, but it makes no difference.
“Alec’s really very handy, actually. He fixes everything back home. He can do carpentry. Electrical. HVAC.” She screws her eyes shut to remember the rest. “Masonry. Welding. And plumbing.” They pop back open, and she smiles.