Page 13 of The Alpha's Rejected Mate

But as soon as I’d finished, I ran upstairs to check my shoulder and arm in my bedroom’s looking glass. I was flummoxed to find nothing unduly wrong. But it had felt as if I’d beenbadlywounded. As I stared at my reflection in the mirror, looking into my green eyes, a flash of hazel ones appeared in my mind’s eye. Deep down, Iknewwhat I’d felt had been Gavin’s pain. In werewolf culture, fated mates were said to form a telepathic connection, which made them extra powerful in the pack, given that they could silently communicate with one another during a hunt. My skin prickled with wonder as I mused whether this was a sign that such a connection existed between Gavin and me.

Despite everything that had happened between us, I fidgeted restlessly for the rest of the evening, unable to focus on my book or the pile of mending I had to do on my sewing basket. I kept my bedroom door cracked open, listening for any sound from Catrina’s room. At least if she got a call or tried him herself, I’d know. But as the hours wound on, and no new pain transpired, I convinced myself that no news was good news.

The experience left me rattled, though. Over the next few days, the thought of that pain and our shared connection frequently crossed my mind. I couldn’t help dwelling on it and what it meant. He may have rejected me, and by Vana there was no way we were ever going to mark each other, but we were still linked.

On the other hand, my excitement about gaining my wolf soon lightened my heavy spirits. And if doing chores with Colt made me feel warm, holy Vana, shifting with him made me positively giddy.

Each new day, I found myself feeling as if it were Christmas. Waking at the crack of dawn, Colt and I would steal out the house and out to the woods. The weather was fair and wonderfully dry for this time of year, and we made the most of it.

In a blur of fur and fangs, my wolf emerged. It was a marvel to see the forest through her lupine eyes. Everything seemed smaller and more detailed, but at the same time, bigger and more textured. Through her eyes, I felt even closer to everything—the rocks, the trees, and the sky. To everything. Through her, I knew I was closer to Vana in a way I’d never been before.

When Colt and I ran together, tearing through the woods, with the trunks and leaves blurring in the periphery of my vision, I felt as thrilled as those first humans must have felt as they ran alongside Vana in the very beginning.

Thanks to Colt’s guidance, I was getting more accustomed to my wolf. As we wandered out with the dawn and toward the woods for the third day in a row, I said, “Let’s go to the canyon. We can check for peregrines, too.”

My adoptive brother shook his head. “It’s best to keep away from the chasm until you’ve gotten more control over her.”

“I’m ready,” I said, the giddiness to run starting to zip through me. I was dancing on the balls of my feet as we slipped beneath the canopy.

“Okay then–”

I almost shifted in excitement at his words, but Colt gripped my arm and said, “Okay then. If you show me you can run to Joseph’s Stump and meet back here again.”

Exhilaration pounded through me, and I grinned. “Deal.” We’d been using Joseph’s stump as a marker the last few days for most of our runs. It was named after one of Dalesbloom’s packmates because it was where he’d had his Moondream. Like me, he’d lost consciousness one night in the woods. I was kind of glad I wasn’t the only one in the Dalesbloom Pack who had taken a tumble in the woods.

Shaking my head, I focused on what I had to do.

It turned out that my wolf wasn’t very well-behaved. A scent hit my nose, and instead of making for Joseph’s Stump, she veered left, right toward a burrow. I tried to steer her away from the burrow that she started to dig at, but nothing I said would pull her away from the scent.

I thought we were going to be here playing in the dirt all day. Then Colt, finally, in his wolf form, snuck up behind me and tussled with me. We rolled around in the undergrowth until he’d successfully pinned me to the ground. Finally, my wolf, realizing she’d been bested by one of her pack members, bared her neck, submitting to Cole.

His proud black wolf got off of my sandy wolf from where he’d pinned me.

I let fur and fangs recede. Colt morphed into his human form, too. I wandered over to one of the bushes covered with spring leaves while Colt averted his gaze and went to a tree. We’d gotten used to using whatever coverage was around when we shifted into our human forms.

“And this iswhyyou stay away from the canyon, okay,” he said in his best know-it-all tone. “At the moment, your wolf is so green, she’d chase whatever scent she got into right into the Gunnison.”

“It was really strong,” I said, still not sure what exactly she’d picked up there and what she wanted to get at in the den.

“Golden-mantled ground squirrels. There’s a new litter in there. Smelled the scent before we entered the forest.”

“You set me up,” I argued, not really feeling hard done by, but it was fun to argue with Colt.

He shrugged and flashed me a smile. “When your wolf notices such a strong scent as soon as you enter the forest, then we’ll know you’re ready for the canyon.”

Yet, even as Colt’s faith reassured me, I suspected that my wolfwouldn’tbe as easy to get under control as he reckoned. It was common knowledge in werewolf culture that it was only when one claimed their fated mate and each mate marked one another that one’s beast would be truly tamed. I thought of how Vana had made it so when the first humans she’d chosen to walk with couldn’t, with their human forms alone, control their beasts. I’d always thought there was something beautiful about the fact that one’s fated mate was the key to taming one’s beast. But now I couldn’t help but feel pissed off by this need. I felt as if I’d been waiting forever to be able to channel my wolf, and now I couldn’t control her, all because Gavin didn’t want anything to do with me.

That night, my lack of control over my wolf came back to bite me. I was down in the kitchen, getting a glass of water, suddenly having woken up hot and thirsty. Half asleep, I gulped down mywater when the urge to open the door and breathe in the night air washed over me. I didn’t think anything of it, and I soon had put my glass down and opened the back door to do just that, when all at once, my wolf leaped up within me, and suddenly, she had landed on all fours outside.

She snuffled out of my PJ top, whining with irritation. My baggy bottoms were already discarded on the doorstep.

My heart thumped in my furry chest with shock. She’d transformed of her own accord. With trepidation, I realized she was gallivanting off down the dirt path. I had to rein her in.

Shift.

I envisaged myself in my mind’s eye. I imagined my pebbled skin in the night air. The breeze playing with my sandy brown hair, but still, my wolf’s paws pounded across the meadow, the grasses tickling the pads of her feet, and the condensation beading on the grasses catching on her fur.

Bad wolf. Bad.

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