The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 1)

Killian takes me further up the hill, past the other dens, to the very last one to be occupied. When I was a little girl and my parents were alive, my mother would bring food up to the elders who lived here. I was fascinated by them. They split their time almost evenly between fur and skin. They hunted their own food, and bed down with the rest of the pack in piles. I always got the sense when I talked to one, I talked to all of them.

We don’t live like this anymore. We have our own cabins, keep to our own little groups. There’s a thread that still runs through us all, though. No matter how we change. We’re swept along by time together. We share a past and a future.

Killian has carried it all on his shoulders for a long time now. When we first moved out of the dens, we split. Under his father, we divided into winners and losers, the strong and the weak. Rank ruled. Killian figured out a way for our males to fight for us, not amongst each other. He couldn’t change rank, so he slowly made the strong the protectors and the weak, the protected.

Imperfect. Infuriating. Downright maddening.

But he kept us together. And what he did, he did alone.

I squeeze the calloused hand still holding mine. He glances down, surprised.

I offer him a small smile.

His grin splits his face.

I scent Gael and Tye on the wind, hanging back, but following. Guarding us. And for some reason, I catch a whiff of Kennedy, too.

I don’t have the chance to puzzle that out before Killian pulls me through the entrance to the cave we call “the overlook.” It opens facing the old quarry. There’s a view of the emerald green rainwater collected at the bottom, and in the distance, the wooded hills that lead to the border of our territory to the south. It seems high above the world, and when there is a moon illusion, it feels like you can reach up and touch it.

The ceiling is low, but Killian can still stand without stooping. The caverns go back a long way, but you can’t tell from the first room. It’s like any other cave with a narrow split in the rocks at the back.

I haven’t been inside in years. There aren’t cozy nests on frames strung with ropes or fires with kettles hanging above on tripods anymore. The space has been swept clean. There are waterproof plastic tubs along the walls. I guess that’s where the bedding is stored for females who do their heat up here. It’s supposed to be auspicious to conceive young in the dens.

Is that what Killian is thinking? The excitement earlier—and the scent of other males—tamped down my heat, but it’s returning now, stronger than before. I can’t see how it can ebb again. I think when it comes this time, it’s going to carry me away until it ends.

My belly is unsettled. Last time with Killian was good—until it was awful. And Killian and I haven’t really worked things out between us. Have we?

I fuss in my head while he guides me through the back caverns. The floor slopes downward, and the ceiling rises higher. Now there are stalactites dripping down, slick and pearlescent. There’s a pitter patter ahead, like raindrops.

It’s the pool. The elders used to take us young down here while our parents chatted around the fire. It’s bigger than a bathtub. Almost the size of a small swimming pool. The water is perfectly clear.

The elders explained how the rainwater is cleaned as it sinks through the bedrock and how it collects and never evaporates because there’s no sunlight down here, only the bare lightbulbs rigged up on a string along the walls. They’re not quite fairy lights, but they cast a warm glow around the cavern.

Killian leads me to the edge of the pool. It’s chilly this far down, but my skin is hot. Inside, I’m a furnace. My heat is coming on hard.

“Wait,” he says. He jogs back the way we came, and for a few minutes, I’m alone, deep underground. It’s a surreal place, magical and shadowy and silent.

This whole day has been strange. I should be reeling, but I’m not. I feel steadier than I ever have before. I made a choice. I claimed my place in this pack. With Killian.

I’m not living one foot in, one foot out anymore. This is my life. For good or ill. And it doesn’t feel like giving up or making do or accepting that which cannot be changed. It feels like fate. A fate that isn’t a trap but a path.

I run my fingers along the smooth, cool walls. We came from here, and we keep coming back. Not because we can’t get away, but because there’s power in where you come from. What made you.

Fate made me Killian Kelly’s mate. That doesn’t mean what I thought it did. I’m not his to do with as he pleases. He is mine.

I think these big thoughts while my body goes haywire waiting for my mate to return. My nipples peak, aching. My skin shivers and there’s a bubbling in my belly.

I want my mate.

“Hurry,” I send through the bond.

“Yes,” he answers me instantly.

When Killian returns, his loud steps give me plenty of warning. He brings a pile of clean blankets, towels, and washrags.

“I thought we should get the blood off before we take a dip,” he says, arranging the linens in a pile. It’s all wrong. I’ll fix it once I’m clean.

Killian stalks over to the pool, oddly bashful. He tests the temperature and scrubs his own hands. He’s not meeting my eyes.

Then he dips a cloth in the pool, wrings it out, and comes to me. I stand very still, flushing hot, breathing quicker and quicker.

He wipes my neck first, lingering over his bite mark.

“You almost killed me back there,” he says, his voice low and smoldering.

He traces the pink scars of his claiming bite. They look like the wounds on my legs, but they don’t hurt at all.

“Don’t ever put yourself in danger like that again, Una. Promise me.”

“I knew you’d get Lochlan before he had a chance to hurt me.”

“I didn’t though. You took him down.” He smiles as he smooths the cloth down my shoulder and arm.

“Yeah. I don’t know why he used a knife. If he’d used his claws, it would’ve been a lot closer.”

Killian tenses, but his strokes remain calm and even.

“It’s a tactic. In case of invasion, wolves expect to fight wolves. If you outnumber the attacking force, armed males have the advantage.”

“You taught them that, didn’t you?”

He huffs a sigh. “I taught them everything they know.”

“Who taught you?”

He moves to my other side. His touch becomes brisker and more efficient. I’ve got goosebumps up and down my arms, and they seem to bother him. He uses his other hand to rub my clean skin, as if to warm me, but I’m burning up. My skin is prickling from anticipation, not the chill.

“Everyone.”

“How so?” He lowers himself to his knees to wipe my legs.

“Dermot. Eamon. Quill. My father. Moon Lake. North Border. Salt Mountain.”

“Not Last Pack?”

“They don’t know shit but how to sniff ass.”

My lips curve. Poor Last Pack. Always lowest rung on the shifter ladder. And yet here we are. In our bare skin, in a den. No different than them.

“If you listen, and you watch, you pick stuff up.” Killian places my hands on his shoulders, and then he lifts my bad leg to wipe off my foot. I wiggle my toes. He grabs them and squeezes. “Behave.”

“It tickles.”

“I’m quick.”

“And bossy.”

He arches an eyebrow. He looks so damn pleased with himself.

“You’re not the boss of me. Just so you know.” I put more of my weight on his shoulders as he lifts my good leg.

“I know.”

“I’m not going to stop selling mushrooms.”

“You’ve got more?”

“I’m going to grow more.”

“Okay.” He places my foot carefully back on the smooth rock floor, and he sits back on his heels, gazing up at me. He’s smiling, amused, and his cock is hard.

“And any female who wants to sell things at the market, can.”

“Agree.”

“And we need a rotation for laundry and kitchen duty. One that’s fair.”

He nods.

“And if a female wants to fight, she can.”

“Who wants to fight?”

Kennedy, for one, but I’d never betray her confidence. “It’s a hypothetical.”

“If I let females fight, the males are gonna band together and come after me again.”

“Are you worried?”

Now he grins wide enough to show his sharp incisors. “Not at all.”

“And females can drive if they want to.”

“Seems they already do.” Killian gazes up at me, and even in the dim light, his eyes twinkle. “Are those all your demands, Alpha?”

My stomach flips. Oh, I like him on his knees in front of me, calling me that, looking at me like that. It’s heady.

“I want land near the commons. For gardens and a new greenhouse.”

His smile already tells me yes.

“I might not want to go all the way to Abertha’s cottage when I have a pup.”

His eyes turn molten and lower to my bare belly. My heat surges.

“A pup?”

I shift. “Well, yeah. I guess. Yes? That’s what mates do, right? Have pups?”

“Not always.”

“But most of the time.”

He nods. His face is serious now. “If you don’t want it yet, I can pull out.”

My hand flies to my face. This is so weird. We’ve known each other all our lives, we’re connected by a bond as real as muscle and bone, and in some ways, I’m still the nerd at the front of the bus, and he’s the cool kid in the very back seat.

And he just said “pull out.”

He reaches out and cups my calves, stroking with his thumbs. “I want you to carry my pups, Una. I want that more than anything. You know that, right?”

I lift a shoulder.

“But if you want more time, you have it. If you need me to prove myself, I will.”

His intention flows into my chest, powerful and true. He’s waited for me almost his whole life. Maybe his mind forgot, but his heart never did.

Now I understand that mine didn’t either. Not really. But I didn’t have a choice, so I made my own way. Like he did. And we found each other again. Neither of us innocent anymore, but maybe better off for it.

“Are you still mad that I didn’t wait for you to have sex?” For the first time in the cave, I feel naked.

“Not mad.”

“Disappointed?” I cross my arms.

“Jealous.”

“We weren’t together. We didn’t know we were mates. Neither of us.”

“I know.” He rises to his knees and gently takes my hands, pulling them away from my chest. “I feel what I feel. But it’s not on you. And I don’t want you to regret anything. I wanted everything in your life to be good and perfect.”

The memory floats up between us. The crone’s bed, her soft quilt, the horrible pain, and the cool tea.

“It wasn’t. But it wasn’t bad, either. It’s the path I had to take to get here.”

“To me,” he says.

“To you,” I agree. “Do you remember? Abertha’s cottage? After the attack?”

“I do.” He tucks a flyaway behind my ear. “You were so brave.”

“You were so strong.” And in my memory, I see how very young he was, too.

He brushes a kiss across my lips and lowers himself back to his knees, drawing me down to wrap my legs around his waist. He’s hard against my belly, but this isn’t about that. He squeezes my hands, and through the bond, I feel his nervousness and hope.

He bares his neck and casts his gaze down. For me.

His vein throbs.

I have a choice, but it feels like I made it a long time ago. When—I’m not quite sure. But it’s natural for my fangs to lengthen. My wolf yips and bounds. She’s all on board.

I open my mouth and test his skin with the tips of my fangs. He shudders in my arms. His longing teases my nostrils.

He wants this so bad. Worse than I have ever wanted anything.

It’s knowing that—the truth of it pulsing through our bond—that lets me let it all go—the fight with Haisley. The night in the blackberry patch. The dumb rules and frustrations and bull crap that I blamed him for over the years.

It was all his fault, but it’s not the whole of it.

I remember curling beside him in bed. I remember him reverently braiding my hair. We’ve been without each other too damn long. And I want him back.

I sink my teeth into his neck, and his groan of pure pleasure echoes off the ceiling. He tastes like a copper penny. His blood sizzles on my tongue, and then it lights my every nerve on fire, and I’m burning now, hotter and brighter than ever before.

“Mate,” I moan.

He blinks at me with bleary, blissed-out eyes. He holds me tight, and I lap at my bite, healing the wounds as I admire them. They’re not as big as mine, but they’re perfect all the same.

I wriggle in his arms. Why are we kneeling here?

“What’s wrong?” he murmurs. “What do you need?”

“You know. I’m hot.” My skin is on fire, and my insides are cramping, spasming on air.

“Do you want the pool?” He stands, lifting me, and strides over to the pool to lower me in. The water is cold, and I sink down until it licks my chin, but it’s not enough.

He steps in after me, and I turn, climb him, gnaw at the beautiful mark I’ve made. He rinses my hair with palms full of cool water.

“Killian.” I rise up, try to sink down on his hard cock, but he twists to the side.

“You need to build your nest. And you’ll need food and water. I have to go back up and get some. It’ll only be a minute. Okay?”

He’s frowning, and he’s talking nonsense. Except the nest. Yes. We do need that.

I push out of his arms. He lets me go, but he follows close behind. We’re dripping on the rock, and I slip, but his hands are already on my waist, steadying me. The pile of blankets is not very big.

“Don’t move. I’ll be quick.” He’s at the crack leading out of the cavern. My wolf snaps at him to stay.

“But you’ll need food.”

My wolf growls. I swear it sounds like she says if he leaves, she’ll chew his leg off.

Killian stays. I fix the nest. Thick wool blankets on the bottom, fluffy comforters on top. They smell like detergent and lavender sachets, which isn’t perfect, but it’s acceptable for now, especially with the scent of the cave in my nose. It’s dark and private and full of the essence of wolves from ages and ages ago. It’s pack.

I fluff a pillow and ease myself down. The heat is a beat in my chest, a cresting, crashing wave.

This is right. Everything is aligned. The moon is rising. My wolf can sense it.

I move onto my knees and arch my back, opening my chest, welcoming the bond. I close my eyes.

Killian comes to me. His steps fall heavy on the stone. My mate is strong and tall. He’s vicious, and wise, and he belongs to me.

I bend deeper, showing him that I’m ready. Inside, I blush, but I’m not only Una. I am Una and her wolf. We are shameless and demanding.

We’ve waited for this moment for a very long time.

Killian covers me. His cock prods my slick opening. I moan.

He whispers in my ear, “Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you, Una Hayes.”

And he sinks inside me, plunges deep, and my pussy is already fluttering, urging him on, to seed us with our pups and to make him ours again.