The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #1)(83)

“Why?”

“I want to check out your leg.”

She flushes and tucks the book to her chest. “No.”

“Come on.” I’m not the kind that’s good at convincing people. I’m more of a doer. I cross the room and grab the book, setting it open and upside down on the end table so she doesn’t lose her place. I don’t know where she found it. I honestly didn’t know I had any. I asked why she wasn’t on her phone, and she said she doesn’t have unlimited data.

Who doesn’t have unlimited data? I’ve gotta put that on the list of shit to fix. I don’t need to be up in the middle of the night worrying that lone females are gonna run out of minutes while they’re off sneaking into town.

I draw Una to the center of the room and kneel, keeping a hold of her hands so she can’t scurry away. She’s got on a long flowy skirt like the crone wears and no shoes. Her top is loose around the neck so I can see my bite. When she blushes, it darkens. I like that.

“What are you doing?” Una bats at my hands as I raise her skirt.

“Hold these.” I shove it into her arms and sit back on my heels. She’s got her weight on the good leg, propping herself up on the ball of the other foot. The scars are awful. I skim my fingers over them as gently as I can. She sucks in a breath. “Do they hurt?”

“The scars? No.”

“But the leg hurts.” You can tell. If she’s been standing or walking awhile, her face gets real serious and strained.

“Sometimes.”

“Does it hurt now?”

“A little.”

“Where?”

She huffs a small sigh. “My hip. My thigh. My knee. My calf. The joints are the worst, but sometimes, the bones ache.”

“Why didn’t it heal?”

“Abertha thinks because it was so bad, and it got infected right away, it just couldn’t. Not all the way.”

I want to kill Thomas Fane all over again.

Or I want to have been the one to kill him. Beat him to death with his own thigh bone.

Una half-steps backward, and I realize my wolf is growling. I cup her knee, stroke up, and try to give her a reassuring smile. “Don’t mind him.”

“It’s hard not to.”

“He’s harmless.”

She barks a laugh. “Now that’s a lie.”

I grin. It is.

“Okay, let’s get started.” I rest my hand on the outside of her knee. “Lift your leg to the side. I’m gonna apply pressure. Press against my hand as hard as you can.”

“Why?”

“I wanna see what this leg can do. Then we’ll see what we can do to make it stronger.”

She’s quiet for a second. I look up. There’s pain in her eyes, and it’s echoed in our bond. I scrub my chest. Shit. I thought since she’s so active, she could take a little more.

I’m about to sit her back down when she says, “It’s not going to get any better.” She lifts her wobbling chin. “You just have to accept it.”

I move my hand, testing the muscle. It’s definitely underdeveloped, but it’s not nothing. “I disagree. You’ve got a lot to work with here.”

“I’m never going to win an alpha challenge, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if my leg got better, my wolf’s small.”

I let my hands slide down the back of her calves and circle her delicate ankles. She’s so damn lovely, still and somber, her brown hair in that neat braid.

“You don’t need to win an alpha challenge. An alpha belongs to you.” She gazes down at me with wide, disbelieving eyes, and I’d do anything—kill anything—for her to know I speak the truth. But I can’t, so I change the subject. “I just want you to get a little faster is all. I can’t walk as slow as you for the rest of my life. It’s either you get faster, or we get you one of those human Segways.”

“That’s a really dickish thing to say.” She doesn’t smell like hurt anymore, though. She considers me a second, and then she grabs my hand, presses it against her knee, and steadies herself on my shoulder as she lifts her leg. “But I wouldn’t turn down a Segway.”

She smiles, and it’s small and cranky, but it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

I work her out for another hour, testing her strength and range of motion and flexibility, and she lets me, and I’m grateful for it, but what I really want is another one of her tight, grumpy smiles.





An hour or so before dinner, Una excuses herself to the bathroom, and when she comes back, she grabs my hoodie from the hook by the door. She wore it to the gym earlier. I don’t think it’s registering with her that she’s kind of claimed it, and I’m not bringing it up.

“Where are you going?” I shove the balance disc we’d been working with back in the corner.

“The lodge. It’s time to help Noreen get dinner together.”

“You don’t do that anymore.”

She rolls her eyes and puts her hand on the doorknob.

My wolf growls.

“Stop that,” she snaps.

My wolf immediately offers a conciliatory whine. Sweet Fate. This is going to get out of hand.

I seize the bond, holding her in place while I stalk across the room. I crowd her, and she shrinks against the door. She smells like petulance and arousal, and I can tell her leg aches from the exercises. She didn’t eat much when I fed her earlier. I bet she’s hangry, too.