The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(19)

This is supposed to be a special time. My mother is supposed to give me a basket of familiar blankets, quilts, and pillows. My mate is supposed to guide me up to the dens if he’s traditional, or to the cabin he’s gotten us if he’s done well enough on the circuit to earn one. But I don’t have a mother, and my family’s linens were all redistributed when she died, and they fostered me out.

And Darragh doesn’t fight, so no cabin. Is he going to take me to the dens? It’s not what I dreamed of for myself, but it could be okay. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but the dens smell like pack. Like if we had a smell, all of us, even the ones who’ve gone before, the dens would be that scent—earth and stone and long-ago smoke. It’s not my aesthetic, but I’m Quarry Pack, too. It speaks to me.

But if Darragh takes me to the dens, what will I do for a nest?

I anxiously knead my skirt. I don’t like how it feels on my legs. I don’t like the elastic on my panties or the places where my top brushes my breasts either, but the skirt is the worst.

“Do you guys mind if I just—?” I stand, shimmy the skirt off, and kick it away. Cool air hits my legs as Kennedy and Annie look up at me, quickly masking their surprise.

“You do you, buttercup,” Kennedy says and goes back to her game.

I collapse back on the sofa, and the upholstery feels one hundred times worse against my skin than the skirt did. I don’t want to go back to my room for pants, though. I’m glued to peeking out the window at Darragh. How can he stand so still for so long? Maybe it’s because he’s such a great hunter.

A picture pops into my head of him stalking through the dark woods, that sword at his side, silent and lethal, tracking his enemy, barefoot and bare-chested. I squirm, clenching my thighs and drawing my knees to my boobs. I feel puffy and swollen between my legs.

“This sucks,” I say quietly. “It’s so embarrassing.”

“I mean, it happens to everyone eventually,” Annie says with a gentle smile.

“Not to males.”

“They go into rut.” Annie’s eyes round. A whiff of her fear snakes into the new jeans, sunshine, and green grass scent wafting through the cracked window. “That’s worse.”

I guess she’s right, but it’s no comfort. A male in rut loses his mind and takes what he wants, regardless of whether the female has fully succumbed to her heat. It’s horrible, and females get hurt. The bond doesn’t usually survive, at least not in any functional way. That’s freaking awful, but I don’t feel any better about my body disconnecting my brain and morphing into one hundred percent horny animal.

I don’t even think my wolf likes the idea. She’s pacing nervously around inside me, jittery and tense. She wants us to go to Darragh. She thinks he’ll help.

I’m not ready for that kind of help.

I shift to rest my chin on the back of the couch, and my boobs skim the cushion. I shudder, the slight brush wracking my whole body like I was zapped by a live wire. I wrap my arms tight across my chest, hoping the pressure stops the sensation, and it’s better, but my breasts still feel like ripe cantaloupes about to burst.

“This is so awkward,” I mumble, my breath fogging a cloud on the glass.

“Do you want an ice pack or something?” Annie asks, concern in her voice. Annie might be as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof, but she’ll always be there for you if you’re not doing so well.

“You can tell that I’m hot?” I crane my neck to look at my chest. My skin is as rosy pink as if I’ve run a mile.

“Your face look like a baboon’s ass,” Kennedy pipes up. On the TV screen, a tank explodes. She smirks.

I lay my palms against my cheeks. The heat radiates. “I wish I knew how long I had. Until—you know.”

Annie and Kennedy both grimace. They get it. It’s the sword hanging over all our heads. Lucky females like Haisley Byrne or Rowan Bell, with powerful fathers and brothers, are raised to look forward to their heats like it’s the equivalent of a human quincea?era or something. Nothing bad could possibly happen. The males in their lives wouldn’t let it.

But we don’t have male relatives. There are no guardrails when our biology turns us into mindless animals. I squint at Darragh. He’s casting tortured glances down the path. I bet he’s going to take off again soon.

Is he going to hurt me? I mean, I know it can hurt the first time regardless, but is he going to be careful? He took a shower and changed. That’s a good sign, right?

A voice in the back of my head whispers “that’s a really low bar, don’t you think?”

I can’t take the strain anymore. I rise abruptly to my feet, snatch up my skirt, and tug it back on. Annie startles.

“Sorry,” I say.

She waves it off and digs in the chair cushion for the crochet hook she dropped.

“I’m going to head down to the lodge for dinner prep.” I’m a half hour early, and as a rule, we don’t show a minute earlier than we have to, but I can’t sit around in this stuffy cabin anymore. “You don’t have to come.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kennedy says. “Just let me get to a save point.”

Annie begins to wind up her yarn and stow it in her old lady knitting bag. I bang on Una’s door to tell her we’re leaving early, but she’s in the shower. She’ll meet us there. She likes to go separately anyway. She takes longer than we do because of her leg, and she gets embarrassed that we walk slow to keep pace with her.