Page 21 of The Devil on my Chest

“I know.” Mal refused to feel sad about the past. “But if you think about it logically, as I have tried to do all these years, they were a small pack. They lived off the land which wasn’t always fruitful, and the alpha was the head of the pack. He could say the sky was green and others in the pack would go out of their way to prove that was true.”

“You didn’t see humans at all, didn’t go to shops, or get in deliveries, or…” Rocky trailed off as Mal shook his head.

“Back then I didn’t even know how far away the nearest town was, but we never had anything to do with anybody. The only humans that we saw were people who might have been hiking through the trails or hunting. They were usually lost. I remember the alpha used to grab a couple of his enforcers, and yes, they would stay in human form, but he would go and see them off, with bravado and big sticks and all that sort of carry-on.”

“I’m surprised that prick didn’t just knock them over the head and eat them.” Rocky finished his beer and put his can on the arm of the couch.

“As I said, it was a bleak time in my life and not something I enjoy thinking about. I was taught my whole life that I wasn’t worth anything.” Mal shrugged. “I guess I believed that for the longest time.”

It was Rocky’s turn to shake his head. “That can’t be true. I mean, look at how much you’ve done, how much you’ve achieved. When we were riding with Ra and the others, and even when we moved to Arrowtown, you’re the one who was always organizing things, keeping us all on track.

“If it wasn’t for you prodding us along to stay on top of our shit, the cupboards would’ve been empty, our dirty laundry would’ve buried us, and we’d have run out of gas miles from the nearest town. Face it, being organized wasn’t one of Ra’s skills or anyone else’s back in the day.”

“I felt I had to prove my worth. I had to prove that I could be useful to all of you.” Mal turned, resting his arm on Rocky’s shoulder. “If you think about it, I was an omega wolf who was riding with a tiger shifter, a snake shifter, two lion shifters, a bear shifter, and an alpha wolf shifter. What do you think would have happened if Ra or any of you really had thought the same as my pack alpha - that I wasn’t worth anything?”

Twirling a strand of Rocky’s hair through his fingers, Mal chuckled. “Because I was determined to prove myself, I gained confidence. You guys didn’t knock me down, you propped me up. You propped me up until I could learn to walk on my own two feet. Meeting you was the greatest thing in my life, but meeting Ra and Simon was a strong second. Do you remember that?”

Rocky nodded. “Those damn burgers pulled me in. I was so sure they wanted to fight us. I can still see that damn bridge in my mind’s eye. Ra and Simon kept cruising past on those bikes of theirs and then they just stopped one night when we were huddling under that same darn bridge. It was the burgers. All those burgers. Gods, I must have had a sore stomach for two days afterward, but I couldn’t stop eating. It was the most food I’d seen in years."

“I know.” Mal laughed. “I was terrified and all you were doing was stuffing your face with burger patties. I mean, no disrespect to you, but facing off against a tiger shifter and a snake shifter? We were toast if they wanted to fight us, but they didn’t – they became our family. I learned a lot from them.”

“It was me Ra kept drumming lessons into,” Rocky mock grumbled. “He’d swipe me over the head if he thought I wasn’t listening to him. I never saw him do that to you.”

“But see, by watching Ra and Simon teach you things, I learned them too. I would watch. I would listen, and by the time I got a turn, I already knew what needed to be done, so I would make fewer mistakes.” Mal stroked over Rocky’s hair. “You’ve got to admit, I’ve always listened better than you.”

“I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear you saying that seeing as you don’t think I listen to important shit,” Rocky said in a mock snooty tone which Mal knew was his way of teasing. “But yeah, that was pretty incredible, meeting up with Brutus, Lucien, Liam, not long afterward. Gods, we had some amazing times on the road, didn’t we?”

“It was fun, and we got to see a lot of places,” Mal agreed. “But I also think, back when shifters came out, I do believe Ra made the right decision in taking us to a shifter town. I know it took a while – I mean we visited so many different towns and places – but eventually, when we ended up in Arrowtown, it felt like home from day one to me.”

“Arrowtown has a certain charm, that’s for sure.” Rocky chuckled. “I bet you didn’t think I’d end up as sheriff when we first arrived there.”

“I didn’t think Ra would be mayor, either, but the town took us into their hearts and clearly believe in us, and now we have a solid home there. When you think about it, none of us really had a home. None of us had a pack, a clan, whatever it is snakes have, or in Liam and Lucian’s case, a pride. We’d all been let down in our own way. We’d all…we were all misfits, and yet we all came together as a found family. And look at us now. You and I are thelast two to find our mates, and it turns out we were together all along."

“I still think that’s crazy," Rocky said, stretching out his long legs along the couch. “We all found each other and came together to create a family. But I still…I still don’t understand. The workings of that damned curse is just…just…it’s really fucking annoying. It makes me angry just thinking about it. In fact I’m fucking furious about it.”

Mal could feel that through their bond. “I’m not sure why you’re angry about it now. I understand what you’re saying. You’re angry because you see and feel what we have now, and we could have had that all the years we were together.

“But don’t you see” - Mal really wanted Rocky to understand – “we did have all those years together. The only thing that was different was that we weren’t sleeping in the same bed, and even then, sometimes we were when space was tight. Just not in the way we can now. But it really wasn’t a bad life, was it?”

“No,” Rocky said. “I’m not saying that. I just feel like we’ve been robbed. I feel like we’ve had all these years together, and yet we could have been truly together. I wouldn’t have been going off once a month or so, making a damn fool of myself, trying to make out I was more of a stud than I ever was. I mean, how ridiculous is that? What’s worse, I hurt you and I didn’t even know.”

“You didn’t make a fool of yourself because no one knew what you were up to,” Mal said with a chuckle. “However, that might change when our friends find out, and you know they will, because you can bet your bottom dollar Mrs. Hooper’s going to be asking you where you were going every time you disappeared. She didn’t know, and if there’s one thing that woman can’t stand,it’s not knowing something. But don’t you see, it really doesn’t matter.

“We were all doing what we had to do at any point in time. We all fit in the way we did together. Now we all have mates. You and I have got little nieces and nephews running around all over the place.”

“Some of them even flying,” Rocky agreed. “That Annabelle is a handful and a half.”

Thinking of their current living situation, Mal said, “I have been considering the idea about us having a home of our own and I do think that’s something we should do. Nothing like this place, obviously. But there’s not a lot of room in our current house where we can just sit and chill out, spending time alone. I like the idea of us spending quality time together, just you and me, especially now the house is getting so crowded. But we’re going to be visiting the packhouse often, you know we will.”

“It’s not a packhouse,” Rocky said. “Ra never agreed to our place being called a packhouse and neither did Seth.”

“Meh, maybe not, but you and I both know that’s what we call it.”

They shared a chuckle. Just that simple act was enough to warm Mal’s heart. “Do you remember what you said before about how we’ve come to this moment and good or bad, it’s made us who we are today?”

“I was channeling your zen.” Rocky laughed. “But yes, go on.”

“What happened in my pack was so common for omega wolves and although I didn’t learn about that until a lot later, but I left that pack because I didn’t believe I had any worth, remember?”

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