Page 10 of The Alpha's Rejected Mate

But as I hugged him, breathing in his comforting scent, I knew we really were too much like brother and sister. Neither Catrina nor David had treated me like part of the family, but Colt alwayshad. He’d had time to listen to my fears and insecurities, just as he was doing now.

I drew back from him a little so that I could look him in the eye. “But that would mean that Aislin couldn’t appear in your Moondream,” I said with a suggestive smile.

Color stole over his cheeks. “Billie, you know I haven’t seen my fated mate.”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m praying to Vana that it’s Aislin. With the way the goddess has messed me around, I figure she owes me one.”

Colt ran his hand up the back of his short black hair, fidgeting. I knew he had a crush on Aislin, the Grandbay Betas’ daughter, even if he wouldn’t admit it. It was obvious that he always wanted to go with Catrina and Gavin on runs whenever Aislin was around.

Aislin was a stunning redhead with bold dark eyes and an equally frank and outspoken personality. I’d seen her running in the woods, her fur like fall leaves. I knew she was Gavin’s best friend. He’d probably expected his fated mate to be as fiery as Aislin or as determined as Catrina. Instead, he’d been lumped with me.

But anger simmered through me. How did he think I felt about all this? I hadn’t even had a boyfriend at all, and I’d been lumbered with the arrogant Alpha of Grandbay as my mate. I’d have much preferred someone sweet and understanding like Cole. With the confusing feelings warring through me, I decided to change the subject from the current chaos of my internal track.

Instead, I broached something else that had been on my mind and been eclipsed by everything that had happened with the Moondream.

“Colt,” I said, “You once told me that there are other shifters in the woods besides us werewolves.”

He stared at me, his black brows furrowing. “Uh-huh, but why do you want to know about them?”

I thought of the monster I’d seen in the woods, its glowing eyes, snout, and shimmering scales. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I cast a wary look behind me into the undergrowth and past the tree trunks.

“Last night before I fell,” I confided. “I swear I saw some sort of monster. It was bigger than a wolf, but I swear it had shimmering scales and a snout.”

Panic thumped through me at the memory, and a prickle of apprehension crawled over my skin.

Colt scowled. “Some things aren’t meant to be investigated, Billie.” He paused, and I wondered if he knew something about the monster I’d seen. Then he said, “If you’d been hurt, I don’t know what I’d have done. Promise me you won’t go getting all adventurous now that you’ve gotten your wolf, okay?”

I laughed in spite of everything. I was the last person who would put herself in danger. That was what the likes of headstrong Catrina or fiery Aislin might do.

“I promise not to do anything daring,” I granted willingly, knowing that despite coming into my wolf, I was hardly the adventurous type— was I?

A surge of warmth wound through me in spite of my disappointment lately as Colt laid an arm around my shoulder, and we sat watching the sun go down over the meadow. We may not be fated mates or family by blood, but I would be forever grateful to have this man in my life.

Chapter 6

Gavin

I tore through the Dalesbloom woods in the early hours of the morning, zigzagging through the forest and out onto the valley’s edge. The thundering water of the Gunnison River crashing deep below through towering rock formations matched the vehemence beating through me.

It wasn’t until late afternoon, after burning off steam by chasing game through the forest, that I turned my steps toward the southernmost part of Dalesbloom territory. My panting was ragged, and the exhaustion beating through my wolf’s frame forced me to take a breather.

In a section of the canyon where the drop was only ten feet, I clambered down the shelves to slake my thirst. I waded a little into the river’s current, its cool touch soothing my hot flanks. Now that I’d stopped, thoughts swarmed me.

A flash of Billie’s face, frozen with hurt, had my chest tightening. But rationally, I knew whatever the Moondream had shown us had been wrong. For one thing, Billie wasn’t even in my Alpha Line. Generally speaking, fated mates came from the same Alpha Line. An Alpha Line was the blood that ran through the blood of those werewolves within a pack.

My pack belonged to the Grandbay Alpha bloodline. Our pack was said to originate from Gunnison’s southmost lands, where the river widened, swelling into a great bay. Vana was said to have blessed the Grandbay lands with rich and crystal-clear waters. The waters through our land had always been abundant with fish, and although our pack was the one with the smallest amount of territory, what we held was rich and luscious.

Ever since the goddess Vana had chosen those first humans of Grandbay, my ancestors had continued that Alpha bloodline, both through shifters passing on that heritage to their pups and by, occasionally, anointing humans into our Grandbay bloodline. This method most frequently occurred when Vana revealed an untransformed human as a fated mate to a pack member. It was common for that human in time to want to belong to the pack and experience what their fated mate did, so becoming initiated into the bloodline.

I had never transformed a human into a shifter. But I knew it was a ritual specific to Vana that involved the sharing of the pack’s bloodline with the initiate. I had a hazy memory from when I was a child of my mother and father standing under a bright full moon on Pine Creek Point and chanting the sacred words as they welcomed Helen, an unchanged human, into the pack so she could be with her fated mate, Matthew.

My thoughts darkened again.

It could be worse. At least Bille’s a werewolf.

The bitter thought tainted my mind. So, what if Billie was one of my kind? She wasn’t the type of shifter I’d imagined as my mate. There was a reason Catrina’s pursuit of me had worked. I likedstrong women. I pictured Billie again, her stooped shoulders and timid gaze. She had all the awkwardness of a newborn foal.

She was always so distant. She never seemed to involve herself much with the Hexens or the Dalesbloom Pack. I couldn’t have a mate like that, one who didn’t want anything to do with my pack. I was an Alpha. I didn’t want a wallflower who would fade into the background. My mate had to be strong enough to stand at my side as Luna of Grandbay.

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