“You had no right, Father.” Pointing my finger at his face, I make sure my eyes don’t leave him. I take my own threatening step toward the Alpha.
“I should have been brought back. He’s my brother.” The wolf in me growls viciously toward its Alpha. He’s not afraid. In fact, he’s starting to pace, wearing down that dirt path back and forth inside my head. A growl of warning from my father’s own wolf has his eyes flashing for a brief moment of the danger we will face if skin turns to fur.
A flash of teeth toward my father again. “You made the wrong decision, Alpha.” I say it with a snap of jaw, blood pumping fast through my heart that’s beating faster and faster.
I take the next threatening step forward, not hiding my posturing. I balance on the balls of my feet; the cold wind tries to cool off my body that’s inflamed with a feral rage. Its darkness travels inside me, growing darker and darker with what he has taken from me. I should have been here holding my brother the way he held me so long ago.
Another growl of menace, the wolf’s ascension is forcefully coming to the surface.
“Control yourself. You’re not ready yet for teeth, my son.” As my father is saying this, he starts to unbutton the cuffs on his shirt before taking it off completely, throwing it on the chair he was just sitting on.
He’s a big wolf, but I’m just as big now. Battle scars of old line his chest while mine are still fresh.
“Control myself? How did you think that I would react? You tell me my brother’s mate has been dead for six months, that Rya’s gone, she went away on her own, and nobody knows where she’s at!” Trying to maintain skin on top of fur, it’s impossible to work down the convulsions of the flesh.
Another step toward my father, a flock of crows gather in the treetops, cawing and clicking their beaks to one another as if they’re having betting wagers about the outcome of this inevitable challenge.
His body is firmly planted into the hardened ground that’s slowly been freezing with the drop in temperature.
“Understand if you do this what it means, my son. I will not go easy on you. I will show you why I’m the Alpha. You are not ready yet, so I suggest you get some control over yourself before I control you.” That comment earns him a primitive growl that pounds out my chest. My animal instincts are kicking in hard from being out there for too long.
My tongue drags on incisors that are edging out with the need to challenge something I feel is mine to take.
“Do you even know what he must have gone through? What he’s probably going through still? No, you don’t!” Words fly in barely controlled anger.
“I should have been here for him. You took that away from me.” I hit my own chest hard, and fur starts to sprout out from pores that are giving way to my true nature, stretching my jaw out with teeth and muzzle that elongates with my change. I want him to see me and what I’ve become while away, my own beast.
I don’t take my eyes off him.
“You need to stop now. I don’t want to do this. It solves nothing, my son.” His words are becoming muffled slightly with my threat that, as Alpha, he has no choice but to answer.
My mother makes her way toward us. She’s as much to blame as him. She could have sent one of my brothers to me. She could have done something as well. The eyes of the Wild turn on her, showing her my full set of teeth. A paw takes a step toward her in threat. I have never threatened her before. Always with her, I’ve had control, but now I have descended into my own wild.
My father springs toward me, leaving the wind in his wake.
He’s ripping into me like a ravenous hyena, all teeth and jaw as he tears flesh from bone. He doesn’t like his mate being threatened, no matter who it is.
Fight or flight.
Shaking him off, the Wilds circle each other. Eyes never leaving eyes, always at attention. Muscles contracting, vibrating fur with the need to lunge. Hind legs sinking down slightly as he springs.
A full-on assault. His wolf has no problem showing why he’s the Alpha. Instead of taking the offensive, the Wild is reduced to taking defensive tactics in a need for self-preservation.
Again and again, he eats away at flesh slowly, making it hurt. The trail of blood saturates the ground, unable to be absorbed by the frozen earth. Paws drip, painting the mosaic of red abstract art on the canvas of life.
He doesn’t relent. He shows that the wrong decision was made. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way in order for things to sink in. I had no chance. I wasn’t ready for this fight yet.
He severs the muscle that attaches the shoulder to front right leg, crumpling the Wild’s body down. Still, the wolf inside me tries standing on three legs, facing him head on. He pauses, head tilting to the side before severing that ligament in the back leg that’s needed for movement. Next is the base of my spine; legs cannot move anymore. He feels no pain now, just a heavy numbness.
Paralyzed.
He stands before the Wild with my blood dripping from his muzzle. He brings his teeth slowly to his neck. Holding him in his mouth, he bites down hard, not hard enough to end, but hard enough to show who he is and how much of a mountain I have to climb.
Whimpering in submission, I would have my tail tucked into myself, but I can’t move anymore.
Letting go, he edges back. Growls still tumble out of his body. My mother makes a move to come toward me, and he gives her a look. My mother doesn’t move a muscle. She just stares at my father, eye to eye. Until my father stretches out his body slowly, shaking his fur out, splatters of blood flinging off him like water in a rainstorm.
He comes up to the Wild, licking his jaw, nuzzling his cheek in a show of no hard feelings. We’re friends again.
It’s my mother that he slowly approaches, caution in his steps as if he’s been a bad wolf. He presses himself on her leg, making her step back slightly.
Her anger is screaming in silence.
A whimper from the wolf who is crouched slightly, ears pulled back in a humbling stance. A lick to her hand, he grabs her flesh, giving it a little nibble before he licks her again. She has no love for him back, putting her hands in her jacket pocket.
“Go.” That’s what she tells him. I have never seen my parents argue until now. I know they have fought, but I have never seen it with my eyes. His tail looks like it wants to curl underneath him. His wolf whimpers slightly before his nose nudges her thigh. All she does is angle her eyebrow up, jaw clenched tight, her eyes saying everything to him in a silent dialect that they have mastered over the years.
He paws her leg without ripping the material of her pants. He nudges her again, forehead pressed against her thigh. She gives him a quick flick of her hand to his head before he ambles away into the tree line.
Crouching down, she has her hard eyes on me.
“You’re a very stupid wolf, do you know that?” It’s just her and me. The wolf snaps jaws close to her face that she doesn’t flinch from. Instead, she grabs his jaw, muzzling it with a steel-like grip.
“I see you still have a little fight in you, pup.” Her hands squeeze the muzzle so hard it makes teeth crush together. If she doesn’t stop, the back molars will explode with her force.
I’m not sure who to be scared of more at this moment: the Alpha or his Luna.
“You need to think about what you’re doing, my son. This is going to hurt me more than you.” Walking away, she comes out with the collar. The Wild can’t even crawl away; his limbs are useless. My brothers are behind her.
“If you bite them, I will show you a mother’s love.” Her teeth descend, and it’s not pretty. She’s lethal if provoked enough. She hardly rages her anger toward us, only when necessary.
Only to prove a point.
“Pick him up. Put him behind the shed.” A wooden pole made of oak stands thick and tall, that’s been dug deep into the ground. My mother attaches the collar to a neck before my brothers lay me down near the chain that attaches at the base of the beam. I hear the click of the lock that attaches
to the loop in the silver collar.
“Now, let’s begin, shall we?” My brothers take a seat on the picnic table, watching my mother.
“I think that it’s too much information for you to process at one time. Too much all at once makes you do crazy things, like trying to take your father on when you have no business trying to challenge him. So you will remain out here until you have control over yourself, and we will fill you in very slowly on what you’ve missed out on. When you are caught up, I’ll let you out.” The wolf is laying on its side, the bleeding stopped on its own. I will have new scars. I wonder if those scars on my father came from his father?
Looking into my brothers’ eyes, I can see that they are slightly unsettled by this turn of events.
Fingers dig into the scruff of the Wild’s neck, angling my muzzle toward her nose.
“Do you understand?” She waits for an answer from me. We give her cheek a fast lick before she lets go, making my head fall hard into the dirt.
She walks away from us before coming back, pointing a finger in my brothers’ faces. “You will not release him until I say so.” Each one of them nod their heads quickly with her unspoken threat.
Once she’s gone, Caleb is the first to speak. “Got your ass handed to you. Not so tough now, are we, number one?”
Cash says nothing, no response from him; he’s all I can look at. I want to wrap my arms around that male. A low whimper from a throat tells him my sorrow for him.
He’s lost so much weight, sunken in cheeks. He looks only like a fragment of himself. Eyes haunted, does he see the nightmare when he tries to sleep like I did? I know this look; he looks just like me so long ago.
He gets up and walks away from our group, hands in pockets, head bent down. His gait is slow, walking to his own saddened song.
Crane follows him, talking to him, but Cash doesn’t answer back. I should have been here. Rage once again growls out. I must look a sight, unable to move, just a mess of wolf, but still making my displeasure known.
I guess my mother is right. I can’t handle what’s about to come in words. I need time to process all of this without posing a danger to everyone and myself.
“We have a lot to talk about, number one, but I think for today you’ve had more information than you can handle. See you in the morning. I’ll bring breakfast!” He and Carson both get up at the same time, leaving me to chew on everything that I’ve been told so far. I’m not sure I can handle any more of what’s been going on in my absence.
What I know at this moment is that Kennedy died in childbirth. That Rya left her pack, but why? She has gone off by herself without Clayton by her side. A new hope infuses into me that maybe there still is a chance for us, if she didn’t choose to stay with him, maybe. I cut that thought out completely.
All that’s been slamming into my mind when I let it is their bodies molded together, his hands gripping her, while hers were traveling his lines. Their tongues exploring each other, my gut clenches with the sight of it. The way he pulled her into him as if he’s done it before. It was natural, no awkwardness. She made no protest; she only wanted more from him. The ways her hand was slowly creeping up inside his shirt…I try to make the image disappear, but it’s hard to not see what I did. I just thought that with me out of the way, they would eventually be what they were made to be. I guess she proved my theory wrong.
The next day has Caleb eating a plate of food and throwing me bites every now and then. “Here, catch.” He tosses a piece of meat my way that lands beside my wobbly legs, whose feeling has come back, but not enough to work properly.
“That sucks, hate when dirt gets on my food.” He casually stabs a piece of pancake with his fork, placing it in his mouth, making a show of how good it tastes.
That earns him a low, rumbling growl.
Pointing his fork my way, while he chews with his mouth open, he does it on purpose. He knows how much I hate when he does that. “Now, brother, no need to growl, we’re friends. Look at you. It’s shameful, really.” He shakes his head in mock displeasure.
“So Mom said to tell you about Rya. Shall I begin?” He tosses me another piece of meat, just shy of my jaws so it’s covered in a coating of dirt that I swallow down. He’s doing it on purpose.
“Once you left, she was heartbroken, you know that? You broke her heart. I can understand you caught her kissing her MATE!” He yells the last word out to me. For my part, I snap jaws his way, letting my teeth hit together hard.
“No need for violence, just stating facts. Mom was right. It’s good you’re collared, always flying off the handle.” The pole groans slightly as I pull with all my effort to try and break free of my hold. The chain’s not giving up any extra inches. He smirks at me.
“You knew what you were up against when you pursue someone who has a living mate. You of all wolves should know what kind of connection they have.” Those words hit me hard. I was her fraud.
“It took a long time for her to come out of her funk. She cried a lot. I think she might still be crying. Do you know that every time we text each other, she always asks about you, if you’re home yet? Not a conversation goes by that she doesn’t ask about you.” The wolf’s ears perk up, head angling to the side, listening to him closely.
“Don’t worry, Clayton was there every step of the way to help her through it. He was everything that a mate should be, yet in the end, she chose to leave him behind.” My shoulders hunch slightly with this.
“Don’t like that? Hey, well, it’s the truth. You left too fast, you should have stayed around, but you didn’t, and now she’s off on some great adventure while you’re tied to a pole eating food covered in dirt.” He laughs to himself while I glare.
“All I’m saying is that she made a mistake that she wishes she could take back. What’s done is done. I’m sure there are mistakes that you wish you could take back, aren’t there?” He tosses me another piece of meat, but this time I catch it in the air, not allowing it to drop to the ground.
“Sometimes I feel as if I’m the smartest one in this family. It’s a heavy burden to carry.” He places another piece of pancake into his mouth that’s dripping maple syrup on his shirt. Tossing me the last piece of meat, he leaves me alone to chew on everything I learned in the morning sun.
The following morning has Carson coming to give me breakfast. “I told Mom and Dad about me.” His shoulders back, head held high.
“I did it myself. I feel good about it. I couldn’t live a lie anymore.” He gets close to me, putting a bowl filled with steaming meat in front of my nose.
He takes a seat on the frosted picnic table that looks like it has a crisp white tablecloth on it. The crisp air has our breath hanging in front of our faces for the gusts of wind to carry away as soon as our words are said.
“You were right about Mom and Dad. They still love me even if they don’t understand my choice. Rya knew, you know. She kept my secret from everyone. She could have told you, but she didn’t. She had my back. I wish I would have stopped the car, helped her up. It must have been hard for her that day. I wonder what she thought when she saw you with a shaved head? I can’t even imagine what her poor mind was going through. She’s a tough female. She rallied, didn’t she? And now she’s off on her own, not needing anyone to hold her up.” My shoulders sink into themselves, the weight of guilt so heavy I feel as if I could be pressed into the ground by it.
“Don’t worry, Caleb gave us a play by play of everything that’s been going on. I just can’t believe a female as good as her keeps getting rejected, first by her mate, then by someone who I thought was putting in some kind of effort. I guess effort to some is mediocre to others.” He just looks at me, not looking away.
“I’m kind of disappointed in you, always talking about watching and listening, try to get the whole story. I heard you didn’t even give her a chance to explain. I guess with you, it’s do as I say, not as I do.” He gets up off the table and walks away. I think he’s come to love her in his own
special way. My ears hurt from what he says to me. I can’t stomach the food, but I’m starving.
A few more days pass with my mother clicking her tongue at me, bringing me breakfast before muttering to herself about trying to teach me what’s right. How I’m not ready to take control of this pack, that she and my father won’t even be able to enjoy retirement together because I can’t get my act together.
The seventh night, it’s Cash who comes. Sitting on the picnic table, he looks at me silently before the palms of his hands press into his eyes. He shakes his head before walking away without saying a word. I try barking and pulling on the chain with everything I have in me. The pole groans with the strain but doesn’t budge with my effort.
It’s impossible to move something so rooted into the earth.
Crane comes sauntering the next morning toward me. “My turn to feed you.” He seems put out by this.
Watching him, he looks angry in a way, body tense slightly, jaw tight. A frown on his face.
“I don’t even know who you are. Who are you?” He gives me his back, walking away. His words surround me with ice. It has more of an effect than last night’s storm that has entombed everything in a thick layer of ice. At least with ice, it will melt when the sun comes out; with those words they stick inside my head, playing over and over again…who am I?
Cash comes the next morning, both of us somber, not really wanting to move. He places the bowl in front of me, then scratches my head before he takes a seat.
“I screwed up with her. I thought that I could just claim her and make her mine. I was so wrong. Maybe if I were nicer or maybe if I just waited for her to work her own issues out, things could have been different. I did some bad things to her, to my mate. I can make excuses saying how hard it was to lay next to her while she dreamed of him. Do you know how that feels? What kind of way it gets you twisted up? Knowing your mate preferred someone else.” He looks to the tree line. He smells of pups and milk, the way mothers smell.
The Wildflower Series Page 40
