5

It was a dumb, dumb, stupid move, but wolves can’t tolerate their mates being scent-marked by rivals. It’s basic psychology. Biology. Whatever. Apparently, it’s hella stronger than the survival instinct.

My wolf still bristles at Haisley hovering nearby. If my wolf were stronger, she’d go for round two. Dumb, dumb, stupid wolf.

Killian lets out a growl that makes the tables wobble on their wheels. He’s losing patience. “Speak for yourself,” he says.

“You know why I did.” It’s almost a whisper.

He stalks down from his dais to stand above me, stance wide and arrogant, as if he needs extra space for his dick to swing. He folds his arms, and his biceps bulge. I lick my lips.

“Humor me,” he says.

I swallow. My throat is still tight, and my mouth is bone dry. I’m scared, and my wolf is flinging herself at the walls, desperate to get loose and jump on him—I’m not sure whether to claim him or rip him a new one. She’s out of control, and I can’t calm her down. It’s all I can do to stop her from trying to take our skin again.

Killian cocks his head expectantly.

“You’re my mate,” I say.

It had gotten almost quiet in the great room, but at my words, a wave of gasps, and a few sputtering laughs, ripple through the crowd.

I hug an arm to my breasts and try to cover my pussy with my other hand. This isn’t the gathering at the end of a midnight pack run or a dip in the river on a hot day. I’m the only one naked, and it’s full bright.

Everyone can stare at my mangled leg at their leisure. They take every opportunity to gawk usually. I’m a car crash to them. A shifter with scars. Doesn’t really happen, so they can’t help but look. Even the packmates I’m cool with.

My good leg wobbles, and my stomach heaves. I can’t throw up. I have to live through this moment to get to the next one, and I can’t do that standing in a puddle of puke.

I force my back straight. I’m not really here. I’m in the future, and this is a memory. It can’t hurt

me.

I ball my fists, nails digging into the meat of my palms.

“What was that?” Killian arches a brow, his dusky blue eyes daring me.

“You’re my mate.”

I know it like I know how to breathe. My wolf is even more certain. She’s frantic, howling for acknowledgement. Rescue. Touch. A carcass she can maul and take her messy feelings out on. I can’t help her. There’s nothing I can do. I try to soothe her, but she’s lost in her agitation.

Killian’s lips press into an unforgiving line. He glances at his lieutenants. They’re all standing now, too, staring at him, shoulders squared. Awaiting orders.

The whole pack is waiting with bated breath to hear what he’s going to say.

Dread crawls up my spine with spidery fingers.

“It is known that I have no mate,” he says.

The words slam into me, rocking me back on my heels like a cannonball to the chest, not with surprise, but with a physical force. For a second, I lose balance, but my good leg doesn’t fail. It firms right away. I’m still upright.

My wolf wails.

“If I had a mate, would she be weak?” He rakes his gaze down my front, lingering on the red puckered scars on my outer thigh.

“Would she be incapable of defending herself? I am alpha.” He gestures toward all the people gathered around, craning their necks to see better. “Would Fate give us you to lead by my side? To protect us?” His tone isn’t cruel or mocking. It’s coldly reasoning. Like he’s speaking to a child. Or a mad woman.

He waits as if he’s expecting an answer.

I can’t speak. It hurts. My she-wolf’s pain echoes off my own, and none of this makes sense.

I don’t want to be his mate. I’m not. If I have a choice, I refuse, but every atom in me knows there’s no choice. There’s a flow of energy between us, my breast to his chest. How does he not feel it?

Of course, I’m the last female to rule a pack. I didn’t pick this. But that’s not the way this works, and he knows it.

His angular jaw clenches. He’s perturbed that I’m not taking it back. Should I? I don’t want this. Not in any way.

“I’ve killed for this pack,” he says. “I’ve brought light in the dark and heat in winter. Water that runs clean. I’ve been challenged eight times, and I have emerged victorious with the flesh of my rivals

filling my belly. What have you done? How have you earned the rank you claim?” His voice is even, and there’s pity in his eyes. He shakes his head.

“You’re confused. Go back to the kitchen.”

And that’s all the time he has for me. He snaps for his lieutenants and turns back to his dais. I’m dismissed. Thrown back in the water with my head ripped off like a too-small fish, guts leaking, lungs still screaming for air.

Inside me, everything that makes me, that holds me up and keeps me going day to day, crashes to the ground and splinters. The pain is a gaping hole. An unfathomable wrong.

The connection between us is there, throbbing and alive, and he doesn’t seem to feel it at all.

I wait for my heart to sputter to a stop. It can’t endure. It isn’t possible that it’s still beating.

But it does. Thump. Thump. Steady and sure. As if nothing happened.

As if the universe hadn’t told me, in the most basic of terms, that I’m less than nothing.

The silence in the great room is suffocating, and then chaos breaks out. There are catcalls and hoots and laughter. Killian snaps his teeth, and the pack lowers the volume until the derision and amusement is a dull roar filling the room.

“Get her out of here,” Killian says to his lieutenants. They try to out-stare each other until, finally, Tye huffs, strides over, and grabs my elbow. He marches me out, hauling me back to my feet when I trip, steering me across the open floor and down a corridor to the rear exit.

He kicks the screen door open and thrusts me into the dark.

“Go home,” he says, his voice surprisingly free of scorn. “Don’t come back around for a while.

Let things cool down.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He goes back inside, letting the door slam behind him.

I’m alone in the dark, naked and trembling, and the worst is that now the danger is past, heat is creeping through my veins again. Warm want and longing rise as the adrenaline ebbs. Slick drips down the insides of my thighs.

I squint into the night. My senses are sharper than they’ve ever been—there’s a new richness to the faded green and brown rust of the dumpsters, to the musk of the raccoons that circled the container and ambled off into the trees.

Oh, hell. I’ve been thrown out with the trash.

Well, I’m not going to stay here. I head into the woods. There is no way I’m going back around front to the path so I can stumble naked past the old males smoking cigars on the porch.

Killian’s words ring in my ears. What have I done for this pack?

Endured it for twenty-seven years. Cooked their food. Cleaned their lodge. Washed their clothes. And in between I taught myself—and then the other lone females—how to make preserves, and keep bees, and dry herbs, and raise hens for eggs, and forage for mushrooms.

I figured out how to drive and how to sell our goods at the human market, and then I figured out the internet. I made money. Money for phones and books and whatever we want. Money so that we don’t have to ask the males for anything, and we owe them nothing.