Page 14 of Rejected Exile

That doesn't make me want to try it any less.

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Roarke's house is off the beaten path, far from the center of town where William's old place and several of the pack complexes are. He chose to buy a fixer-upper when one of the mateless males packed his bags and headed for sunnier pack territory down in Florida. The house has been improved on greatly since he bought it, but there's one thing that's still missing as I let myself in with the keyless entry code: the scent of a female, and the touch of her hands.

Unlike a lot of the pack males, Roarke didn't lose his mate to the curse. At least not directly. Instead of going through the Mating Ceremony and risking death on her first post-mated shift, Leanne decided to bribe a witch into breaking their bond. She ran off to another pack, one without a curse, and left Roarke in the lurch with an open wound where the bond should be.

I don't know if that's better or worse than watching a woman you care about die. Based on everything I saw before she left, he and Leanne loved each other, at least as much as two teenagers can. She didn't want to be with him enough to risk death, though. Maybe love just isn't enough without the strength that's supposed to go along with it.

Since then, he hasn't exactly been a monk, but he also hasn't played around either. Our friend Finn does more than enough sleeping around for both of us. I don't think there's a female townie under thirty he hasn't seduced, and a few above that age range as well. Pretty soon he'll lap himself and wind up with the scars to prove it.

Though the house feels empty, I can sense Roarke's presence as I toe my shoes off by the door and walk inside. He's probably off in his home gym, shaking off another night out in the woods babysitting when he should be leading.

"Bell!" I call his name as I head into the living room and drop the files off on the bar counter against one wall, helping myself to a cold lemon seltzer water in the mini fridge. "I know you're up. Get your ass out here and come take a look at what I found."

There's a thump from the other room—Roarke turned the old man's frilly guest bedroom into a home gym. Apparently, hunting isn't enough exercise for him. Several thuds follow, and then a moment later I'm greeted by the sight of a sweat-slick Roarke walking around the corner with nothing but a black tank top and tight athletic bottoms on. Grinning, I push my thumb and index finger into my mouth and let out an exaggerated whistle of appreciation.

"Shut up," he mutters, acting like he hasn't turned from the town's skinniest geek to the male every living female wants to throw herself at—most of them human or too young to get his attention, but it doesn't stop them. "You're such an ass, you know that? I didn't give you the door code just so you could drink all my two dollar seltzers."

"This shit is two bucks?" I blanche at the can. "Buy the off-brand stuff already. It's the same chemicals at half the price."

"God you're cheap." He lounges against the bar counter and stares down at the file folders, a frown creasing his brows. "Don't tell me this is what I think it is."

"A path out of our current predicament? Quite possibly."

"I hate your incessant enthusiasm, man." He shoulders me aside to grab a seltzer out of the fridge, and I hold my nose like he stinks worse than he does, which gets me a light punch to the shoulder. "I told you already, there's no way the alpha had the cure to this curse we're under. If he did, he would've fixed it by now. We're shit out of luck until the thing runs out."

"Are we confident that it will?" I drain my can of seltzer, crumple the aluminum, and toss it in the recycling without looking. Then I grab another, annoying Roarke further, which is of course the point. "There's every possibility we're stuck with this curse until we break it. The pack will wither and die. We can't survive much longer without mate bonds or the hope of another generation—the blood rot will take us out before the Summit is even called."

Roarke opens his seltzer and takes a small sip, pacing himself, unlike me. He leans up against the wall, crosses his feet at the ankles, and thinks for a moment—patience has always been one of his better traits.

Though I want nothing more than to push him further, I try to stay patient as well. I know that Roarke is the best male around to lead us into the next generation. The only problem is, I can't seem to convince him of that. Maybe if I bring him evidence proving we can find a cure, he'll finally start to believe me.

"I've been thinking about the Summit," he says slowly, which makes me sit at attention. Maybe he's finally listened to me and is putting in his bid for alpha. "I know you won't like it, but—I have an idea for a way to fix all of this. Something simple and sure to work."

I stare at him warily, not liking what I'm hearing so far. "What is it?"

"We give up. Completely." He says it like he's proposing a night of board games and not the decimation of a centuries-old culture. "Let another pack step in, and invite them to the Summit. This land, this pack—it's done for. But if another line takes over the territory, they could push out the blood rot, if they're strong enough."

"No. No way." I shake my head. "We'd have to sever all our connections to the earth to do that—give it away completely."

"Yes."

"After so long fighting the humans just so we wouldn't have to do that? It's unacceptable."

I find my free hand curling up into a fist, and make effort to relax it. My wolf is growling and snarling, so I take a deep breath to calm him. "The Glass Pack connection to this land is sacred. We feed our spirits into it, and they protect us in return. The streams rise to drown invading soldiers; the trees come to life to snatch vampires from our borders. We can't betray the earth by giving it away."

"The streams and the treesusedto do that," Roarke says bitterly. "Now? If it weren't for our treaties with the US government, they'd invade us and we'd fold in a matter of minutes. None of our border protections are active—you know that. You've seen what the woods are like at night."

I have, but not recently. Unlike Roarke, I'm not a madman with a death wish willing to throw himself away at lost causes.

An uncharacteristic anger stokes up inside me. Normally, I let Roarke do whatever he pleases; we've been close friends almost since the day I stepped foot in Glass Pack Territory, and part of that is our mutual respect.

But things have changed. Our alpha is dead. We need new leadership, and IknowRoarke could be that leader. There's just one problem.

"This is because of Kieran, isn't it?" I set my seltzer aside and slide off the bar chair, turning to face Roarke as he pushes off from the wall, a stubborn set to his jaw. "You know that he won't survive much longer if he keeps going down the path he's on."

"He won't. You've seen it as well as I have."

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