Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Nia makes a show of dusting herself off. Bevan comes to stand by my side.
Cadoc’s chest rumbles. Bevan trips back a few steps.
“Well. Sorry again.” Cadoc flashes a rueful smile, not much more than a momentary softening of his harsh mouth. Then he strolls back to his table at the front of the library.
Bevan bumps my palm with his flask. I grab it and wait for Mrs. Dee and the others to return to the front of the library before raising it to my lips and chugging.
My throat, the only part of my body not on fire, bursts into flame.
“Rotgut?” I gasp.
Damn, it goes down like gasoline.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Bevan slings his arm over my shoulder, and he walks me to the other scavenger table, the one that wasn’t yeeted across the floor.
Everyone goes back to what they were doing—studying or chilling or messing around. There’s a lingering tension in the library, though. An oppressive air. Even the nobs have sprouted hair.
“What the fuck was that?” Nia hisses in my ear as soon as the volume in the room goes back to near normal.
“I don’t know.”
“Cadoc Collins didn’t ask you to hold his phone.”
“No.”
He lied. And that’s not the weirdest thing.
He took my slingshot and tucked it in his back pocket.
And he left his earbuds and watch in my bag on purpose.
Chapter 2
2
ROSIE
As soon as the bell rings at the end of independent study, the scavengers bust out through the emergency exit in the fiction section. Mrs. Dee yells like always, but we’re already racing down the drive, half of us shifted to our wolves. Enid and Mina scramble to collect the abandoned clothes. I scoop up my cousin Conway’s shorts and T-shirt. He’ll trade me jerky for them later.
Bevan remains mostly human, but he lets his fur grow as he shakes himself like a wet dog and his muzzle lengthens. One eye is still swollen shut, but the cut on his face has healed.
Nia cracks her jaw and licks her canines as they descend. Then she smacks my shoulder. “Zero to a hundred in five seconds, eh? Want to go rob a bank?”
Bevan cackles. “Rosie straight up decided to go big or go home.”
“Did you know they can track their phones?” Bevan asks Nia.
“No, I didn’t. We don’t take phones.” She whacks me upside the head. “You don’t touch their human tech. They care about that.”
“What the hell, girl? If you get itchy fingers, you come to me. I’ll show you the ways of the Bogs.” Bevan’s grinning. He’s proud of me.
Everyone has always been a little weirded out that I don’t swipe stuff. Abertha says scavengers aren’t meant to—we do it because our natural impulse to forage and hunt has been perverted. If I said that to Bevan, though, he wouldn’t get past the word “perverted.”
I shrug and will my skin to cool down. The cool afternoon breeze helps.
“She’s as red as a baboon’s ass,” Bevan observes.
“She’s not as red as she was back in the library.” Nia winds her arm in mine. “Now we know why she doesn’t lift shit. Her face is an alarm.”
“Whoop, whoop.” Bevan bats at my braid. I slap him and miss.
“Seriously, though. Rosie-cakes. You can’t pinch the alpha heir’s phone.” Nia drags me close, nestling me to her side.
She’s playing it off, but she was scared for me. She sees herself as the tough one, and she is hard as nails, but I’m not as vulnerable as she thinks. It helps her be braver to think so, though, so I play along.
“I don’t know why I did it,” I admit.
“Fingers get sticky.” Bevan shrugs. It’s a common observation among scavengers.
“You have to start smaller, girl. Lipstick. Those fancy pens they’ve got that click.” Nia’s eyes shine. She loves those clicky pens.
“Human cash.” Bevan’s expression is serious for once. “You can’t go wrong with human cash. Stinks so much no one can tell who’s touched it last.”
“Gross.” I don’t touch the stuff.
“Next time, give us a heads up at least.” Nia kicks a rock out of our path. I duck to pick it up. Quartzite. Grounding, protection, and insight. I tuck it in her pocket.
“I didn’t plan to do it.” Quite the opposite. It was like I was possessed.
“Fingers get sticky,” Bevan says again.
“Rule number one—don’t mess with the alpha or his family.” Nia takes the stone out of her pocket, sniffs it, and sticks it back. “Rule number two—don’t mess with Alban or Brody Hughes.”
“Or their friends and associates,” Bevan adds.
“Just anybody with the name Collins or Hughes is off limits.” Nia doesn’t need to tell me this—everyone knows—but her heartbeat hasn’t gone back to normal yet, and it comforts her to lecture me, so I let her.
“A Collins will beat your ass, but a Hughes will ask for your name.” Bevan continues the warning we all get from our elders.
“And then you go on a walk, and you don’t come back,” Nia finishes.
Ice trickles through my veins. Brody Hughes hadn’t taken special notice of me before today. He won’t like that Cadoc robbed him of his chance to dole out justice to a scavenger. I’m going to pay for it. Nia and Bevan, too.
“Shit.” My steps get heavier. “I’m so sorry, guys.”
Bevan chucks me under the chin. “No long face. We lucked out.”
“How so?”
“Cadoc Collins covered for you. Brody can’t move against us for this, or he’s going against the alpha heir.” Nia shoots me a quizzical look. “Why did he do that?”
“I have no idea. Maybe ’cause I’m female?” That doesn’t usually stop ranked males when it comes to scavengers. Maybe he remembered the pup struggling for the bottle cap? I can’t imagine he would.
“He was probably worried that your face was going to explode.” Bevan snorts. “You looked like a fucking stop sign.”
“No, a stop light.” Nia playfully pushes me and then hugs me back to her side.
“Yeah, you better stick to poking around in the woods, cuz. You want something, tell us. You’re a liability.”
He doesn’t mean it unkindly. I reach over and give him a scratch behind the ears. For the next mile or so, he recounts his beating in exuberant detail. Nia interrupts occasionally to correct his facts. Apparently, Bevan did not get any licks in, but Cadoc did have to tell him to bend the neck twice before he complied.
By the time we reach the fork at the Narrows, the mood is back to normal. This is where I part ways with Nia and Bevan. They’ll go on to the Bogs while I take the path that veers into the woods towards Abertha’s shack.
Scavengers avoid the acres near the witch’s house. I love the creepy, gnarled trees and mossy hollows. I don’t think it’s haunted. It’s peaceful. My favorite place.
I wave bye, but Bevan’s so involved in his story—and Nia’s so into correcting him—that all I get are flashed peace signs as I go.
I got away easy. For now. Nia will definitely come over tonight and demand that I explain myself.
I’ll have to come up with something that isn’t “I really wanted to know what’s on Cadoc Collins’ phone.”
I honestly have no idea why I did it.
Unlike every other female—scavengers and nobs—I’ve never had a crush on the alpha heir. Yes, he’s nice to look at, and he did help me out once upon a time, but that’s not enough to get my engine running.