Page 54 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

Alroy’s wolf whines and tucks his snout into his shoulder.

Then Justus turns to Diantha. “You—” he snaps, then stops himself and starts again with a deliberately, teeth-grindingly even voice. “Mind your own business. Please.” He surveys his pack and announces, “This is Annie. She’s my mate. That’s all. No need for all of this. Go on about your day now.”

“Yes, Alpha,” the pack mutters.

He growls. “I’m not the alpha.” He strides forward, picks up my wolf and the little gray pup, and tucks one of us under each arm. “You don’t need an alpha to tell you what to do. You need common sense, so some of you are out of luck, but that doesn’t mean I need to step into the breach.”

He keeps grumbling as he marches over to the black wolf and gently sets her pup at her feet. The black wolf butts his leg and rumbles her thanks. The pup whines and props her little paws on his other leg to try and reach me. My wolf bends over Justus’s forearm and gives her a few reassuring yips that she’ll see her soon. The pup isn’t the least bit upset by the events of the past few minutes. If anything, she smells excited. Like a pup who’s going to be hard to put to bed.

I watch from the boundary between my wolf and me where I’ve crept, stealthy and uncertain, so I can memorize the pup’s twig of a tail and her downy belly fur and her tufty ears. She captivates me.

And it’s not just that she’s precious. Or that she’s the first of her kind I’ve ever seen.

She’s not afraid. She should be. She’s small. Defenseless.

It’s not that she’s particularly fearless. Her siblings don’t smell cowed, either.

Justus carries me away, and I crane my neck to see the pup join her brother and sister to tumble together and sniff and snuffle like it’s been five years, not five minutes.

She’s not afraid. Nothing’s hurt her yet, not badly.

As Justus walks through the pack to the far side of the clearing, I watch as his packmates stand, dust off their knees, and start to chat and laugh and bicker again. They duck their heads when Justus passes, giving me a once-over from the corner of their averted eyes, but they’re not afraid, either.

They’re curious.

The atmosphere feels exactly like it did in class at Moon Lake Academy after a badly behaved student got it from the instructor—that giddy release of tension and effort to look innocent and obedient.

What is going on in this pack?

And where are we going?

8

ANNIE

Carryingmy wolf like a sack of potatoes, Justus hikes up a narrow switchback path that runs along the steep incline surrounding the clearing that acts as their commons. There are no buildings, but the higher we get, the better I’m able to make out how the camp is organized.

At the end furthest from the dens, there is an area for tanning with the lowest branches of a magnolia scraped smooth to act as a frame and drying racks. At the center of the clearing, around the huge bonfire, there are spits and barrels and long, sturdy wooden tables for cooking and eating.

Moving away from the center of camp, I see crescent-shaped herb gardens and vegetable patches, and various small groups of packmates. Elders in rocking chairs snooze or play a game with stones on a table carved with blocks like a chess board. Males wrestle or squat on stools, whittling and mending, or nap on their backs, gathered near clusters of canvas tents situated around small fire pits.

I only see one group of females, and they’re mostly hidden underneath a canopy of deer skins battened to posts sunk in theground. They watch over pups who swarm a tall sycamore strung with ropes and ladders and swings.

When we reach the highest level, I can finally see the water source that I heard below, a rushing stream—not quite a river, but too wide for a wolf to leap across—that meanders the perimeter of the camp. I count three rough-hewn bridges at three different oxbows.

The stream’s headwater seems to be the mountain to the north, and it enters camp via an unlikely opening through the rocks, visible now that we’re above the canopy. It doesn’t seem natural, but I can’t imagine how a tunnel could be bored through the rock and then made to look like a haphazard arch of fallen rocks.

From this height, I can also trace the curving dirt paths that run between and among all the various areas of activity. Exactly like the males’ maze of swirl tattoos.

The fur along my spine bristles. There is magic here. It tickles my nose like it does in Abertha’s cottage.

If it were this time of day at Quarry Pack, no one would be outside. I’d be in the lodge’s kitchen, prepping dinner with Mari, Kennedy, and Old Noreen—and the Z-roster males still under punishment from backing the traitors. The other males would be training in the gym, and the females would be working at the laundry or the commissary or in their cabins, tending their pups. No matter what exactly they were doing, they’d be busy.

Not so here. Some of the Last Pack folks are working on something, but most are lounging or chatting or napping or roughhousing. There’slotsof roughhousing.

No patrol. No guards. Nowhere to hide but these dens. These traps.

The voice is back, and no surprise, she has concerns. My nerves twist tighter—there isn’t even a guard posted at the narrow entrance—but I can’t tear my eyes away from the scene.

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