The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 5)
The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate: Chapter 9

I’m going to have to build a small fire pit outside the den. I’m walking as fast as I can back from the center of camp with a pot of boiling water, praying I get there before Annie wakes up and finds me gone, and I’ve managed to burn my hand twice.

She woke up a dozen times last night, and each time, she immediately looked for me, and I pretended I was asleep while she watched me until she drifted off again.

She’s scared of me and also scared that I’ll abandon her here alone. I don’t need the bond to tell me. I can read it clear as day on her face.

She didn’t insist I take her home last night, though, and she liked the gifts. Her fingers petted the yarn and the leather case like she was stroking a baby’s cheek. She didn’t care much for the plastic thing. Can’t blame her. Still not sure exactly what it does, but it smells like human male in the worst possible way.

Things could be going a lot worse. Meeting the pack didn’t go as smoothly as it could, what with Alroy being a dumbass, and Diantha not helping matters, but Annie’s wolf was more or less steady, and she really took to Nessa’s youngest.

Annie’s wolf leaped into action when she thought the pup was in danger, crouched over her and bared those toothpick fangs and everything. And then she yapped at me to handle my dumbass packmates. My chest warms at the memory. My mate’s wolf is a brave, bossy little cuss. She would be happy here.

And my shortsighted ass panicked when she got upset and promised I’d take her home when she asks. I swore.

The warmth inside me ebbs as dread trickles through my veins, and I force myself to focus on right now. I don’t know what frame of mind Annie will be in, or how sharp she is in the morning, so I make sure to whistle and tread heavily as I approach the den.

She’s just sitting up and scrubbing her eyes when I duck inside. The quilt is tucked firmly under her arms, covering her from her breasts to her toes. I keep my distance. Her fear scent reserves are probably full again after a good night’s sleep—or whatever you’d call it with us waking and checking on each other every hour.

When I met her, I thought we had nothing in common, but now, I don’t know—take away her anxiety, and we have a similar temperament. She’s reserved like me, and more of a watcher than a talker. She’s watching me now as I unpack my hamper yet again to get out the box with her tea. This time, I’ll leave the box out and return things properly so I don’t have to squash the top back on like an idiot.

I borrowed two strainers and cups from Elspeth. She said a lot of the folks in the lost packs put sugar and milk in their tea, but we’re low on both at the moment, so Annie will have to do without until I get the chance to send Alroy out to get some. And it will be him who makes the run after what he said to Diantha yesterday. You can’t talk to a female like that, even if you are more or less right.

My gaze slides over to where Annie huddles on the pallet, eyeing me with no less suspicion than she did yesterday.

Is she going to make me take her back today?

I bat the thought away. She won’t. Not yet.

But what if she does?

My stomach aches. I ignore it, dig into the box, take out two tins, and hold them up. One has a swan on it, the other has a friendly, smiling teapot pouring itself into a smaller, smiling teacup.

“Which one do you want?” I ask, my voice still gruff from sleep. I didn’t speak to anyone on my mission to boil water. Everyone awake this early is wrong in the head. I don’t want to have a conversation at this hour with someone excited to start their day. They’re going to ask me to help them with something.

Annie squints at the tins. I slowly step forward so she can see them better, but she still shrinks back as I get closer.

At least her scent is holding steady. It’s delicious, even stronger than yesterday, rainy and muddy and musky in the best possible way. When I take a deep breath, I can make out traces of pussy in the air. I cough immediately to hide the groan that escapes before I can stifle it.

“The Earl Grey, please,” she says. Her voice is husky with sleep, too. Shivers race across my skin. I want her to say my name like she says Earl Grey. I want her to say please.

Please, Justus.

It’s never going to happen, not if she’s in her right mind. The tightness in my gut spreads to my chest.

I busy myself fiddling with the little stainless-steel mesh balls, trying to shake tea into them without spilling leaves all over the rug. My hands feel like wool mitts. Her eyes on me makes all my blood rush to my cock, turning my fingers numb and clumsy.

“Can I help?” she asks softly, and my immediate impulse is to tell her I’ve got it, but thankfully, my brain cell sparks to life before I can open my mouth. If she helps, she’ll come closer.

“Please,” I say, sitting back, leaving the tea things for her.

Keeping me in her sights, she crawls forward. Her movements are awkward with the quilt wrapped around her, and when the fabric winds around her ankles, causing her to lose her balance, she gets frustrated enough to peel it off. She accidentally undoes the blue wrap underneath with the quilt, and for the split second before she gets it sorted out, I get an eyeful of bare breast, side, hip and thigh.

She curves like a fiddle. Like she has a handle at her waist. I want to cup her there, hold her until she warms to me, until she understands that I don’t want to hurt her.

I drop my gaze to the pot of water. “Careful. It’s really hot,” I say to cover the fact that I saw, and she knows it, and now her face is blazing pink.

She resettles herself, making sure she’s tucked tightly, and begins to gently shake tea into the strainers with her upper arms plastered to her sides to make doubly sure her wrap stays in place.

When our females approach the time that they become interested in males but don’t want attention from them quite yet, they’ll just wear their fur under their wraps for a few years. I guess Annie can’t do that. It’s all or nothing for her kind. I can’t even imagine.

What do they do if they’re in their skin but there’s a sound in the distance, and they want to know what it is? How do they crack bones to get to the marrow? What if they want to crack a walnut? Do they go ahead and lose a tooth?

Thankfully, by the time Annie passes me a cup, I’ve distracted myself from my hard-on so I can sit normally.

“I’ll have milk and sugar for you tomorrow,” I say and instantly regret it.

Her face blanches, and I clock the exact instant that the word tomorrow makes her remember that I stole her, and she doesn’t want to be here.

She’s going to ask me to take her home.

I can’t.

Not now. Not yet.

I hop to my feet, leaving my cup of tea on the floor.

“We have to go,” I bark. “I have something I need to do. Pack business. It won’t take long, but I have to go now. I’m late.” I’m making this up on the fly, keeping my mouth moving so she can’t get a word in edgewise. I start fussing around the den, putting the tins away and folding the quilt, being really loud about it.

I catch a whiff of fear. Annie struggles to her feet, gulping down her tea. I feel bad—it hasn’t had much of a chance to cool—but my chest is tightening, too, and my wolf is getting agitated. He doesn’t want to leave her either, and he’s pushing for our body. He thinks he’s better equipped to keep her here. I push him back.

“I’ll take you to the females’ tent. You’ll be comfortable there. They’ll feed you, and I’ll be back soon,” I say as I rush her out of the den and down the trail to camp. I yap the whole time, basically repeating myself. Her fear scent is kicking up, and she’s still holding her empty teacup. I didn’t give her a chance to put it down.

“I won’t be gone for long at all, and I’ll send a pup to get your yarn and needles. I’ll have them bring tea, too, and heat you up some water, whatever you want. It won’t take long at all.” I swear I’ve never babbled so much before in my life.

Thank goodness Elspeth is at the tent when we finally get there. It’s still early, so I wasn’t sure.

Elspeth was from North Border, so she’ll understand how strange all this must be for Annie—and she’ll make sure Diantha doesn’t get too out of hand.

“Ho!” I call out as I approach the camp-within-a-camp that the females have set up so they can watch the pups as they play on the obstacle course we rigged up in the big sycamore. The females have their own small fire pit, a canopy for shade, and a thick canvas tent where the babes can nap undisturbed. Well, less disturbed. Pups at play are loud.

“Justus!” Elspeth calls back fondly. “And Annie.” She smiles at my mate and gratitude fills my heart.

I didn’t say anything about Annie when I came back mated without her, and I’ve said nothing since. In the absence of facts, packs make up their own. I’ve overheard the whispers—there was something terribly wrong with her, she was too weak, too foul-tempered, too messed up in the head like the rest of the lost packs—and I was so proud, and my pride was so bruised, that I never spoke up. It shames me now.

The itchy, restless feeling I had when I woke rides me harder. I need to get out of here. Just for a little while. I need to figure out what to do without Annie’s scent in my nose, slowing down my brain and making my wolf rowdy.

“Do you want a cup, Alpha?” Elspeth asks.

I shake myself. “No, thank you.” I don’t correct her. My dam taught me better than to pick nits with elders.

While I was lost in my head, Elspeth urged Annie to a rocker by the fire and filled her empty cup from the kettle kept hanging on the tripod. The brew smells like tea, but it’s milky tan.

Annie sips and smiles. “Oh, this is lovely. You boil the leaves with the milk and sugar?”

Elspeth nods, dropping to sit in the chair next to my mate with her own cup. “We poured the water over the leaves in North Border, too, but here, they heat the leaves in the water and add the milk and sugar while it’s still boiling. And they use evaporated milk.”

Annie glances at the cup in her hand. “So that’s what this is? An evaporated milk can?”

Elspeth laughs. “More than likely. We tend to make do around here.”

“I was told we were out of milk and sugar,” I can’t help but grumble.

“You are out of it,” Elspeth says. “We don’t let ourselves get so low that we run out.”

I could point out that the females only have milk and sugar—or any staples—because we hunt, gather, or trade for it, but I remember too well the day when I was a pup that I declared to my dam that I had provided the meat in her belly.

It had been my first kill, and I was so proud. The moment the words came out of my mouth, my sire snorted, shifted, and let his wolf snarf down the whole, juicy prime cut of steak on my plate. Once his wolf had licked his chops clean, he shifted back and said, “You might have given her a meal, but she gave you life, and if you think a piece of grizzled cow is worth anywhere near the same, you don’t value yourself nearly enough.” And then he ate my potatoes, too.

“Where’s Max?” I ask to change the subject.

“Over yonder.” She lifts her chin toward the bonfire. Most of our elders gather there in the mornings to warm their bones.

“Well, I need a word with him.” I shift awkwardly.

I don’t want to leave camp, but if I stay, she’ll ask to go home, and I gave my word. I’ve broken a solemn promise before, once, and I’d die before I did it again.

But how can I leave her, even for a moment?

Annie blinks at me, her brown eyes almost amber in the morning sun. They’re beautiful. And unsure. She’s looking to me for reassurance.

My chest tightens. I’ve never been so weak. She holds me in her hands. She could destroy me with a few words.

“You’ll be fine here with Elspeth. I’ll be back later,” I blurt and stride off like my heels are on fire.

I’m a coward. I’m afraid of a hundred-and-thirty-pound female with a wolf so small she could probably fit in a groundhog hole. I hope she doesn’t ever get that idea in her head. The animals flee when we arrive, but their tunnels are everywhere. If her wolf fled down there, I’d have to dig her out. It’d be a mess.

I should turn around. My wolf whines his agreement.

No. Annie isn’t going to freak out and hide in the groundhog tunnels, and if she does, she’ll be there when I get back.

I make a detour on my way to the bonfire and take great delight in sticking my head into Alroy’s tent and barking, “Bonfire. Five minutes. Bring Khalil.”

Alroy was dead to the world. He wakes up in a panic, fighting his blankets. I’m still smirking when I get to the elders sitting in their usual place on the downed log I planed and sanded into a bench for them a few years ago.

“Brothers,” I say, taking a seat beside Max.

They mumble “Alpha” under their breath, and I ignore it. “What tracks have folks seen since I’ve been gone?”

They perk right up at the prospect of fresh meat.

“Possible bobcat down by the gulch where Colm snared that grouse,” Max says.

Bobcat is not great eating, and in my opinion, their fur is a little too close to wolf to wear without feeling a little strange about it.

“My oldest said he saw pheasant in the mustard field,” Tarquin offers. That’s not far, only a half hour trek or so. I could be back before afternoon nap. If I fed Annie enough, she might doze off beside me, and I could watch her sleep in the daylight.

Or she could ask me to take her home.

“What about elk?” I ask. “Anyone seen elk?”

All the males shake their heads, and Rodric, our oldest packmate, rouses himself from a doze and shouts, “What did Alpha say?”

“He wants to know if anyone has seen elk,” Max shouts back.

“No need to holler,” Rodric grumbles, poking his finger in his ear to emphasize the point. It’s a joke that he’s been telling since I was a pup. He’s fully aware that he’s deaf as a doorknob. “I heard there’s elk up by the lake.”

“Oh, you heard, eh?” Max snorts.

“Which lake?” I ask.

“A big bull,” Rodric confidently answers the question I didn’t ask. “Fourteen points between both antlers.”

“The lake by the boundary to Salt Mountain,” Tarquin clarifies.

“The one with the bog worm?” I don’t need to mess with a bog worm when I’ve got Annie here. Their blood is like sap. If it gets in your hair, you might as well shave it all off, and I don’t know what I’d look like bald, but I doubt it’s an improvement.

“No, the one west of that.” Tarquin squints at me. “Why you asking? The smoker is stocked.”

I stand and stretch, cracking my back. “I promised my mate fresh meat.”

It’s the truth, but every male on the log, including Rodric, looks at me like I’m full of shit. No male would leave their new mate when there’s plenty of good food in camp. Thankfully, Alroy and Khalil arrive. Neither looks good. Alroy is clearly not fully awake yet, and Khalil looks like he didn’t sleep. His dark eyes are red-rimmed, and he reeks of rotgut.

“I thought you were supposed to be the fresh meat, what with the new mate and all?” Khalil slurs as he takes the coffee Tarquin offers and swallows it in a single gulp. Alroy eyes Max’s drink hopefully. Max tightens his gnarled hands around his cup.

“Ready?” I ask, ignoring the remark.

“No,” Alroy groans. Khalil shrugs and stumbles, even though he was doing nothing but standing there.

“Ready.” Max sets his cup down on the log and stands. He twists to crack his own back, winces, thinks better of it, and rolls out his shoulders instead.

“Griff,” he calls to his son who’s poking the fire with a stick a few feet away. “Go tell your dam that I’m going hunting.”

Before the pup can dash off, I quickly add, “And run by my mate’s den and take the box of yarn you find there to her at the females’ tent.”

Griff straightens and tries to hide the wide grin breaking across his face. I sigh inside. I try not to make requests because whenever I do, the younger males always take it as a sign of favor no matter how many times I tell them boot licking makes your breath stink.

“Yes, Alpha. I’ll take it to her straight away,” he says.

“And don’t forget to tell your dam I’ve gone hunting!” Max hollers after his son.

Tarquin snorts. “That boy’s already forgotten.”

Rodric shakes his head. “That poor female will be looking for you all over camp by lunch.”

“Well, then you’ll tell her where I’ve gone,” Max says, tying back his graying locs with a strip of leather.

“Don’t count on me—I’ll have forgotten by then, too.” Rodric cackles, grabs Max’s abandoned coffee, and sips.

“You’ll keep an eye on things?” I ask Tarquin. He nods.

Tarquin has the best sense after Max, and he’s better than all of us at soothing tempers. He’ll listen to each side and ask so many questions, that by the time each person has had their chance to speak, everyone’s either too tired, hungry, or bored to stay mad.

“Well, let’s go get us an elk,” I say, slapping Khalil on the back, snorting when his wolf whimpers. Must be one hell of a hangover if his wolf is feeling it.

I lead the way to the den that serves as our armory and help myself to the best bow and arrow, strapping a quiver across my back. I feel a twinge of guilt as Max grabs the second best, but I know he’d leave the best one behind rather than take it when I’m around. My sire taught me to respect my elders. He couldn’t have imagined a world where they’d defer to me.

I didn’t have my sire long, but I’m one to listen the first time I’m told, so his voice is still clear in my head. That’s why I slow my pace as our hunting band leaves the camp, so we can walk side-by-side, and Max doesn’t have to struggle to keep up.

I vividly remember traveling from our summer to winter camps one year, and how the alpha at that time took the lead of our long line. My sire hung back to bring up the rear, and I was impatient. I didn’t want to be last.

Of course, I whined about it, and my sire said, “Would you rather be in the front with your nose up Alpha’s ass or back here where we can actually see it if a feral snatches a straggling female?” It made sense to me then, and it makes sense to me now, although I think moving as a herd is safer than a line. Much quicker to form a defensive phalanx when you’re already bunched together.

The way to the lake grows more difficult as the hours pass. At first, we travel through familiar woods, but soon enough the terrain gets steeper and rockier as we approach Salt Mountain territory, and I have to attend more closely to my surroundings.

I’m not worried about running into Salt Mountain wolves, but I am worried about the ferals and humans and other predators who’ve taken advantage of the land that Salt Mountain’s left unprotected.

In reality, Salt Mountain doesn’t have a territory beyond their town. The pack only ventures out to the woods to hunt. No patrols, fences, or anything. Our younger males have a game to see who can piss the closest to their front gate, and it’s been doused a few times, and no one’s been caught.

For a long time, all the shifter scents we come across are stale, and we don’t see anything bigger than a possum. The sun is bright, but there’s a breeze, and Alroy keeps his mouth shut. It should be a pleasant hike, but with every mile that passes, my nerves jangle more and more. I’m twitching at everything—twigs cracking, toads honking, birds casting shadows.

My wolf is torn. He loves hunting, but he hates that we’re getting farther and farther from Annie. I don’t like it much either.

He’s comforting himself with the absolutely unfounded belief that he could run back to her in five—ten—minutes flat.

I calm myself with facts.

She’s fine. No one in the pack would let any harm come to her, and the land around the camp was clear of strange scents or disturbance. I hunt or scout all the time. This is no different. If she was my mate for real, I’d hunt. Probably more often than I do now if we had pups. Pups can eat.

But she’s not my mate for real.

Don’t I want her to be? Isn’t that why I kept traveling to Quarry Pack and hanging out in the woods outside their border, sulking and stewing and pissing off the local wildlife?

What am I doing out here?

I should be home, tending to her. Making her more gifts. Listening to her talk, if she has something to say. Feeding her. Coming up with more excuses to sit next to her on my pallet.

It’s not that I don’t want to be doing that—I want it so badly that if I think about it, my chest will get so tight I’ll start huffing and puffing worse than Max.

Shit. Max. I glance behind me. He’s a good yard behind me. I force myself to slow down.

“Do we even want to get there before the sun goes down?” Alroy bitches when he realizes the pace has changed, and he has to wait for us to catch up.

“Sorry,” I say. “Is there a specific time you have to be back to jack off alone in your tent?”

“Where’d you sleep last night?” Alroy asks. “Bet it wasn’t in your den, was it?”

I leap for him, shifting my top half so he thinks I’m letting my whole wolf out, and just like I knew he would, he shifts all the way, and his wolf scurries away like his tail is on fire. I take my skin right back and grab the pants his wolf left behind.

“It’s just too easy.” Khalil snickers.

“Embarrassing.” I shake my head. That’s a prank we played as pups. He always fell for it then, too.

Alroy shifts and strides back, dick swinging, no shame. “If you wanted to watch my fine bare ass, you could’ve asked,” he says, strutting ahead.

Khalil speeds up so he’s ahead of us all. Max lets out a long-suffering sigh.

What am I doing?

Am I such a coward that I’ll go this far to avoid a conversation?

Yes. I suppose I am. I never again want to see the trapped, terrified expression that she wore when she realized she was in heat.

I should have stolen her. It couldn’t have been worse than what happened by the river. At least, she would have had her heat in a real nest in a den.

When do I get to stop feeling like shit about what should have been the best thing that ever happened to me?

I slow my steps so Alroy and Khalil pull farther ahead. When there’s a decent distance between us and Alroy turns his attention to muttering to himself about the unfairness of life, I ask Max, “Do you remember when you mated Elspeth?”

He snorts. “My legs are slow, not my brain.”

“She didn’t want to come with you, right?”

He slides a glance over to me, his warm, brown eyes glittering. “What are you asking, Alpha? You know she didn’t.”

“I’m not the alpha,” I reply without thinking as I try to figure out what it is exactly that I want to know. Has she really forgiven him? How long did it take?

Max blows out his cheeks and stops to catch his breath. Alroy and Khalil keep going.

“You know, I’m an old wolf, and in all my life, I have never met a male who thinks the way you do,” he says. “You’re the strongest male in the pack. It’s not even close. Who would be next after you? Khalil?”

I nod. Khalil can fight. Alroy has the potential to be at least as good, but he’s so fixated on his gripes and grudges that he doesn’t have the confidence to dominate in a real fight.

“And Khalil isn’t even a challenge, is he?”

“He might be, if he were disciplined.”

“But he’s not. Not like you. That’s my point.” Max skewers me with his sharp gaze. “You lead this pack, and you say you aren’t the alpha. You have a mate, and you’re acting like you don’t. The sky is blue no matter what you call it, pup.” He sighs loud and long. “What are we doing out here, Justus?”

I hold his gaze. I might be afraid of my mate, but I won’t bend my neck to any male on earth, no matter how good a point they make. “Hunting elk,” I say.

“Hiding from a female.” He snorts. “And why? Do you even know?”

“I don’t want to let her go,” I say almost under my breath. Not because I’m ashamed, not in front of Max. He’s the one who dragged my wolf out of the crevice I burrowed into at the back of my dam’s den after my parents died. I was halfway feral by then, living in my own shit, eating bugs and slowly starving to death.

He’d held me by the scruff of the neck and scrubbed me clean in the river while I fought and bit, and then he fed me and threw me in a pile with the other pups who’d lost everyone. He kept watch over us every night until Elspeth finally let him sleep in her den, and even then, he’d come to comfort us if a pup cried out from a nightmare. If I cried out.

I’m not ashamed to tell Max that I don’t want to let Annie go, but I want it so bad that it feels dangerous to say out loud. The things you want the most—the things you can’t live without—that’s what Fate takes.

“So don’t let her go,” Max says. He drinks from his canteen and offers it to me. I take a sip and pass it back.

“It’s not that easy.”

“It could be. You should have heard Elspeth holler.” He grins, remembering. “Knowing the female she is today, you’d never guess the pair of lungs she had on her. They must have heard her in Moon Lake.”

In sync, we cap the canteen and continue hiking. Up ahead, Alroy has caught up to Khalil, and they’re taking a water break, too.

“I don’t want a mate who despises me,” I say, aware that Max could take offense if he chose, and also that I’m lying. The years have worn my pride away. I could live with Annie’s hate if it meant when I woke up in the night, she’d be there where I could see her.

Max says, “Pfft. She’ll get over it eventually. Just tell her how things are going to be. Be firm and consistent. She’ll come around. It’s the natural order.”

I snort. “You told Elspeth how things were going to be?” There is no way. That female rules him.

Once, she left her favorite comb at our summer camp one year, and she didn’t realize it until we’d reached high valley. His wolf ran all the way back for it himself in a snowstorm, and then when she idly remarked that his fangs had scratched the wood when he carried it in his mouth, he carved her a new one, but not until he traveled all the way to red clay camp for more of the teak that he’d made the first comb from.

“Not in so many words,” Max mutters. “But she knew.”

I hide my smile as we reach Alroy and Khalil. We’re getting close enough to the lake that if there’s elk, we should start seeing signs of them. So far, I scent nothing on the wind but possum, raccoon, and the like.

“I’m not as brave as you,” I say to Max.

“What are we talking about?” Alroy asks, falling into step beside us.

“How my balls are bigger than the alpha’s here,” Max answers.

I growl.

He raises his hands. “Sorry, my balls are bigger than Justus’s.”

Khalil and Alroy both hum in ready agreement. I roll my eyes.

“I was asking Justus here why he won’t grab his balls—smaller than mine though they may be—and claim that mate of his. Tell her she’s First Pack now, and that’s that.”

“That is not how females work.” I’d love to hear him repeat that in front of Elspeth. He’d be out of the den, bunking with the pups again, as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

“Oh, so you know how females work now?” Max raises his bushy gray eyebrows, and Alroy snickers.

“He read about ’em in that book that said only wolves in zoos have alphas.” Khalil smirks at me. He’s spoiling for a fight. He must have sobered up.

“It’s a matter of respect,” I say, flagrantly ignoring our long and storied tradition of stealing our mates from under their birth packs’ noses.

“It’s fear,” Khalil shoots right back, holding my gaze with his laughing, red-rimmed eyes, daring me to deny it. “Brother Justus won’t claim his twitchy little mate because he’s figured out that if he has nothing, he has nothing to lose.” He flashes me a wry smile that tells me he figured out the same thing himself.

I smack him upside the back of his head for calling Annie twitchy. He grins and ducks away. He knows he overstepped, and we all know he’s right.

We’re pack. We let each other spout our preferred brand of bullshit, but at the end of the day, we’ve run together our whole lives. We’ve shared hundreds of kills, breathed each other’s farts, huddled together in the dead of winter to keep from freezing. We’ve stood together in six-foot holes, shoveling dirt so we could bury our dead.

We know each other to the bone.

It would kill me to really have her and lose her. I couldn’t walk away from that. And then what happens to the pack? Who will remind them, over and over again, that freedom for safety is a bad trade?

I listen to the elders’ stories. I know that history repeats, and we could so easily go the way of Quarry Pack.

When the lost wolves moved out of the dens to build their towns and cities—seduced by light at night, cold air in the summer, and fresh meat from a box at any time—some banished their wolves more thoroughly than others. Moon Lake built high rises so they didn’t even have to smell the earth anymore. North Border built walls to cage their own people.

For a long time, Quarry Pack kept to many of the old ways. Some even lived in dens, and we still ran with them then during full moons. And then, when my parents were young, Declan Kelly came from nowhere, killed their alpha, and took over, in part by convincing them that we were the enemy.

Obviously, there were no more runs after that, but until the wasting sickness decimated our numbers, our males would still risk occasional incursions onto their territory. Twice they found runts left to die in the forest, and once, they rescued a female beaten and left for dead in a gulch. One of the runts died, but the other lived, and the female happened to mate the male who carried her back to camp and birthed Alroy before she was taken by the sickness.

I love my pack, but I know them. They’re as susceptible as anyone to the lure of a strong male who promises to keep the bad wolves away. They want to believe that someone has the power to keep them safe, and if they were weak and scared again, like they were after the sickness, they’d follow any old asshole with a loud mouth and confidence.

No matter what they call me, I’m not the alpha, but I am the male sitting in the alpha’s seat so no one else can take it. As long as I’m here, Alroy’s dickishness is a nuisance. Khalil’s fatalism hurts only himself. If I’m gone, what happens when Alroy realizes no one can tell him to shut up? What happens when Khalil’s death wish tells him the pack can outrun a blizzard on the way to winter camp?

I almost didn’t survive walking away from Annie the first time. I’m a flawed, flawed male, but I know myself. I wouldn’t willingly live through that again.

But do I have a choice?

Already, thoughts of her run on a constant loop in the back of my brain—is she okay? Elspeth will keep an eye on her, and none of the males will dare go near her. The worst that can happen to her is boredom, but she doesn’t know that. Is she scared?

Of course, she is. What is she afraid of? Or maybe she feels better without me around.

Is she relieved that I’m gone?

Is she thinking about me?

I march on, stiff as a soldier, and my mind spins. I don’t know what to do. Fate is making all the calls, like she always does, and I need to make it right, and what do I do? Who do I fight? Who do I bark into submission?

Max must smell my angst because he snorts and says, “Oh, don’t worry about it too much, pup. Soon enough, you’ll be fetching her a snack at three o’clock in the morning because you were an asshole in her dream, and she can’t stand smelling you for another second, and she’s hungry.”

Alroy and Khalil’s faces twist in mocking disbelief.

Max laughs. “You wish you had what I have.”

They can’t say anything because we all know that yes, yes they do.

Finally, a strong wind gusts down from Salt Mountain, and I catch a faint whiff of bull. We instantly fall silent, our noses quivering.

Alroy jerks his head to the north, and I nod. We head off in that direction, careful to stay downwind. Alroy shifts and runs ahead to scout.

Khalil slides me a glance. “Winner gets the backstrap?”

I grin. “Loser gets the shank?”

He nods.

We bolt, Max’s long-suffering sigh in our ears. We race between the towering pines, our steps silent, our breath ragged. The sun is so high that the sky above us is a blue wash, not a cloud in sight. The tension and dread seep from my body as the clean mountain air fills my lungs.

My wolf wants out, but he knows this moment is mine. I need it—to remind myself that I am sure of my step and my direction.

The elk’s scent grows stronger. Khalil harnesses a second wind and pulls ahead, raising his bow. He’s got the bull in his sights. I’m not going to outrun him.

A ridge rises to my left. I cut over, scramble up the steep incline on all fours, and then sprint along the crest, loose stones and dirt rolling under my feet, skittering down the sides. I see the elk in a stand of trees. He lifts his head, alerting at the ruckus I’m making.

His eyes darken, recognizing my wolf.

My wolf howls.

The elk’s haunches flex.

Max’s voice floats to me on the wind. “Idiot. He’s gonna scare him off.”

No, I’m not. I’m quicker than that. I raise my bow, notch my arrow, aim, and let it fly.

The elk’s pupils blow wide. My arrow hits home, seconds before Khalil’s splits mine in half and Alroy’s wolf leaps from the brush, slitting the bull’s throat with his claws. The animal falls to his knees and then collapses, eyes open, staring sightlessly at the perfect sky.

I jog down the ridge, joining Khalil. We go to crouch by our kill, resting our hands on his warm, motionless flank. Alroy’s wolf comes to sit silently beside us.

Needles rustle in the limbs above us. We breathe in pine and sap, earth and air, our lungs fueling the muscles that his flesh will feed.

“Go in peace,” I say.

“May I have so good a death,” Khalil murmurs the words we were taught to say when we were pups by males whose faces we can hardly remember.

We’re silent on the walk back, except for Alroy’s muted muttering whenever it’s his turn to help haul the carcass.

I haven’t figured anything out.

I am still walking back to a mate who doesn’t want me. I’m still going to have to let her go again, and somehow, keep living.

Unless I can find the words to convince her to give me a chance.

To stay.

To leave my heart where it is—beating in my chest. For her.