The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(52)
“He had to come before his time. It fucked up the way he sees things.” His body’s tense, his face hard as he explains. He looks like he’s been called on the carpet in front of the elders.
“What made him come too soon?”
“You don’t need to know that,” he growls.
I duck my head, instinct driving me to appease the stronger male I’ve angered. I make myself lift my chin. No. I deserve to know. I tell him so.
“Yes, I do,” I say, willing my voice to be strong, not wounded, knowing as the first words tremble out that I’m failing. “I-I should know why I can’t have a mate.”
He lifts his head and frowns at the bullet holes in the top of the box. The light coming in is brighter now. It must be morning.
I wait.
“I don’t want you to know,” he finally says, meeting my eyes again. “I don’t want it in your head.” His voice doesn’t falter.
I curl my hands into fists, not because I want to fight, but because I’m desperate to hold tight to the last shred of myself that knows how to not care, but I think I lost it when I called for him—I think it’s already gone.
“I don’t want what happened between us in my head,” I say quietly, head bent. “That was the worst night of my life.”
“I— If I’d been awake, it never would have happened.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about earlier. In the cabin.”
For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. The blood drains from his face. His eyes go black. His hands curl into fists.
I figure he’ll stop talking now. Males don’t acknowledge criticism. Not in Quarry Pack.
I lower myself to my knees, tucking my tailbone to hide my pussy as best I can and wrapping an arm across my breasts. I rest my bare butt on my feet, careful so it doesn’t graze the floor. The box isn’t dirty exactly, but it’s a used cargo container. There’s a grime to the cold metal.
When he speaks, his voice is hard, but underneath, there’s a note that pierces my skin, punctures my heart. “I hurt you,” he says. “I tried not to, but I did anyway. I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my head—what I should have done.”
“What should you have done?”
“Told you why I had to leave.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you that I’m not strong enough.” His words burn like antiseptic. They might not be meant to hurt, but they do.
“So why say anything now?” I press my lips together so they don’t tremble, but I can feel my chin wobble.
“Because if this—” He stops, draws in a breath, and begins again. “If I don’t make it, I want you to know—” He coughs, and in a jagged, deep voice that scrapes softly across my skin, he says, “I want you to know that you are the most beautiful thing in the world, and even if I couldn’t have you, and even though I fucked it up, you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He coughs again in the suddenly silent container.
I realize my cheeks are wet. I don’t know what to say. To think. “I-I d-don’t want us to die.”
“You’re going to be okay, Mari. Watch for the opening, and when you get it, shift and run. I’ll take care of them. I think we’re heading north. Run south as fast as you can. Don’t stop. Okay?”
I wasn’t listening. I’m fighting back tears, and somehow in the past few minutes, as the sun’s risen high enough to shoot beams through the bullet holes, it’s gotten almost unbearably warm in here.
I twist my hair and hold it up on top of my head to get some air on the back of my neck.
From his end of the box, Darragh makes a strangled sound.
Oh. My boobs. I’m flashing him. I drop my arm and cover myself again. I still want to know why his wolf attacked me, but I feel like the moment has passed, and we’re somehow in a new place.
Darragh clears his throat. “I’m going to try again.”
I nod. My cheeks blaze.
He grunts, and the steel creaks, but in the end, the metal links clatter when he drops them, and when I peek back up at him, he’s panting and flushed and still chained to the wall. On his knees. My blood heats. I can’t bear to kneel here, doing nothing, afraid.
I need to move.
“I’ll try,” I say, collecting myself. I’m not strong when compared to the other females in the pack, but I do still have shifter strength, and leather’s weaker than metal. Why did this just occur to me?
I take a deep breath, and I try to do the same thing Darragh did, straining every muscle, and I pull, scraping the skin off my wrist when the strap won’t go over the bone, digging the band around my waist even deeper into my guts until it has to be nearly touching my spine.
I strain until I break out in a clammy sweat.
“Mari,” Darragh says gently. “That’s enough.”
I exhale and slump back to sit on my heels, rotating my sore wrist. As the burst of adrenaline ebbs, a bleakness rushes in to fill the space. “What if the plan is to leave us here? What if there is no opening?”
Darragh doesn’t answer. “We’ll give it a minute and try again,” he says. “Okay?”
I force myself to beat the hopelessness back. That’s not me. I keep going. I get back up. I’m not going to die in this box. That’s not going to happen.