Page 29 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

That’s what everyone says. You can’t fight Fate. But Fate feels very far away, and honestly, part of me feels like I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since the basement. Who knows if I’ll even be around when Fate decides to make me pay up. I need to get through tonight and tomorrow. I need to make this go away, and I can’t if everyone is staring and wondering where my mate has gone.

“Please help me.” I make myself hold her gaze, make her see—in me—the pup under the couch who she rescued, if rescued is the word.

I can tell the exact moment that she remembers she was too late that night, and like the rest of us, not nearly as powerful as we needed to be.

She sighs. “You’ll owe me. One day, I’ll come to collect.”

“Whatever I have will be yours.”

Her lip quirks. “Clearly, your instructors at that academy are not the only ones failing you educationally. Never promise a witch ‘whatever you have’ while drinking her brew in her cottage in the woods. Have you never read a fairy tale in your life?”

“Make it like it didn’t happen, and I’ll be in your debt forever.” It’s an easy vow. What do I have that’s worth anything?

She sighs. “All right. It’s not a simple spell, though. I’m going to need to fetch some ingredients. And you’re going to have to watch Appollonia while I’m gone. Don’t let her outside no matter how much she yowls. She’s been digging up the yams again.”

“You can really make it so no one asks any questions about why I can shift now?”

“Eh.” Abertha piles the tray with our tea things and rises from the table. “I can make folks uninterested in the fact. I am becoming an uncommonly powerful witch, but still, it’s hard to make people not see what they see, or not smell what they smell. It’s very easy to make it so they don’tcare, though. That’s just encouraging folks’ natural selfish inclinations.”

For the first time since I lost control of my will by the river, I feel a glimmer of hope. I walk on wobbling legs to the kitchen and run the dish water, holding my fingers in the stream to feel for when the heat is right. Abertha sets the tray on the counter. For a long moment, we stand side by side, our shoulders brushing, and we stare together out the small window above the sink.

Dusk is almost done, but the garden and the woods beyond are still cast in a rich, royal blue. The color belongs to early summer—it’s out of season—but the sky overhead is true to November, crisp and clear and smattered with stars. The moon is round and low. Inside my chest, my wolf stirs, shaken to her bones and exhausted, but still drawn to its glow. The moon seems wise, somehow, as if it knows things we can’t.

Is the Last Pack male looking up at it, right now? Does he feel his loneliness, like I do? Is he still angry? I’m too scared to search inside me for that fragile bond. I don’t want to feel his hateinsideme.

He’s probably back in his fur and miles away, happy to be done with me.

Which is good.

I’m grateful.

He doesn’t want a female like me, and I don’t want him.

Abertha will fix things. No one will wonder why I can shift if I have no mate. And in a few months, if I shove this away like I did the night in the basement, he’ll never even come to mind.

And it’s not the saddest thing; it doesn’t break my heart at all.

I’m going to be safe.

I decided. I chose.

And if it doesn’t feel like a choice, no matter.

I’m not trapped, I’m not hurt, and I’m not scared. And in my experience, that’s pretty much the best you can hope for.

4

JUSTUS, FIVE YEARS LATER

“What the hell was that, Alroy?”I roar as I pin together Max’s wolf’s flailing forelegs so I can wrap the bloody gash that Killian Kelly ripped down his side. Max is not making it easy. The old dog has more fight left in him than I’d have thought.

None of our wolves escaped Killian Kelly unscathed. They stand around the clearing thunderstruck, listing side to side and dripping blood in the dirt.

Only Alroy and Khalil are on two feet, and only because I commanded them out of their fur and into their skin. Since we were pups, they’ve been the source of all trouble and a constant burr in my side. I’m not sure which is worse—Alroy’s inability to think through an idea or Khalil’s utter disregard for consequences.

Alroy paces, dragging his hands through his red hair. “It was supposed to be a straight trade. I made the deal with the younger Byrne. He said Kelly wouldn’t be an issue.”

Alroy’s balls have long since dropped, but you wouldn’t know from the high-pitched whine in his voice. He sounds like he shifted for the first time yesterday.

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