The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(15)

The bond isn’t weaving together anymore. It’s a single cord, anchored under my breastbone like it’s always been there. It’s completely real inside me, but if I follow it out, at some point, it becomes kind of vague. Like the Saturday when Una and I drove to Chapel Bell in the fog, and we couldn’t see a foot past the hood of the truck.

Maybe the bond is deformed. Maybe that’s why this isn’t going right.

We enter camp by the commissary, and I expect Darragh to head up toward the lone female cabin, but instead, he turns toward the cabins clustered around the commons. I’m so distracted by my sore feelings that I don’t fully comprehend that he’s leading me to the alpha’s cabin until we’re there.

Darragh leaves me on the path at the bottom of the steps while he bounds up to pound on Killian’s door.

Is he seriously going to bust me for breaking the rules? Like I’m a pup, not his mate? Asshole.

I cross my arms and try to will my sweat to dry. Anxiety joins the rest of the weird stuff happening in my belly.

Killian throws open the door, shirtless in black sweats, a towel dangling around his thick neck. He and Darragh kind of size each other up in silence, and then Killian’s gaze moves over Darragh’s shoulder to take me in.

He lets out a short but displeased growl. Darragh squares himself so Killian has to lean to the side to keep scowling at me like I’m a bad wolf who took a dump on his carpet.

“If I may?” he says to Darragh, arching an eyebrow, and Darragh grudgingly steps to the side.

Killian pads out onto his porch and Darragh turns so that they’re standing next to each other, glaring down at me with disapproval, Darragh with his arms folded, Killian holding onto the ends of the towel hanging around his neck.

I feel small and gross and…abandoned.

My neck bends of its own accord. For some reason, Darragh’s wolf snarls at the show of submission. Challenged, Killian’s wolf snarls back louder, and for a moment, both males tense as they wrestle their wolves down.

My wolf curls herself into a tiny ball of fur in a far corner.

I’m on my own.

I squeeze my hands into balls and try really hard not to cry or breathe through my nose. I guess because he’s been working out, Killian reeks. Not like good clean sweat, though. Like stagnant pond scum.

“She walked out to my place,” Darragh says.

Killian’s chest rumbles with displeasure. “Alone?”

“Kennedy’s wolf led her there.”

Killian’s lips compress. “Did you kill him?” he asks like he’s asking about the weather.

My heart stutters. Would Darragh have really hurt Kennedy?

“No,” Darragh says. No elaboration. Just “no.” Killian grunts. I don’t know whether it’s approval for Darragh’s restraint or some other male thing I can’t understand.

Oh, it was really dumb to go up there. I see it now that I’m pinned in place with a crick in my neck, a headache gathering from the strain of looking up at these two males from the corner of downcast eyes.

I wish Una would walk by. She’d help somehow, or at least she’d stay close by so I wouldn’t be alone in the middle of the path, called on the carpet with everyone staring at me from behind their cabin curtains.

“You said you would watch her,” Darragh says to Killian.

My body instinctively tightens in anticipation of a fight. No one challenges the Alpha.

“Can’t watch her every second,” Killian retorts. He’s not even pissed. Not at Darragh at least. He’s glowering at me.

Darragh frowns at Killian’s answer.

“You want me to keep her locked up?” Killian asks with a toss of his shoulder.

An old fear blooms in my chest, and a vague memory—a coarse and demanding voice at our front door. Mom hustling me into the closet, shutting the door, and dragging the bureau across it. Snarls and whimpers and creaking springs. Mom letting me out, her hands shaking, and the bedroom stinking of shame, strange male, and human tobacco. Despite the hot afternoon sun, I shiver.

“No. She wouldn’t like that,” Darragh says. Who would like that?

“I could put her in with Cheryl,” Killian offers. “She’d keep her in line.”

Cheryl is the alpha female and Haisley’s mother. She’s mean. Since I was little, she’s always called me a baby doll, patting my cheek and pulling at my curls to make them spring. She does it hard, so it hurts.

Darragh scans my face. I’m careful not to make eye contact. “No,” he says. “That won’t work.”

I blink fast so the tears don’t come. This is existence in Quarry Pack in a nutshell. Lone females are voiceless, inconsequential things to be moved around like furniture. I hate this place. The crick in my neck begins to really ache.

“Well, I don’t know what you want me to do then.” Killian unwinds his towel and wipes his face and sweat-soaked hair. “I can punish her.”

Darragh growls so loud that three cabins away, a female lets out a startled shriek and a door slams. Killian’s wolf snarls back, and both males stand taller and face off, their shoulders broadening, muscles tautening.

Every fiber of my being wants to run, but with two alphas looming over me—and after this, I have no doubt that Darragh is a born alpha, too, even if he’s not the leader of any pack—my stupid instincts won’t let me do anything but cower.