Page 3 of Rejected Sold Mate (Crystal Creek Wolves #4)

One would think I’d grown used to everything going wrong for me by the time I’d settled my pack in the Crystal Creek area.

Being able to settle there was one of the few strokes of luck I’d been allowed in my life, so when I’d had not just great sex, but a genuine connection with a beautiful woman, I should have known something was going to go wrong.

But I can be a stupid man. Or a shortsighted one. Because I’d wanted Rhie to be someone compatible so damn bad that it had been eating me up inside from the first second, I pressed my lips to hers.

Of course, I’d known she was a wolf, but I’d been hoping like hell she was some mid-ranking, single woman in one of the three allied packs.

Or maybe from somewhere else, farther away, traveling for work or pleasure.

I’d enjoyed spending time with her to the point I’d have tried to figure it out.

All I’d needed her to be was a strong, unproblematic she-wolf of basically any status, and I would have tried to continue seeing her, because damn if I hadn’t felt some sort of connection when she touched me.

None of that happened, though. Instead, Rhie was the lowest-ranking member of the Alpha who liked me the least out of the three.

Not only was she at the very bottom of the pack hierarchy, but she wasn’t even a long-term member of the pack.

No one had filled me in on what brought her to the doorstep of the Shadowbay pack, but everyone knew that it was something sinister.

She was an outcast Omega, and while I’d seen her in passing with the Lunas of the other three packs, I’d assumed they’d just taken pity on her, soft-hearted women that they were.

I’d never once looked directly at her, and that was why I hadn’t recognized her at the bar, and why her name didn’t click in my head.

That, and I wanted her so intensely from the first sight that she could have told me any name under the sun and I would have accepted it, just to have her attention.

Now she was looking up at me from my cabin bed, sheet pulled around her chest, waiting for an answer. Anger rose in me—at her, for not immediately telling me who she was, and at myself, for being such a damn fool.

“Fine,” I gritted out, pulling my jeans on and not even bothering to look at her anymore.

“Would I have touched you if I knew you were an Omega? Maybe. Would I have touched you if I knew who you were? Scott’s outcast, bottom of the pack, Omega, that he only allowed among his ranks out of pity? Hell no.”

She flinched like I’d hit her, “Jayce—”

I cut my hand through the air, “No. This never should have happened. Don’t for a second think I would have given you a second glance if I knew who you were.” I grabbed the rest of my clothes off the floor, not even bothering to put them on. “Your keys are on the table. I want you out by morning.”

“Jayce!” Rhie called after me, but I was already out the door, slamming it behind me.

As soon as my bare feet hit the dirt, I shifted, fur rising over flesh, bones twisted, until I was no longer man, but beast. I tore through the forest, furious and annoyingly hurt.

If I had paid closer attention to wolves in the other packs, I would have recognized her, dammit.

Now I’d fucked things up, and my alliance was at stake.

Would Rhie tell anyone what happened? Would Scott think I took advantage of one of his lowest-status wolves?

I tried to push her out of my head, but she was stuck there like a burr.

I’d never wanted a Luna, not since I was young and foolish enough to think I’d be deserving of that kind of happiness.

The world had been cruel to me, cruel to my pack, and showed me in no uncertain terms that peace and happiness weren’t in the cards for me.

All I could do was be the best possible Alpha, protect my pack, find them a safe territory, and eventually die without my name being sullied for the rest of eternity.

But Rhie…damn if she didn’t make me feel something. When she clung to me and cried out my name, a yearning that I thought long dead and risen, its head, and I wanted something more.

It was fitting that she was the least suitable she-wolf possible for me. And then for her to offer some fuck buddy arrangement—ha! It had stung when she said fucking me had just been an emotional outlet for her, but then to insinuate that I’d be fine just being a clandestine hookup for her…hell no.

I knew I didn’t deserve affection, but I also wasn’t going to settle for being the afterthought of a woman who would be lucky if I even looked at her under any other circumstances.

Fuck. I was an asshole, but that wasn’t new. Didn’t mean I couldn’t loathe myself because of it, though.

Rhie was a threat to the careful peace I’d managed to cultivate in the Crystal Creek area.

The other three Alphas had only recently taken mates, and while it wouldn’t be totally out of line for me to take a Luna from one of the packs I was allied with, Rhie came with her own complications.

Just sleeping with her could put me in hot water with the other Lunas, and in turn, the Alphas, if she was really friends with them and not just some pity project they had taken on.

The best thing to do was to pretend the night we’d shared never happened. It would be an important lesson for me—I can’t get involved with anyone, even if it were for just a one-night stand. Everything I did had to be done with the pack at the forefront of my mind, and nothing else.

Being selfish made the pack weak. The memory of my grandfather bleeding out on the floor of a faraway forest forced its way to the front of my mind, and I had to skid to a stop on all four paws, shaking my head to dispel the image before it made me sick.

Strength was the only way forward, and if strength meant I never made another personal connection as long as I lived, so be it.

***

I made it home just as the sun touched the horizon, shifting to human and staggering to the shower.

I’d run so hard my muscles were still twitching as I stepped beneath the falling water.

I showered, detached as I scrubbed my hair and body, not even bothering to towel off once I was done.

I wrung my hair out with two hands, shook the rest of myself like I was still on four legs, and crawled into bed, sunrise be damned.

Thank God I had the forethought to take Rhie to my hunting cabin and not my actual home. It meant I had a modicum of separation, and that I wouldn’t have to sleep in the same bed where I just fucked her senseless.

The image of her on top of me filtered in, and I groaned, pulling a pillow over my head. She’d made me senseless, too, and no matter how much I wanted it to, the memory of Rhie wasn’t going to fade anytime soon.

***

I finally found sleep an hour or so later, but I wasn’t done being haunted.

A dream kicked up, and all of a sudden, I was standing in the forest of my youth.

I wasn’t alone, either. A fawn-colored wolf ran next to me, her white paws striking the ground in perfect time with my dark ones, keeping pace easily.

I felt a connection to her, some sort of tether, and I knew she was there without even having to look at her.

We reached a clearing, and then she was on me, lighter body crashing into mine as we rolled through the leaf litter.

Between one breath and the next, we both shifted, and Rhie wrapped her long legs around me, her fingers burying themselves in my hair.

I slanted my mouth over hers as we came to a stop, her underneath me and not a shred of clothes between us.

She looked like some wild thing, her white blond hair a halo around her face as I kissed down her neck and tried to commit the warm, floral scent of her skin to memory.

Everything flowed together, and I could barely keep up. In moments, her leg was over my shoulder, and I was seconds from pushing into her—

And then she was gone, and I was shooting upright in bed, hard as stone and breathing like I’d run a marathon. Enraged and frustrated that I couldn’t escape her even in my sleep, I punched the pillow next to me before falling back to the mattress and covering my face with my hands.

Dammit. Rhie was going to be a lot harder to forget than I’d anticipated, and the worst part of it was that I didn’t want to forget her. But affection was weakness, and there was no room for weakness in the Blacktide pack.