The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #1)(7)

But it does. Thump. Thump. Steady and sure. As if nothing happened.

As if the universe hadn’t told me, in the most basic of terms, that I’m less than nothing.

The silence in the great room is suffocating, and then chaos breaks out. There are catcalls and hoots and laughter. Killian snaps his teeth, and the pack lowers the volume until the derision and amusement is a dull roar filling the room.

“Get her out of here,” Killian says to his lieutenants. They try to out-stare each other until, finally, Tye huffs, strides over, and grabs my elbow. He marches me out, hauling me back to my feet when I trip, steering me across the open floor and down a corridor to the rear exit.

He kicks the screen door open and thrusts me into the dark.

“Go home,” he says, his voice surprisingly free of scorn. “Don’t come back around for a while. Let things cool down.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He goes back inside, letting the door slam behind him.

I’m alone in the dark, naked and trembling, and the worst is that now the danger is past, heat is creeping through my veins again. Warm want and longing rise as the adrenaline ebbs. Slick drips down the insides of my thighs.

I squint into the night. My senses are sharper than they’ve ever been—there’s a new richness to the faded green and brown rust of the dumpsters, to the musk of the raccoons that circled the container and ambled off into the trees.

Oh, hell. I’ve been thrown out with the trash.

Well, I’m not going to stay here. I head into the woods. There is no way I’m going back around front to the path so I can stumble naked past the old males smoking cigars on the porch.

Killian’s words ring in my ears. What have I done for this pack?

Endured it for twenty-seven years. Cooked their food. Cleaned their lodge. Washed their clothes. And in between I taught myself—and then the other lone females—how to make preserves, and keep bees, and dry herbs, and raise hens for eggs, and forage for mushrooms.

I figured out how to drive and how to sell our goods at the human market, and then I figured out the internet. I made money. Money for phones and books and whatever we want. Money so that we don’t have to ask the males for anything, and we owe them nothing.

We paid for Old Noreen’s massage chair. A rental on the far side of town so Kennedy can shift in private. Annie’s books and music and movie subscriptions. Video games for my old foster brother Fallon that he resells to all his friends who haven’t made the cut to fight on the circuit yet.

I force myself to count so I don’t drown in the hole Killian shoved me into. I’m dangling, holding on for dear life, nails dug into a slippery edge, but I’m not nothing.

I might not be male or mated—I might not have a father or uncle to “protect” me—but I have something to show for my life.

The coop and bee yard at Abertha’s cottage. The patches of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. Our plot of medicinal herbs—calendula, peppermint, lemon balm, and chamomile. The greenhouse that the girls and I built ourselves.

We all have phones. Even Old Noreen so she can call her sister in Moon Lake whenever she wants.

Kennedy’s video game consoles. Mari’s sexy party dresses and high heels that she can only wear around the cabin and the melatonin so she can sleep.

The chasm yawns, and my life feels so small—I feel so small—but I’m not. I mumble that over and over as I stagger through the underbrush, aimless, heat itching at my skin, breasts full and aching, my wolf still mewling for help.

I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.

Where am I going?

I could leave.

I have cash in a jar, hidden in the knot of an oak tree behind our cabin.

I have a phone. Four hundred minutes, pre-paid.

I could live in the human world. I don’t want to, but if I kept to myself, it could be tolerable. But, dear Fate, the noise and the smells—My stomach turns, and somehow, that ignites a spasm between my legs, and it’s so wrong, so disjointed.

I’m devastated, not turned on, but my innards have gone haywire. My wolf cowers and weeps.

Yes. I have my wolf now. That means I have another choice. I could go feral. Live on my own in the foothills like Darragh Ryan.

Leave my girls to fend for themselves.

Be alone. Always.

I’ve considered my options a thousand times. Some days, staying seems impossible, but I don’t have the strength to cut off my leg to escape the trap. This is a shitty pack, but I was born to it. Shedding it would be like shedding my own skin. Wolves are pack animals. My girls are more than family. They’re pieces of my self.

I don’t want to leave them. Or Old Noreen or the elders who are kind or the males like Fallon who aren’t the worst.

I can’t go back to the cabin, either.

I stop, lean against a tree, and take in my surroundings. The woods are dark, and the night creatures—the bullfrogs by the river and crickets and owls—hush as I stagger through. I’m a predator, and that is such a joke.

I’m weak. Defective. Rejected.

I reach for anger, my plans, my blessings—the handholds I usually cling to when I can’t take it anymore, but there’s nothing there. Only grief and shame and stupid longing.

Mate.

I have no mate.

How far can I run with three good legs?

I let the wolf take my skin, and I whisper, “Go. Go.” The shift is an agony, but I welcome the pain.