Page 15 of Rejection and Redeemed
“I’ll grab your stuff, you go into the lodge. If anyone is looking, hopefully they’ll just think you’re a dog with cute blue hair.”
Fran looked at Jacob and titled his head.
“You didn’t know your wolf had the same colour blue as your hair?” Jacob asked.
Fran shook his head.
“We can talk about that in a little while, let’s go into the lodge,” Jacob picked up Fran’s clothes and phone and stood up.
Fran walked beside him and into the lodge.
Jacob closed the door behind them and settled the clothes on the table. “Do you want coffee? I could do with another one.”
And before Fran could shift and answer, Jacob walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on.
He turned back and looked at Fran who was sitting on his haunches watching him.
Jacob sighed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to change and be near me either. I’ll make you coffee and put it in a bowl for you. I’ll ask you questions about how you want it so I get it just right for you.”
Fran was touched that Jacob would go to so much trouble. He was going to shift when Jacob started talking.
“Cresswell was rude. He didn’t care for the fact that I had lost my father the evening before, or that the life I knew was over. He just swept in, without a ‘hello’ and started going through my father’s things. Does he care that a lot of that money came from my mother? No, he just decided that apart from the restitution needed for the Pullman pack, the rest of the money was his. He didn’t care that my mother picked out the furniture in the house, and that a lot of the main pieces came down through her family, generation to generation. No, because it was in the house it now belonged to him,” Jacob turned to look out the kitchen window. “He graciously allowed me to take family mementoes, but everything else I had to leave behind.
“He didn’t care my father built that house with his own money, no, all he cared about was me leaving so his family could move in,” Jacob placed his hands on the sink and dropped hishead. “He just didn’t care. All he saw was that he was now the new Alpha and that everything was his.
“He also told me that there had been complaints made by pack members against my father. Apparently, if he hadn't been killed in that fight, the Council was sending someone to investigate him. Sure, he was a hard Alpha, but was he really that bad?” Jacob laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “What am I saying? I know how bad he was. He didn’t treat me any differently than he did other pack members.”
Fran shifted. “Was he abusive?” he asked gently.
Jacob shrugged. “Sometimes,” he replied without turning round.
Fran pulled his jeans on. “I’m sorry you had to live through that. No one should have to suffer violence from those who are supposed to care about them.”
“He wasn’t always like that. He changed after my mother died, any softness he had died with her.”
“I’m also sorry for how Cresswell treated you. He should have been more understanding.”
“Thanks.” Jacob pushed off from the sink. “I was making coffee. Now you can tell me how you take it.”
“Just milk, please. Does my wolf really have blue hair?”
“Tuffs of it, yep. I’ve never seen that before,” he replied with a quick smile.
“Me either, but I like to be different,” he said, with a shoulder shrug. “You didn’t shift and heal.”
Jacob shook his head. “I need to get used to not shifting if I have to live in non-pack areas. I’ll need to find somewhere to live away from forests. Well, being an outcast, away from everyone, really,” he said in a resigned tone, making two coffees.
“There must be something we can do about that. I can understand marking you as a lone wolf, but to mark you as an outcast is going a bit far.”
Jacob brought the drinks over to the table and they both sat down.
“How did you attack him? As a wolf?”
Jacob looked up at him in surprise. “How did you know I attacked him?”
“Uncle Berni got a call from Cresswell.”
Anger flashed in Jacob’s eyes. “Your uncle is Alpha Pullman?”
