The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #1)(27)

“What did they want?” Mari asks. “Were they messing with you ‘cause you attacked Haisley?”

“Kind of?” Haisley is a Byrne—Lochlan’s cousin and Eamon’s niece. They’ve never seemed to give a crap about her before though. “Eamon was, like, doing a whole villain monologue.”

Mari shudders. “His sideburns are creepy as shit.”

“Agreed.”

“A-are you going to tell Killian?” Annie asks.

I wrap an arm around her waist as we turn to walk home. She’s shaking like a leaf. “Why would I?”

“So he can tell them to leave you alone.”

I shake my head. I’m not opening any can of worms with Killian Kelly. That was bad and scary, but it’s just words. We’ve all heard it before, and we will again. In Declan Kelly’s day, blah blah blah. You females better watch out because blah, blah, blah.

I don’t want to say that, though. It might be true, but I don’t want to ever tell my girls we just have to ‘suck it up, buttercup.’ So I say, “Killian’s not my mate.”

“But he is your alpha,” Mari pipes in.

I’m not sure why the point makes me grumpy, but I get quiet, and when we get back to the cabin, I turn down a beer and excuse myself to take a shower before kitchen duty.

I’ve got wolf drool and hairs all over me, and my clothes reek of Killian’s wolf. That’s probably why the Byrnes decided to hassle me. I walk the blouse and skirt to the hamper while I run the water, and because I’m weird, I hold them to my nose and sniff.

All the lingering disquiet from the encounter with the Byrnes dissipates, and my wolf’s tail wags, excitement thrumming in my middle.

Killian’s scent is awesome. Like the one night each summer growing up when the elders let us pups go to the fireman’s carnival in town—humid haze, velvet darkness, candy apples, the tantalizing trace of plentiful prey, and happy howls.

The scent drags me back in time, uncoiling the anxious knot in my belly and winding me up at the same time. It’s dark magic. Tempting. Familiar.

Intriguing.

I dangle the clothes over the hamper lid, but I don’t let go.

I should soak them in the sink so the place doesn’t reek of male. Laundry day isn’t until Friday. The other girls don’t want to catch a whiff of alpha every time they use the bathroom. Talk about harshing your mellow.

I should do that, but instead, I walk them back to my bedroom, fold them neatly. and hang them over the chair by my bed where I put the clothes that I figure I can get another wear out of before washing.

It’s dumb and embarrassing, something a girl would do right before her first heat, the kind of nesting mimicry that girls always got teased for in high school. It’s a ridiculous thing to do, but my wolf approves wholeheartedly. It gives her ideas.

I head back to the shower, and while I scrub briskly from head to toe, rinsing off the fear scent with scalding hot water, she bounces around—the Byrnes forgotten—spitballing. We should go for a run with Killian’s wolf. Sleep huddled up next to him. Wear the skirt to dinner so the other females know he’s ours.

I put the kibosh on that. Not ours. Don’t want.

She growls, but her heart’s not in it, the silly, giddy, ball of sunshine.

Not ours. Leave him alone. No fighting.

I flex, force her to recognize that I’m serious. She whines, and then she tucks herself in a corner, grumbling.

She’s not actually going to act on her ideas. She’s chastened. Haisley’s wolf tore her up. She’s painfully aware of her limits now, and besides, I don’t think she can take me by surprise again. I know the sensation of an oncoming shift now. I’ll be able to stop her if she tries to take our skin.

I’m sorry that she’s disappointed, but she’ll get over it. We both will.

I hustle back to my room, wrapped in my towel, after listening to make sure Kennedy’s playing her video games out front. Mari, Annie, and I don’t mind a little nudity—or in Mari’s case, a lot—but Kennedy is bashful.

I sit at the vintage school desk I use as a vanity and take my time brushing and braiding my hair. Old Noreen never really needs us until it’s time to serve. She says we get under foot.

My oval mirror hangs on a nail from the wall. I scavenged it from the white elephant table at the farmer’s market. My seat is a step ladder that I found in the outbuilding across the path. Mari’s terrified of the place, but it’s just an old groundskeeper’s shed. There’s not much in there except cans of dried-up paint and glass jars filled with cobwebs and nails.

Sometimes I wonder what the other female’s rooms look like, the ones who mated at first heat, or the ones with fathers or uncles to live with. The “protected” females. Do they have nice, matching furniture? Framed pictures and padded satin hangers for the clothes they buy from town?

I watch HGTV. Do they have an accent wall? A window seat filled with pillows?

I’m not jealous. Not much. In a way, it’s my worst nightmare. I don’t want to be accountable to a male for where I go and what I do. But I do wonder. What’s it like knowing there’s a powerful male looking out for you?

A memory flashes. Killian’s wolf laying sprawled on my lap, his sharp eyes taking in everything—me, the garage, Liam and Annie, the birds overhead, the distant forest hoots and cracks and snaps. I wasn’t alone. No one would have dared approach us. Touch my arm. Prick my skin with their claws.