emery
"Do you have to pace like that?"
Dani stops to look over at me. "Mind your own business, human."
"I am. You're stressing me out doing that," I mutter, clutching at the thin blankets around me. "What's your deal, anyway?"
"I don't have a deal," she says. Her eyes flutter around before coming back to me. "I'm just worried. Arabella trusts that Alpha too much. I'm pretty sure she's going to pull something while they're gone."
I keep myself from saying, "Yeah, well, that troublemaking Alpha is mine. So you can shut the hell up."
Instead, I tighten the blankets around my shoulders and sigh. "You're worried about Arabella."
She shoots me a look that I'm sure should be a glare but is just sad. I feel for her.
"You're in love with her?" I ask.
"No," she says too quickly. "I just . . . care about her. We'll all be fucked if something happens to her."
I don't buy that excuse at all, but I'm not about to point fingers when there is no one here to prevent Dani from ripping my throat out.
"Why do you rely on her so much? I mean, doesn't that defeat the point of being a rogue?" I say, even though I don't know anything about rogues. It just sounds like something Lenora has said before.
"Being a rogue can mean a lot of things." She rubs the bridge of her nose, distressed. "You wouldn't know the first thing."
"You're right. I don't. Since we have nothing else to do, why don't you explain it to me?"
Dani paces a few steps before she stops again and faces me. "I don't know why I'm even bothering, but fine," she says.
She sits in front of me under the makeshift tent. Up close, I can see how dark her eyes are and how dirty her hair is. Pine needles stick out of the fine, black strands, and dirt clumps around the ends. I wish I could just take her back to the pack house and bathe her. A hot meal, too.
"Not all rogues want to be alone," Dani tells me. She steeples her fingers together, holding my gaze steadily. "Some of us had bad experiences with packs or were kicked out. We don't want that life, but we don't want to be by ourselves either. Before Arabella and the others started to gather us, a rogue had to basically either live out in the woods like a natural wolf or completely abandon that part of ourselves and live a human life." Dani shakes her head. "You can't imagine how awful that is, pretending to be someone you're not. I don't know how people do that for their whole lives. I did it for four years and I was barely holding on."
I do feel bad for her. Wolves are so much more complicated than I'll ever understand. Yes, they are part human, like me, but they have so many more instincts, urges, and social complexities.
Humans don't have mates. We don't have Alphas. Many humans even like to live alone, off the grid. Wolves need other wolves to stay sane.
Not to even mention how their anatomy is so physiologically different from ours.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, as though empathizing with her is a sin. "I can't imagine how that must have been for you."
"I bet not. Human lives are so simple." Dani rolls her eyes. "Being a wolf these days is a trap. Either you're alone or you're under the rule of some asshole who can boss you around all the time."
I wince. Sure, Lenora can be an asshole, but her pack loves her. She doesn't boss them around all the time either, unless she really needs their help. It seems unfair to assume that all Alphas are power-hungry abusers.
"So," Dani goes on, "you can imagine how many of us were excited to join Ara. She offered us unity without compulsion. At the end of this, we'll be free to live how we want to. We'll have leaders but not Alphas. Not wolves who just use us to get what they want. It's what we've been evolving towards for a long time. Nobody has had the guts to do it until now."
"Doesn't Ara kind of . . . I don't know. Boss you around? Like, all the time?" I ask.
Dani's eyes turn cutting. "We have to follow her until all the Alphas are taken care of. Once they're not standing in our way, we can start our new way of life. Arabella doesn't want this power. She was put into this place because she could get the job done."
I bite my lip to keep myself from snorting. Ara doesn't want this power? Bull shit. She's as greedy and selfish as they come. The whole reason I'm even here is because she wants leverage over Lenora. She wants Lenora to be her little bitch. I don't know how any of these rogues can stand by, watching this unfold, and view their leader any differently. Ara is exactly the Alpha they all hate so much.
While I want to blame Dani for idolizing Ara, I can't let myself loathe her. Even as she sits here, under direct orders to babysit me until Ara gets back, I don't hate her or blame her. She's just a pawn. A pawn who fell in love with the wrong woman.
Unfortunately, I can relate to that more than anything. We can't help who we love. It just happens. One second, life is blissfully uncomplicated and in the next, you're willing to do whatever horrible thing is necessary to protect this one person. It's illogical and even a little anti-survival. I know that Lenora would die for me without thinking twice. That's the kind of lover she is. She would do the same for anyone in her pack, too.
Thinking about her makes me miss her terribly. If I let myself dwell on it, I'll become a pacing nut just like Dani.
"Have you ever told her how you feel?" I ask.
I feel limitless since life is so out of my control. Why not ask the questions no one wants to hear? What do I have to lose?
Dani opens her mouth, her eyes glinting defensively, but she stops herself. Her mouth shuts for a moment. When she brings her gaze to mine again, it's like I can visibly see her guard lower.
"No," she whispers the miserable little word. "I could never tell her."
"Why not?"
She laughs sadly. "She isn't interested. Everyone is a potential lover to her. She could never be mine."
"Are you mates?" I ask.
"Oh, no." Dani shakes her head. "Everyone knows that Arabella rejected her mate a long time ago. I think mine rejected me, too. I don't know, though. I've never met them."
Wetting my lips, I unfold my numb legs and let the blood flow move back into them. The air is chilly, though, so I quickly cover myself with the blanket. "Well," I say, "what if you just haven't met them yet? Would you reject them for her?"
She mulls over that for a moment, staring off contemplatively. "I don't know. I guess I'd have to meet them and then decide."
"Mhm." I drum my fingers on my legs. "Have you and Ara ever had sex?"
It's a bold question—nosy, honestly—but Dani doesn't even bat an eye.
"No," she says. "She flirts with me, though. Before you, she used to invite me in here just to look at me."
I'm surprised at the light burn of jealousy I feel in my lower abdomen. What the hell? The thought of Ara inviting women into her space and admiring them makes my guts twist. Shaking my head slightly, I try to focus.
"To look at you?" I ask her. "What do you mean?"
"Like, she'd tell me to come in and stand in front of her. And her eyes . . . God, they'd make me feel so hot. She'd just look me over, again and again. I kept wondering when she'd, you know, ask me. I would've said yes."
I curl up on my side and sigh. Why did Arabella torture me when she has women throwing themselves at her? Using me accomplishes nothing. Much to my regret, my mind summons the memory of her cum in my mouth. The way it tasted was so sweet and smooth.
My pussy tingles. I hate that she's linked our bodies together. I don't want this. I don't want to feel any form of lust for her, but I can't stop the way my body reacts.
"Why don't you just mark her?" I ask. "If anyone can just bite someone, why don't you do it?"
I'm not trying to wish my fate onto anyone else, but I do wonder if I can make Dani hate Arabella as much as I do for marking me.
Dani visibly cringes at the suggestion. "That's extremely taboo. Wolves don't do that unless their mate has died or rejected them and now they're moving on to a new wolf. To mark someone just because you can is not smiled upon."
"So why did she do it to me?" I ask. My eyes are shut but I can feel her looking at me.
"I don't know. I don't get it."
"That makes two of us."
We sit in silence for a minute.
"Don't you wish I was gone?" I ask her, looking past her at the trees. "So things could go back to normal between you two?"
"As much as I might like that," she admits, "you can't just go away. She's marked you. You're tethered. You can't undo a marking, so even if you ran away, she'd still want you."
That's fucking annoying, I think.
Dani sighs and pushes to her feet. "I'm going to check things out," she says. "Don't think we're friends now. Stay in here and behave. I'm not afraid to put you back in line."
I just close my eyes again and ignore her. I'm so tired of the threats. Wolves are so damn controlling. Bundling myself up, I curl into a ball and try to sleep away all the thoughts I don't want in my head.