Page 78 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

My stomach aches with missing them, and it’s not a new feeling. I’ve been missing them a while now. If I were home, they wouldn’t be there. Una and Mari would be with their mates, andKennedy would be out, training or scouting or hunting. She’s grabbed freedom with both hands.

At home, I felt so left behind, so forgotten. And that’s what feels like safety to me?

On a whim, I listen to my wolf again. She’s drowsing with her head on her paws, perfectly content. What does she know that I don’t? What’s different now for her?

It’s a wild thought—that things could possibly be different.

“Annie, you wouldn’t believe what Max would have to do to keep Justus out of trouble when he was little,” Elspeth says, and I startle, but I don’t drop a stitch. I make myself focus on the conversation.

Diantha, Nessa, and the others chuckle like family who’ve heard a story a hundred times and knows what’s coming. Most of the females’ hands are occupied in our small circle. Nessa braids one of her pup’s thick black hair in neat rows, the female named Lelia files her nails, and Diantha works her loom. It’s an interesting cherry wood piece, foldable, with a built-in bobbin winder and shelf. If it’s homemade, the craftsman was very skilled.

Elspeth waits for me to reply, but I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to say quickly enough, so she takes pity on me and continues, “Max would take the pups out to teach them how to hunt, but of course, if you left Justus to his own devices, he’d tear off and kill everything in a five-mile radius before the others had a chance to sniff out a track.”

Everyone chuckles fondly. Elspeth pauses for me to respond. I should chuckle, too, or make some approving sound. She’s so obviously proud. Yet again, though, I don’t manage to reply before Elspeth feels compelled to go on. My face burns. The embarrassment doesn’t help the sweat situation. It’s trickling down my neck.

“Well, it was so bad that Max would have to hunt down an animal the day before—say a badger—and then go out in the middle of the night and create a whole trail of badger sign—up, down, and all around, over hill and dale. Like a maze. Then, the next day, he’d take the pups out and tell Justus to have at it. Justus would tear off after the badger, and Max would tell the others, ‘Today, pups, we’re hunting fox.’”

She laughs. I can’t imagine a male creating such an elaborate ruse when he could just bark the pup into submission. That’s what a Quarry Pack male would do.

“Oh, remember the time Justus caught that skunk?” an older female named Mabli cackles. “Skinned it and everything and brought it to Alys proud as a peacock, the pelt reeking to high heaven.”

“Who’s Alys?” I ask. Several females glance up in surprise, but they recover quickly.

“Justus’s dam,” Elspeth answers.

I focus on my knitting so I don’t see their expressions. They know Justus and I aren’t really mates. It isn’t so strange that I wouldn’t know his mother’s name. I’m not in the wrong, but you couldn’t convince my stomach. It aches like it got kicked by a mule.

“Well, she soaked that pelt in tomato juice for days, scrubbed it with lemon rinds,” Mabli recalls. “She tried everything to get the stink out, and she never quite could, so in the end, she made a pair of slippers out of it. She said her feet were the furthest she could get that foul fur from her nose.” Everyone laughs, and again, it’s the warm, easy laughter of people who’ve heard the story a hundred times.

I remember, one time when I was very young, when my father was still alive, Ma let me help her make a mincemeat pie. I was so careful with spooning the pre-measured spices and dumping the raisins and stirring, but rolling out the dough wasbeyond my coordination and strength. I kicked a fuss, though, so Ma let me do it.

In the end, she made the crust on top look pretty, but the dough on bottom was uneven, so some parts burned, and others didn’t cook all the way through. I still remember how her face lit up when she ate her slice, how she hummed happily and sunk back in her chair, saying to Pa, “Our Annie’s a natural cook, just like her mother, isn’t she?” And he smiled and agreed.

My chest tightens. It’s hard to imagine young Justus, skinning a skunk, while little Annie baked pies. He’s been the bugbear of my life for so long, I’ve never considered that we were both young at the same time. We both had mothers who loved us.

Mabli talks about Alys like she’s not here anymore. “Did she pass away?” I ask softly.

“Yes, during the great sickness.” Mabli’s voice roughens, and the females grow quiet.

“I lost my dam then, too,” I say quietly.

We learned at Moon Lake Academy that the sickness tore through all the shifter packs, and that the wasting sickness was a virus, not a curse, but regardless, we should leave it in the past—don’t dwell or ask too many questions—lest we somehow wake it up by talking about it. We’ve memory-holed the people we lost and the things we did when we were scared.

My heartbeat speeds. It feels dangerous to talk about it here, now. Like I should be crossing my fingers or knocking on wood.

The females shift in their seats. They’re not tensing, although some straighten their spines. It’s more like when Una, Mari, Kennedy, and I are sitting in our living room late at night, and we’ve all had a few tokes or nips of whiskey in our tea, and one of us says something real, and we all let our masks slip for a moment so we can speak and hear each other the most clearly.

“I did, too,” Lelia says, scratching the back of a wolf lounging beside her with her freshly sharpened nails. “Her name was Ryanne. She was a great weaver.”

“And so beautiful.” Mabli’s thin, feathered lips curve, her gaze growing distant. “Her hair was so long and red. Just like yours,” she says to Lelia.

“It was down past her bottom,” Diantha says. “She could sit on it.”

“When she was little, the back would knot up like a beaver’s tail, and she’d holler like you were killing her when you brushed it. Drove your granddam to distraction.” Mabli reaches over and strokes Lelia’s hair. “So soft. So lovely.”

Lelia smiles sadly, her shining eyes rising to meet mine. “What was your dam’s name?”

“Aileen Murphy,” I say. I haven’t said her name out loud in years. No one has.

---