Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Grumbling and pissy and reeking of aggression, but there, dogging my steps.
“Damn it, Flora, stop for a second, won’t you.”
I keep marching.
“Flora, I’m warning you.”
I ignore him.
He growls, and all of a sudden, I’m snatched off my feet and held in the air, my toes dangling. His wolf growls, and he sets me back down, very gently, but he doesn’t let my arms go.
“Dammit, Flora, listen, would you. We’re not going off half-cocked this time. I’ll borrow a ride, and we’ll take a minute and be fucking prepared for once.”
Dark slashes highlight his cheekbones and tension radiates from his jaw. He’s beautiful. I reach up to run a finger along the harsh line of his lips. “It’ll be okay,” I say.
He doesn’t answer, but he does press a hard kiss to my forehead before he says, “I’ll get a four-wheeler. You pack a bag and strap that knife back to your ankle.”
* * *
The closer we get to Salt Mountain, the heavier Alec’s silence grows between his outbursts.
Every few miles, his wolf will let out a howl, or Alec will erupt with “this is bullshit” or “fucking Bram Blackburn.” If I try to reassure him, he doesn’t respond, but he does pat the hand wrapped around his waist. His disquiet soaks his long-sleeved T-shirt and hangs around him as thick as skunk spray.
My wolf rumbles to calm his animal. She’s alert, but she’s not scared. She has one hundred percent confidence that Alec’s wolf can and will kill anything that threatens us.
Leith and Tandie are traveling with us on another borrowed ATV, even though Alec said in no uncertain terms that all he’s going to do is fetch Miss Nola. My guess is that Leith plans to use us as a distraction to get to Bram. If it comes down to a one-on-one fight, it’d be an even match. Bram is built like an ox, but Leith has a wiry strength, brains, and what’s always struck me as an evil streak.
Salt Mountain doesn’t have a history of alpha challenges ending in dead bodies, not like Quarry Pack, but when power shifts, people get hurt. Folks take advantage of the uproar to settle grudges and claw up a few ranks, commandeer a house or vehicle they’ve had their eye on, that kind of thing.
I’m with Alec. I want to get in and get out. I’m worried Miss Nola won’t come with us, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I’m just hoping she’s okay. She’s not so old that age has slowed her down, but she’s frail from confining herself to the house and not letting her wolf run free.
When we cross into home territory, an odd sensation settles in my chest. Everything is so familiar I could close my eyes and still know exactly where the creek cuts under the road or the charred willow struck down by lightning rests in the crook of an oak beside it.
Ifeel different, though, like these aren’t the lungs used to breathing thin, crisp mountain air. The hundred memories clinging to every building and mile of road belong to someone else, another female. Looking back at her now, I see she wasn’t weak or pitiful or sad, not like I’d believed. I was just too close to see things clearly.
It’s mid-afternoon when we reach the village, and instantly, the empty streets and porches remind me that it’s the full moon. No matter the upheaval in the pack, everyone must be gathered up by the big furnace for the picnic before the run. Tradition must be observed. No one’s giving up a day off work.
I feel relief flow through the bond as we turn down the lane to Miss Nola’s house. Leith and Tandie are trailing us. Alec’s thinking we can get Miss Nola and get out without dealing with anyone. I hope so.
As soon as I catch sight of her cottage, though, my hopes are dashed. There’s a dirt bike on her porch, beer bottles on the railing, and the door behind the screen is wide open.
I hop off the back of the four-wheeler before Alec turns the engine off, but he hooks an arm around my waist before I can take a second step.
“You stay here,” he growls.
“She’ll be scared of you.”
“She’s not in there. I’m just going to check and make sure.” Alec’s nose is quivering. He’s sure, so he must not scent Miss Nola. My sense of smell has gone a little wonky since the bun’s been in the oven.
He gestures to Leith, who’s pulled up a yard or so behind us, to stay put and strides toward the house, fearless, walking in like he owns the place. The house is so small, it only takes him a few minutes to come back out, his face grim, his expression bright with anger. He’s got Miss Nola’s purse and one of my winter sweaters.
As he stalks back to me, he holds the sweater up. There’s something on it, grease or oil, like it’s been used as a rag. He shakes it at me. “This is yours.” It’s not really a question, but I nod.
“You didn’t leave it wadded up on the kitchen floor.”
“No.” I left it in my dresser with the rest of the clothes I didn’t have room to bring with me when I left.
“Get on,” he snarls as he pitches the sweater on the ground behind him, hands Miss Nola’s purse to me, and straddles the seat, kicking the engine back on.
“Alec?”
He reaches back, grabs my arms, and wraps them back around his middle. “They didn’t let her take her stuff with her,” he says.
“What are we going to do?”
“You’re not going to do shit,” he says. “You’re going to watch.”
He gives Leith a sharp, speaking nod, and peels off, but he doesn’t head toward the gathering place by the river. Instead, he goes east, cutting behind the dining hall before he turns north into the Cameron compound. Leith and Tandie follow.
I don’t know it as well as the Shaw’s or the Blackburn’s, but I recognize the main house with its wraparound porch, and Alec’s small cabin set away from the rest of the clustered brick buildings with steep tin roofs. Except for the well-kept, tall fence around the property, the Cameron compound is like all of the others on Salt Mountain. Chickens roam free, and yards are scattered with cars on cinder blocks, metal cans blackened by trash fires, and cement lawn ornaments with the paint mostly worn off by the elements.
Alec drives directly to a squat, white-washed cinder block building behind the main house.
“Alec?”
“Wait here.” He waves at Leith to stay put, throws up the garage door, and disappears into a dim and dusty workshop. Seconds later, he emerges with a long-handled sledgehammer with a rusted steel head.
“What’s that for?” I ask as he resettles himself, propping the sledgehammer across his lap and leaning further forward to hold it in place.
“Demolition,” he says and pulls out, heading uphill, the engine too loud for me to follow up.
I should be scared. There are only two of us, and my wolf’s got heart, but I still don’t know if she can fight. To be honest, I get the feeling she’s all bark. I don’t fool myself that Leith Munroe will back us up if it comes down to him or us. He’s in this for his own reasons. I’m not exactly afraid, though. It feels more like anticipation tingling across my skin as we speed up the mountain.
At first glance, the scene when we pass the alpha’s compound and pull into the gravel lot below the gathering place looks no different than it always does. Red and white plastic tablecloths have been pinned to the picnic tables, and the high-ranking mated females work the buffet, making plates and refilling dishes.
The unmated females lounge in bikini tops and jean shorts on their hill, watching the males play a chasing and tackling game on the pebbled shore of the river. Elders eat in the pavilion, pups run hither, thither, and yon, and the mated males hang out by the big furnace, smoking and drinking and throwing sticks in the fire to watch them burn.
Alec turns off the engine. “If I tell you to stay here, will you?” he asks grimly.
I dismount and kick out my pant legs. My jeans rode up during the trip and standing feels good, but I don’t enjoy it for long before a wave of self-consciousness comes over me, an urge to tug my cotton shirt and stretch it so it hides the real contours of my belly. A pit forms in my stomach as the eyes of the pack turn to us.
Despite my unease, I whisper, “No.”
Alec grimaces. “Stay behind me.”
Leith comes to stand beside Alec. Tandie seems to be staying by the four-wheelers.
“If it comes down to it, you get Bram. I get the rest,” Alec mutters to him.
Leith raises an eyebrow. “I’d have thought you’d want the pleasure.”
Alec curls his lip. “Not worth the risk that I end up alpha of this shitshow. I’ll fix him later.”
Leith smirks. “All right, then.”
Hold up. What does Alec mean by “the rest?”
Before I can ask, Alec hoists his sledgehammer onto his shoulder and starts for the big furnace. The closer we get, the more I notice the differences. There are new faces in the pavilion with the elders, males who’d had prime spots close to the fire before we left. Leith’s uncle Alasdair Munroe. Fraser and Hamish Cameron.
Brenda Shaw is at the buffet table, but she’s sitting to the side by the coolers. Bram’s dam, Margaret, seems to be the one rushing to and fro, barking orders. Rhona Blackburn is still in the middle of the females sunning themselves, but it takes me a while to find Greer Munroe. She’s standing in a cluster a little distance from the grassy bank, wearing a big floppy hat and sunglasses, sipping a beer with the lower-ranking females.
I’m not surprised, but I don’t see Miss Nola anywhere. Wherever she is, she’s alone in a strange place, and I have to shove that thought down because every time I think it, my wolf tries for our skin so she can go track our missing packmate down.
The seats around the big furnace have all been rearranged. A quick scan shows no Munroes or Camerons, and quite a few more Scotts and Sinclairs than before. The remaining Shaws have been relegated to the outer circles with the Campbells and Boyles and a handful of sleazy McKays.
Bram Blackburn is presiding front and center in Conall Shaw’s deluxe reclining camp chair, his dirty bare feet propped on an overturned milk crate, eating wings. Isla Sinclair is sitting on a cooler beside him, and when he licks the bones clean, he drops them onto a paper plate she’s holding on her lap. She looks miserable.
To my surprise, I feel a twinge of sympathy. Was she unlucky enough to be mated to him while we were gone? Or is she doing what she did with Alec?
From this vantage point, now that I’m the one by Alec’s side, she looks different. Beautiful and thin and immaculately made up, yes, but also powerless, as trapped by Fate and rank as the rest of us.
I look away. Somehow, it doesn’t feel fair to see her so low.
We’re close enough now that everyone has noticed us, and we’re causing quite a stir. The packmates by the river and in the pavilion drop what they’re doing and hurry to the big furnace, converging in a boisterous, drunken, gleefully expectant crowd. At the back, pups jump or climb on their taller siblings to try to get a better view of the action, and the elders cluster at the edges, complaining loudly to each other, probably about the disrespectfulness of youth.