Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
I close my eyes and drop my head back. It thumps against the trunk. My stomach swirls, and my heart pounds. My body is running away with me, and I’ve lost my hold on the reins.
Justus’s wolf rumbles. The wolf has never let anything bad happen to me.
And the man? I was left hurt, but did he hurt me?
The past is there. It never goes away.
If I were brave enough, I would crack my memory open and call to mind a much younger Justus. A much, much younger me.
I’d recall how he tried to impress me—or reassure me—by bragging about the quilts he had at home, and his den, and the barrel he had for bathing. I open my eyes, searching for his. They’re already on my face.
“The first time we mated, you said you’d bring me an elk.”
He nods, clearly thrown that I’m bringing it up now, but willing to go along with me. I’ve never met a more patient male.
“I did,” he says. “And I delivered, didn’t I?” He flashes a grin, and it’s wry, but there’s pride in it still.
“You said you’d bring me a cow.” The memories are tumbling out of their box now. Justus’s hands stroking my ass. His fingers inside me. How careful he tried to be, and how futile that was.
“Did I? I still owe you then.” He steps closer to me, reaching for my hands, placing them on his chest. It’s rising and falling as fast as mine.
“You called me pretty.”
His brown eyes crinkle, and he smiles, like I’ve told him something nice. “You have always been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.
I wasn’t searching for compliments—I don’t do that—but he’s given me one anyway, and I don’t know what to do with it. It feels like I’ve got an egg cupped in my hands with no shelf or surface where I can put it down.
For lack of a better idea, I pass it back. “I think you’re pretty, too,” I say, flushing immediately.
Pretty? I couldn’t have said—
He kisses me. Bends over, braces his hand on the trunk above my shoulder, and steals my breath.
His lips are firm and certain. The bond sparks to life.
He wants this, and he’s not shy. He’s not asking, he’s telling me that we’re doing this, and it’ll be fine, better than fine. I’m beautiful in his eyes, and he’s been waiting. He’d wait longer, but is that really what I want?
I should trust him.
I should trust myself
—the evidence of my eyes, my experience. He is a good male. Safe. Such a thing does exist, and it’s here, in my arms.
He tugs my lower lip with the very tips of his teeth. I gasp. His tongue slips inside my mouth, searching, coaxing. He wants me to seek him out, too, because even though he’s bigger and stronger, he wants to belong to me. He wants me to slide my tongue past his lips. Past the points of his incisors.
He wants me to want him back so bad that I dare, so I do. He groans. His wolf rumbles. I melt. He cups my nape, stroking the pulse throbbing in my neck with his rough thumb. My knees wobble. My thighs tremble.
What are we doing out here?
I wrest my head away from his grasp and scan the sky. It’s too wide open.
My wolf grumbles in agreement. There are too many smells out here, and despite our high vantage point, too much territory to defend.
“Come on,” I tell Justus, striding for the den. I don’t bother grabbing his hand. He’ll follow.
I duck into the den and take a deep breath. This is exactly right. There is the apple crate of books, the rag rug that smells like pack, the pallet that will make a fine nest.
Nothing in here smells like a place where I’ve been afraid, and besides, I have a good, strong mate. He won’t let anything get to me.
I go to the willow basket and unpack the sheets and blankets and clean but threadbare clothes that my mate has worn all these years when we were apart. Why was that again? I can’t remember now. My brain isn’t working right.
All of a sudden, my certainty flees. My eyes blur with tears.
“What’s wrong, Annie?” Justus asks from the entranceway. He’s lingering there, waiting to be invited, as he should.
“You left me. Where were you?” I face him, clutching a patchwork quilt to my chest.
His face falls, and he steps forward. My wolf snarls in my throat. He has not been invited. The nest is not ready.
He curls his hands into fists, and for a moment, he seems to fight himself, and I’m not sure who won, but his moment of inner turmoil ends when he falls to his knees. “Never too far away, Annie. At least not for long. I couldn’t leave you. I always came back. You’re here.” He beats his chest once, twice.
My heart twists. I don’t want him to hurt, and even though I don’t remember how, exactly, I know it was my doing, too. Or it was the work of an evil neither of us were old nor wise enough to fight.
Yes, that’s what happened. “We’re safe now,” I tell him.
“Yes,” he softly agrees, sitting back on his heels. The tension ebbs from his broad shoulders, his fierce jaw. “I won’t hurt you. Nothing will hurt you.”
Lies.
“Oh, stuff it,” I snap at the voice, turning to my work. She’s not needed right now.
I prop my hands on my hips and survey the pallet. It’s all wrong. There’s no help for it. I’ll have to start fresh.
I sink to my knees, strip the bed, and pile the linens to the side. I saw a blanket that would make a good foundation, a fuzzy, soft one with a silky hem. I grab it from the stack and bury my nose in it. Yes, this is perfect.
I shake it out over the pallet, lay it flat, and tuck the corners under, humming to myself. Then comes the hard part. The arranging. I fold and fluff and fuss and change, and it’s daunting,like a puzzle with no picture on the box for reference, but it’s also deeply, deeply satisfying.
Everything is falling into place.
My mate watches me make our nest, fascinated and proud. His muscles twitch with anticipation, but he’ll wait until I’m ready. This is how it’s supposed to be. He guards me as I work. His strength and the wolf inside him are mine.
I’m not small and weak and alone. I’m a female, where I’m supposed to be, doing what I was made to do.
I punch a pillow and prop it in place. There. Done. I turn to Justus, smile, and reach out for him.
For a second, he stares at my hand, his brown eyes dark and wide. Poor male. I bend at the waist so I can snag his wrist and pull him to the nest. I know he’s not rejecting me. He’s just overcome. I understand.
I can hear his heartbeat in my ear. Our blood rushes along in our veins at the exact same speed.
My yank gets him moving, and he climbs into my nest with the enthusiasm and grace of a moon-drunk wolf. He manages to undo everything.
My wolf growls, and a little too late, he notices there’s a system of organization. He settles himself in the middle of the nest and gives me a rueful smile. “Sorry about that.”
I shake my head. “Now I have to do it all over again. Stay there. Don’t move.”
He hangs his head, but he’s still smiling as I replace pillows and rearrange sheets. It’s much more difficult with a huge male plopped right in the middle.
Finally, after a few more tugs to make sure my tucks will hold, I sit back and sigh. Perfect again.
And then I see the pillow. Justus is holding it in his lap. It’s supposed to be at the head of the pallet by the apple crate. I frown.
He grins.
He did it on purpose.
I growl.
His wolf growls back deeper, stirring a strange excitement deep inside me.
Unacceptable. I dart forward on my hands and knees to snatch the pillow back, but he holds on tight, and I tip forward and smack into him.
I jerk the pillow, but his grip is too tight. “It’s not funny,” I say.
He laughs low. “Say please.”