Raise

Thirty Five

Gainey

When I was  a young pup , I learned pretty quickly that having a mate was something I never wanted. My father tried his best to change my mind by regalling me with stories of his fated mating to my mother, but from what I saw with him and my step mother, there wasn't much that held any interest for me.
Perhaps it was the way that she was always scheming. Always pushing Damon to be bigger. Better. Stronger. No matter the cost. No matter who got hurt. Father included.
Or maybe it was the way she started to look at me as I became a young adult.

If that's how mateships worked, I wanted nothing to do with them.
And that's not even counting the countless cabins I would see her emerging from before dawn as I completed my training. Or the men she openly flirted with around the pack.

Having Benji as an instant brother softened the blow for me but he is literally the only positive thing to come out of the abomination that was my fathers mating to that woman. And then he went and topped himself to boot.
My father was a means to an end for her. But it was his ultimate end.
She was not the partner he wanted but more needed really,  after my mothers death. He was lonely. Vulnerable. And it was all for nothing.

When I think of mated pairs, I always see the hurt first. The danger of letting your heart be taken by another. The shame my father felt. The pain I felt for him. The damage it caused to Damon. To my father. To the pack.
That's why I swore I would never take a mate. If that meant no pup, then, so be it. I also swore I would never lead the pack. Any pack. Not that there was much left after she decimated it all anyway.

Though I have to admit a small part of me softens  when I think of the way that Alice holds that young one with such affection, it still doesn't erase the hurt I have witnessed. A mother loving on her young is something to see. Something I missed out on. Something I saw a warped version of for much of my life.

Still, It's also nice to know Alice is able to feel something other than the contempt she aptly amplifies towards me.

But then, even I'm not dense enough to think that her attitude towards me is not all her fault. I wanted to repel her. And I did.

And now I have no clue what to do or what I even want.

Tossing and turning all night and rehashing old, painful memories and new fresh ones has meant that sleep has evaded me and if it's even possible, I'm more tired than I was before I laid down.

Gah. To hell with it. There are several impossible and imperative talks I need to have today and my hearing tells me that the two of the most urgent subjects are currently in the kitchen together.

A niggling scrap of jealousy bites into my subconscious. The thought of the two of them, down there alone, rubs me the wrong way and it feeds into my innate fear of mates. Of the way mates change a wolf.

Im not at all sure who I want to see the least. The surely Alpha with a broken heart or my sullen mate with a temper of a kicked hornets nest.

Both need an honest and raw talking to. Both need sorting out.
Both are going to kick my ass sideways into next Sunday.

Goddess. I already hate today.

Dragging ass into the shower, I make light work of refreshing myself, stepping out with a light towel dry. I catch sight of myself in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door and I instantly freeze. The bruises and scrapes are one thing but the deep, long nail gauges down the front of my chest and torso make me shudder and I can't help but fall back into the shiver inducing memory of the wolf who put them there.

Some wolves might say I have been lucky with women. Blessed even. It's true, I haven't had to work for company or to earn a release, but I have also always attracted the wrong kind of attention. Unwanted. Infatuated. Unrequited.
Like Gia. Or my step mother.