Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
This isn’t the way it’s done. Shouldn’t I present?
“Justus?”
“Trust me,” he shushes, the hot head of his cock already notching at my entrance. He flexes his hips and sinks into me, a groan of pure relief torn from his throat. He fills me so completely that I ache where I take him, but I love it.
I pant through the strain, and he gathers me close as he thrusts, cradling me to his chest, kissing my lips, my brow, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. I start to rock my hips in time.
“You’re so beautiful, Annie,” he rumbles in my ear. “So perfect for me. My Annie. Mine.”
I sigh and ride his bucking hips, his cock stretching me until I feel like a glove made for him.
“Come for me, now,” he growls. “Now, Annie.”
Hot cum floods my womb, and his knot catches and swells, tearing a raw shout from my throat. His fingers find my clit while his fangs sink into my shoulder.
I scream, bucking against him, but I’m caught, so he moves with me, hushing me.
I hover another second on the edge, somehow above myself, watching his strong arms tremble as they wrap around me and listening to his strong heart race as he fights for air. And then, like the world is tipped on its side, I’m knocked over, shattered, coming apart in a million, billion beautiful jagged pieces, and when I land, deliciously boneless, I’m whole again and safe in his arms.
He nuzzles my shoulder, mouthing his bite mark clean, mumbling words I can’t quite make out that sound like promises. Like vows.
I burrow into his chest, tuck my head into the crook of his neck, and murmur back at him. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I know what I mean.
Yes, the wait was too long.
Yes, this is where we belong.
Yes, Fate was right all along.
I wake up sometime in the wee hours, tucked between Justus and the blankets and pillows bunched against the den wall. It’s the same position we slept in on the trip here in the gully under the oak.
It’s toasty warm, but my heat has broken. I’m flat on my back, and I couldn’t roll over or move a muscle if I tried. I’m a limp noodle. I can’t even open my eyes. I orient myself by the smell of earth, the pressure of Justus’s arm around my waist, and the ghosting of his breath on my cheek.
Justus is on his side, facing me.
When he speaks—so very, very quietly that he must think I’m still asleep—his beard tickles my jaw.
“Stay with me,” he whispers. “Please, Annie. Please. Stay with me.”
I’m searching for my words when I slip-slide back into a deep, dark, dreamless sleep.
15
JUSTUS
I return to the den with water for Annie’s morning tea like I’m heading to my own execution. She was curled like a shrimp and snoring when I left her. I covered her with a quilt. She wouldn’t like her bare ass hanging out even if there was no one to see it.
She was so beautifully bold and demanding in her heat. Would she be like that all the time if she felt safe?
She doesn’t feel safe at Quarry Pack.
She belongs here. I am the male made to protect and care for her.
But I swore I’d take her home. I won’t break that promise.
I won’t.
My heart cracks and my stomach roils as I hike up the switchback trail, balancing a pot of boiling water that I’ve overfilled yet again.
She is likely carrying my pup. Am I really going to let her leave to raise the babe on her own? Who will make sure she has enough sleep? Who will make sure she drinks enough so that her milk comes in? Who will watch over her and tend her if she comes down with the affliction that makes some of the new dams take to their beds?
We’ve welcomed enough females with young babes to know the lost packs have forgotten everything they used to know about caring for new pups. They tell the dams to “sleep when the baby sleeps” as if little ones don’t sleep as randomly as bullfrogs honk in the night—and as if there aren’t perfectly capable packmates living to their left and right who could rock a fussy babe or give them a bottle of expressed milk.
I vividly remember how Lilliwen woke up every time Auggie cried, and the consternation and offense it caused when she sent away the females who came to help. There were many bitter feelings I had to smooth over before we figured out that in Salt Mountain, she was expected to do all the night feedings herself, and if she’d asked for help, it would’ve been considered shirking her duties. As if making sure a baby is fed and a dam recovers from birth isn’t the duty of the whole pack?
I can’t let Annie go back to the pack who let her live in fear. I can’t leave her to fend for herself, caring for our young alone. It’s unconscionable. Unbearable.
But I swore I would.
I can’t do it.
She’ll settle in. In time, all the stolen females do. She’ll be happy. I’ll make her happy.
I’ll learn to live with myself when she looks at me with betrayal in her eyes. And if she cries? Calls me a liar? Hates me?
If I break my word now, then am I as weak as I thought I was all those days I hid in my dam’s nest, too ashamed to face the pack? I’d sworn to my sire that I’d keep her safe when he was gone, and I’d failed.
And I am going to fail again. No matter what I do.
I reach the grassy ledge outside my den and stand there, water cooling in the pot, frozen in place. I can’t take another step. I can’t let the next part happen, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Annie rustles as she moves around inside.
Alphas are supposed to be invincible. They are the strongest in the pack. The wisest. They fix problems and right wrongs and protect the vulnerable, and here I stand, as I’ve always been, the strongest and smartest of my people—and still outmatched and outmaneuvered.
I couldn’t save Nessa’s brother from the hunters or Elis from the consequences of Alroy’s stupidity or my dam from the wasting sickness.
There are no alphas. There is no one strong or wise or brave enough.
There is only me, as flawed as I am.
And another impossible choice.
I can’t hurt her.
And I can’t let her go.
My grip on the pot handle tightens. Water sloshes over the sides. My jaw clenches, my guts knot, and my dry eyes burn.
I can’t do this.
I have to.
“Justus?” Annie appears in the den entrance. She’s wrapped herself in a light pink sheet, and she’s holding a cup. “You brought water.” She smiles, padding toward me on bare feet.
And then she stops. Her smile falls aways.
She blinks in the sunshine, the bleariness of sleep disappearing as she takes in my grim face and desperate hold on the pot. If I had dignity, I’d find a way to smile back. Say good morning. Act like everything is fine.
Her chest falls as she lets out a long, silent breath. She looks me straight in the eye. Her fear and doubt are clear as day.
She’s going to ask me to take her home now.
She takes a step closer to me, and then another, until we’re toe to toe. She gazes up at me, and for a second, all I can see is her beauty—her graceful neck, her delicate pointy chin, her soft, curving lips—and then I notice the expression in her eyes has changed.
It isn’t quite fear. It’s courage. And it’s not doubt, not exactly. It’s caution.
She draws in a deep breath and wraps her hand around mine, tilting the pot to pour water carefully into her cup. She already has a strainer filled with tea in it, the chain hung on the side with a fish hook.
She lets go of my hand and blows the tea water, although it’s hardly steaming now.
“I think I’ll stay here,” she says, her cheeks pinkening, her eyes glued to the hands wrapped around her tin cup. “If it’s all right by you.”
My heart shoots up like a rocket. My wolf howls in triumph so loud the water ripples in the pot I’m still holding.