Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
She smells like rain on dry earth—like petrichor, my favorite scent, ever since I was a pup. I always loved thunderstorms.
I hike her a little higher in my arms so she’s closer to my nose. Her scent is subtle, easily overpowered when we walk past a pine or a rotting log. I breathe her in until my lungs ache. Her scent teases my memory, reminding me of how the world smelled when I was a pup.
My wolf crowds the boundary between us. He wants a sniff, too. He wants to bury his snout in her fur as he mounts her.
He can’t. Lost pack shifters don’t fuck as their wolves. When Max’s wolf first tried to mount Elspeth’s, her wolf ripped a hunk out of his shoulder. When she was in her skin again, she yelled at him for hours about how it was wrong and dirty. When he asked her how she thought natural wolves had babies, she threw a piece of firewood at his head. I see their wolves sneaking off now during runs, but it took her a while.
Even if Annie’s wolf wanted mine, I couldn’t do it. Annie herself is still terrified of me. Her fear stench was so strong that I caught it while I was still on the far side of the river.
But she didn’t run, though. Not at first.
Because she was frozen in fear?
Maybe. She wasn’t quite like she was before, though. Her pupils weren’t blown, and she fidgeted, tucking her hands into her shirt cuffs and biting her sweet bottom lip. I stifle a groan. Her blunt human teeth sank into her lip like they were biting into risen dough. I want to bite that lip, too.
My stomach growls, or maybe it’s my wolf, bitching about how I’m keeping him locked up. The sun is sinking fast, and I didn’t plan any of this. I have no food, nothing to make a shelter or a fire. We’ll need to find a place to camp soon. Ferals hunt at night, and I can take at least two or three on my own, but I wouldn’t risk it with my mate in my arms.
My mate.
I can’t believe I have her. I don’t dare.
Soon enough, she’ll shift to her skin and hate me again. Once we talk and figure things out, I’ll have to let her go back to her pack. But until then, all I need to worry about is food, fire, shelter, and ferals.
And Killian Kelly and Quarry Pack coming after me.
I feel like I’ve dealt with that for now. I cut south once I crossed back over the river, left a few signs, and doubled-back. They’ll likely think we’re heading for the high valley camp. Good luck to them when they find the black bears that moved into the dens once we left.
For now, the most pressing need is a safe place to stow my mate while I catch her dinner. What I need is a good tree hollow.
I eye her narrow haunches. It won’t need to be very big.
She seems to sense that she’s being examined. Her breath quickens and her lazy tail perks up. She squirms in my arms, twisting her neck to blink up at me with sleepy eyes.
My body tenses. Will there be fear again?
She yawns so wide I can see the back of her pink tongue and every tiny little pointed tooth in her mouth.
I smile. “Good nap, mate?”
Her belly grumbles, and she whines.
“We’ll stop soon, and I’ll get you fresh meat.”
This settles her, and for a few more minutes, she’s content to be held as she surveys her surroundings, shivering and tucking herself to my chest whenever an owl hoots or a leaf rustles overhead. I scan for a good hidey-hole, but the trees are too sparse here to provide decent cover.
I hoist her high over my head as I scramble down a slope choked with waist-high brambles. At the bottom, there’s a dry creek bed that I follow northward. When we’ve been hiking a while, she begins to wriggle.
“You want down?”
She yips. It’s more an order than a request. I grin as I set her on her four short, delicate legs. She happily trips ahead, gets about ten feet, and skids to a halt, looking over her shoulder, accusation in her rich brown eyes. I guess I’m not walking fast enough for her.
Her eyes are the same exact color as when she’s in her skin. So lovely.
The blade that’s been stuck in my chest since our mating twists. They might be the same color, but until now, I’ve never seen them without fear. My anger rises, and I stamp it down. This wolf wasn’t the one who made me think we were mating when she was just taking my cock so I’d leave.
“Waiting for me?” I ask, my voice catching. I clear my throat. I don’t want my voice to sound bitter with her.
She yips some more, bossy and impatient. I catch up, and she darts ahead again. She’ll only go so far, no further, constantly checking over her shoulder to make sure I’m following even though she must scent that I’m close. She has to hear me, too. I walk softly, but not silently. Her double-checking must be a nervous habit.
Her wolf is more confident than her human, but she’s still twitchier than any other female I know.
No sooner than I have the thought, leaves rustle overhead to our left and wood cracks against wood. A dead branch must’ve fallen. She dashes back to me, burrowing between my legs. I quickly plant my feet so I don’t squash her, and then stand in place as she crouches low to the ground, quivering against my ankle.
I squat and rumble to reassure her, running my palm down her trembling flank. “You’re safe. It was just a falling branch. Pretty far away. No danger to us.”
She barks unhappily, like I ought not have allowed it to happen. I hide a grin. She glares balefully into the woods where the leaves keep rustling.
“It’s just the night wind picking up, sweetling.”
She whines. I press my lips together, hoping my beard hides the fact that I don’t consider a thump in the woods to be as grave a danger as she clearly believes it to be. With the little toothpicks she has for teeth, it’s good she has a healthy respect for possible threats. In reality, a decent-sized branch could hurt her.
“Let’s keep going,” I say. “I know a place a mile or so ahead that might do for tonight.”
I wait for her to venture out of the bolt-hole she’s made between my feet. It takes her a minute, but she eventually creeps forward, nose high in the air and working overtime.
She sticks close for the rest of the journey, weaving figure eights around my ankles, boldly venturing a few feet away on occasion when her energetic sniffing catches out a particularly interesting scent.
My mate’s wolf is definitely braver than her human self, but she’s still skittish as hell. Elis is a lot like that since Killian Kelly unzipped his belly. Both Elis and his wolf alert to everything now, and half the time, I swear, he’s alerting to his own loud thoughts.
Before the debacle at the Quarry Pack dens, Elis was a typical young male—happy to tussle over nothing, up all night, venturing far afield by himself. When he deigned to show himself at the dens, he’d stroll around with his dick out as if that were enough to entice a female to let him mount. To be fair, I did the same when I had nothing else to recommend me except size and enthusiasm.
Then Elis took that claw to the belly. The wound healed, but he hasn’t been the same since. Some days, his dam can hardly get him out of his blankets, let alone the den.
A picture flashes in my head—Annie almost slamming her cabin door shut, throwing the bolt home, and then peeking out between the curtains.
The hairs on my neck prickle.
When Elis is in his skin now, he covers himself head to toe with baggy sweats and long sleeves, even in summer. I figured he wants to hide the scar, so the females don’t see it and think him weak, but now I wonder—why long sleeves? Clothes protect against claws worse than fur, but I suppose he thinks any layer of protection is better than nothing.
Annie doesn’t dress any different than the other unmated females in her pack. They all wear long skirts and sleeves.
But weren’t her thick flannel shirts always buttoned at the wrists? The sleeves were never rolled. The buttons were never undone at the neck.
And doesn’t she hold herself like Elis? So carefully. Like she could tip over and pour out.
Like she’d been ripped open before.
I stop in my tracks.
Immediately, my mate dashes to hide between my legs, ears pricking, nostrils flaring. Hyperalert. Just like Elis.
My heart shatters.
Why didn’t I see it?
I scoop her up, hold her in place with one arm, and comb my fingers through her fur. She yelps and wriggles, nipping my fingers, but she’s as easy to handle as a squirmy pup. I don’t see any scars. I gently squeeze up and down her legs. They’re straight. If they were ever broken, they healed well.
“Where were you hurt?” I mutter, combing her fur one more time against the grain, feeling for puckered, jagged skin.
Now that the idea is in my head, I know I’m right. I feel it in my gut.
When Max first brought Elspeth from North Border, she startled whenever a male raised his voice or a wolf snarled. I was too young to remember, but folks still tell stories about how Max would thrash any male who shouted or growled around her, so to this day, whenever she’s around, we all lower our voices out of habit like she’s a sleeping babe.
Why didn’t I make the connection before?
My pride.
That’s why.
Annie mauled my pride, and I was a dumb pup, so I decided to be mad for the rest of my life rather than think about why she was acting that way for a single second. I assumed her fear was her fault because it couldn’t be mine. I’m a good, decent male.
She must not want me because something is wrong with her. She’s from a lost pack, after all, and there’s something wrong with all of them. She was raised to hate my pack and isn’t smart enough to see past the bigotry. Her fear was intolerance. An insult.
I haven’t been a dumb, eighteen-year-old male in years, but I never revisited my reasoning, never tried to make sense of it as a grown male.