Filed to story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
She’s not convinced. I have claws, she points out, not in a cocky way. Like she’s stating facts. She is better equipped to fight than I am, and even though she’s bone weary, survival always comes first.
We’re fine. You can rest. I draw her attention to the bar across the solid wood door and the rusty sword propped against Abertha’s bedside table for some reason.
I have sharp teeth, my wolf adds.
Not sharp enough, the voice in my head chimes in.
You’re no match for your mate. You’re lucky that he left.
If he’d wanted to hurt you, you’d be torn to pieces. You’d be—
The voice summons up the old memory and shoves it to the forefront of my brain.
Sightless eyes, staring at nothing. A twisted mouth frozen in a soundless scream.
With all the strength of mind I have left, I force the memory back, and breathing through the panic rising in my chest, I close my eyes.
Come on, wolf. Hand our body over.
She doesn’t give in. She gives up, collapsing to the floor, and again, my bones crack and muscles tear. The pain is blinding, the reconstruction as violent as the demolition. I curl into a ball. Life has always been this way. It’s never once been easy.
My mate went from wolf to a man in an instant. He flip-shifted, like Killian. No one else in the civilized packs can flip-shift, except Alban Hughes from Moon Lake, and he can only do it once or twice, like a party trick, not whenever he wants like Killian. Rumor has it that Alban Hughes was raised in the Last Pack, and they can all flip-shift there.
Is that where my mate is from? What’s his name?
If he’s gone forever, I’ll never know.
Good, the voice says.
You’re safe.
Her reassurance doesn’t let me relax like it usually does. My muscles are still frozen in knots as I drag on the shirt and skirt. My biceps ache. My thighs burn. Every part of me hurts, especially between my legs where I feel tender and torn.
My face burns, and I button the flannel all the way up to the neck. I’m not going to think about it.
I cross the room to Abertha’s table, and when I sit, I don’t let the pain show. I keep my back straight and my head up.
That hour by the river didn’t happen. I wasn’t there. It isn’t real unless I want it to be, and I don’t. I know how to make it so that ugly things didn’t really happen. I know how to live around them.
Abertha plonks the teapot down on a trivet and returns to her kitchenette, coming back a minute later with a tray crowded with mismatched cups, saucers, a sugar bowl, a cream pitcher and a package of cookies from the store in Chapel Bell still in the wrapper.
I keep my hands on my lap. They’re shaking like crazy.
After giving me a once-over, Abertha pours. She dumps a huge spoonful of sugar and a big splash of cream in both of our cups, gives me another look, takes a flask from her pocket, fills our cups to the brim with its contents, and then carefully pushes my saucer across the table.
I wrap both hands around the warm china, holding it close to my face so the steam bathes my cheeks and nose. I inhale. Valerian root and whiskey. Everything feels a tiny bit less dire. That’s the power of tea.
For a few, long minutes, Abertha levels me with her cool gray gaze. Is she not sure what to say? That would be a first. She doesn’t always make sense, but she’s never shy about speaking her mind.
Finally, she blows across her cup and says, “So, I suppose the most urgent issue before us is—do you want a pup or not?”
My jaw drops. My stomach follows. “Pup?”
My hands fly up to cover my mouth. Quicker than should be possible, Abertha lunges for a mop bucket and swings it onto the table beside my teacup. The pail hits the oak with a solid thunk, startling me enough that the urge to heave disappears. My wolf yelps and hides her head under her paws.
I lower my hands back to my lap and straighten my shoulders.
“We good?” Abertha arches a thin, gray eyebrow.
I nod.
“All right. So, circling back to the subject—pups?”
Dear Fate. Pups? I can’t think about pups. I can’t fathom pups. I can’t wrap my brain around this moment, right here, right now. I’m not even wearing underwear.
What if I’m leaking? It feels like I’m leaking. The denim of the skirt should be thick enough to absorb it, but I’m not sure. At least the chair is wood. It’ll wipe clean. I don’t want to leak on Abertha’s furniture. I want to go home.
I’m filled with a male’s seed, and he’s my mate, and I don’t know his name, and he hates me, and I don’t want a mate from a pack that lives like animals, but every angry word he said also sticks in my chest like a dozen knitting needles.
Sad female.
Coward.
Stink like prey.
A female like you would make weak, spindly young.
I can’t think about it. It didn’t happen.
Are Una and the others worried about me? How long have I been gone? I have no idea. In order to figure it out, I’d have to flip back in time, and I won’t. I’m erasing it.
I’ve known for a long time how to make things go away. It’s simple. Every time your mind tries to go to the past, you yank it away and give it something else to think about. Anything else, but worries work really well.
If you do yank every single time, eventually, your mind doesn’t go there anymore, and if it does, you quickly give it something else to worry about that could happen. You tell yourself that if you don’t worry hard enough, it will happen. And that’s how you deal with the past. It’s simple.
Not easy.
But simple.
It’s warm in the cottage, but I’m shaking like a leaf. Am I getting sick?
I lost my shoes back by the river. How am I going to walk home? What if I come across a rabid natural wolf? Or a feral? How will I run?
“Can I borrow a pair of boots?” I ask Abertha.
The corners of her eyes crease, the steely gray gentling, but her jaw sets. “Not yet, Annie-girl. No shoving this into a deep, deep worry hole quite yet. You’ve got to deal with the issue at hand.”
“I don’t want to,” I say softly.
She exhales. “I know.”
She is quiet for a time, sipping her tea, dangling the fingers of her left hand to lure Appollonia over from her basket by the fire to be petted.
Abertha does know. She was there that night, not in the middle of it, but when it was too late. When it was deathly quiet.
Aunt Nola forgot her bag.
I was eight. We’d just finished a full-moon feast, and Declan Kelly had ordered the unmated females down to the lodge’s basement. Aunt Nola left the bag I’d made her on the table. I’d made it from an old denim shirt and cross-stitched it with the treasures she always brought me back from her rambles—walnuts, blackberries, nettles, pretty stones.
She loved her bag—it was her favorite thing—so I decided to take it to her. To make her feel better.
When Declan bellowed for the lone females, her face went ghost white, and Ma smothered a cry with her fist in her mouth. Half of the great room went silent. The other half—the males—stomped their boots and howled.
While Ma was whisper-hissing with the other dams, I slipped away, down the stairs. I’d been in the basement many times before to help Aunt Nola clean. There were no windows, only fluorescent lights with the shadows of dead flies smudged against the plastic.
I tripped into the room. The lone females were clustered together, their fear blossoming in the air like skunk spray.
They saw me skid across the linoleum.
Heavy footsteps sounded at the top of the stairs.
They surged toward me as one, reaching for me with octopus arms, clutching me close and bearing me away. A palm mashed my lips into my teeth. Steel fingers curled around my wrist.
They lifted me, rushed me over to an old leather sofa against the wall, shoved me underneath, and kicked Aunt Nola’s bag in after. The sofa was saggy, the cushions drooping over the warped wooden slats. I couldn’t turn my head. There wasn’t enough room. I had to stare out into the room, and all I could see were tiles, skirt hems, and dirty, scuffed boots.