The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(10)

Darragh’s wolf lets loose another round of mad snarling, and Darragh tenses again, bracing himself like he’s holding his wolf back from rushing into battle with me. I immediately break eye contact and bare my neck. Sooner than before, he masters him. I spend the time quaking in my white patent leather Docs, effectively treed against a wall made of rotten wood.

This was not my best idea.

I tried to wait patiently in camp for him to come back, but when he didn’t show up, and the heat flashes came more and more frequently, I got itchy. And then restless. Then crabby. Bitchy. Frantic. Finally, I burst out in hysterical tears when I accidentally dropped a bowl of blackberries on the floor and stepped on some by accident. That’s when Kennedy said she’d take me to Darragh’s if I pulled my damn self together.

Thank Fate that Kennedy’s wolf is off chasing rabbits now. If he heard the sound Darragh’s wolf is making right now, there would be a very short and one-sided fight. The smart move when a wolf sounds as bloodthirsty and moon mad as Darragh’s is to bare the neck, but Kennedy’s wolf is both a dumbass and a badass. He’d take his chances, and he’d get torn apart.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Darragh’s wolf could take Kennedy’s. He sounds like a mega-beast. Like an alpha. Is that why he’s so riled? Because he smells another male on me?

Shit. I didn’t think about that. Darragh seemed chill with Kennedy and me going for a run together the other night. Still, everyone knows that mates who haven’t done it yet get hella possessive, that the scent of competition can even push them into rut.

I need to clarify the situation. “Kennedy and I are just friends. Best friends. I mean, we love each other, but not in that way. Like siblings. Or like, Army buddies in the movies.” Oh, God. He’s not saying anything, just clenching that sharp jaw, so I keep rambling. “We’ve known each other for years. We’re roommates. With Annie and Una. In the lone female cabin.”

He doesn’t say anything, but at least his wolf’s snarls have subsided again into a persistent rumble. Should I try to make my escape? I inch sideways.

Instantly, his wolf’s rumble swells to a booming growl, rolling over me like a wave, triggering another jolt of adrenaline followed by a wave of neck-tickling heat. The muscles in Darragh’s neck strain ’til they look like they’re gonna burst. I ease back to the exact spot where I was, lining my feet up with the boot prints I’d made in his dirt floor.

But what if that was a “get the hell out of here, bitch,” not a “get back where you were” growl?

“Uh, should I go?” I squeak. “I could come back some other time? When it’s good for you?”

By the dark flush on his face, Darragh’s wrestling his wolf back down, and when the growls are low enough for him to speak again, he says, “You aren’t supposed to leave camp without an escort.”

I blink. “I had an escort. Kennedy.”

His strong brow furrows. “It’s not safe.”

I didn’t smell anything more dangerous than a possum the entire way here. “Kennedy’s wolf is really tough.”

Darragh’s wolf snarls. I snap my mouth shut.

God, my back itches. Sweat is still dripping down my spine, and it’s driving me nuts because I’m too scared to scratch it. My nose tingles. I’m going to cry. This is not how I saw this going. I feel like I’m being called on the carpet by the teacher, but I never got in trouble back at Moon Lake school.

I sniffle. Darragh’s brow creases more deeply. Alarm flashes across his face.

His nostrils flare as he draws in a deep, bracing breath, and he forces his muscles to slowly, deliberately unflex.

“You should sit,” he finally grinds out.

My gaze darts around the place, looking for a chair. There’s the primitive stacked stone fireplace he’s looming next to. A battered trunk. A ragged sleeping bag with a soot-stained kerosene lantern on the floor next to it. A book. It’s upside down, so I can’t tell what it is, but it’s been through the war, too.

And there’s a huge freaking sword propped against a wall. It’s rusty—God, I hope that’s rust—and dented and the blade is nicked in places, but not in a way that makes it seem old—in a way that makes it seem well-used.

What does he kill with a sword? He’s a freaking wolf. He has claws.

Oh, there’s also an almost empty bottle of whiskey lying on its side in the middle of the floor, a few inches from me. Without thinking, I reach out with my foot and toe the glass, spinning it to point in his direction. The scrape on the weathered wood is painfully loud.

Darragh’s wolf doesn’t seem to mind that move. His rumble stays at the same level, clearly a threat, but more of a “that’s right, I’m the alpha here” rather than “I am imminently going to eat you.”

My wolf’s fear eases a little more at the same time a new worry rises in my thinking, human brain.

I can’t live here. There is no chair.

And, much more importantly, there’s no bathroom. If there is, it’s an outhouse, and nope. No way. I need indoor plumbing, and you are never going to catch me sitting bare-assed over a ditch in the ground like I don’t know for a fact that spiders and snakes live in holes.

I don’t want to get knotted for the first time in here either. There’s no door.