Page 19 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

She doesn’t want someone else. She just doesn’t want me.

Because she believes what her people say about us?

Of course. She must. And because I’ve always been honest with myself, at least, I have to admit that a lot of what her people think is true. We steal their females, and their pups, too, if the females can’t bear to be parted from them. We live as Fate intended, and we don’t do human shit like have an alpha who makes decisions for folks whose brains work perfectly fine.

The lost packs think we’re a step away from feral, but ferals don’t come from the camps. They were all born in packs who live in houses with walls and doors and locks.

Annie’s wolf doesn’t respond to my words. She’s losing energy, but she doesn’t give up and grazes my forearm with her small, sharp canines. I hiss. Fear floods her wolf’s eyes.

My temper roars again. I’ve done nothing to deserve such a look. I’m not unworthy. I’m a good hunter, and I have never harmed a female or pup, nor would I. But she hated me from the first moment she saw me. She never gave me a chance. I didn’t want a female from a lost pack for a mate, but I didn’t try to fight Fate. I courted her, even when she scorned me.

She stunk and cowered, but I didn’t treat her with contempt. Not like she treats me.

“Stop fighting, and I’ll put you down,” I grunt, grappling with her legs, so weak, but somehow as slippery as butter. She struggles harder, lunging at my face.

I can’t bring her home with me. She won’t come willingly.

There will be no family. No fire, no steak, no sweet giggles.

My heart is sick. I can’t bear it. I toss her from me as far as I can. I try to be gentle. She lands in a heap, but she’s on four feetin seconds. She bolts, but she’s disoriented and picks the wrong direction. Almost immediately, she has to skid to a stop at the edge of the river bank.

She scrambles backward and wheels to face me, her crazed gaze darting left and right, searching for a way to escape as if she’s trapped between me and the water. I guess she can’t swim.

My cock shrivels. My mouth tastes like ashes. I disgust her. She thinks I’m nothing but an animal.

She let me mount her even though she didn’t want me. I touched her, and the whole time, she hated it. Hated me.

I’m going to puke.

I take a step back. She whimpers.

Every move I make is a threat. I’ve done nothing to hurt her, nothing that I didn’t have to do, and she looks at me with horror in her eyes.

Everything I never dared to dream of until a few weeks ago—running with my own female under a full moon, cuddling our pups in our warm nest, a family, a real home—it will never happen. She doesn’t want me. This scrawny, cowardly female thinks I’m not good enough.

“Tell me why,” I growl, my voice deeper than it was even minutes ago. I sound like my sire. I haven’t heard his voice in years, but here it is, coming from my mouth.

My mate’s wolf cringes, her thin legs shaking. She tucks her chin. She’s not going to shift and answer me. I’m not even worth her breath.

A spiteful rage rises in me like dust in a whipping wind, burning my eyes. What did I do to deserve this? To be left alone, over and over again?

“You’ve got nothing to say for yourself, do you? What a sad female you are. I don’t want such a pathetic coward for a mate. What would my pack say if I broughtyouback?” My forced laughscrapes my throat. “You smell more like food than female. You stink like prey.”

I glare at the small, huddled ball, willing her to show a spark of life, tocare, but all she does is quiver. Sheisfood. She’s a cowering mound of jelly.

I scoff at her, that gritty, dusty rage egging me on, drowning out my wolf. He’s whining, urging me to calm her. He doesn’t understand. She’s turned the best moment of our life into something ugly and shameful. She rejected us. She’s made us into the kind of foul, craven male who fucks unwilling females. She’s trampled everything we’ve ever wanted under her foot. She’s ruined our life.

I take a purposeful step toward her. She whines in fear, and I am glad.

“I will pray to Fate that I did not get a whelp on you.” I sneer down at her. “A female like you would make weak, spindly young.”

I stand over her. I want to pick her up and shake her. I want to give her something to be afraid of.

But I don’t. My righteous rage deserts me in a sudden rush, and all I feel is cold and lost and far from home.

I square my shoulders, turn my back, and walk away.

With no pride.

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