The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(31)

With shaking hands, I turn the doorknob and step out onto the porch.

The moon is low, but it’s full enough that it casts a glow over the black outlines of trees and the groundskeeper’s shed and Darragh, standing in the middle of the path, arms tense at his sides, bare chested in jeans. His hair is loose and snarled. He has two black eyes, a fat lip, and a split eyebrow. Dried blood drips from his eyebrow down the side of his face.

Something reaches for me through the bond, and I turn off my ears, unfocus my eyes, refuse to listen. I let it pass in the periphery of my awareness as I stare at the space above his head.

Darragh’s throat bobs. “Abertha says you’re okay.”

She left here and went to him. They talked about me. He talked to her. The cold black pit inside me yawns wider.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

The wound in my side is hot, and I guess it hurts, but I don’t even register it as pain. I can’t feel anymore. I won’t.

“You’re safe. He can’t—I won’t let him near you. I swear.” His voice is gritty and raw, his face bloodied, his golden eyes wild and tortured, and I don’t care. The black pit is overflowing like floodwater, like a thick fog, numbing everything.

A very calm and clear voice lists out facts in my head. He sent Abertha to you. He didn’t come himself. Then, he talked to her about what his wolf did, and he got into a fight, and hours later, he comes to stand outside your house to tell you that Abertha says you’re okay.

He is not your mate.

The black spreads until it doesn’t exist inside me anymore. It is my insides. This is reality. I don’t have a mate.

And yet, still, without conscious intention, the question flies from my lips. “Why?”

And I really am a stupid, na?ve child because despite the fact that I know there is no explanation that will fix this, no explanation that will make it okay, no explanation that would make him a different person, a male who didn’t nut on my back and bail—a very small flame of hope still flickers in my chest all the same.

“W-why?” I ask again and hold my breath.

His spine straightens and his shoulders go back like he’s facing an opponent in the ring. Like he’s waiting for the bell.

He doesn’t say anything.

He meets my eyes, his chin high, somehow still unbearably beautiful despite his beaten face, and he doesn’t say anything at all.

But I wait.

I hold my breath until my lungs burn because the part of you that wants to be loved is so very, very fucking hard to kill.

I hold my breath until I can’t, and the air whooshes out in a jagged rush, and rage tears words from my throat.

“Get out of here! Go away and don’t you ever dare come back. Don’t ever even speak to me again. Don’t look at me. You’re dead to me, you hear? You’re dead. Fuck you, Darragh Ryan. Fuck you.”

Then I whirl around, run inside, and slam the door, my pathetic little girl voice stumbling why? echoing in my ear.

There is no why.

Not in this fucked-up world. There’s only what is and what’s next.

Darragh Ryan doesn’t exist in this world anymore.

I crawl back into bed, and I stare at the pink canopy, and I begin to teach myself how to make that real.

When Darragh finally leaves, I don’t know. And if there’s a mournful howl in the wee hours, just before daybreak, I don’t hear it. Not at all.





5





MARI, FOUR YEARS LATER





“Hey, Mari,” Kennedy hollers through the screen door of the lodge kitchen. “Special meat delivery for you!”

Old Noreen, Annie, and Lucan pop straight up from what they’re doing and look at me. My face bursts into flame.

“You take it,” I call back, my body tensing like I’m bracing for a hit. “You’re out there.”

I hear her murmur in low tones to someone out back. No, not just someone. It’s Darragh Ryan. The mate who wasn’t, but who won’t quite go away.

I concentrate on the carrots I’m peeling, focus on not getting distracted and nipping the tip of a finger off with the peeler. Go away, go away, go away.

For years, he was content to drop off his gifts of obligation with Killian or Old Noreen and disappear again for weeks, or once, months, but early this summer, he started showing up at the kitchen door when I’m doing meal prep with fresh meat or firewood or tanned skins and furs.

I’ve managed to avoid him every time. It’s not the bond that gives me the heads up—I’ve become a master at ignoring it—but his scent precedes him and gives me fair warning to make myself scarce. He snuck up on me this time. I sniff, and damn if it’s not there, under the overpowering smell of the onions Lucan is chopping.

Like always, the sunshine smell tickles my nose. While I try to blink away a sneeze, I notice a tingle between my legs, and immediately, I panic. My heart lodges in my throat as I scan my body. My boobs feel normal. Except for the tingle, which is gone now, there’s nothing going on downtown.

I’m hot, but the kitchen’s hot. It’s a normal hot. This isn’t heat. That’s not why he’s here.

I force myself to breathe and will my pulse to slow its roll. Everything’s okay. For now.

How much longer am I going to luck out? Four years between heats isn’t unheard of, but it’s definitely on the long side.