The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(18)

He shakes his head and rubs his temple. For a second, I think he’s going to say more, but he must change his mind. He takes my elbow and urges me to continue up the path.

It’s less than a quarter mile, and he sets a brisk pace. In too short a time, he’s dropping me at the bottom of our porch stairs, stepping away, nodding at me to go on up.

I don’t want to.

He takes a few more steps back, shoving his hands in his pockets. I don’t want him to go. Not quite yet.

I hold my forearm out for him to look. “See? They’re gone.”

For a moment, his eyes flash, sunlight glinting off the gold rims, but then his face shutters and goes grim. “Don’t leave camp again. Or I’ll—”

I wait, but he doesn’t finish the threat. His tanned cheeks darken under his beard, and he jerks his chin toward the door.

“Go on,” he says. “Get inside.”

I do, a dopey mess of irritation and curiosity and hurt and excitement. A strange pulse beats between my legs. He lingers in the path for several minutes before eventually, he strides off back toward the commons. I know because I spy on him from the gap between the front curtains, and I count the seconds and the minutes it takes him to summon up the will power to go.





3





MARI





I take my shower, but I forgo the bath. Even though the cabin is cool—it doesn’t have the best insulation—I’m hot. Not feverish exactly, but flushed and warm to the touch. I guess that’s why they call it heat.

I can’t settle. I repaint my nails and change into a loose flowy white top and skirt, and then I pad into the kitchen for something to eat, forget what I’m doing, and wander into the common room to plop next to Kennedy on the sofa.

She’s lazing and gaming, her belly round with whatever she caught on her hunt earlier. Annie’s in her usual chair, fussing with her crochet. She’s teaching herself, so there’s a lot of unknotting yarn and muttering under her breath.

Una’s in her room, masterminding or whatever it is she does in there. She likes her privacy.

“He’s back,” Kennedy announces without taking her eyes off the TV screen. She means Darragh. He’s come back four times so far since he left me here earlier this afternoon. He stops for a few minutes by the old groundskeeper’s shed opposite our cabin and paces a while, plunging his fingers in his hair until he loses—or wins—a fight with himself and stalks off.

He really doesn’t want to be my mate. That’s fine. I feel ambivalent, too. He’s about the opposite of the male in my daydreams. Still, he could be a little less publicly conflicted. I’ve got feelings. And right now, they’re squishy and raw.

Kennedy’s wolf is unsettled by another male infringing on his territory, so we get a warning rumble a little bit before Darragh’s scent hits my nose.

Every time he swings by, he smells better. I’ve got my phone, and I’m scrolling, but the screen is a blur. I want to go out and confront him, put myself out of this misery, but I also want him to come knock on the door, so I’m trapped on the sofa, irritated by my own indecisiveness.

I feel like a train is rushing at me. I know that heat can come on over hours or days, weeks even. It depends on the individual. They do tell us that. Of course, Fate decided to stick me with not only the most unlikely mate, but what’s shaping up to be a fast heat. When did I first feel it? Yesterday morning?

I want more time. I want to know why Darragh’s wolf is crazy and why he lives up in the foothills away from the pack. I want to know what he likes to read and if he’s a good male underneath the hard exterior or if he’s at least a decent one. I’m not ready.

He’s going to put a pup inside me. I break out into a cold sweat. I can’t have a pup. When I have nightmares, I still crawl into bed with Una. Not often, but it happens.

I twist over the back of the couch and draw back the curtain an inch. He’s leaning against the cinderblock building across the path, glaring daggers at our front door. He’s done something with himself. Washed and combed his hair. Gotten someone to even it up and trim his beard. He’s wearing different pants. They’re a darker denim with no holes, no threadbare patches.

Are they brand new? I ease the window up a crack and sniff. It takes a minute to untangle the scents, but yeah, those are brand new jeans.

“What’s he doing?” Kennedy asks as she smashes buttons.

“Leaning against the creepy groundskeeper’s shed.” I hate that place. You couldn’t pay me to go inside. Kennedy says there are spider webs in there so thick they look like cotton stuffing.

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to go out and talk to him,” Annie suggests. Kennedy and I told her about the mate thing and swore her to secrecy. She’s horrified. Darragh’s basically her worst nightmare of a male.

She probably wants me to move him along. She and her wolf get so anxious around dominant males. No doubt that’s why she’s dropping all those stitches.

“Maybe he should come over here and talk to me.” I’m playing like this is a human courtship—the shy guy who knows he’s a little too old for the girl, working up the nerve to knock on her door—but I know it’s nothing like that.

There’s no such thing as too old for shifters. Dermot’s in his fifties, and Haisley’s in her early twenties. And Darragh isn’t working up his nerve. He’s waiting for the heat to take over, for me to lose my mind, make my nest, get on all fours, and present. My stomach aches.