The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(21)

“You okay, sweetheart?” Noreen asks as if she’s noticing for the first time that I’m a bright pink, sweaty, damp mess.

“I’m good,” I tell her and muster up a smile. I actually am fine—preoccupied and soggy, but holding it together—until I go through the swinging door into the lodge hall and my face collides with the most unholy of stanks.

How did I not smell this in the kitchen? It’s like I was standing mere feet away from a latrine filled with zombies and sour milk, and I had no idea.

I’ve never felt my gorge rise before—I’ve only read it in books—but it rises, and I have to clamp my throat shut, or I’ll spew right onto the linoleum. I don’t know what would come up. When did I last eat? I had a plan for Una’s Manchego, but I didn’t end up following through.

I try to turn back, but Annie is right behind me, her tray rattling in her shaky grip. I have no choice but to step further into the miasma.

“What is that stink?” I hiss under my breath as she comes alongside me.

She sniffs. “The roast? Don’t let Noreen hear you. She won’t let you have any if she hears you talking like that.”

I press a forearm to my nose and focus on balancing my wobbling tray one-handed.

Annie clings to the wall as she picks her way to the B-roster tables closer to the dais. Killian’s already up there in his folding chair, manspreading in baggy athletic shorts, barking orders at two males he’s called up to spar for his entertainment.

It’s Fallon and Conor, a totally unfair match up. Conor’s in his twenties, and Fallon’s younger than me. Conor pins him round after round, and Fallon keeps barely wriggling free seconds before Ivo slaps the floor to call the match.

“See that?” Killian calls to someone at the A-roster table with glee. “It’s like the pup is greased.”

Whoever he spoke to doesn’t answer, but my gaze follows the direction of his comment, shuddering to a halt when I notice Darragh, straight-backed and tense, in the seat of honor at the head of the A-roster table.

Rowan is crowded way closer than she needs to be at his right. She’s leaning as far forward as she can while reaching for a saltshaker, her tits spilling obligingly from the neckline of her peasant blouse, but Darragh’s not looking at her.

He's staring back at me. His irises have turned such a dark brown, they’re almost black, except for the occasional flashes of gold like sparks off a blacksmith’s hammer.

The bond is a straight line through the hall, uninterrupted by packmates and tables, strong and new and strange and real. Inescapably real.

A male brushes past me to get to a trash can. My stomach lurches as his stench burns my nostrils. My shoulders heave. I keep the vomit down with will power and desperation. Darragh rises to his feet.

For the first time ever that I’ve seen, he’s wearing a shirt. A blue and green flannel. His hair is combed back neatly. I don’t like it. I want it messy, falling in his face. I want to run my fingers through it. I want to pull it.

I do?

I shift, transferring the tray to my other hand. I was too hot to wear my boots, so I slipped on pink ballet flats with tiny gold bows. I’m sliding around in them. Even my feet are sweaty.

My gaze drops so I don’t meet Darragh’s eyes. That would be too much, and this is already much, much too much.

I have to move forward, get to work, get through this somehow, but I’m trapped in place. I don’t want to wade any deeper into the stink of my packmates, but I don’t want to turn back anymore, either. My mate is here.

A sudden burst of blazing heat tears through my chest, and in that moment, a veil is ripped from my eyes. What have I been thinking? Darragh’s not a stranger. He’s as familiar as the paths I tread every day, as the trees standing sentinel over our territory, as the scent of sunshine.

I focus on the sweet flowing bond, and in my mind, I curl my fingers around it, and with all my might, I draw it to me.

Darragh squares his shoulders and firms his jaw. He comes to me.

He strides between the tables, every inch an alpha, packmates bending their necks out of instinct, those hungry for rank darting him challenging glances, but only out of the corners of their eyes. Females thrust their tits up, their fingers moving to fuss with their hair.

My wolf growls a threat she can’t possibly back up.

Up on the dais, Killian clears his throat, compelling everyone to give him their full attention. “Listen up, numbskulls,” he says as he does when he’s about to launch into a lecture.

No one sees me lead Darragh through the door to the kitchen. I take him out the back, past the dumpster and the oil tank before I slow to a stop, confused. What am I doing? I shake out my top, peeling the cotton free of my clammy skin, desperate for a hit of cool air.

Darragh growls. I blink up at him. There’s a full moon tonight, and it backlights him, casting his broad shoulders and chest in sharp relief. He’s so big and tall and silent and still and smoldering. He looks at me like I’m a plump partridge, and he’s waiting, waiting for me to waddle into range of his claws.

I’m so freaking hot. I’m a furnace. When the breeze blowing down from the hills hits my bare calves and chest and cheeks, it feels like ice water flicked on a frying pan.

“My body feels weird,” I tell him softly. “I can’t think straight.”

For a second, he tenses, that worried brow furrowing, and I think maybe he’s going to bail, run, disappear on me, leaving me alone. Again.