Filed to story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I unfold the case, already knowing what I’ll find, and I’m right. There are slots filled with every size needle and crochet hook you could want, as well as a pouch with a thimble, scissors, and a random assortment of safety pins, straight pins, buttons, and a few threaders for good measure.
I take out a needle for a closer look. It’s hand carved, either rosewood or maple, with little acorns carved into the tops. They’re not perfect, either, but they’ll work fine. “Who carved the needles?” I ask.
“I did.” Justus’s voice has gone downright gruff.
He’s staring intently into the hatbox, and doesn’t even look up when I ask, “What about the case?”
“Max made the leather. I did the cutting and sewing.”
“Who’s Max?” I don’t remember meeting him earlier.
“He’s Elspeth’s mate. Gray wolf. Missing half his tail.”
I vaguely remember a wolf like that watching the proceedings from under a tree, lying on his side and idly flicking his half of a tail.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. “Will you tell him thank you?” I feel like I’ve got a leak inside me—my heart is swelling, and my eyes are welling, but I’m too on guard to let myself cry in front of him.
My fingers flit from needle to needle. Their shapes aren’t quite uniform, but they’re all sanded perfectly smooth.
“There’s more,” he says.
I fold the case up carefully, and keeping it on my lap, I reach back into the box. The next layer is all small tins and wooden boxes.
Tea.
I take them out, one by one, stacking them like blocks. Each tin and box is absolutely charming. There’s a red tin of Jasmine tea with a sailing ship on it. A tin of herbal tea with a koala wrapped in a blanket, pouring a cup in a eucalyptus tree. Several are decorated with flowers and birds—flamingos and hummingbirds and hibiscus and lilies.
I crack one of the boxes open. It’s full of tea, wrapped in a wax paper pouch. I give it a sniff. Chamomile. My clenched stomach relaxes, and my cheeks flush.
A male has never given me a present before. There is no explicit rule against it, but Killian definitely wouldn’t be okay with any of the males approaching an unprotected female that way. It’s different for those with fathers or brothers. They have someone to tear a chunk out of a male’s hide if he oversteps.
Even if it were allowed, males don’t notice me like they do females like Haisley and Rowan, and I’ve never been anything but grateful for that.
I’m not sure what I feel right now.
“Where did you get all of these?”
He coughs, and with his eyes still averted, he says, “The others know I’ll trade for them.”
“How do they get them?” Don’t Last Pack live totally isolated?
“Swap meets. Flea markets.”
“Human swap meets and flea markets.”
Justus shrugs. “Better humans than the lost packs.”
“Lost packs?”
He shifts uncomfortably and glances up. “That’s what we call you. Quarry Pack, Moon Lake, North Border, Salt Mountain. Like you call us ‘last’. We call you lost.”
“Why lost?”
“Why last?” he shoots back.
“Because your pack is the last one to still live in dens like the ancestors did.”
His mouth quirks. “‘Lost’because your people don’t know how to be what we are anymore. You’re losing the ability to shift. Your pups only shift if they’re traumatized, and most of you’ve forgotten how to balance the forms. ‘Lost’ because you want to be human. You keep your wolves caged and only let them out on full moons like they’re dogs that you walk. Because you don’t know any more what pack means.”
“What do you mean ‘balance the forms’?” I ask.
He flashes a small smile, and before I can blink, his beard turns to fur, his face becomes a snout, his eyes rotate to slant at the diagonal, and his nose turns into a black nub. He grins, baring sharp white fangs and black gums.
I yip, startled. He cracks his jaws wide and lets his long pink tongue loll out of his mouth for a second before he morphs his face back into a man’s.
“Did your wolf stick his tongue out at me?”
He grins. His teeth haven’t turned back. “We did.”
“We?”
His expression grows serious, and he switches to that teacher voice he used when he was talking about how shifter packs shouldn’t have alphas. “Your people have such mistaken ideas about the wolf. You try to keep him in submission, same as you do your females and pups and elders. You act like he’s a costume. Can you even hear him?”
I move the needle case to the pallet and draw my knees to my chest. I don’t like how his criticism feels. It’s not entirely unfair, I guess, but I just let him closer, and he thanked me by telling me that I’m bad at wolfing.
Part of me wants to shut my mouth, toss his yarn back in the hatbox, and pack myself up as small as I can, but the hard ball of spite forming in my gut won’t let me.
“My wolf tells me to run and hide. That’s it. That’s what she says. Constantly. Why would I want to listen to that?”
Immediately, his expression changes as if he got lost in his own bullshit for a second and then suddenly remembered he’s in a two-person conversation. Kennedy does the exact same thing when she goes off on Quarry Pack males. She’ll be bitching about how they can never truly understand our perspective because they’re so much stronger and then realize mid-sentence that her very legitimate complaints also apply to herself because of the killer he-wolf inside her.
He smiles ruefully. “My pack always say ‘you have so many ideas.'” He lowers his head ever so slightly. “It’s not a compliment.”
The ball of spite dissolves, and my belly warms. I feel kind of low for making him feel bad about what he said—I was playing on his pity, and I despise pity—but I’m also surprised and delighted that it worked.
If a female pushes back on what a Quarry Pack male says, or tries to make him feel bad, he doubles down. Every time. Maybe later he’ll bring a peace offering if she holds a grudge and he wants her sweet, but he’ll never, ever show neck in the moment like Justus just did.
I don’t know what to say, so I resettle myself so I’m sitting crisscross and draw the needle case back onto my lap so I can trace the stitches with my finger.
Justus’s shoulders relax, and he nudges the hatbox toward me again. “There’s one thing left,” he says.
I guess we’re dropping the subject for now. I look back in the box. There’s a PlayStation controller at the very bottom. Just one, sun-bleached and more than a little worse for wear. A knob is missing.
I take it out, glancing around the den in case I missed the TV and console—and electricity.
Justus tenses a little again. “I saw you with one of those at your cabin. I wasn’t quite sure what it was for, but one of the pups found it out on a hunt, so I traded for it.”
I turn it in my hands, that warmth in my belly heating up again. “What did you trade for it?”
Justus shrugs. “I can’t remember. Maybe I let him come on patrol with me.”
I replace it carefully in the box, and then I return the teas, examining each more closely. I’m getting tired, and I really have to focus to read the tins—oolong, black, chai, hibiscus, Darjeeling, Earl Grey. I’m a Tetley girl exclusively, but it’s the thought that counts, and the pictures on the tins are so pretty.
“Thank you,” I say as I arrange the yarns in the box by color. I’m too shy to look at him. My face is already permanently flushed.
When he answers me, his voice is almost a rumble. “I have an oak barrel. Someone’s borrowed it, but I’ll get it back, and I can trade for another. Whatever else you need, I can get.”
Why do I need oak barrels?
All of a sudden, my nerves flare back to life. I don’t need anything. I’m not going to be here very long. I’m going home. He said so. He swore on his dam’s grave.
And that is what I want.
I can’t stay here. I need my own bed and my locking doors and my friends.
My things.
He’s never going to let you leave. He lied.
“You said you’d take me back,” I say in a rush, and it’s like I douse the moment in ice water.
He jumps to his feet. I flinch and whimper. His face darkens, but he ignores the reaction and takes over with the box, shoving the lid on and returning it to the basket.
“I swore I would. I keep my promises,” he mutters darkly as he stuffs the blankets, quilts, pants, and shirts on top of the box with complete disregard to whether the stacks are in the right direction. When he puts the lid on, it won’t close.