The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(80)

Tingles begin low in my belly, and a wave of shyness creeps over me. Even with my eyes cast down, I know everyone’s looking at us.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you,” I say, my cheeks heating, as if that isn’t exactly what I did.

“You were sleeping.” His fingers haven’t left the placket of his shirt. He smooths it down, his hand hovering over the place where the bond flows from him to me and back the other way.

“You haven’t slept yet,” I say. It’s a guess.

He shakes his head.

We stare at each other, flushing and awkward as hell, and I vaguely register that the others are going back to their conversations and devices.

Is he thinking about the container? About what we did?

My fingers fly to the bite mark. He tracks the movement, and before I can lower my hand, he’s gently tugging my collar away from my neck, and our fingers tangle.

He sucks in a breath. “It’s red. Is it supposed to be red like that?”

I have no idea. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as it did.”

He tenses and drops his hands to his side. “You wouldn’t let Abertha touch it?”

My stomach turns. “It’s my mark.”

His shoulders relax. The answer seems to assuage his displeasure. “She’s a friend, you know. She just wants to help.”

I take a step back and fold my arms. “Your friend.”

Slashes of color appear under his cheekbones, and his gaze darts around the lodge, like he’s looking for an out or an assist.

I don’t know why I’m pressing the point. I understand how things were between them, and it’s not like we’re a normal mated couple, and even if we were, you don’t get to be upset because your mate had experiences before you found them. That’s way outdated thinking.

I still hate her, and there’s no way she’s touching my bite mark.

He takes a step forward, leaning closer. No one is near enough to overhear, but still, he pitches his voice lower when he says, “There’s been no one since I noticed you.”

Blood floods my face. Part of me wants to change the subject, but I don’t know what to change it to, and I don’t know what I’m doing here except I couldn’t stay away from him any longer.

Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Me chasing him?

My frightened eyes cling to his vaguely panicked ones, my brain clinging to what he just said so I don’t spin into a full-blown freak out. He hasn’t been with anyone since he noticed me? “That morning at Abertha’s cottage?”

He blinks, the line between his eyebrows reappearing. “It was before that.”

It’s my turn to blink. “Before that?”

He shifts in his boots, scrubs his neck, and glances over his shoulder at the males conferring on the dais. “Let’s get out of here for a while, eh?”

The change of subject throws me, but I’m quick to nod. I don’t like being around this many strange males. It’s the opposite feeling of the females gathered around me in the infirmary.

“Wait here,” he says. He goes to talk to Killian, and one of the humans interrupts, showing him something on a phone. He shakes his head, cutting him off, and returns to me.

While he was preoccupied, no one came over or even shot me a glance. It’s like there’s a bubble around me or an invisibility cloak. I’m female, the only shifter with blonde curls that I know of, and I have boobs. Males always look, especially those from other packs. But not in this room, not now.

It’s a weird feeling. I kind of like it.

As Darragh strides back to me, it hits me hard. My life is different now. Even if we go back to pretending each other doesn’t exist, I’m not going to be little Mari anymore, going about my honey and craft business, more or less background scenery for the high-ranking wolves in this pack.

I’ll be Mari, the lone wolf’s rejected mate.

My stomach sours.

“Want to go somewhere?” Darragh asks when the door of the lodge shuts behind us.

“Yeah.”

He takes my hand to lead me across camp and blood roars in my ears. Is he taking me back to the guest cabin from the night we mated?

But we turn off past the commissary and up the path to the garage, and I calm down, but not entirely. My wolf is on edge, too, pacing our boundary, whining.

It’s late in the afternoon, and the sun is lower in the pale blue sky. It’s a perfect fall day, yellow and red leaves rustling, air so clear that the caws of crows ring out like bells.

When we get to the garage, Liam’s there as usual. He gives me a wave, but instead of wandering over like he usually does when I come by to borrow a vehicle, he hangs back by the truck he’s working on.

Lucan and Fallon followed us from the lodge, and unlike when they escorted me earlier, now that I’m with Darragh, they hang back, too.

I can actually scent their unease. It’s not fear, exactly, but it’s damn close. They keep Darragh in their sights, and like the males at the lodge, they give him a wide berth.

It strikes me, hard in the sternum, how freaking lonely it must be to be him. It stops me in my tracks.

Darragh pauses, too, stopped short by my hold on his rough hand. He casts me a concerned frown. I squeeze his hand, as tight as I can, my small hand enveloped in his, his grip easily strong enough to crush my bones, but so gentle, so careful. His lips curve, bemused.