Page 90 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

Justus pulls himself up on a swing made from a wood plank and rope and bends over with his hand out to give me a boost. I ignore it. I can do it more gracefully under my own steam.

I brace a palm on the plank, grab the rope, and jump with both feet, throwing my upper body forward. My chest slams the wooden edge so hard, I knock the wind out of myself. This was so much easier when I was six.

Justus chuckles and tries to roll me over and help get my butt on the seat, but he ends up just getting in my way. My wolf snaps at him. He laughs and backs off, scrunching himself into the rope on his side to give me as much space as possible.

By the time I finally get myself in position, I’m a mess. My gown is twisted and winching my waist. I’m breathless and sweating. My hair is all over the place.

Justus is grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat. He reaches over, tucks a loose tendril behind my ear, and quickly pulls his hand away. My heart thumps harder.

“Hold the rope and kick when I say,” he orders.

“Yes, Alpha.” My eyes bug wide at my own audacity.

He laughs from his belly. “One, two, three,kick.”

We manage to lift our heels and lean back in sync, and in no time, we’re swinging with hardly any effort. I haven’t done this since I was little, and never two abreast. Back on the playground at the Quarry Pack commons, I’d sit on a black rubber swing, and Mari would sit in my lap since she was smaller, and then she’d make me do all the work.

My chest aches with homesickness. I miss that place, that time, and I can never go back. Homesickness doesn’t feel like enough of a word. What do you call it when your heart longs to rewind time?

To distract myself, I ask, “Why didn’t your pack leave the dens when the other packs did?”

He frowns, confused. “Well, we weren’t a pack before the others left the dens.”

Now I’m confused.

“They don’t tell you who we are?” he asks.

I shake my head.

Justus doesn’t seem that surprised. “We’re you. Well, some of us are you. Lelia would’ve been one of yours. Ashleen. Alroy.” Justus smirks. “He definitely comes from Quarry Pack blood.”

“I don’t understand.”

He blows out air like he’s thinking about how to put it. “You know how some of us came over on boats, right? Because the humans were blaming us for the famine where we came from, and they were eating everything down to the squirrels and rats, so we were starving, too?”

I vaguely remember a brief mention, an instructor describing how our shifter ancestors had to pass as human on ships, which is how we first began to learn civilized ways. I think it might have been during the field trip we took to Moon Lake’s old den.

“That’s how my people got here, and yours, but of course, there were shifters already here, and some in the area who had escaped from the south during slavery. Max’s people came all the way from Louisiana. Twelve in their group—males, females, and pups—all the way from Bayou Lafourche. Max’s great-grandsire didn’t lose a single soul on the trip.”

I’ve never been taught any of this, and I would know if I had—I paid attention in class like my life depended on it.

“All the shifters who settled here established a territory and lived in dens. We ran together on the full moon, and sometimes we fought, but mostly we lived in peace. We were too busy trying to survive and steer clear of the humans to mess with each other much. And then the Great Alpha, Broderick Moore, came along.”

Of course, I’ve heard all about him. He was a footnote to every lesson at Moon Lake. I swear, even in math class, there would be questions like “The Great Alpha, Broderick Moore, had three apples. He ate one. How many apples did he have left?”

“Broderick Moore looked around and saw the humans with their horseless carriages and electric lights and indoor plumbing, and he wanted it. And if he was good at nothing else, he could paint people a pretty picture, so his people followed him out of the dens to Moon Lake, built themselves a humantown, and convinced their wolves they only needed out once a month because wolves are shit at carpentry and laying brick.”

I like electricity and plumbing, too, but we were taught that leaving the dens was more noble than that—like shifters had been living in squalor, uneducated and lawless, and when we moved into houses we became better somehow. And there was this unspoken insinuation that Moon Lake was the best, therightest, and the other packs were good only inasmuch as we were like Moon Lake.

“So the other packs wanted to be like Moon Lake?”

“Well, an alpha can’t let another alpha outdo him, can he? The first Alpha Fireside set his pack to building North Border. Malcolm Shaw had his build the compounds on Salt Mountain. Lorcan Bell settled by your quarry.”

“But the alpha of Last Pack didn’t want things to change?”

“There was no alpha. There was no Last Pack. Just a bunch of folks who didn’t want to jail their wolves and break their backs to live like humans.”

So that’s why Last Pack looks so different from each other, like they could be from all the packs. Theyare.

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