Page 81 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

They love him, and I rejected him, but they don’t want my blood. They want to tell me who he is. They want me tohearthem, toseethe pup who refused to come out of his dam’s nest.

Come on, Annie. We’ve got to get out of here.

You’ve got to come now. What if they come back?

Please, Annie. Please.

My chest balloons with guilt and grief and regret and rage. I didn’t ask for this—any of it. They don’t know me. Do they think this is what I wanted?

I want to shout that at them, but the muscles in my throat don’t work—they’ve never worked—and besides, it’s not them that I want to shout at, is it? These weeping mothers and daughters and sisters?

What do I do?

Where is the pecking voice now? Doesn’t my wolf want to bark at me to run and hide?

I grasp for the fear—the familiar, reliable, insistent fear that doesn’t leave room for anything else—and it’s not there. All I have left is me.

And them.

And the blue sky overhead.

The pups yipping and yapping over in the sycamore tree.

The scent of woodsmoke and fur on the breeze.

For the first time in my life, it is crystal clear in my mind that—in this moment, at least—I have a choice. I can shrink down. Wrap my arms around myself. Or I can straighten up. Open my hand.

I did it once before, didn’t I? I let go of the slat. Crawled out from my hiding place. Reached for the knife.

Inside me, close to the boundary between us, my wolf sits, quiet and watchful.

I meet Diantha’s eyes. “We lost so many,” I say. “So much.” And even though it is very, very hard, I don’t look away.

It’s not a defense or excuse or platitude. It’s the truth. No more, no less. It’s all I’ve got.

“We did,” Diantha says, her chin high. Her whiskers quiver. She’s not crying, but her diamond eyes shine.

It isn’t enough, but what else do we have?

Diantha sniffs and settles back down to her loom. She throws the little wooden boat through the threads and pulls the shaft firmly forward with a clunk. Slowly, as if she’s waking up from some spell, Elspeth begins to rock her chair again. Griff, who’d been making himself invisible, stirs the coals with his stick.

Nessa ducks into the tent and reemerges with a yawning toddler with puffy black curls. The pup plasters herself to her dam’s front and promptly falls asleep again, her head nestled in the crook of Nessa’s neck.

A pup rushes over from the sycamore with a scraped knee.

A male drops by with a bucket of water to refill our kettle.

The moment passes.

I’m not sure if I said the right thing. My hands shake as I take up my yarn again. Actually, all of me is shaking.

The voice still doesn’t have anything to say, though.

I didn’t run. I didn’t hide. I didn’t close my eyes and keep my mouth shut. And the world didn’t end.

The sun is still shining as I knit beside a fire, surrounded by this strange pack. They don’t know me. I don’t know them. But the same breeze dries our cheeks.

And when a pup shrieks in the sycamore, all our eyes flick over for a second, to reassure ourselves that everyone is safe. Everyone is well.

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