The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(78)

Killian grunts in agreement.

“I don’t do it for money.” It’s always bothered me that the young ones make up shit to call me, but I understand the impulse. Haunt of the Hills is less scary than the reality that exile sometimes isn’t punishment, it’s necessary.

Killian slides his cool gaze from roaming over his people to rest on me. “You do it for her.”

I do.

“And for us,” he says.

My jaw contracts.

“Your pack.” His shoulders square, a grimness falling across his face. “Listen, man. The past—it happened. The scars—they’re real. The past made us what we are. It broke shit that can never be fixed. I will never deny that.”

It’s undeniable. I live with that fact rampaging inside me, every moment of every day.

“But, you know, other shit is true, too. Some broken shit heals with time. Some scars, man, we give them to ourselves.” Killian rests his hands on his hips and arches his back, stretching. “And you know, all these years, you never left us. Not you. Not your wolf.”

A fist clenches my heart and squeezes. “And your point is?”

“You think you should bail.” He chuckles even though I don’t try to deny it. “You know what they say about a dude who only has a hammer?”

“No, what?”

“Every problem looks like a nail.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying.”

“I’m saying—how well did bailing work out last time?” He jerks his chin toward the infirmary. “For her?” He shakes his head like he’s out on a limb without a net, and that this isn’t a conversation he knows how to have. Do any of us?

“Man,” he says. “The one thing I know about females is that you might think you’re doing the right thing, but you should just—” He struggles for the word. “Just think better.”

“Think better?”

He’s really flustered, his face all tight and mean, and despite all the garbage rattling around in my brain, it’s entertaining.

“You know what I mean,” he says.

I don’t. I have no clue.

We fall back into silence. He gets on his phone and starts tapping. After a few minutes, Abertha emerges from the infirmary. She gives me a somber nod, but she doesn’t come over, instead making her way toward her cottage. She’s probably feeling itchy from being around so many folks. We’re similar in that way. She’d let me know if there was something wrong with Mari.

Mari doesn’t like Abertha. Mari’s suspicion has always flowed clear through the bond. It isn’t like that between the witch and I, though. I was a young male when I took out a feral who’d messed with her cat. Abertha was grateful—lonely and bored and hot as shit, no matter her age, which I’ve never been able to figure out.

As for me—well, I was nineteen or twenty, and she was willing.

Mari’s not gonna want to hear that, though, and I’d rather peel my own skin off than see her blue eyes go big and shiny when I try to bumble through that explanation.

I cannot wrap my brain around taking Mari back to my place, caring for her, talking to her.

It’s not that I don’t want it. I want it so fucking bad.

But how do you do something like that?

I’ve been alone since I was a nine-year-old pup.

How do you feed a female and bed her and leave her during the day to hunt when at any minute, she could be taken from you—you could not be strong enough, you could let down your guard for a second—and then you have to live in an empty place again, but you know what it feels like for shit to be different?

I stare at the infirmary door as the females filter back inside to watch over my mate. I’ve never felt so lost, and my wolf has never been so restless, tetchy, and inscrutable.

The question is kind of moot—I’d never hurt Mari to avoid pain myself, and it’d hurt her if I walked away.

But how can I keep her safe if I stay when I have this beast inside me?

There are no answers, and I can’t be here anymore, standing around, ruminating about shit I cannot and never have been able to change, and wishing shit was different than it is.

I clap Killian on the back. “You’ll stay here?”

He eyes me. I keep my face carefully blank.

He nods. “When I need to go, I’ll have Lucan and Fallon guard her.”

My wolf growls. Killian raises an eyebrow. I swallow the sound, jerk a nod, and set off into the woods where late evening shadows are gathering.





14





MARI





After I sleep for a few hours and wake up stiff as a board, Una and Cheryl agree that I’m recovered enough to leave the infirmary. Kennedy and Annie help me back to our cabin. Lucan and Fallon follow us, wearing shoulder holsters. Kennedy says Killian has ordered that all the males be armed, and he’s tightened patrols.

I didn’t think Lucan could hold any more swagger, but that was before they let him carry a gun. He’s strutting around like Wyatt Earp in a ribbed tank and low hanging athletic shorts.

Una says that Darragh is at the lodge with Killian, his lieutenants, and Cadoc Collins, the new alpha of Old Den Pack, and his council. Ivo and Tye tracked our trail back to where the container was. Apparently, it’s gone, as well as the bodies we left behind. They did find a burn pit, hastily covered with dirt and leaves, filled with the charred remnants of clothes and shoes.