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“West? Are you okay?”
He rubs his chest with the heel of his hand. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Liar.
My wolf is right. Alpha wolves have the gift of knowing instinctively when a less dominant packmate is lying to them. I’m no alpha, but as the Omega, I have a similar ability. No matter how well-intentioned, a lie rubs my fur the wrong way.
Only… I get the feeling he doesn’t even know what he’s saying.
Murmuring that he has to be going—and obviously distracted—West moves in to brush his lips against my cheek. If I wasn’t already sure that something was wrong, that absent-minded action would’ve been enough to set off alarm bells.
I haven’t kissed Weston Reed in three years. From the moment I accepted that I would be Rafael’s mate, I couldn’t. I couldn’t change my past with West—and I wouldn’t even if I could—but it was up to me to make sure that West knew we wouldn’t have a future.
Collecting the flowers he brings me is one thing. I reject the food he tries to feed me, and when he tries to get too close, I always move just out of his reach. And while that doesn’t stop him from trying to serve me at least once a week, even West knows better than to push my wolf on physical affection. He’s only teasing both of us with something we can never have again.
But he kisses me, then jogs down the porch stairs before running off.
And as he heads in the direction of the Alpha cabin, I tuck the stem of the pink flower behind my ear, nestling the petals in my hair as I wonder what just in the name of the Luna happened.
* * *
It doesn’t take longbefore I know what caught West’s attention.
Three days ago, he left Hickory with three members of Bishop’s pack council: Joey, Tucker, and Darrin. They returned late last night, with a very subdued Quinn Malone nestled between them. West brought her to meet with Bishop, then escorted her back to her cabin.
He’s basically been by her side ever since.
I want to be happy for him. If it wasn’t for my visit with Sofia earlier this afternoon, I might have been.
They left on a rescue mission, but after Quinn explained what really happened, it turns out that she’s one she-wolf who didn’t want to be rescued. The feral who took her captive might have kept her in shifter chains until he could be sure she wouldn’t attack him from drugging her with quicksilver and running away with her to his personal territory, but once she understood he was just lonely, she gave him a chance.
Sometime between plotting her own escape and West and the others showing up to bring her home, Quinn fell in love with her feral. She only came back with the four wolves who went after her because she was afraid there might be a confrontation between West and Chase, her feral shifter.
West is the sort of wolf who believes in doing his duty. It’s why he went to retrieve Quinn when, for the first time since she was gone, he could track her through their bond; that’s what happened the other evening on my porch. It’s also why he decided to do the right thing and ask Quinn to accept him as her fated mate.
I was sitting down when Sofia told me that earlier today. At her urging, I was resting on the edge of my sofa, as though she thought I would take the news badly.
I refused to. How could I? Maybe I would’ve rather heard it from West himself—since I told him about Rafael on my own—but for three years I encouraged him to go after his fated mate. I didn’t have the right to be upset that he finally listened to me.
Instead, I wished him the best. Not to him, of course, since I haven’t seen him since he left with the other three, but if there’s one thing I honestly want, it’s West’s happiness—with or without me.
But just because I tell Sofia I’ll be the first to offer West and Quinn my congratulations, it doesn’t mean I don’t mourn the future I could’ve had if the Luna hadn’t decided to whisper another male’s name in my ear. I do, and once Sofia leaves to return to Bishop, I curl up on the edge of my sofa, plug in my headphones, and lose myself in brokenhearted ballads and hopeless love songs.
No matter how loud the volume on my music player is, it does nothing to drown out the fierce wolf howl that rips through Hickory later that night.
I’m already tearing my headphones off, rising up to my feet before the echo of the howl finally dies down.
Even after it’s over, something about the nature of the howl sends shivers down my spine. I’m not near enough to the source of the sign to get a good read on the wolf who made it, but I’m positive that it wasn't just any old howl.
That was a warning and a declaration all in one.
It also has an edge of insanity to it. Even if I didn’t know that Quinn had spent the last two weeks in a secluded cabin far from pack land, trapped with aferal, the pain in that howl wouldn’t clued me in.
Sofia told me that she warned Bishop that the feral would be coming for her… well, no. That’s not the right word for it. Warned implies that Quinn was afraid of her feral when the truth is that, in the time since she was taken, the feral male had courted her in his own way, and asked her to choose him as her mate.
Unlike me, she wasn’t clinging to the idea that she had to mate the male the Luna gave to her. She wanted her feral, but before Bishop could arrange to bring her back to him, it seems as if the feral has taken matters into his own paws.
He won’t make it onto pack territory. Whether he’s come for Quinn or not, Bishop won’t risk allowing a raging feral to step paw in Hickory.
