Page 10 of The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs #5)

His chest is rising and falling like he ran back. His nostrils flare.

In the back of my mind, the voice is shouting, but he’s not moving an inch, so I can ignore her.

He clears his throat. “Can I bring you this?” he asks, raising the arm with the fabric and a steaming bowl. My stomach grumbles.

I nod, keeping my eyes locked on him. In case he makes a sudden move. Not because he’s so tall and muscular and tattooed and bearded, and he has fabric folded over his forearm and a bowl like a fancy waiter on TV.

He slowly sets his own bowl down at his feet and then approaches me, one step at a time, like he’s stalking deer. My muscles tense and my belly explodes with butterflies.

I’m still shivering, but I’m not the least bit cold. The temperature in the den is actually pleasantly warm. Cozy, not stuffy. If I weren’t so terribly, painfully, awkwardly naked, it’d be comfortable.

Justus stops a few feet from me, places the bowl on the rug, and then lays the fabric beside it. He tries to fold it, but he does it about as well as the Z-roster males working off their punishment in the laundry.

“I’ll turn around so you can, uh—” He waves at the fabric and then goes back to the entrance and squats with his back to me, staring out into the dark.

His butt and quads stretch his pants tight. There’s a crease that follows his spine all the way into his waistband, and those dimples. His tattoos swirl along his right arm and shoulder, wrapping around his right side, but the left side of his body is blank except for the lines his muscles make.

I don’t realize I’m gawking until he fidgets, shifting his weight. I quickly bend forward and grab the fabric. It’s lightweight, but there’s a lot of it. I wrap it around me like a shower towel, and I’m covered from boob to ankle. I sit back on the pallet, but the fabric is too tight to pull my knees up, so I fold them sideways.

“I’m good,” I say. My voice is soft like usual, but the cave is quiet, so he hears me fine. He turns and sits, knees bent and thighs wide open like males do without thinking twice. He drags a bowl to the space between his legs and digs in.

I wait—I’m not sure for what—but when he keeps eating and not paying me any attention, I grab my bowl and give it a stir with the spoon that came with it. I was wrong about the herb. It’s not parsley; it’s rosemary. It smells heavenly.

My stomach rumbles, and my wolf adds her two cents, growling along. I take a bite. The carrot is mushy, and the beef is stringy, but it’s easily the tastiest stew I’ve ever had.

Old Noreen says that hunger is the best spice. As I ladle spoonful after spoonful into my mouth, quicker and quicker, I acknowledge that’s true, but I’ve been this ravenous before—we were always hungry during Declan Kelly’s day—but nothing has ever filled my belly like this.

It tastes like a long time ago. Like when my mother was alive, and she’d take me to visit Abertha in her cottage, and there’d always be something delicious bubbling in the old black pot over the fire and a few other females gathered around the sturdy wood table, laughing and ranting and crying and whispering, while us pups filled our bellies, licked our bowls clean, and then got into every bit of trouble we could find.

I haven’t remembered those days in years. The food stuck to your ribs, and Ma seemed younger there with the other females in that cottage, like a pup herself.

I actually whine when I take my last bite.

At the sound, a growl rattles Justus’s chest, and he immediately springs forward. I startle, and my bowl clatters on the floor. Thank goodness it’s empty.

Justus freezes mid-spring, lunging forward with his bowl in one hand and his other palm raised to assure me he means no harm. It’s the world’s most awkward yoga position.

“Here,” he says. “More.” He empties his bowl into mine and offers it to me, lifting it higher so I’ll take it when I don’t grab it right away.

His watchful eyes gobble me up. He really, really wants to feed me more. I’ve watched males fight each other for rank all my life. I know what it looks like when a male is trying to hide how desperately he wants something.

The warmth from the stew spreads from my belly, through my chest, and into my breasts. My nipples harden and poke through my toga. I hold Justus’s gaze with all my might. Please, please don’t let him look down and notice.

Partly to distract him, I take the bowl. I can’t avoid brushing his fingers. I couldn’t say how they feel, whether they’re as rough as they look, because when I touch him, my whole body wakes up. A ball in my belly unfurls. My mouth waters. Tingles trip down my neck and spine, swirling around my tailbone until I feel like I have to pee even though I know I don’t.

My body is glitching so badly, I wouldn’t be surprised if smoke is coming from my ears, but Justus seems fine. Totally unaffected. He doesn’t prolong the contact, not even a little. As soon as I have a good grip on the bowl, he backs off to sit exactly where he has been.

I start eating. He fixes his focus on my hand, watching me scoop up a chunk of potato like I’m defusing a bomb, not slurping soup. When I blow on a spoonful to cool it, his gaze darts to my lips, and his wolf rumbles.

The stew is hardly even lukewarm at this point, I don’t know why I blew on the spoon in the first place—habit, I guess—but I do it again. The movement is mostly hidden under his beard, but his jaw definitely clenches. My pulse speeds even faster.

He feels this, too.

I usually hate being the center of attention. My whole life, I’ve done everything possible to avoid it. I’m an expert at position and timing, a choreographer at blending into the background. In any group situation, I make sure I end up standing behind someone else. I don’t make work or ask questions. I’m never first in line or last to finish.

Attention is dangerous. But Justus’s isn’t. Not to me. Not right now, at this moment. And I don’t hate being here with him.

Maybe because he’s keeping his distance, and he’s not leering like a Quarry Pack male would. In a way, he reminds me of a scruffy pup who’s come across something fascinating like tadpoles or an ant hill. His interest isn’t creepy at all.

When there aren’t any grownups around, sometimes Abertha will do tricks for the pups, pull buttons from behind their ears or make it seem like she’s levitating a few inches off the ground, that kind of thing. The littlest, shyest pups don’t crowd close and bug her to spill her secrets. They hang back, rapt.

Justus is looking at me like that. Like I’m magic, and he’d best give me room because I might be dangerous.

My spoon scrapes the bottom of my empty bowl.

“Do you want more?” he asks.

I shake my head and set the bowl down as far as I can get it from me.

Much more slowly than last time, he prowls forward, bracing himself on one hand. His forearm and bicep flex to take his weight, and then he shifts onto his opposite knee and that thigh tenses. With every move, every flex, my breath softly catches. I sound like the world’s quietest chugging train engine.

If he kept coming, he could push me onto my back on his pallet and cover me. Pin me in place with his weight. I wouldn’t dare try to push him off. He’d growl, but it wouldn’t be threatening. It’d be more like a dare. If he pressed his chest against my swollen breasts, how would it feel?

What am I even thinking ?

I squirm, shifting to a butt cheek so I’m not sitting directly on my lady parts. I’ve never noticed the pressure a seat can exert on my bottom before, but I’m keyed into it now.

It’s not like I want Justus to touch me. It would pop this bubble, ruin the moment, and bring the voice back with a vengeance. Justus doesn’t take a second longer than he has to, plucking my empty bowl off the floor and immediately returning to his side of the den. He stacks my bowl on his and ducks out of the den to place them outside.

When he comes back, he lights an oil lamp, and instantly, the den feels different. Shifters can see pretty well in the dark, even in human form, so I don’t see anything new, but the feel of the space totally changes.

The curl of smoke from the match twists mid-air like a thin, twirling ribbon, and the glowing flame is soft and warm, casting velvet shadows on the wall. I can pick out the colors of the rug now—coral and goldenrod and burnt sienna. The basket is made of willow, and Justus’s sheets aren’t plain white. They’re super-faded robin’s egg blue.

Justus returns to his seat barely past the den’s entrance and goes back to watching me, so casual, like he could do it all night. I’m feeling the effects of a belly full of stew on top of a kidnapping. I need a bed.

Where am I going to sleep? Where is he ?

“When are you taking me home?” I blurt because I don’t dare ask him about beds.

His shoulder blades snap together. That amazement in his eyes flickers out. My stomach sinks. I’ve made things heavy again. I curl my toes into the rug and hug my knees tighter.

“Later,” he says.

Never. They have you now. You’ll never see Una or anyone from home again.

A fresh wave of fear bursts from my pores, overpowering the lingering scent of stew. Justus’s jaw clenches, his lips curling back in a grimace.

“But you will take me back, right?” My voice rises with each word, my anxiety taking off like a shot, running wild, coloring everything until it’s ugly and menacing—the den is a trap, Justus is my jailer, the bed is a threat.

I can’t breathe. I gasp for air, my hands reaching for something to help myself, but there’s nothing, nothing. I look to Justus, pleading with my eyes, my throat strangling my ability to speak.

“I will,” he says, holding my gaze, his face both fierce and terrified at what’s happening to me. His mouth turns down and his skin grows pale like I’ve asked him to do the unthinkable. Like he’s my hostage. “I promise you that I will take you home when you ask. I swear it to you on my dam’s grave.”

My throat eases. Air fills my lungs.

I recover more quickly than he does, but then again, I’m used to panic attacks. There was a time when I’d have them almost daily. The trick is to tell yourself you’re not really dying, and if you are, at least it’ll end. This was a quick one, and I didn’t go into a full-blown meltdown. Thank goodness for that.

I glance around the den to avoid Justus’s eyes. I don’t like that they’re guarded now. It felt safer before, when I could read them.

It was actually starting to feel almost good.

I can’t get in trouble for just thinking it. Not every positive thought can be a jinx. That’s what I tell myself while I practice my deep breathing and search for something to say. My gaze falls on the apple crate.

“Where did you get the books?” I ask.

It takes him a second to realize I’m sweeping the past few minutes under the rug, but considering, he catches on pretty quickly. “The hedge witch. I trade her.”

“You mean Abertha? You know her?”

He nods.

“What do you trade?”

He shrugs. “Meat, mostly. Odds and ends. Herbs. Stones. Eye of newt, toe of frog.”

Oh, gross. “You cut off frog toes?” Our people will eat a fat toad if they come across him as their wolves, but they wouldn’t pluck him apart for pieces. That’s vicious. And besides, do frogs even have toes?

Justus’s lips curl. It’s a bashful smile, not mocking. “‘Toe of frog’ is from a book. A play, actually. It was a joke.” He glances down. “A bad one.”

Now I toss a shoulder, my cheeks warming. “I don’t read plays. Or books like yours.”

“You looked through them?”

Oh, no. What am I doing, admitting I went through his things?

He’ll be angry. Shut your mouth before you make it worse. No. Beg forgiveness. Now. Before he loses it.

“I’m sorry,” I rush to say. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?” he asks. His brow knits. He’s serious.

“They’re your belongings.” I might not have acted like it, but I was raised right. I know to respect other people’s privacy.

“But you’re my mate.”

“But not really, though, right?” Why did I say that? I don’t want to go there. Ever. Certainly not right now while I’m sitting on his bed, post-panic attack, wearing a sheet.

Heat sears my cheeks. I want to close my shutters and shut my door and turn the locks. Tuck myself into my shell.

My gaze dives to the ground. The flush seeping across my chest is so intense that it heats my chin. I don’t want to talk about him and me.

Right?

So why did I say something? It’s like my deepest fears are in charge of this conversation.

“This is real to me,” Justus says, his voice low and even, not accusatory or angry. He leaves it at that, falling silent.

I could stop talking, too, drop the subject and shrink into myself until he gets bored and turns his attention to something else. That’s what I do, right? Hide.

“But you don’t want it to be,” I say instead, and my face bursts into flame.

Justus holds himself very still while he answers. “I don’t want my mate to fear me. Or hate me. Or hate my pack.”

“I don’t hate your pack.” I blink up, accidentally meeting his eye. Instantly, I’m snagged, a fish on a hook, dry drowning.

“Just me, then?” His lip quirks, wry and bitter.

“Not you either,” I whisper. “I don’t know you.”

“Can’t you feel me?” He presses his palm to the center of his chest. My hand rises to cover my heart, mirroring the motion.

The bond is there, aching so very, very faintly, deep in the recesses of my mind with all the other ghosts and bogeymen I’ve shoved down there. And yet, somehow, when I focus on it, the gash the bond makes in my soul is still pink and fresh, the kind of walking wound that makes you fixate on the thinness of your skin and how impossible it is that something so fragile holds all your guts and bones together.

“A little,” I say.

“But you can feel that I won’t hurt you, right? I didn’t ever want to hurt you. Or frighten you. I’m sorry that I did. I—I was rough, and—I didn’t understand that—”

He’s talking about the nest beside the river. No, no, no. I don’t want to talk about that. Not with him. Not ever.

“I’ve never heard of any of these before,” I interrupt, scooting over to the apple crate and picking up the book with the sun on the cover. I thumb through the pages. “What are they about?”

He’s thrown, but again, only for a second. “That one? Mostly about how once an individual claims to own his territory within pack lands, everything goes to hell.”

“So you don’t own this place?”

“I stay here,” he says.

“But it’s your den.”

“No, it isn’t.”

I sniff to check, but no, I’m right—it smells like him and no one else. “Whose is it then?”

“Yours.” He flashes another slight smile.

“You’re playing.” I pull my heels closer to my body. I don’t like being teased.

“Dens belong to females. It’s a male’s honor and duty to provide shelter for his mate and their family, the elders and pups. He can stay, too, if he’s welcome.”

“But you’re the alpha. Aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t matter if I was, and I’m not.”

I’m not sure if he’s lying or not. The pack sure acts like he’s in charge, albeit not at all the way we act around Killian at Quarry Pack. “Your people call you Alpha.”

“To annoy me.” He sighs, leans his head back, and stares at the low ceiling for a few seconds before he explains. “I’ve told them a hundred times—in nature, wolves don’t have alphas or betas or whatever. That’s a human thing. Humans put wolves in cages, and when the wolves didn’t have enough room to breathe, and they couldn’t hunt for their own food, they lost their minds. The strongest took everything he could for himself, and the others lived in fear. That’s where alphas came from, and it’s not the natural way of things. As shifters, it’s sure as hell not our way.”

Yes, it is. That’s exactly our way. The strongest gets whatever he wants, and everyone else gets to be afraid. A snort that I meant to keep in my head somehow comes out my nose.

Justus raises his eyebrows. “You disagree?”

Never. Not with a male his size. I put the book down and pick up the next in the stack. “What about this one? What’s this one about?”

His lips quirk. “Are you changing the subject again already, Annie?”

My heart rate kicks up another beat. He says that like he knows me. He doesn’t. But the way he says my name like he’s accustomed to it—I don’t hate it.

I hold the book a little higher.

His lips curl higher. “It’s about what packs should do instead of claiming to own land.”

“Are all the books about the same thing?”

“Pretty much.”

I return it to the stack.

“You’re not interested?” He’s still smiling. It’s not a grin or anything, more like a soft curve, but he’s clearly enjoying this—talking to me.

I shift position to rest on my other butt cheek. My fingers twitch. I wish I had my knitting.

“I like fiction,” I say.

He kind of lights up. “Oh, I’ve got something you’ll like,” he says and makes to come over. Before I can tense up, though, he catches himself. “There’s a book at the bottom I want to show you.” He glances toward the crate. “All right?”

He waits until I nod and then prowls over slowly to sit beside me. His earthy scent follows him, filling my lungs, making me feel strangely greedy.

Quarry Pack females always complain when a male’s wolf rolls in his kill and then trots into the lodge to let everyone know what he’s found. I never understood why the males insisted on doing it since they could just shift and tell people what they caught. I get it now.

I want to roll in this scent. Wear it like a coat. Snuggle deep into it. I inhale quicker so I can get more into my lungs. It’s not a particularly good smell—no one would make a cologne out of it—but it eases my chest and makes me feel languid and weightless, like I’m floating in space.

I’m hardly paying attention as Justus takes all the books out of the crate to get a hardback at the very bottom. I hadn’t noticed it earlier. It’s an old children’s book. Thumbelina . The fabric cover is threadbare in places, and the gold embossed lettering is tarnished.

I remember the story vaguely from the early years at Moon Lake Academy. It’s a human fairy tale.

Justus resettles himself on the pallet so that his thigh is pressed to mine. Now we’re both perched on the edge, but I’ve folded myself up as tight as possible, and he’s manspreading, knees bent and wide open, totally comfortable. And why wouldn’t he be? It’s his den—despite what he says—his bed, his pack, his territory. Whatever he wants to call himself, it’s clear that he’s the strongest here, the top of this particular food chain.

The pecking voice should be rattling off these facts, but she’s grown eerily quiet.

“Look at this,” he says, flipping to a full-page illustration.

A tiny woman, Thumbelina, is kneeling on an enormous lily pad. In the murky water underneath, huge wide-mouthed fish with bulging eyes swim among the reeds. She covers her face with her hands in despair. A monarch hovers in mid-air, gawking at her while she cries.

The colors are lovely in the lamplight—butter yellow, crimson, olive green—but I don’t like the picture. Thumbelina is scared and alone, and the butterfly just gapes at her while the fish swarm underneath, horrified surprise on their fishy faces. Something terrible is coming, and she can’t see it.

Justus smooths the page with a calloused thumb. “It reminds me of you. That’s why I traded for it.”

I feel like I’ve been socked in the stomach. “I have brown hair,” I argue. The woman in the picture is a blonde, but I know why the sad, weeping lady stranded on a lily pad reminded him of me.

What was it that he said that day by the river?

“What a sad female you are. You stink like prey. You would make weak, spindly young.” I don’t realize I’m reciting the words out loud until he sucks in a breath and tenses, the warmth of his thigh disappearing from mine.

I brace for my own fear stink, but it doesn’t come. His chest rumbles softly. I glance over. He’s still holding the book open, but he’s staring across the den, his jaw clenched.

“I was angry when I said that.” He pauses. “I’ve wished a thousand times that I could take it back.”

He means it. I can hear the regret in his voice, as well as read it clear as day on his face, but it doesn’t make me feel any better at all. It actually stokes a strange, new anger in my chest.

“You don’t have to say all that.” I don’t want a sincere apology that I have to graciously accept.