“Ever.”
“Come back to camp with me, Una.”
“I hate you.”
“I’ll buy you more mushrooms.”
Tears fill my eyes again, and he stiffens, his blue eyes darkening. “I don’t want your mushrooms. I want mine back.”
He hisses, and then he hops to his feet, holding out a hand. “You don’t have a choice.”
I feel small and stupid, naked and huddled on the ground. There’s dirt on my butt. I’ve ruined another outfit and pair of shoes. And it’s all his fault.
“You can’t stay here.” He says it very reasonably. There’s even a hint of compassion in his voice. I want to choke him to death with his patronizing bull crap.
“You’re not my mate,” I say. He can hear it as many times as I’ve had to. He winces, and my mean streak is happy.
He waits, though, patient, hand extended.
I roll to my hip, draw up my bad knee, push up on my good leg. I don’t touch him. When I’m standing, I glare over his shoulder and wait.
“Have you always been this salty, shy girl?” His lips are turned up at the corners.
“You know everything. You tell me.”
“I like a mouth on a female.”
My belly fizzles. I clench my abs, and it doesn’t help.
He draws in a deep breath, and his lips curve so high, he almost flashes his teeth. “You don’t have to fight this. It’ll be good.”
I start back toward the truck, one arm wrapped around my breasts, the other covering my butt the best I can. “No, it won’t.”
He follows, and after a few steps, he takes the lead. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, and I don’t have to worry so much about trying to cover myself.
“I don’t see how you can say that,” he says. “I’ve had no complaints.”
“No complaints in Quarry Pack. Nut up or shut up.” I throw his tired lines back at him.
He snorts. “You know, I say that, but the elders sure as shit don’t think that rule applies to them.”
He slows his pace a little so he doesn’t get too far ahead. It’s hard to navigate the furrows in human form. I keep tripping on dirt clods.
“Yeah, the rules are a sliding scale.”
“What do you mean?” He sounds genuinely curious.
“High rank can do whatever they like. Low rank has to toe the line.” The rules you can get away with openly breaking kind of reflects your rank, in a way.
“That’s bullshit.”
“Sure.”
“It’s not that way.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t fuckin’ do that.” He’s irritated. Good. So am I. I just twisted my ankle again, and we’re getting close to the road. I don’t want to be here, buck naked when someone I know from town could drive past.
“Do what?” I pick up my pace.
“’Okay’ me.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
He’s gotten far enough ahead that he waits for me to catch up. His arms are folded, and he’s scowling.
I hold my head high as I pass him. I refuse to cover my butt. He’s seen it before. And he can kiss it.
“The rules are the rules.” He falls in beside me.
I don’t bother arguing.
“For everyone.”
We get to the truck, and he darts around me to open the passenger door. I ignore his hand and lift myself up to the seat.
He hops into the driver’s seat, wincing as his bare ass hits the sunbaked vinyl seats. “You can’t justify breaking the rules by saying everybody does it. That’s weak.”
I reach for the seatbelt, and then I remember it got sliced. The whole interior is wrecked. There are rips in the upholstery, my window is cracked, and the glove box is open and won’t stay shut. I try a few times before I give up. Liam is gonna be pissed.
“Giving me the silent treatment now?” Killian jerks the truck into gear. It starts again on his first try. It’s got to be luck.
“What did you want me to say, Alpha? You know everything.”
He huffs, exasperated. I stare at the spiderweb crack on the window. My eyes blur. For a little while there, I forgot, but now it hits me again. It’s all over. I’m not going to be able to casually go into town again. Not after Killian assaulted a human.
The girls and I have worked so hard. We built the bee hives. The herb garden. It took so long for the cuttings to sprout. We killed a lot before they took root. And then after we mastered growing them, there were the plagues: slugs, spider mites, whiteflies.
One step forward, two steps back. Another honey vendor showed up one day, and they had dandelion honey and sourwood honey and all different types, not just clover. Then another showed up. Then every farmer had honey, and our profits hit the crapper.
So we went back to the drawing board. Diversified. Mari learned to craft. Kennedy tried to make a still, but after two of them blew up, Abertha put the kibosh on that. Then I found the morels.
And now they’re smeared on a sidewalk, my buyer is a grade A creep and traumatized to boot, and Killian Kelly wants to lecture me like I’m a child.
I don’t have any energy left to be angry.
Killian rolls down his window. He keeps glaring at me and glancing away. He’s pissed, and it eats at me. You just can’t totally ignore biology. An angry alpha is an overriding danger. But the whole suckiness of the day muffles the instinct enough that I don’t feel compelled to show my neck and try to smooth things over.
He can stew. Dirty looks can’t hurt me. Much. My belly does ache.
We’re silent for a mile or two, and then he turns on the air conditioner to full blast. “It reeks in here,” he mutters.
I sniff quietly. I don’t smell anything besides old truck, which, granted, does stink. But it’s not that bad.
He drums the steering wheel. His nails really are a mess. As if he bites them. He turns on the radio, flips through the stations without stopping, and then turns it back off.
Finally, he huffs, frustrated, “Can you stop? I’m getting pissed.”
“Stop what?” And he’s already pissed. So am I.
“You smell sad. It’s stinking up the cab. And it’s fucking with my wolf.”
Un-freakin’-believable.
“Yes, Alpha.” I close my eyes and picture the mushrooms smeared on the sidewalk. I picture the girls’ faces when I tell them. I don’t even try to fight the tears. I set them free to flow, but of course, now they won’t.
He growls. “You’re doing it on purpose.”
My lips twitch, and I fight it with all my might. “Yes, Alpha.”
I have to suck in my cheeks to keep from smirking.
“I should pull over and make you walk,” he grumbles.
“Fine by me, Alpha.”
“No male wants a female with a smart mouth.”
“Don’t want you either.” I stare straight ahead. “And you said you liked a female with a mouth on her. Earlier.”
He barks a laugh. “So I did.” His smile is slow to fade. “So I did.”
We fall quiet. He doesn’t speak again until we turn off Rural Route 10 onto pack territory. “I like how you smell now. It’s better.”
He glances over at me and catches my gaze. “Better than better. Good.”
Then, he schools his expression, and he doesn’t say anything else until we pull up in front of his cabin.
“We’re home,” he says when the engine sputters to a stop. “Now do you walk in, or do I carry you?”
9
KILLIAN