8
BRANDON
Sitting on my porch, drinking my beer and watching the sunset, I run through my encounter with Alicia in my mind.
I’m glad she’s back in pack territory. Even though she rejected me all those years ago, I’ve honestly never really gotten over Alicia. I’ve always had wild fantasies about her, daydreams of a life in which things went the way they were supposed to and we ended up together.
I liked her when we were teenagers too. I used to sit around girl-watching with the other guys my age, and she was always the one to grab my attention. She was so sexy in her crop top and cut-off shorts, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind. The alpha’s youngest daughter. I wanted her then, and when her father approached me about our mating ceremony, I was over the moon. I said yes immediately.
But I guess no one asked Alicia.
I remember standing in the middle of the clearing at the heart of our pack’s territory and waiting for her to come out. I remember the sound of arguing. She and her stepmother, Deidre, were always at each other’s throats about
something. I always thought Deidre was jealous of her husband’s daughters
-concerned that he loved them more than her, and that they took attention away from her own son with him.
Whatever the case may have been, by the time Alicia emerged from the lodge where the girls were getting ready to be mated, she looked disheveled and unhappy. She was overly made up, a look I didn’t think she would ever have chosen for herself. Alicia had always been clean-faced. Her hair was curled, something it didn’t do naturally, and the dress she was wearing… Well, it wasn’t lust that made me want to rip it off her.
I tried to convey sympathy with my eyes. I knew she must have hated being dolled up like this.
But her jaw was set, and she wouldn’t even look at me.
I remember Rod standing next to me, and he nudged me and snickered. “Bet you can’t wait to break into that,” he said under his breath.
“Don’t be an asshole.” That was my mate he was talking about. “But you can’t, right? Maybe you and I can swap occasionally.” “Seriously, you’re such an asshole.”
Alicia moved into position standing opposite me. Her father read the mating ceremony rites and then started down the line, asking each girl whether she accepted the mate that had been chosen for her.
He came to Alicia. “Brandon has been chosen as your mate,” he said. “He has accepted you as his.”
I will always remember those words. And I’ll always remember what followed.
In a loud, ringing voice that made it clear she wasn’t speaking to me, but to the crowd around us, Alicia said, “I reject Brandon as my mate.”
My blood froze.
It wasn’t unheard of, of course. But it was so, so rare. No one rejected a chosen mate. No one. Who would accept her now that they knew a mating ceremony might end like this?
Her father stood still for a moment, clearly unsure what to do. He couldn’t force her to accept me. It was against shifter law. All pairings had to be mutually agreed upon. She was within her rights to say no.
After a moment, he moved on to the next couple.
“Is she fucking serious?” Rod breathed. “What the fuck, dude?” I stared at her. She seemed not to want to look at me at all.
As soon as it was over, Alicia turned and ran from the clearing. I stood rooted to the spot, watching her go.
No one tried to talk to me that night, and I was glad. The newly-mated pairs were off in the woods, doing what newly-mated pairs do, and everyone else seemed to sense that I needed to be left alone to process what had happened.
I made my way home, feeling as if I was sleepwalking, thinking about the fact that I was supposed to be out in the woods with Alicia right now, and how instead I would be going to bed alone.
The next morning, word spread around the pack that Alicia had left in the night. She’d left a note for her sister, Kayla, saying that she planned to try her luck in the human world.
Another thing nobody ever did. Leaving the pack to live as a human.
It should have allowed me to move on from her. The fact that she was gone should have let me focus on other women.
And I did focus on other women. At least, I tried. I know my reputation as the pack playboy, and I definitely earned it. But I never accepted another mate match, even though I was asked. Plenty of fathers and brothers
approached me. On a few occasions, even the women themselves approached me, asking if I would speak to their families and seek permission to take them as a mate. Every time, I turned them down. I convinced myself that I was simply a loner, that I didn’t want to settle down.
By now, that’s probably true. I’ve been this way for so long that it’s become a part of who I am.
But if Alicia had accepted me all those years ago, I would have been hers.
Absolutely, unconditionally and willingly.
I don’t know how to feel about having her back now. I can’t let on that I care too much. That hookup we had a couple of years back was awesome, and I’d definitely be down for round two. But I don’t want to come across like I’ve never gotten over her, because it’s not the case. I haven’t been sitting around pining over Alicia. It isn’t like that.
Even though I’m still hot for her, it’s definitely not like that. Absolutely not. No way.
I’ll take my time, I decide. Let her come to me. I’ll just have to hope that she does.
I lean back on my elbows and stare up at the stars beginning to emerge above me. It ought to be an interesting summer.