The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 1)

Iwake up in a bramble. I’m not me. I’m her. Us.

There are stickers in my fur. Our fur. There’s a thorn in the pad of my paw. It hurts.

Everything hurts.

The light is too bright. The sun is directly overhead. I’m hot. Burning up. Cramps seize my belly, twisting tighter and tighter. I’m swollen between my back legs. I’m tender there, aching and slick.

I want and I need and I hurt.

Killian. If I can speak, I can call. He’ll come. He’ll help.

There are no words in my mouth; my tongue is dry and coarse. I’m so thirsty. I’m dying from it. I need water. And Killian. He’ll bring me water.

I whine and arch my back, raising my haunches. I have to. This is what I’m supposed to do even though everything is wrong. A branch scratches my side. The hurts twine—pricks, aches, a piercing longing that cuts and never eases, no matter how I shift my body.

The air is sweet, but not the sweet I need. Blackberries. I’m in a blackberry patch.

I whimper, wriggling forward, but the prickles scratch my underbelly. I can’t move anymore.

Where’s my pack? Where are the others?

It’s not right to be alone. We’re defenseless here. Except for the thorns. They’ll give us some protection until our mate comes.

And he will.

I need him. I howl, but the sound is thready. He won’t be able to hear. I grope blindly along the bond. He’s there. Not very far away. I can feel him. He’s strong. Willful. Mine.

Come.

He jerks at the word, but he doesn’t move. His wolf howls, and it echoes through the woods, faint by the time it reaches my perked ears.

Come now.

The heat is ratcheting higher. I can’t wait much longer. I need him. I lay my muzzle on the ground and present. I’m ready. Past ready.

He can soothe this ache. He can unwind this coiling agony, this drumming, throbbing need.

But he doesn’t come. His howl fades to nothing, and my guts heave, my throat convulses. I’m sick. It’s sour and sharp in my nose, and I heave again and again until my stomach’s empty. I turn my muzzle so I’m not laying in it. It’s all I can do.

I’m facing a clump of blackberries now, and their ripeness cloys. Offends. I want my mate. I want Killian’s sweet toffee, molasses, thick and sticky caramel scent. I cover my snout with my paws and press closer to the dirt.

The pain won’t stop. It crashes into me in incessant waves—the pricking thorns, the agonizing heat, my spasming leg, and worst of all, the torn and jagged wound where my bond begins. How could he hurt us and not feel it? Something is terribly wrong. Unnatural. Out of order.

Where is he?

He’s not here. He won’t come.

My wolf doesn’t understand. Grief overwhelms her. He must be dead. He must be trapped or hurt or else he would come. She is certain. She knows this in every fiber of her being.

Her heart breaks, and her heart is mine, so it doesn’t matter that I know Killian Kelly is garbage, and that he’s rejected us. I shatter, too, as I sweat and whine, haunches raised, ready, longing for a male in a way I never, ever have before.

The woods are silent except for a faint breeze rustling high in the canopy.

I don’t know how long I’m here. A long time. When a sharp scent breaks me out of my delirium, the sun is low in the west. There’s a voice, curt and strong, familiar. I call out, but nothing escapes my lungs but a wheeze.

“You can go back,” a female says. It’s Abertha, the crone. My friend.

“Killian says I need to report,” a male argues. Familiar, but wrong. I huddle small.

“So report.”

“What am I gonna report?” The male’s voice grates like radio static.

It’s Fallon, the youngest brother from my last foster family. We’re close, but dear Fate, has he always smelled like milk gone bad?

“Tell the alpha that his mate is in heat in the woods.”

“I ain’t tellin’ him that.”

“Then make something up.” Abertha’s exasperated. She’s close. A yard or two away. There’s a slight easing, not in my body, but in my mind. She’ll help me. She’ll know what to do.

“Like what?”

“I wouldn’t dare think for one of the alpha’s minions.” Abertha doesn’t even try to not sound sarcastic.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t—” Fallon’s voice trails off. “But if you were gonna give him a report?”

“I’d say his mate is in heat in the woods.”

Fallon growls. I tense, and all my joints scream at once. Because of the wounds from the fight? Shifting? Heat?

From all of it and the loneliness salting every wound.

“Don’t growl at me, pup. I’ll curse you.”

There’s a long silence.

“I’ll tell him she’s with you,” Fallon finally says.

“You do that,” Abertha replies.

“Is she—” He clears his throat. “Is she okay?”

“What does it smell like to you?” Abertha asks, curt, clearly done with him.

“Like something’s wrong.”

“Go ahead and tell him that.”

“He won’t care.” Fallon’s voice is bitter.

Abertha doesn’t answer. There’s a rustling and the stink of sour milk fades. I suck down a deep breath.

And then I see scuffed boots and the hem of a patchwork skirt.

“Oh, you poor thing.” Abertha squats, peering through the thorny branches. “How long have you been in there?”

She clucks. I can’t even raise my head to acknowledge her. I’ve collapsed to my side, panting, tongue hanging from the corner of my mouth.

“Let’s get you out of there.” She reaches in, yelping when a thorn scratches her forearm. “I’m sorry Una’s little wolf. This isn’t going to be as gentle as I’d like.”

She grabs my hind legs and drags me out from the underbrush. I whine. The pain is so all-encompassing, my bad leg hurts no worse than the other.

“There we go.” Abertha plops on her butt—as always, amazingly agile for a female her age— and she cuddles me between her legs, smoothing a hand over my flanks. I whimper.

“You need to shift back, Una, love. I can’t help you like this.”

I don’t want to. I don’t want to think as well as feel. Feeling is already too much.

“Come on, now, brave girl. Come on,” she coaxes. I lay there, spent and shivering. She sighs. “It’ll go easier on you if you decide to do it yourself.”

I can’t. I don’t have the energy.

Abertha scoots back, giving me space. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now, shift!”

There’s power in her voice. I have no choice. My body buckles, limbs unfolding, and I bow with the intensity and scream. I’m ripped from my own hide. I’m dragged from my form, and there’s no way to stop or slow, no respite from the stabbing biting pain that goes on and on and on.

Energy crackles through the bond, a surge of strength that isn’t my own finally allows my muscles to knit together.

In her agony, my wolf exhales. Mate. Alive.

And then I’m sprawled, naked, in the dirt. Abertha’s sitting across from me, knees bent, a thick silver braid hanging over her shoulder. She peels off her T-shirt and hands it to me. I catch a strong whiff of patchouli.

I struggle to sit and take the shirt. It’s so hard to wrangle it over my head, but I’m freezing. My teeth are rattling even though my core is on fire.

I ease myself to rest on my hip so there’s no pressure on my pussy. It throbs. I press my thighs tight together. I can’t meet Abertha’s eyes. I’m a mess, dirty and caked with dried blood.

“So you’ve discovered you’re the alpha’s mate.” Her lips quirk and the wrinkles in the corner of her eyes deepen.

“No. He rejected me.”

“He did?” She raises a thin eyebrow.

“Abertha.” I drag in a ragged breath. “It hurts.”

I’m sweating so hard, already the cotton is sticking to my back. My core spasms, and it’s worse than any cramp. It’s a contraction. A thrusting knife.

I want Killian. I need him. And he won’t come.

I hate him. I want to claw my skin from my bones. I want to dash my head against a tree, but I’m too weak to do anything but huddle and shiver.

“I can take you to him. I’ll need to go get a wheelbarrow or something. To carry you.”

I moan. “He rejected me. I’m weak. Unworthy, he says. I’ve done nothing to earn the rank.”

It hurts to say, but the sting lessens as the words pass into the space between us. They can’t cut as sharp out here in the open as they can inside.

Abertha’s brows fly up. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

A sad, tired chuckle escapes my lips. “Typical. It’s typical Quarry Pack bullshit.”

“Well, he’s gonna rue the day.” Abertha snickers. “I can’t lie, I would have paid to see this play out. Might have to move some things around on my calendar.” Her voice fades, her gray eyes going vague as she stares over my shoulder.

Another spasm racks my body, and I moan, hunching into a ball.

“Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, doesn’t it?” She scoots closer, her voice gentle. She smells like the things I love—the garden, the beehives, herbs, bubbling jam.

I whimper. “Can you make it stop?”

“I can get Killian. Make him come.”

My wolf howls, drowning out my words. She wants that so badly. She needs him.

We need him.

He can make it stop hurting. He’s ours. Our fated mate is our right. It’s wrong that he’s not here, his scent not even on the wind. My wolf loses faith, keening in grief again. Dead. Our mate. Dead.

What do I do?

I can’t bear this much longer. I’m going to drag myself to him. Beg. The heat is incessant, burning hotter and hotter, like a wildfire racing through a dry forest, spitting and crackling as it encroaches. The smoke fills my lungs and stings my eyes, but I’m not engulfed in flames. Not yet. But soon. Very soon.

I’m going to abase myself in front of that arrogant asshole, crawl to him, and plead for his cock. I won’t care who’s watching. I can feel the point where I lose control rushing toward me.

I wretch, but there’s nothing but acid in my gut.

This isn’t rock bottom. There’s lower I can go. And I won’t. I’m not nothing.

I provide for my girls. I protect them. I’ve made us strong and self-sufficient. I am not begging a male to mount me. Never.

“Knock me out.”

Abertha shakes her head. “The heat will still be there when you wake up.”

“Please.” My voice is weak. “Help me.”

“I can’t. This is fate.”

“Please.” I put everything that’s left of my self into the word.

She lets out a long, gusty sigh and stares up at the passing clouds. “I shouldn’t—”

She thinks for a long time, gray eyes reflecting the waning sunshine, and then she lifts a shoulder, suddenly at ease, as if she’s come to some accord with herself.

“Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,” she says. It makes no sense.

She stretches her arms high above her head like she’s warming up in gym class.

“This is going to feel a little like three wishes.” She cracks her neck, twisting to one side and then the other. “And maybe a little like that sea witch from the Little Mermaid.”

“What are you talking about?” Abertha isn’t always the clearest. She’s mystical, and she smokes a lot of weed.

She gets on her knees in front of me, hovering her palms above my body, sensing my aura like she does when I’m sick.

“I can, for lack of a better term, yank the bond out.”

“Do it.” I’d do anything to make this all stop.

My wolf is pushing at my skin. She demands that we run to him, find him. If he’s dead, avenge him. If he’s living, present, thrust our pussy in the air, ass up, face down, and beg him to mount us. The picture is starkly vivid in my mind. It makes me want to puke again.

Our weakness is the only thing that’s stopping her from running to him. We don’t have enough strength left to shift.

It’s horrible—the pain, the humiliation, the heat, the rejection, all twisted and jumbled. I’m so close to losing control.

“Do it now.”

She chews her cheek, considering. “It can’t be undone.”

“Good.”

“If I yank it out, you won’t be able to use the bond to bring him around.”

“I don’t want him.” My wolf howls her dissent. “I don’t.”

“You can only have young with your fated mate. No mate, no young.”

I didn’t think I ever would. I’d come to terms with it. But—another pain slices through me, sharp and deep. A loss, a terrible longing. Despair.

Abertha seems to note my hesitation. “There might be—side effects.”

“I don’t care.” Another spasm racks me and my womb cramps, knotting my guts, stealing my breath. Nothing is worse than this. Nothing.

“I can’t really predict what might happen.”

“Please.” Tears stream down my cheeks.

“The Fates have a tendency of getting their way in the end.”

“Abertha, you said you could help.”

“No young,” she says again.

I wail. I’m past being able to argue. I can only beg. “Please.”

She blows on her palms and rubs them together. “This might hurt.”

I’d laugh if I could.

She places her right hand against my upper chest, splaying her fingers. She closes her eyes, balancing her weight and inhaling through her nose.

“I’ve never actually done this before—” Her other hand hovers above my heart, fingers twitching. “I’m not sure that—” She closes her eyes and sways. “Got it!” She clenches her fist and yanks her arm back, flinging it behind her.

Somewhere in the woods behind us, there’s a crack, like a thick log is split by an axe.

And it’s gone.

The pain is gone.

All of it. The heat. The pain from shifting. The scrapes from the thorns. Haisley’s bites and scratches. The only thing left is the dull and familiar throb of my bad leg.

“Oh, wow.” I blink.

Abertha grins wide enough to reveal the gold tooth in the back of her mouth. “To be honest, I didn’t think that would work.”

“You did it.” There are tears in my eyes. “Thank you.”

“I am an uncommonly powerful female.”

“You are.” I struggle to my feet and offer her a hand. She takes it.

She’s agile for her age, but she’s not too proud to accept a little assistance.

“A legend, some might say.” She brushes off her skirt. She’s wearing a white cami. Thank goodness. I don’t want to give her T-shirt back. I’m raw in my body and my mind. I don’t want to be naked.

Memories flash in my mind of the great room, surrounded by the pack, covered in blood. Killian’s unwavering voice.

I have no mate. It is known.

I shiver. He doesn’t now. I can feel the silence inside me where the fledgling bond had been.

“Thank you.” I grab Abertha’s dry hand.

She shrugs. “You’ll pay me back.”

“I will. I promise.”

Abertha already takes a percentage of everything we make at the market. Lately, I’ve been debating whether to cut her in when I figure out how to do online sales. I’m definitely cutting her in after this.

“Let’s get you some tea,” she says. “And pants.”

We pick our way through the thick underbrush back to one of the trails. I don’t remember crawling into the thicket. It was a smart move. In my heat, I was defenseless. At least the brambles offered some protection.

We aren’t far from Abertha’s cottage. I must have been heading there when I lost it. It’s reassuring to see our wooden beehives busy with activity, and the herbs bushy and tall in the raised gardens.

I’m mostly numb. I feel like a rung bell. And I’m parched.

Abertha leads me inside, and I sink down at her familiar oak table, tugging her shirt as low as it’ll go so my bare rump doesn’t touch the chair.

Her cat Apollonia winds a figure eight around my ankles. It’s strange, a cat who tolerates wolves, but Abertha is strange. She’s a crone, but she’s nothing like any of the other lone elders I’ve met. She’s wise as hell, but she curses, gives zero shits about pack politics, and she never sighs when she sits.

And she disappears, sometimes for days or weeks at a time.

Annie and Kennedy think she goes on spirit quests. I think she has a lover in another pack. We don’t ask, and she lets us do whatever we want on her cottage grounds. The rest of the pack steers clear of this whole area. Wolves are superstitious, and everyone knows that old, unmated females are bad luck.

Abertha rummages around the kitchen, filling the kettle and hanging it above the fire before she prods the embers with a poker.

“So I guess I missed an interesting dinner last night, eh?” she says over her shoulder.

“I finally shifted. My wolf attacked Haisley Byrne. I lost.”

Abertha chuckled. “I heard.”

“From who?”

“That gaggle of girls you live with. All three of them showed up in the middle of the night, looking for you.”

“They did?”

Abertha nods and opens the trunk at the foot of her bed. Her cottage is open concept, so to speak. It’s one big room with a low ceiling. Very reminiscent of a hobbit hole.

She takes out one of her long hippy skirts and throws it at me.

“Thanks.”

I have to admit, my heart warms a little. Kennedy I can see walking through the woods past curfew, but Mari and Annie are still afraid of ferals and bugbears. They were pups not that long ago.

“That short, squealy one wanted me to go down to the commons and talk to Killian.”

“Mari’s—” Well, she’s hopelessly naïve, but that seems cruel to say. “Mari’s a good egg.”

“Egg.” Abertha snorts. “You’re on the internet too much. You’re starting to talk like a human.”

I shrug. I don’t mind humans. They’re easier to deal with than shifters.

“You can’t live with them, you know,” Abertha says. My gaze flies up. She sees too much.

“I know.”

“You’d end up hurting one. Your wolf will never understand that they’re not prey.”

“My wolf listens to me.”

“Was she listening to you just now in the thicket? Or last night?”

I sigh and rub my temples. She’s right.

I breathe deep and let the scent of lavender and sandalwood calm me.

“I don’t want to be here anymore.” My heart tugs. No shifter wants to be alone. It’s not how we’re made. Still, it’s the truth. This place is tainted.

I can’t go back to the commons. I can’t look Haisley and her mother in the eye. Act like shame isn’t corroding me from the inside out. It doesn’t matter that Haisley’s mean and stuck up—she’s pack. I didn’t have the right to go after her. Not when she didn’t know she was touching another female’s mate.

And I guess, she wasn’t. Now.

Abertha sets a steaming cup of tea and a big bottle of sports drink in front of me. “Hydrate while your tea cools.”

Then, she shuffles back to the kitchen and comes back with a plate of muffins, placing them between us and easing herself into a chair. “You don’t have a choice. This is home.”

“I could ask for a trade.”

Abertha doesn’t bother to reply. She knows that’s a non-starter. No pack would trade an unmated female for me, not with my bum leg and doubt about my status, and we both know it.

“How do I do this?” I glance out a thick-paned window. The garden is peaceful, overflowing with green and bright bursts of red and orange and blue. It’s beautiful. Hours and hours of hard work and sweat, but it yields good fruit.

Why doesn’t my life work that way?

Abertha gives me a wry smile. “The same way you do anything. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time.”

My shoulders slump. I’m so tired. “He’s my mate.”

“He was.”

“I just don’t get it. How can he reject me? Mates are fated. Am I wrong? Is this moon madness?”

A primal fear chills my blood. It might take decades, but eventually, moon madness is a death sentence. Either it eats your brain to Swiss cheese until you forget how to breathe, or you’re exiled, or the pack puts you down because you’ve become a rabid animal.

Abertha nudges the muffins toward me. I shake my head. I can’t eat.

“It’s not moon madness. And mates are—complicated.”

I’ve noticed. The story is you sense your mate, you can’t resist each other, you fall in love, and you have babies. But there are a lot of—aberrations.

“So Killian and I aren’t mates?”

“No. You definitely are.”

“I don’t get it.”

Abertha lets out a long, gusty sigh.

“Is this one of those things like the man and the wolf where everything I’ve been taught as a pup is wrong?” The more I hang out with Abertha, the more long sighs I hear, and the more life gets confusing.

“Yup.”

“So what? There’s no such thing as mates?”

“Obviously, there are. Don’t doubt your own experience, Una. I thought I’d drilled at least that into your head.”

She drills a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

“There are mates,” she goes on. “It’s kind of like—” She looks around the room, and her gaze settles on the tea and sports drink in front of me. I haven’t touched either, yet.

“So you’ve just run a marathon—that’s heat, right?—and there is a beverage perfectly formulated to meet your biological needs.” She points at the sports drink. “Ta da. Your mate. Nothing else will hydrate you. And, usually, a parched, um, runner will really, really dig the drink that quenches their thirst. What’s not to love, right?”

“Sports drink tastes like ass.”

She snaps and points at me. “Exactly. So when the sports drink doesn’t appeal beyond the physical, some people will hold their nose and guzzle it and suffer for life. Some people drink until they’re hydrated and then switch it up. Decide they prefer tea.”

“Like Dierdre and Jimmy.”

“Yup.”

“And Liam and Rowan.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Haisley and Dermot.”

“I see you take my point.”

“So why does everyone say mates are fated?”

“Well, I mean, in a sense, they are. In a biology as destiny sense. It’s almost impossible to have a pup with anyone else.”

Almost impossible, but there are stories about it happening. In other packs. A long time ago. I always thought the stories existed as an excuse for insecure assholes to accuse their mates of sleeping around.

“But the Fates are also—complicated.”

“Are they like sports drinks?”

“No lip from you, little missy,” but Abertha smiles as she says it. Some of the worry that’s been haunting her face since she found me in the thicket disappears. “But yes. They are like sports drinks. And tea.”

Abertha relaxing helps me let go a little. Breathe a little deeper. I take a sip from my cup. It’s sweetened with honey. Just how I like it.

“First off, it’s not Fate, it’s Fates. Plural. And they aren’t necessarily working together. You’ve got the sports drink Fate who is all about the results. Hydration by whatever means necessary. Pups, pups, pups. That’s all she cares about. But then there’s the tea Fates.”

“Tea Fates?”

Abertha is warming to her analogy. Her gray eyes start to dance like they do when she’s enjoying herself. “Uh-huh. Tea Fates are about the journey. Pups are great, but they’re interested in the bigger things—love and destiny and balance and justice. Destroying all sentient life and returning the world to its natural state. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds like a mess.”

“Oh, yes. It is. Look around. Obviously, the powers that be have to be working at cross purposes, right?”

“So why do we all believe that mates are fated?”

“’Cause they are.”

“And when they’re not? Like Jimmy and Dierdre?”

“They still are. The story’s just more—complicated. But people don’t want to think about that too much. Strains their little pea-sized noggins.”

“My little pea-sized noggin is strained.”

“I bet. Drink something.” She smiles wickedly. “Your choice.” She taps the plate of muffins. “And eat.”

“So Killian and I are fated mates?”

“Yes.”

“But he doesn’t think we are?”

“Appears so.”

“And we’re not anymore. You severed the bond.”

“I did sever the bond.”

“So I’m good with the Fates. None of them have any interest in me now, right?”

“Wouldn’t say that.”

“Abertha.”

Abertha shrugs. She’s got a mouthful of baked goods.

Mates or not—fated or not—it doesn’t really matter. I can’t bear the thought of going back to camp.

“Can I stay here?”

Abertha takes a moment swallowing. “I don’t do roommates.” She pats my hand to take the sting away. “I don’t like people eating my food.”

“And yet you’re pushing these muffins pretty hard.”

“They’re three days old. If we don’t eat them, they’ll go to waste.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

“No, we wouldn’t.” Abertha grabs another one and carefully peels the paper cup. “Don’t worry. Killian will be sorry before all is said and done.”

“I don’t want him to be sorry. I just want to never see him again. Or if he was eaten by bears. That’d be okay.”

“No bears around here. Just wolves and rats.”

Abertha stands and crosses the kitchen to the fridge. A wave of exhaustion crests over me.

“It was humiliating,” I confess to her back. “He asked what I’d done to earn the rank I claimed.”

He’s an asshole, but in the end, he’s right. I’ve won no challenges. Matter of fact, I’m zero for one.

Abertha snorts. “For all that Killian Kelly’s a thousand times smarter than his father was, he still knows nothing. He’s gonna learn, though. Or maybe I should say ‘remember’.”

I can’t follow her mysticism right now. I eye the plate, but instead of taking the offering, I lay my head in my hands. I don’t have enough energy to grab the butter, and I can’t eat a three-day old muffin dry.

“He’s going to live happily ever after,” I mumble into my elbow, yawning. “Getting pawed at by females and barking orders from a metal folding chair.”

“I doubt it.” Abertha plops a crock of home-churned butter in front of me and drops into a chair with way too much oomph for a sixty—seventy?—year old woman. “I yanked the mate bond out of you.” She waggles her arched eyebrows. “Didn’t touch his now, did I?”

Abertha lets me sleep in her bed—just this once, she’s careful to say—and in the morning, I’m stiff and sore, but the scalding humiliation is—well, it’s freaking awful, but at least it’s a little less visceral. I’m not glowing red anymore.

I lay still for a minute, staring at the bundles of herbs hanging from the cottage’s exposed beams to dry, inhaling the lavender and sage as I listen to Abertha snore.

I want to sink through this sagging mattress, under the floorboards, down and down until I pop out the other side of the earth.

How do I face the pack?

I went from top of the lowest quartile to dead last in rank the instant Haisley’s fangs sank into my shoulder.

How do I serve in the lodge, or hell, pass Killian in the commons, without cringing to death?

The thorn patch is a blur, but I remember forcing my beaten, bloody carcass to present. For my mate who never came. I wish you could scrub memories from your brain with sandpaper.

I count to three. That’s how many more seconds of self-pity I get.

I’m alive.

I’m healing.

The humiliating heat is gone.

I’ve picked myself up after worse things before. Like the attack that mangled my leg.

I force myself to remember what I can. I was only seven. Da had already passed, and Ma was bedridden and failing fast. There was no cure for wasting sickness back then.

Ma had sent me out to play in the commons so I’d stop making a racket in the cabin. Rowan Bell and I were weaving dandelion crowns. Rowan was supposed to be watching her baby cousin Mari, but she didn’t want to, so she stuck her in a straw laundry basket.

Mari was the sweetest little critter with the perfect button nose, wobbly chin, and blue saucer eyes. I wanted to hold her, just nibble her fat cheeks, but Rowan wouldn’t let me. She didn’t want to play with Mari, but she didn’t want to share her, either. I contented myself with staring.

I was painfully lonely, even then. I hadn’t learned to live with it yet. I wore it on my sleeve. It made me weak. Easy to dominate.

Rowan had wandered off when Mari’s father, Thomas Fane, staggered down the lane, drunk and raving. He was shouting about his mate fucking Declan Kelly. She may well have been. Killian’s father considered it his right as alpha to rut any female in the pack if she wasn’t in heat.

Thomas Fane probably would have stumbled on past if Mari hadn’t cried out, but she heard his voice and startled.

He stomped over, peered down at her and sneered. I will never forget his expression. He said, “No child of mine.”

Then he kicked the basket, flipping it, and as he aimed again, this time to stomp, I ran. My wolf was a pup. I couldn’t shift. I was only as quick as a human, but somehow, I landed between his boot and Mari’s small body. I huddled over her and braced, but the second kick never came. Instead, there was a snarling and cracking and unholy howl. And then claws and teeth.

I don’t remember anything else. Ma told me that I kept Mari tucked to my belly, wildly kicking while Thomas Fane mauled me. Eventually, Declan Kelly came and killed him. They thought the leg would heal, but I suppose I was too young, or maybe there was something in Fane’s saliva that infected the wound.

The bite and claw marks faded into scars, but the muscles never knit together properly again. My hip bone mended wrong, too, but I walked again in time.

When Ma passed, I moved in with the Malones and then the Butlers and then the Campbells. They were all kind, but back during Declan’s reign, you ate if you won fights, and eventually, every male would have a string of bad luck, and I became one too many mouths to feed. That’s why I learned to do for myself. Hunt mushrooms, gather berries. Trade for meat.

I get knocked down a lot. I always get back up.

So what if this feels unbearably heavy?

No one promised me an easy go of it. No one’s ever promised me anything.

I swing my good leg over the side of the bed. My shoes are long gone. In the thicket? No, they’re in pieces back at the lodge.

At least I have clothes for my walk of shame.

I force myself to stand and take the first step to the door.

I used to dream about running away. I’d go to Moon Lake with their sparkling mansions on the lakefront. Or I’d run all the way to North Border and live with the elk and bear. But a shifter can’t run. You need the pack. Lone wolves go feral, kill innocents, and destroy themselves.

Long ago, I came to terms with the fact that running was a child’s fantasy. I make sure to close Abertha’s door firmly behind me.

There’s nowhere to go but home.

Besides, my girls are there. They’re worried. And we’ve got business. I might have gone off my rocker, but the mushroom deal is still on. I hope someone remembered to get my phone from behind the crockpot.

I take my time walking back. The sun is still rising, and there’s dew on the grass. It’s quiet. Peaceful. It feels like a fever has passed, and I’m shaken, but gaining strength by the minute. The place where the bond was is raw, but not painful.

The closer I get to camp, the stronger the sweet scent of toffee. It’s nice, but it’s not what I crave. My stomach growls. I need meat.

My wolf prances, sniffing the breeze. She seems oddly unaffected by recent events. She’s super excited to go back to camp. I want to let her out, but I wince thinking about shifting again so soon. Maybe this evening. That puts a spring in my step.

I skirt the commons and follow the ridge, approaching my cabin from behind. Only elders are up this early, and I really don’t want to see them after yesterday’s naked mortification. Or was it the day before? Time’s a little fuzzy.

I round the cabin, and I’m almost to my front steps when a throat clears. I jump and whirl. Thankfully, I’ve already grabbed the banister, so I keep my balance.

It’s Killian, leaning against the outbuilding across the path. He’s wearing a gray sweatshirt, hood up, and his customary faded jeans that cling to his thighs. My heart beats faster, but in the way it always does around him. He’s built and scary and objectively hot. It’s a normal female reaction.

I scan my body. No sign of heat.

I exhale and stare at his boots. It’s as close to a bent neck as he’s getting today.

“Where were you?” His voice is brusque but even.

He doesn’t come closer. He’s propped one heel on the wall, and with another male, it’d look casual, but with his air of raw power, it’s menacing as hell. I hug my arms to my chest.

“Abertha’s.”

Where I go is none of his damn business—and now it never will be—but I’m not stupid. He’s alpha, and I have too much riding on my freedom of movement to antagonize him. The sooner I go back to being invisible to him, the better.

“For two days?” He lowers his leg and takes a measured step toward me. It’s a dominance thing. I’m supposed to get nervous and back away.

I mean, I am nervous, but he’s also transparent as hell.

I shrug a shoulder. It’s an old wives’ tale that shifters can taste lies, but—I’m as superstitious as the next wolf. I’m not risking it.

I keep my mouth shut and let him assume what he wants while I stare at his feet. They’re huge, but proportional. Not like a clown’s or anything.

That would be ridiculous.

So now I’m picturing him in oversized shoes and a red nose. All of the stress of the past forty-eight hours is balling up into one self-destructive, manic urge to bust out laughing.

I chomp down on the inside of my cheek.

There is nothing funny about this.

If I laugh, I’ll look insane. When Killian’s father was alpha, they exiled wolves with moon madness. A few still live in the foothills. You can hear them at night.

“Why are you smiling?” He stalks closer, but not too close. Maybe three clown feet away.

I shake my head and literally bite my tongue until my eyes water.

“Are you crying now?”

“No.”

“Have you gone mad?” My gaze flies to his. He’s serious.

He doesn’t really joke. To be honest, back in school, I always thought he was kind of dense. I had a few classes with him, and whenever the teacher asked him a question, Tye or Ivo would call out the answer.

“I’m fine.” I make my face look sincere.

I’m a hot mess, my hair is in tangles, I’m clearly wearing someone else’s clothes, and I’m doing the walk of shame smelling like herbs and blackberry juice, but in my experience, folks accept the answer they want to hear.

Killian scrubs his chest. There’s a very faint growl coming from his wolf. “So this bullshit about being my mate?”

“I—” The stab of pain surprises me. I breathe through it.

Why should I care that he thinks it’s bullshit? It is now.

He waits for an answer, frowning. Irritated.

“I made a mistake,” I say, mentally crossing my fingers.

“Yeah.” His frown deepens. He’s only two years older than I am, but he already has thin lines bracing his mouth, as well as the ones at the corners of his eyes. He looks like he’s pushing forty, not thirty. “What were you doing at Abertha’s?”

A chew on my lip. What do I say? His gaze darts to my mouth. His wolf rumbles. He swallows.

Might as well stick to the truth. “Nursing my wounds.”

He rakes his gaze down my front as if he’s trying to see through my wrinkled T-shirt and sagging hippie skirt, but in a very critical, and not at all in a lascivious way. His lip curls. He does not approve of my outfit.

Screw him. I swear he’s been wearing that same pair of jeans since before graduation.

He folds his arms and glares down his nose. “You were foolish to attack Haisley.”

“Oh, I get that now.”

“She’s got forty pounds on you, at least.”

Tonight, before I go to bed, I am going to replay that line in my head and snicker and be very disappointed in myself.

“There’s no way you could’ve won,” he adds.

“I know.”

He grunts.

My agreement seems to be pissing him off. He starts pacing. “You’ve got to compensate for weakness.”

What is happening? This feels like a lecture, but we’re alone, and the dynamic is weird. He’s dominant, the most dominant wolf I’ve ever met, including his father. My bloodlines are solidly middle pack going back generations. Nature demands that I recognize him as a threat, but I’m not scared or intimidated. Neither is my wolf. She’s—basking. There’s no other word for it. She’s just happy to be here.

I should be getting a crick in my neck from bending it. I’d hate it, but I shouldn’t be able to resist, not with an alpha this close and obviously upset. But I feel no compulsion to show my submission.

Is this because the bond is gone? Did Abertha rip out my survival instincts when it comes to him, as well?

Could I just walk into the house? Let him lecture a shut door?

It’s a heady thought—as warming as a shot of tequila. I’m not in his thrall. I could just—go inside. Make a sandwich. Take a shower.

Fate knows, I don’t want to be standing here. I’m worn out, and I stink. I’m not wearing panties, and I’m overripe downtown. There’s no way he doesn’t notice, but I guess he doesn’t care.

He’s almost ranting now.

“It’s basic self-preservation. Never leave your underbelly exposed. In this case, your—” He waves at my bad leg. “If you’ve got a gi—, uh, shit, a disabled limb, don’t go on offense. No such thing as the best defense is a good offense if your carotid is in some bitch’s teeth. Understood?”

He glowers at me. His eyes are strange. Hard. Unforgiving. But they’re also light denim blue and crinkled. And there’s a thin band of gold around his pupils. I’d never noticed the ring before the other night. It’s the color of his wolf’s eyes.

A shiver zips up my spine. I tense. Is that heat? Oh, no. Please, no. I don’t ever want to feel that again.

Killian drones on, and slowly, I relax. There are no more shivers or zips or zings. I’m warm, but I’m standing directly in the sun. I’m fine. Abertha fixed me.

“So you need to think before you do stupid shit. If folks figure you’re moon mad—well, you don’t want that. Just—buck up. Rub some dirt in it. Walk it off. Understood?”

He’s finally paused, and he wants a response.

I have no idea what he means. Rub dirt in what?

And moon mad? He knows I’m his mate. He must. Else why the speech about how much I suck? If he thought I was just nuts, he would’ve skipped to the part where Tye bounces me out the back exit.

A flicker of anger flares in my chest. For a second, it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him to shove it, but I learned young to watch my mouth. Males don’t haul off and pop you anymore on a whim, but they used to, and there’s no rule about it. They could. If Killian and his crew aren’t around, the elders will still backhand you if they don’t like your tone.

So I grit my teeth.

“Do you understand?” he repeats, taking a step closer until his shadow falls on my face. My bonkers wolf gets excited. Like joyful excited.

I’m supposed to say yes. If I’m really cowed, I’m supposed to throw in a yes, Alpha.

I don’t want to.

He already won. I got smacked down, and I’m not claiming him as my mate anymore. But he needs a pound of flesh, too? Total submission?

My skin tingles, and hidden in the folds of my skirt, I ball my fists.

I hate him.

I hate that he gets whatever he wants, and does whatever he wants, and everyone shows him their neck and kisses his ass, and he still needs to stand here in front of my home and call me crazy and stupid.

I was alone in a thicket—my eyes burn. Nope. Not gonna go back there. Not with him so close that I can smell him. It’s such a sweet scent, but nothing special. Nothing I can’t get in a candle or scented dryer sheet.

I am fine now. Heat was a bad fever dream.

“Una.” He grabs my chin and forces me to meet his eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”

I try to jerk from his grasp, but his fingers dig in. I let out the smallest whimper. Almost a hiccup. Out of nowhere, a growl explodes from his chest. Really loud. So loud there’s movement in the cabin and a curtain flutters. Probably Mari and Annie. I bet they’ve been eavesdropping this whole time.

Killian drops his hand to his side.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask, rubbing my face. It doesn’t hurt at all, but it’s the principle. Dick.

He seems—thrown. Like the growl took him by surprise, too.

“Can I go now?” I ask.

“No. Stay.” He raises his hand, slow and tentative, his forehead furrowed. He stares at me. My nerves sizzle. Then, with the lightest touch, he traces my jawline. Two rough fingers graze my cheek, his thumb caressing my neck. Shivers and tingles race through me, straightening my spine, seizing my lungs, curling my toes.

My wolf purrs, low and languid, and rolls onto her back, exposing her belly.

The little fool.

He stares at my lips. I nibble the bottom one. It’s instinct.

He stiffens. A vein pulses at his temple. His wolf’s rumble kicks up until it sounds like an engine.

Killian gently tilts my head from side to side.

“I didn’t hurt you,” he murmurs.

That’s such a lie. For so many reasons.

“Alpha!” A voice booms from the head of the path. Eamon, Lochlan, and Finn. The three douche-kateers. I step back, but Killian’s already dropped his hand and turned toward them.

He holds up a finger. “Gimme one.”

Then he rounds back to me, face hardened. Cold.

He grabs my chin again. “Don’t leave the commons.”

“What? Why—”

“You don’t ask questions. You say, “Yes, Alpha.”

He raises an eyebrow and waits.

He can wait all freakin’ day. Dick.

I stare at the dirt path.

The males whisper amongst themselves.

Finally, Lochlan calls, “Alpha, you want us to go on ahead?”

Killian lets go of my face with a very slight shove.

“You attacked a packmate without provocation.” He steps back, squaring his shoulders. “You’re probably halfway to moon mad. You stay in the commons until I tell you that you can leave.”

I’m grounded. Like a pup.

White-hot fury fills me as he strides off without a backwards glance. The males greet him like they didn’t just see him yesterday, slapping his back, falling in behind him. I eat the rage. You have to if you want to live in Quarry Pack. If you let yourself really feel the injustices, your day is ruined, and I’ve got things to do. A mushroom deal to confirm.

Behind me, the door creaks open.

“Una? Are you okay?” Mari whispers, even though they’ve already disappeared down the path.

“I’m fine,” I lie as I seize the banister and mount the first stair, hauling my bum leg up after.

“Do you need help?”

“I’ve got it.” Stairs take me a second, but I can do them no problem. It’s steep declines that suck.

When I get inside, all my roommates are huddled on the sofa. They’ve been snooping.

“What did the alpha want?” Kennedy asks.

“Are you exiled?” Annie worries the hem of her shirt.

“Why would I be exiled?”

“For attacking Haisley.”

“There is literally a fight every night during dinner.” Killian usually picks the competitors, but brawls break out often enough that my point holds.

“But you claimed him as your—” Annie glances around the rooms as if someone might overhear. “Mate.”

“Yeah.”

All three females are staring at me, Mari’s blue eyes swimming with concern, Annie trembling, Kennedy’s arms crossed, cranky as always. Kennedy is twenty-three, but she never grew out of the phase where she thinks everything and everyone is bullshit—always—in every way. If I had to pick, she’s my favorite.

My young roomies want an explanation.

I sigh.

I flop down in the armchair. “I made a mistake, okay?”

“So he’s not your mate?” Mari asks.

I shrug. I don’t want to lie to them. Not if I don’t have to.

“You can’t reject your mate,” Annie says.

“I guess you can.”

Annie’s face contorts in horror. A lot of her anxiety manifests around the mate thing. She’s terrified that she’ll never find him, or she’ll mate with a male thirty years younger or something.

I used to be tormented by the same late-night thoughts. Maybe my mate died as a pup. Maybe he’s a male from the Last Pack, and I’ll never meet him because he’s living in a den somewhere as a wolf twenty-four seven. Maybe Fate miscounted and had one female left over when she paired everyone up.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me that makes me fundamentally unlovable.

There’s so much to be afraid of that’s totally beyond your control. But I was lucky. I discovered the farmer’s market. There’s no time to worry about males when you need to harvest enough honey to fill the orders for the Pumpkin Festival.

That’s not going to be much comfort to Annie. She’s got to find her own farmer’s market, so to speak.

For now, her fear of dying alone is stinking up the place.

“Your mate isn’t going to reject you.” I muster the most reassuring smile I can.

We all know there’s no way of knowing, but—shifters are superstitious. Say it and it will be so. And I’m older. Strange as it is, they look up to me.

“Oh, Una. I’m so sorry.” Mari’s lip wobbles.

“I’m not. Who wants to be mated to Killian Kelly?”

Kennedy shudders. “I’m not sure if he smells like the gym, or if the gym smells like him.”

“He yells a lot,” Annie adds.

“And all the females always talk about his dick.” Mari wrinkles her nose, disapproving.

My wolf snarls. She can pipe down. It’s the truth. Killian’s a manwhore. It’s nothing to us.

“I heard his wolf had his first kill when he was only nine years old,” Mari says.

“That’s impossible.” Males don’t shift until puberty, just like females. I didn’t appreciate until now how much physical stamina it takes to move from one form to the other. There’s no way a pup could do it.

“Killian Kelly can flip-shift,” Mari argues. “And that’s impossible.”

It should be. Your brain can’t even process what it’s seeing when he does it. He’ll be fighting, and one instant he’s a man, the next a wolf, and then a man again. All the while, he’s striking, kicking, leaping. Common wisdom holds that the wolf is always stronger, but a man can swing and throw and strangle. Handle a knife. Shoot a gun.

When Killian flip-shifts, he’s supernatural.

That used to frighten me when I was little. Then it only made me nervous. Wary. But something’s changed. I’m not intimidated anymore. At least not now that he isn’t right in front of me.

I guess Abertha plucked out my fear with the bond.

It feels good. Liberating.

“That’s enough about Killian Kelly,” I declare. “We need to talk mushrooms.”

Mari groans. Kennedy reaches for her video game controller.

I raise my shoulder and look at Annie. She shrugs in return.

I’m not fearless enough that I’m going to ignore an alpha command, and I’m grounded, so Annie’s going to have to make the delivery after all. This rejected mate debacle is not costing me three hundred bucks in addition to all my dignity. Not this week.