Page 83 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

The pecking voice wants me to turn around. My wolf urges me to walk toward the commotion faster. She wants me to press through the crowd in front of us, find Justus, and let her out to tell him exactly what she thinks about him leaving us alone all day. She flashes her plans into my head. It’s a picture of him on his knees, his palms raised in surrender, as she sinks her fangs into his neck.

Well. We’re not going to do that. Mostly because in her imagination, she’s about five times her actual size.

When we get to the back of the gathering, my feet slow and then stick in place. Efa strains against my hand, but I can’t go farther. I’d have to weave through the males, and I can ignore the voice’s incessant shrieks, but I can’t do that.

Turn around now!

All of a sudden, Efa makes herself dead weight, trying to move me another step forward. She ends up dangling from my hand, parallel to the ground like an ice dancer. She whines. I get it. I want to see what’s happening, too.

Danger. Better run now. Before it’s too late.

The pack is excited, almost raucous.

“They must’ve got something good,” Elspeth observes, rising on her tiptoes to try to see between the males’ shoulders.

Efa wriggles her hand free from mine—my palms are weirdly slick, probably from leftover mashed potato slime—and bolts for a roughhewn picnic table a few feet away. She’s folded over it, throwing a leg up, when I get to her. She’s going to get splinters. I pluck her up. She wails. I freeze.

“Oh, no, little one. Don’t fuss.”

“Up!” she demands with a husky little bark. “Up, Annie!”

Oh. She knows my name. My eyes prickle. Oh, crap. I look over my shoulder at Elspeth. She shrugs. “If you don’t help her up, you’re going to be playing ‘pull the howling baby wolf down off the table’ until her dam comes for her.”

“Where is Nessa?”

“I told her to leave Efa with us and take a break,” Elspeth says. “Thank Fate I wasn’t blessed with triplets.” We share a silent moment of respect.

“Up, Annie, up!” Efa starts to climb me like a tree.

Even if I held her steady while she stood on the table, she wouldn’t be able to see anything over the crowd of tall males.

I sigh. A draped sheet is not ideal for climbing. I tuck it tighter around my chest and step onto the bench, careful not to tread on the hem. Once I’m steady, I lift Efa next to me. I repeat the maneuver to stand on top of the table. It’s sturdy with thick X-legs. Oddly enough, height isn’t one of my fears.

Everyone can see you. Get down. Get down!

I’m surprised when Elspeth climbs up after us.

“Up!” Efa demands, and I set her on my shoulders. She digs her fingers into my hair to hold on, and I wrap my hands around her chubby thighs to anchor her in place. We both still as we catch sight of the hunting party.

The scene looks like something out of the first chapter of our shifter history textbook at Moon Lake. The sunset hasn’t quitefaded, but the burnt oranges and reds don’t give off any light. The clearing is illuminated by dozens of small fires and the torches that some of the males carry.

They’ve cleared a path through the gathering for the returning males. The wolves have pushed forward, forming a kind of aisle.

Justus and Khalil come first, an elk hanging by its bound hooves from a thick branch that rests on their shoulders. The elk’s antlers scrape the ground as they walk. It’s a huge bull, big enough to feed a pack this size for weeks.

Justus’s tan skin shines in the flickering torchlight. His hair is pulled back in a messy knot. His hands wrap around the branch, elongating his torso, throwing every single muscle into relief and exposing the whole tapestry of his tattoos.

I don’t know where to stare. His obliques? The ridge of V-shaped muscle that disappears into his waistband? The black swirls and shapes that I can’t make out from back here, but that my eyes can’t help trying to decipher? My mouth waters. I swallow it down.

There isn’t an ounce of arrogance or even pride in his walk. He walks no taller than usual; his back is no straighter. He carries his kill through his excited packmates like you’d haul a bucket or push a wheelbarrow. It’s not fake nonchalance, either. This is a male who isn’t trying to nurse a moment at all—he just really wants to put that elk carcass down.

I still can’t believe he’s my fated mate. I’ve never once been so unbothered in my entire life.

Maybe that’s what Fate does when she pairs people—she matches you with your opposite. Una is nothing like Killian, and I still can’t believe Mari and Darragh are mates. Whenever I see them together, I think of a video Kennedy showed me on her phone where a Doberman puts a kitten’s head in his mouth andwouldn’t let her go until his owner traded him for a hunk of cheese.

Max and the redhead, Alroy, follow the elk. They’re both strutting, although Max is clearly low on gas. His swagger is a little creaky. I glance over at Elspeth. She’s tracking her mate, the corners of her mouth curling in a fond smile.

The return of the hunters seems to be the cue for a celebration. A few scattered drums beat a rhythm for the males to stride along with, and a fiddle joins from somewhere over by the big bonfire. The volume of the chatter rises. Song breaks out.

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