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

“Una! Come get this!”

I hunch over and text quicker.

I’ve got a guy from the city willing to drive down and pay three hundred dollars for five pounds of dried morel mushrooms. I’m getting ripped off. He’s going to turn around and sell them to some fancy restaurant for six hundred, minimum, but three hundred is a nice payday when technically, I’m not allowed to handle human money.

Or talk to human men.

Or own a phone.

Or leave pack land without permission.

I’m probably not allowed to harvest morels, either, but there’s no rule, and his highness Killian Kelly never deigns to notice what mere females do all day while he and the males train and spar and condition.

I’m not mad about it. Now that Killian has the males fighting on the circuit, there’s food to eat besides what our wolves can catch and money for gas and electric. When Killian’s father was alpha, we did the laundry by hand in rain barrels and lived on venison and rabbit.

Unmated and unprotected females like me still rank low, but back in the day, I’d be working on my back, not bussing tables. That’s progress. We’re almost out of the Middle Ages in the Quarry Pack.

“Una!” Old Noreen snaps her fingers and points her hooked chin at a tray with five plastic pitchers filled to the brim with foam.

Now that’s a challenge I’m likely to fail. My arms are strong, but my bad leg plays hell with my stability.

Old Noreen must read my look of dismay. “You’ll be fine. It’ll save you having to make another trip in twenty minutes, and then you can bury your nose in that phone to your heart’s content. Come on, girl.” She snaps a few more times.

My phone vibrates. The human—Shroomforager3000—confirms the deal is on. Three hundred dollars. My heart soars. I send him the time and place.

It’s not my turn to make the run into town this week. Annie’s up. I’ll have to swap with her. It wouldn’t be right to ask her to break the “no human male” rule. If we ever get busted selling to the vendors at the farmer’s market in Chapel Bell, it’ll be bad enough. I can’t imagine what Killian would do if one of us were caught with a man.

A sliver of fear skates down my spine. It would be bad. Killian believes in making examples. If a packmate breaks the rules, if he doesn’t work hard enough, if he shows weakness—he’s dirt. Killian is fearless, unrelenting, and merciless. His life’s goal is to bully everyone else into being the same.

If he caught us in town, trading with humans—it wouldn’t matter that we’re females. There’d be hell to pay.

I breathe through the anxiety. We won’t get caught. We haven’t yet.

I power off my phone and tuck it in our hidey hole behind the crockpot. Then I head for the pitchers of beer, my bum leg dragging behind me, shoe rubber squeaking against the tile. I hoist the tray and find my balance.

“You got it?” my youngest roomie Mari asks over her shoulder. She’s at the sink up to her elbows in suds.

“Yup.” My bad leg can’t take my full weight, but I can use it like a crutch to hobble along. It’s not graceful, but I manage.

I take a steadying breath and shoulder through the swinging door into the great room. Beer is already sloshing over the brim of the pitchers. I’m going to get dirty looks for that.

Killian’s lieutenants don’t think much of me. They respect strength. Dominance. The wolf. I’ve got none of that.

Well, I do have a wolf. I can feel her. But for some reason, I’ve never gone into heat, so I’ve never shifted.

Abertha, the pack’s crone, says that some wolves come later than others. Maybe back when I was a girl, during the attack that mangled my leg, my wolf got skittish, and in good time, she’ll find the courage to shift. Or maybe I’m just a late bloomer.

I want to meet my wolf. I’ve watched a three-legged dog in town, and it keeps up with the others. Abertha says my bad leg will manifest in the wolf, but she thinks only one limb will be jacked up. It’s a fear of mine—that I’ll finally shift, and two legs will be useless.

It’s the kind of worry I don’t spend much time on. No heat, no change, no wolf. And there’s no sign of my heat, so it’s kitchen duty and the old maid’s cabin for me.

I don’t mind since the alternative is mating one of these meathead assholes.

I slowly make my way between the tables. None of the males bother to move their stretched legs out of my path. Wouldn’t want to acknowledge my weakness. That’d be rude.

They avert their eyes as I pass, otherwise ignoring me. Which is fine. I feel bad for their mates, stuck on their laps or crushed to their sides, forced to listen to them recount old fights in excruciating detail—for the umpteenth time.

I’m skirting the edges of the great room, focused on the task at hand, when Killian’s voice booms from his makeshift throne on the dais.

“Lochlan.” He snaps and points to the open floor at his feet. Lochlan’s crew goes nuts. Shouts shake the rafters.

“And—” Killian pauses for dramatic emphasis. “Tye.”

The shouts turn to howls. Folks stomp their feet. Everyone has been waiting for this match. Lochlan Byrne has been picking fights, challenging wolves closer and closer in rank to Killian. Lochlan’s working himself up to a beta challenge and everyone knows it.

Tye is our beta now. If Lochlan wins, he can demand the rank, and Killian would be going against tradition to deny him. If Tye wins, Lochlan has to step back down. For now. My stomach aches. I spend a lot of time worrying about what would happen if Lochlan and his backers took over. It wouldn’t be good for me and my roomies, that’s for damn sure.

Killian’s a dick, but Lochlan is a “back in the day” type. You know, “back in the day” bitches presented at command. None of this mating-for-life bullshit. “Back in the day” the alpha put down defective wolves. For their own good. This, of course, is always said within my hearing while eyeing my bum leg.

I’m not afraid of Lochlan, but I’m terrified of all the packmates who think like him and keep it on the down low. I’m scared they’ll outnumber Killian’s crew, and I won’t see it coming in time to run.

I can live with our current level of backwards, but I’m not going face down, ass up because some higher-ranking male wants to scratch an itch. Screw that. I’ve got cash in a jar buried behind my cabin. I’ve got options.

As Tye and Lochlan make their way to the center of the room and square off, Killian bends forward in his metal folding chair, bracing his forearms on his thick thighs. It might as well be a throne. The huge fireplace at his back frames him in stone and fire, and no one dares approach unless he gives them the nod.

Tye and Lochlan bump fists and crouch. It’s gonna be a wrestling match. I edge along the wall. They’re cutting off my direct route, but I can pick my way to the table that needs the beers.

With a grunt, the males collide.

Killian’s cruel lips soften into what might be considered a smile, but it’s a lot closer to the look a snake has after it swallows a rat.

I don’t know why I’m watching Killian. Usually, I avoid eye contact with higher ranks at all times. Saves a lot of getting asked to fetch something.

Killian’s not looking at me, though. He’s intent on the fight. There’s no clear favorite at the moment. It’s a two-man rugby scrum.

My arms are getting heavy, and somehow, it’s hotter in here than the kitchen. Sweat trickles down my temples, and I can’t wipe my face.

I inch further toward the front table, but as soon as I step near the open floor, the fighters sprawl in front of me. Tye scrabbles for dominance. There’s a crackle in the air—like he might shift.

I’m stuck. If I venture closer and they change, I’m wolf meat. If I’m in their way, they’ll plow me over.

Sweet Fate, someone needs to crack a window. Now there’s sweat dripping down my back. Standing puts more pressure on my leg than moving, and my thigh muscles are starting to ache. This is miserable.

Why did I wear a flannel? It’s sticking to me. So gross.

I need to drop this tray and get some air. What if I just skirt them—

Lochlan slams Tye into the ground, barely missing my foot. Okay. Guess I’ll wait right here.

After several long moments of grunts and growls, Tye gains the upper hand. Half the room roars. Then there’s a reversal; Lochlan wrangles Tye into a headlock, and the other half goes wild.

Killian watches, fingers steepled, gaze flickering from male to male. Our king. He’s wearing a plain white tank top, faded jeans, and tan work boots. It’s pretty much a uniform in this pack.

Killian should look basic, but he doesn’t.

His shirt clings to every defined muscle, and like his gargantuan wolf, he’s in a whole other weight class than the other males. His jeans hug his thighs, and they’re more solid, too. His sculpted shoulders are broader, his posture more arrogant, his dusky blue eyes flintier.

Every angle on his face is harsh. His nose is crooked, his Adam’s apple pronounced, his lips a slash. Even when he smiles, they barely curve.

I’m really thirsty. I swallow, but my mouth is bone dry.

Why am I looking at Killian Kelly’s lips?

I drop my gaze, and my face blazes. It’s the heat in here. It’s muddling my brain.

Killian Kelly is strong, but he’s not attractive. He looks mean—which is what he’s always been. He’s only two years older than me. I’ve known him since the day I was born, and I’ve never been into him like the other females. I’m not a rank groupie.

I shake myself off as best I can with a full tray. Tye and Lochlan are still blocking my way. I could go back, circle around behind the tables, but that’d take forever. It’s getting muggier and more humid by the second, and my shirt is sticking to me. I’ll wait a few more seconds. Tye looks to be making his comeback.

He’s not going to lose. Killian wouldn’t have ordered him to fight if it wasn’t a sure thing. Killian and Tye are closer than brothers, and in this pack, everything goes the way Killian wants.

That’s because unlike the other packs, Quarry Pack is ruled by strength, not blood. Any male can challenge for rank at any time. Theoretically, Killian could have to fight every day to keep the lead, but he doesn’t because he cannot be beat. It’s a fact.

Besides having the biggest wolf in the five packs, Killian’s a flip-shifter. He can change from skin to fur and back again whenever he wants, without effort, in the blink of an eye. It’s an unbeatable advantage.

Abertha says flip-shifting isn’t magic, but it sure as hell looks like it when he morphs back and forth mid-air. No one wants to challenge an alpha touched by the moon.

A flash of heat crashes through me. It has to be at least ninety degrees in here, and behind Killian’s makeshift throne, the fire’s roaring. Why does no one open the windows?

Probably because the mated and protected females are perfectly comfortable. They’re allowed to wear short sleeves, and per usual, the males who aren’t wearing tank tops are bare-chested.

My wrist is so tired. I switch so I’m holding the tray in two hands. My palms are getting slick. It’d serve them right if I dropped the tray, and they’d have to go get their own damn beer. The folks at the far table are already casting me dirty looks—like why don’t I wade through the shifter fight?

Ugh. I press my legs tight together. Sweat is dribbling down my inner thighs and tickling the back of my knees. And my stomach’s doing something weird. Do I have a fever? I can’t get sick. I’ve got a mushroom deal in the works.

Fortunately, the match seems to be wrapping up. Ivo Bell is squatting and squinting between Tye and Lochlan’s entangled bodies. I’m not sure why he doesn’t call the match. Tye is howling at the ceiling in victory, and Lochlan’s face is beet red, fur sprouting from his collar. There’s definitely a winner and a loser, and if Ivo doesn’t call it, there’s gonna be a wolf fight in the great room.

I can’t stand here any longer. I need air. All this male musk is making me queasy. I’m gonna yak. I grip the tray and pick my way around them, praying Lochlan doesn’t break free at the very last second and topple me ass over tea kettle.

Luckily, I make it past them to where Killian’s lieutenants sit next to the dais. From the way everyone treats the table like sacred ground, you’d think it’d be special, but it’s like the others—worn laminate top, backless benches, wheels. The tables came with the building when the pack bought the property in the 80s and stopped living in dens.

“Took you long enough,” Finn Murphy gripes as he grabs a pitcher, knocking my hand as he helps himself. I set the tray down and unload it. I don’t bother to respond. I don’t talk to dicks.

“Get us some more.” Finn shoves an empty bread basket at me. He doesn’t meet my eye, just gnaws on a drumstick while he watches Tye help Lochlan off the floor.

“Bad call,” he grumbles under his breath. He’s just sore because he’s in cahoots with Lochlan. From where I was standing, Tye won without a doubt.

I snag the basket and turn to go. I’m going to “forget” about the bread and duck out the back. The sun is setting. There’ll probably be a breeze from the foothills. I can cool down.

I want to be outside so bad. The desire hits me so hard, it’s a longing. I need open sky. I want to breathe in the night air. I want to bask in the moonlight.

Mostly, I want out of these clothes. My bra straps are digging into my shoulders, and my khakis are damp and too damn tight. They must’ve shrunk in the wash. Or I’ve ended up wearing Annie’s again by accident.

I take a step toward the kitchen, but before I head back, I glance up at the dais. I have to. I’m called. It’s instinct even though no one said my name.

But there’s only Killian, staring at me.

Heat bursts from my core, surging down my limbs, leaving my toes and fingertips tingling. I hold onto the empty tray for dear life.

Why is he checking me out?

No, he’s got to be looking at the table behind me. He’s probably deciding who fights next. The sparring is incessant, at least until it gets late and drinking and groping take center stage.

There’s no need for me to linger here. I’m acting like he gave an alpha command, but he’s just scowling like usual. If I don’t move, he’s going to flick his hand imperiously to get out of the way like he does. Killian never deigns to speak if he can grunt and point. I don’t think he’s ever said an actual word to me.

I should hustle back to the kitchen as quickly as I can, but for some reason, I can’t make my feet move. I’m hyper-focused on the linoleum floor now, cheeks burning, stuck. Because his eyes are on me.

My heart thumps, echoing in my ears.

And there’s a new delicious aroma weaving through the usual beer and roast meat and other earthy pack smells. It teases my nose, warm and sweet and sticky in the best possible way. It’s not coming from the kitchen. It’s—I don’t know where it’s coming from.

The ache in my leg fades. There’s a pleasant buzz in my head now, softening everything. The constant grating ruckus of mealtime in the lodge fades—the fluorescent lights overhead, the shrill laughter of the females, and the braying of the males. It’s all muted. Like an old talkie movie in black and white.

I peek up out of the corner of my eye. Is Killian sitting taller? He’s still glaring, and his hard, almost craggy face has become thunderous. He’s pissed. That’s my cue to leave, but still—still—I can’t go.

He’s too freaking interesting. His chest rises and falls, stretching the crisp white cotton of his shirt, and it’s mesmerizing. What would it feel like against my cheek? Under my nails?

My claws?

I lick my dry lips. I can taste the yumminess in the air. It coats my tongue, and I’m salivating. It’s so. Damn. Tasty.

Am I drunk? I feel tipsy, but I only partake at the cabin with my girls. Lone females aren’t allowed to drink.

I inhale deeply, trying to shake off this weirdness, but now the lush, decadent scent is in my lungs. Excitement shoots through my veins, a flood of heat rising up and cresting, crashing through me.

Heat.

Of course. Oh, Fate, it’s beyond obvious. That’s why my brain is so slow.

I’m going into heat.

My wolf’s ears shoot up. She yips and chases her tail. She’s not really moving—it’s how she feels. I’m anthropomorphizing her emotions. Or whatever it’s called when a spirit lives inside you. It feels like she’s dancing, though. She’s ecstatic. She can finally come out and play.

I want to meet her so bad. Hope swells in my chest. She’s gotten quiet these past few years, deflated, but she’s letting herself be heard now. She’s demanding. Whining.

Outside, outside, outside.

And then she changes her mind. No, him.

Him, him, him.

I raise my eyes to Killian’s, and even though I know better, I can’t force my gaze to lower. You don’t meet an alpha’s eyes. That’s a challenge. Even from a lone female. It’s ingrained in our DNA. I shouldn’t be able to help but defer. He won’t be able to stop himself from knocking me down if I don’t.

Shit. I focus as hard as I can until my neck bends, but I’m still gazing up from under my lashes. I can’t stop. He’s fascinating.

I bet he tastes like melted toffee. Or taffy.

I bet he feels like when a summer storm rolls in and the clouds race and there’s the sizzle in the air from the lightning.

Mine, mine, mine.

My wolf paws at my ribs. She wants out. I don’t know how to let her, and this is crazy. I’m scared and shaking, but wild horses couldn’t tear me away from devouring my alpha with my eyes. I need him.

I’m sopping wet. Between the legs. My hand reaches down, searching. Oh, Fate. What am I doing? In the middle of the frickin’ lodge? I snatch it back to my chest at the last second.

What’s wrong with me? That’s Killian Kelly. He’s a tyrant, and a dick, and all he cares about are the fights. He’s the reason Moon Lake thinks we’re backwards, and they’re always making noise about how it’d be better if their pack absorbed ours.

I’ve known Killian my whole life, and every year, he’s worse.

Mate.

No. He’s not my mate. No way. I’d have had an inkling.

Wouldn’t I?

Wouldn’t he?

He slowly rises to his feet, chest thrown back, a fighting stance. A growl rolls from the back of his throat. He scrubs his pecs with the flat of his hand like he has indigestion. His brow furrows. He’s as confused as I am. This doesn’t make any sense.

My wolf replies with a rumble.

She makes a noise!

It’s kind of a sassy purr. I press my palm above my breasts. Holy crap, my solar plexus is vibrating. Whoa. She’s really in there. She’s not a figment of my imagination. I didn’t somehow eat her in utero like a vanishing twin.

My eyes prickle. I’m going to shift. Finally. I need to get out of here. I need wide open spaces, room to run, and—

Out of nowhere, without waiting for his nod of approval, Haisley Byrne saunters to the dais, steps up to Killian, wraps her arms around his neck, and shoves her boobs into his side. Then she rises up on her tiptoes and kisses him full on the mouth. He goes rigid.

He doesn’t avert his eyes. He’s looking at me while she sucks his face.

No.

Ours.

An inhuman wail—both a yowl and a roar—fills my ears from inside my skull.

My spine rips out of my skin.

Pain cascades through me, bursting from the inside out, an explosion of splintering bone and shredding muscle. I’m dying. I’m being torn apart.

I scream, collapsing to the ground. My joints break with a sick pop, and I lay powerless against the contortions, staring unblinking at the dais. Haisley’s jaw has dropped. Killian’s—holding himself back?

His fists are clenched, his teeth gritted, as if he’s straining to control himself.

My vision is like a camera focusing. Everything is small and far away, and then it’s close and bright and too vivid. I can see the cracks in the linoleum. Dust motes suspended in the air. The golden rings around Killian’s pupils blow wide and then contract into pure black.

In the kitchen, a dish shatters. Everyone’s heart is beating in an uneven rhythm. It’s a roar filling the room, a wave beating against a shore.

I can smell everything. Meat. Blood. That bitch. Her coconut shampoo and her vanilla lotion mixed with sweat. She’s touching my mate, rubbing her scent on him.

A faint, panicked voice, far away, pleads to stop, think, wait a minute, but she—I—don’t listen. I am the wolf, and she’s encroaching on our mate.

I leap, baring my fangs, snarling, every movement an agony as my body tries to reknit mid-motion, joints and sinews mending as I simultaneously rip them anew. I mean to lunge, attack, but there’s something wrong with my back leg, so I have to drag the useless limb as I go for that bitch, snapping my teeth.

I can’t stop. Everything’s in the wrong place, the wrong proportion, and there’s no color, but scents swirl and speak.

I’m weak—I know I am—but she can’t touch him. He’s mine.

I raise my muzzle and howl.

There are hoots and catcalls behind me. She says human words from her fake red mouth.

I bark at her. Shift, bitch. Fight me. Let him go and come. I’ll tear your pelt from your hide. I’ll destroy you for touching my mate.

Through sheer determination, I drag my aching carcass close enough to take a swipe at her. She laughs and toes me in the ribs with her high-heeled boot. Compared to all the other pains, it’s nothing. I manage to nip her calf and get a taste of denim.

Not what I want. I lick my muzzle. I want blood.

She snarls. Someone snaps, “No!” But in a moment, she’s gone, and in her place, a snow white she-wolf is looming over me.

She’s big. Three times my size, at least.

She doesn’t hesitate. She goes for my throat. Her fangs sink into my collarbone, a new, searing pain exploding through my already reeling brain, and I struggle, I fight like hell, but she’s so much stronger, and I’m a mess.

She rips a hunk of flesh from the bone, and I scream. She doesn’t let go, flinging me side to side, slamming me against the floor.

I snap my teeth, but my mouth closes on air. My claws glance off her thick coat and tough hide.

I’m losing blood, fading by the second. The stink of copper is everywhere. My pack is going to let me die. They’re going to watch me bleed out while they sop their dinner plates clean with bread I baked.

I’m cold. And tired. I let myself go lax. I can’t win, and there’s no sense in giving them a show.

“Enough,” Killian roars.

Haisley tears her fangs out of my flesh and straddles my limp body, drooling on my side, the strings of her saliva pink with my blood.

“Shift,” he commands.

My bones instantly obey, cracking again, even the broken ones, snapping back into place. For a few seconds, the pain dims everything.

Am I going to pass out? Oh, please, let me just fade away. Too soon, my shifter healing kicks in, and I’m snatched back from darkness. I can’t escape.

I try to curl into a ball, but I can only raise a knee a few inches. I still have an unobstructed view of the dais, so I can watch, collapsed and naked on the floor, as Haisley accepts a T-shirt from her mother Cheryl, our alpha female.

Haisley smirks, licking blood from her lips. Her mother fusses over her while she glares at me, lip snarled.

I’m on the ground in a pool of blood. Scraps of my red-soaked shirt and pants litter the floor. I’m shaking hard, my teeth clattering. I struggle to sit, but I can’t get my muscles to contract. Nothing’s attached right, and I’m so weak. I huddle, my knees as close to my chest as I can raise them, trembling arms wound around my calves.

No one offers me a shirt. They’ve backed far away from me as if I’m contagious.

Moon mad.

I dare to peek up at Killian. His angular face is stone, chin lifted slightly as he glares down his sharp nose.

Somehow, despite the stench of blood, I can still catch his scent—a mix of sweet, soothing things. Sugar cubes. Bubbling hot butterscotch. A drop of caramel on the tip of your tongue.

My wolf mewls for him.

Help.

His lip curls in disgust, but his eyes flicker blue to gold.

“Stand up,” he snarls.

I can’t. I don’t have the strength, and everyone will see everything.

“Stand up, or I’ll drag you up.”

My gaze careens around the great room. Males leer and smirk. Some of the females, too. The elders are tutting behind their hands, scandalized and disapproving. Old Noreen and my girls are crowded in the kitchen door, horror on their faces. They don’t dare come out.

No one is going to help me.

Killian growls a warning. It’s a question. You dare defy me?

Summoning every scrap of energy I have left, I roll to my stomach and push up on my good knee. I can’t just stand; my bad leg won’t let me.

I stagger to my feet, exposing my butt, my belly, the wicked scars on my thighs and calves. The shame scalds as hot as fire.

There’s a lump lodged in my throat. I wish it would choke me out. I wish I would lose consciousness right now and wake up yesterday or tomorrow or in the middle of the ocean.

What did I do to deserve this?

I do what I’m supposed to do. I keep my head down, follow all of the stupid rules—mostly. I get my work done, and I don’t make trouble. How am I here? How is this happening?

Why did I do something so ever-loving stupid? There’s no planet or alternate reality where my runt of a wolf could beat Haisley Byrne’s she-beast.

I can’t live through this moment. The humiliation blisters every inch of my skin, but my heart keeps beating, and so I have to. Ghosts from the past pluck at the edges of my awareness. You’ve survived worse, they murmur. Just hold on.

“What the fuck?” Killian finally bites out, his voice dripping scorn.

I open my mouth, but no words come out. My wolf wails, pacing her confines. Why isn’t he helping?

She doesn’t understand, so she cries, piteously, and Killian’s face shifts from disdain to anger. I try to swallow the sound down, but it’s coming from my chest. I can’t even muffle it.

“Why attack Haisley?” he demands.

He knows why. Mates know each other instantly. Females go into their first heat, and it triggers some kind of magical chemical reaction. The male recognizes his fated mate, and then she recognizes him, and they fall in love and have young and live happily ever after. Or something like that.

Most of the mated females say they’re happy. They don’t smile much more than us lone females. You kind of have to take them at their word.

The point is—if I recognize Killian as my mate, he recognizes me now, too. He gets why I attacked Haisley.

It was a dumb, dumb, stupid move, but wolves can’t tolerate their mates being scent-marked by rivals. It’s basic psychology. Biology. Whatever. Apparently, it’s hella stronger than the survival instinct.

My wolf still bristles at Haisley hovering nearby. If my wolf were stronger, she’d go for round two. Dumb, dumb, stupid wolf.

Killian lets out a growl that makes the tables wobble on their wheels. He’s losing patience.

“Speak for yourself,” he says.

“You know why I did.” It’s almost a whisper.

He stalks down from his dais to stand above me, stance wide and arrogant, as if he needs extra space for his dick to swing. He folds his arms, and his biceps bulge. I lick my lips.

“Humor me,” he says.

I swallow. My throat is still tight, and my mouth is bone dry. I’m scared, and my wolf is flinging herself at the walls, desperate to get loose and jump on him—I’m not sure whether to claim him or rip him a new one. She’s out of control, and I can’t calm her down. It’s all I can do to stop her from trying to take our skin again.

Killian cocks his head expectantly.

“You’re my mate,” I say.

It had gotten almost quiet in the great room, but at my words, a wave of gasps, and a few sputtering laughs, ripple through the crowd.

I hug an arm to my breasts and try to cover my pussy with my other hand. This isn’t the gathering at the end of a midnight pack run or a dip in the river on a hot day. I’m the only one naked, and it’s full bright.

Everyone can stare at my mangled leg at their leisure. They take every opportunity to gawk usually. I’m a car crash to them. A shifter with scars. Doesn’t really happen, so they can’t help but look. Even the packmates I’m cool with.

My good leg wobbles, and my stomach heaves. I can’t throw up. I have to live through this moment to get to the next one, and I can’t do that standing in a puddle of puke.

I force my back straight. I’m not really here. I’m in the future, and this is a memory. It can’t hurt me.

I ball my fists, nails digging into the meat of my palms.

“What was that?” Killian arches a brow, his dusky blue eyes daring me.

“You’re my mate.”

I know it like I know how to breathe. My wolf is even more certain. She’s frantic, howling for acknowledgement. Rescue. Touch. A carcass she can maul and take her messy feelings out on.

I can’t help her. There’s nothing I can do. I try to soothe her, but she’s lost in her agitation.

Killian’s lips press into an unforgiving line. He glances at his lieutenants. They’re all standing now, too, staring at him, shoulders squared. Awaiting orders.

The whole pack is waiting with bated breath to hear what he’s going to say.

Dread crawls up my spine with spidery fingers.

“It is known that I have no mate,” he says.

The words slam into me, rocking me back on my heels like a cannonball to the chest, not with surprise, but with a physical force. For a second, I lose balance, but my good leg doesn’t fail. It firms right away. I’m still upright.

My wolf wails.

“If I had a mate, would she be weak?” He rakes his gaze down my front, lingering on the red puckered scars on my outer thigh.

“Would she be incapable of defending herself? I am alpha.” He gestures toward all the people gathered around, craning their necks to see better. “Would Fate give us you to lead by my side? To protect us?” His tone isn’t cruel or mocking. It’s coldly reasoning. Like he’s speaking to a child. Or a mad woman.

He waits as if he’s expecting an answer.

I can’t speak. It hurts. My she-wolf’s pain echoes off my own, and none of this makes sense.

I don’t want to be his mate. I’m not. If I have a choice, I refuse, but every atom in me knows there’s no choice. There’s a flow of energy between us, my breast to his chest. How does he not feel it?

Of course, I’m the last female to rule a pack. I didn’t pick this. But that’s not the way this works, and he knows it.

His angular jaw clenches. He’s perturbed that I’m not taking it back. Should I? I don’t want this. Not in any way.

“I’ve killed for this pack,” he says. “I’ve brought light in the dark and heat in winter. Water that runs clean. I’ve been challenged eight times, and I have emerged victorious with the flesh of my rivals filling my belly. What have you done? How have you earned the rank you claim?”

His voice is even, and there’s pity in his eyes. He shakes his head.

“You’re confused. Go back to the kitchen.”

And that’s all the time he has for me. He snaps for his lieutenants and turns back to his dais. I’m dismissed. Thrown back in the water with my head ripped off like a too-small fish, guts leaking, lungs still screaming for air.

Inside me, everything that makes me, that holds me up and keeps me going day to day, crashes to the ground and splinters. The pain is a gaping hole. An unfathomable wrong.

The connection between us is there, throbbing and alive, and he doesn’t seem to feel it at all.

I wait for my heart to sputter to a stop. It can’t endure. It isn’t possible that it’s still beating.

But it does. Thump. Thump. Steady and sure. As if nothing happened.

As if the universe hadn’t told me, in the most basic of terms, that I’m less than nothing.

The silence in the great room is suffocating, and then chaos breaks out. There are catcalls and hoots and laughter. Killian snaps his teeth, and the pack lowers the volume until the derision and amusement is a dull roar filling the room.

“Get her out of here,” Killian says to his lieutenants. They try to out-stare each other until, finally, Tye huffs, strides over, and grabs my elbow. He marches me out, hauling me back to my feet when I trip, steering me across the open floor and down a corridor to the rear exit.

He kicks the screen door open and thrusts me into the dark.

“Go home,” he says, his voice surprisingly free of scorn. “Don’t come back around for a while. Let things cool down.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He goes back inside, letting the door slam behind him.

I’m alone in the dark, naked and trembling, and the worst is that now the danger is past, heat is creeping through my veins again. Warm want and longing rise as the adrenaline ebbs. Slick drips down the insides of my thighs.

I squint into the night. My senses are sharper than they’ve ever been—there’s a new richness to the faded green and brown rust of the dumpsters, to the musk of the raccoons that circled the container and ambled off into the trees.

Oh, hell. I’ve been thrown out with the trash.

Well, I’m not going to stay here. I head into the woods. There is no way I’m going back around front to the path so I can stumble naked past the old males smoking cigars on the porch.

Killian’s words ring in my ears. What have I done for this pack?

Endured it for twenty-seven years. Cooked their food. Cleaned their lodge. Washed their clothes. And in between I taught myself—and then the other lone females—how to make preserves, and keep bees, and dry herbs, and raise hens for eggs, and forage for mushrooms.

I figured out how to drive and how to sell our goods at the human market, and then I figured out the internet. I made money. Money for phones and books and whatever we want. Money so that we don’t have to ask the males for anything, and we owe them nothing.

We paid for Old Noreen’s massage chair. A rental on the far side of town so Kennedy can shift in private. Annie’s books and music and movie subscriptions. Video games for my old foster brother Fallon that he resells to all his friends who haven’t made the cut to fight on the circuit yet.

I force myself to count so I don’t drown in the hole Killian shoved me into. I’m dangling, holding on for dear life, nails dug into a slippery edge, but I’m not nothing.

I might not be male or mated—I might not have a father or uncle to “protect” me—but I have something to show for my life.

The coop and bee yard at Abertha’s cottage. The patches of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. Our plot of medicinal herbs—calendula, peppermint, lemon balm, and chamomile. The greenhouse that the girls and I built ourselves.

We all have phones. Even Old Noreen so she can call her sister in Moon Lake whenever she wants.

Kennedy’s video game consoles. Mari’s sexy party dresses and high heels that she can only wear around the cabin and the melatonin so she can sleep.

The chasm yawns, and my life feels so small—I feel so small—but I’m not. I mumble that over and over as I stagger through the underbrush, aimless, heat itching at my skin, breasts full and aching, my wolf still mewling for help.

I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.

Where am I going?

I could leave.

I have cash in a jar, hidden in the knot of an oak tree behind our cabin.

I have a phone. Four hundred minutes, pre-paid.

I could live in the human world. I don’t want to, but if I kept to myself, it could be tolerable. But, dear Fate, the noise and the smells—My stomach turns, and somehow, that ignites a spasm between my legs, and it’s so wrong, so disjointed.

I’m devastated, not turned on, but my innards have gone haywire. My wolf cowers and weeps.

Yes. I have my wolf now. That means I have another choice. I could go feral. Live on my own in the foothills like Darragh Ryan.

Leave my girls to fend for themselves.

Be alone. Always.

I’ve considered my options a thousand times. Some days, staying seems impossible, but I don’t have the strength to cut off my leg to escape the trap. This is a shitty pack, but I was born to it. Shedding it would be like shedding my own skin. Wolves are pack animals. My girls are more than family. They’re pieces of my self.

I don’t want to leave them. Or Old Noreen or the elders who are kind or the males like Fallon who aren’t the worst.

I can’t go back to the cabin, either.

I stop, lean against a tree, and take in my surroundings. The woods are dark, and the night creatures—the bullfrogs by the river and crickets and owls—hush as I stagger through. I’m a predator, and that is such a joke.

I’m weak. Defective. Rejected.

I reach for anger, my plans, my blessings—the handholds I usually cling to when I can’t take it anymore, but there’s nothing there. Only grief and shame and stupid longing.

Mate.

I have no mate.

How far can I run with three good legs?

I let the wolf take my skin, and I whisper, “Go. Go.” The shift is an agony, but I welcome the pain.

I can’t escape what I am, but maybe I can run until it’s nothing more than a speck in the distance.

Maybe there’s a choice I’ve never seen before now.

A way out.

My wolf stumbles forward, too broken to do much more than drag our bad leg behind. And I was wrong. There’s nothing but the same paths I’ve known my whole life, the same river and foothills in the distance, the same boundaries that never, ever change.