The Rogue Anthology

Appendix 12 - The Rogue Alpha’s Return, The Wanted Alpha, Accepting My Twin Mates and The Alpha’s Fight

~ How Conner met April. This takes place after Conner had left Alaska a year ago and is just after the escape of his second incarceration (described in chapter 23 of TRAR and chapter 82 of AMTM) and April has escaped from Monkshood Moon pack a week prior (chapter 27 of TAF). Conner would be 22 and April would be 17 ~

Conner

With what little remained of my soap, I scrubbed across my chest, washing off as much scent as possible. Call me paranoid, but I didn’t want those wolves picking up on my scent trail, if they were even tracking me. I hadn’t spent five days straight running to wind up back in the cells belonging to those rogue-hating wolves of that Washington pack.

The landscape of their pack, filled with river systems, was ironically what led to my escape and evasion of their trackers. And neither had they found my bag that I had stashed before my hunt and my impromptu visit to their prison, so I hadn’t had to start from scratch with gathering supplies. Beneficial, as I would have had to start in my birthday suit, again, just as I had when I first fled my home pack five years ago.

Had I known what was about to befall me after I left White Cloud in Alaska a year ago, I would have risked it. Another year living there wouldn’t have been so bad.

Two Moons, I was sure that was what one of the guards had said as I floated in my own head, strung out on the drug cocktail they had plied me with. I wasn’t sure what the Alpha was playing around with me for. What I expected was the Alpha to question me, maybe even torture me, if that was how he dealt his business. But he didn’t. He didn’t ask a thing. Instead, he had circled me, inspecting me as a person would inspect an object for defects and suitability.

Three days I had spent dangling from that cell’s ceiling by my wrists in silver binds, drifting in and out of reality on a mix of tranquilliser and wolfsbane. My shoulders still ached, but were nothing I couldn’t cope with and my wrists continued to heal over. The wide pink band of new tender skin itched and irritated under the soap, but the sensations were a good sign meaning there was no nerve damage. In any other wolf, the skin would never have healed, leaving behind roughened and raised scars to mark them for life. The painful silver training I had forced myself to undertake had paid off yet again.

Confident that I wasn’t being tracked this far out after my escape, I had needed to stop to bathe after running day and night with little rest. That, and taking a moment just to breathe, to let the cold water numb my skin and muscles, took my mind off of other things that weighed and twinged the back of my mind like a brick wrapped in barbed wire.

Lathering up my hair and beard, I dipped beneath the water’s surface, rinsing away the suds and blowing the droplets away that cascaded down my face. I shook the excess water off and wiped at my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. All the shitty things I had done as a rogue and what I had done in that pack was by far the worst.

I had killed wolves before. A rogue couldn’t live this life and not suffer a run-in with a fellow rogue; a bitter reality that I had come to terms with. But I had never killed a wolf so young before, a pup who had barely shifted. The justification I told myself of self-defence did little for my conscience.

‘You didn’t mean to hurt him,’ my wolf tried to console my turmoil. ‘He struck first. You were only defending us.’

‘He was a kid, Colt. We should have walked away when we saw he couldn’t punch for shit.’

On my escape from the Washington pack cells, a guard had tried to stop me. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen years old. I had tried to talk him down, but he saw the way I swayed on my feet, dazed from the drug’s subsiding effects, and fancied his chances against me. Maybe if I had released my aura, I could have made him submit? Then again, the kid didn’t even know how to control his wolf. It may not have made a difference in how the clash ended. He was just a kid, he didn’t know any better. Sometimes, I didn’t know my own strength…

Why did the dumb kid have to fight?

Why was he even there, in the prison?

He was far too young to have been put on guard duty. What leader puts a pup in that position of responsibility?

‘Wallow in guilt all you want, we acted as any wolf defending their life would.’ Colt crossed his paws in a huff, sticking to his animalistic ways of thinking. ‘But could you wallow somewhere warmer? If this water gets any colder, our testicles are gonna jump back up our body.’

‘Fine, I’ll deal with my inner torture another time. It’s not as though it’s eating me alive or anything.’ I waded across the natural pool formed in the river and hauled myself out with a grunt of effort, setting my jaw in a hard clench as another memory flashed behind my eyes.

‘I’m not saying suppress it… just… we can’t dwell on it either. I don’t know what it was about that Alpha, but the way he acted was off and, personally, I didn’t want to stick around and find out what made him off.’

I pushed myself to stand, shaking off the water rolling down me. I wished my frustrations and guilt were as easy to shed as the beads of cold liquid. Colt hated our misdeeds as I did, but he was an animal at heart. He didn’t linger on those same misdeeds in the same way. They happened, he regretted it and he moved on. As simple as that.

I wrung my waterlogged hair out as I walked, heading back to the open clearing where I had left my washed clothes and bag to dry under the summer heat. The clothing still felt a little damp under my touch, but I’d make do. The dampness of my skin had evaporated, leaving only the beads of water dripping from my curls. I quickly passed a comb through my hair to keep up my standards of not looking like a matted-up rogue and slid into my pants.

As I was shoving my nether regions away to zip up, a rustle and thud rumbled from across the clearing. A small red wolf, exhausted and heaving, fell to the grass, shifting to a naked frame as it fell. In a flash, I grabbed my bowie knife, holding it in an offensive stance, ready to swipe. With slow, purposeful steps, I approached the mass of blood-red hair.

A she-wolf?

A young she-wolf at that, with no scent, and as naked as the day she was born…

…This day just took an unintended turn.

I nudged her with the tip of my toe, waiting for a reaction. Nothing. Cautiously, I listened for her heartbeat. It was elevated but dropping. If she was awake and pretending, in hopes I would drop my guard so she could attack me unawares, her heart would be on the increase. She was either a skilled pretender or, judging by her skinny state, exhausted and out cold.

How her scent was suppressed was a mystery I was still trying to wrap my head around. No scent meant no trail. So if she had wolves after her, it would be unlikely they would be heading this way. Unlikely but not impossible.

The only item around her was a beat-up backpack that would look more at home on a child than it would on a teen like her, with its pale blue colour and cartoon pink butterflies. Half a strap hung torn, the front compartment gaped open because of a busted zipper and it smelled stale like it had been kept in some basement for years without use.

Taking my blade between my teeth, I scooped up the young she-wolf, along with the top loop of what I assumed was her backpack, trying to be careful of her long limbs dangling limply and swaying with my motion. I placed her down by my bag and ripped through it for the first thing my hand fell on. It was a beat-up long-sleeved shirt that would drown her slender yet long frame. Rolling her on her side, I quickly slipped on the thin t-shirt and bagged my mostly dry jacket that I wouldn’t need in the warm sun. By how light and flat her bag was, there couldn’t be a shred of her clothing in it, but if it was the only thing in her possession, it had to mean something to her.

I tried to stir the girl awake once I was dressed, but no response came. She only looked like a kid, no older than the one that haunted me. Where I had unintentionally taken one life, I would be damned if I let another slip away.

She had come from the east, running, and I had come from the west. Neither direction was an option, so I headed north. This direction led to a more rugged and craggy terrain, with a higher chance of finding a rocky overhang or cave.

Before I tried to move the young she-wolf again, I gave her a quick check over for injuries. In her bone-tired and under-fed state, she would take far longer to heal with her body in survival mode. None of her joints felt swollen from a dislocation or break and no blood oozed from a laceration. Some actual good news because I hadn’t a thing on me for treating an injury. With my strong Alpha blood, I didn’t exactly need a first-aid kit; I healed in a matter of hours. Except for a silver injury, those took me considerably longer as the raw skin of my wrists showed.

Scooping the tall redhead and her only item into my arms, I made sure her head was cradled safely on my shoulder to keep it from rolling around. She barely weighed a thing. I could have carried her in a single arm.

By the time I found somewhere decent, a sheltered rocky overhang, the sun was long since set and, disappearing with it, the early summer warmth in the air. The rocks exuded their own warmth, which would last into the night but would be gone by morning.

Slinging my backpack from my shoulders and trying not to jostle the girl in the process, I settled her down on her side, sliding my bag under her head as a pillow and placing hers close by. With my coat draped over her as a blanket, I hoped she would remain asleep as I built a fire ready to light in the morning.

I took up a position at the mouth of the overhang, watching out for any danger. Colt’s ears flicked in my mind, poised ready for any noise to mutate into a danger. My eyes scanned over to the peacefully sleeping she-wolf. She was lucky I happened upon her and not another. Not all rogues were bad people, but most weren’t saints either. A young and pretty thing such as her would need to be careful out here. Not that I was interested in the girl. I wanted my mate and only my mate. Other women were of little interest.

I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as I could, but somewhere along the way, they closed all on their own.

*

*

*

The young she-wolf slept the whole night without stirring once, in the exact spot I had left her in. Our fire was lit, warming the space and combating the early morning chill with my last can of food warming in the outer embers.

Behind me, I heard a small rustle of life come to. Her breathing picked up, as did her heart rate. Only, she didn’t move a beat even though she was clearly awake. Crafty little wolf, she was pretending.

‘The scrawny kid is trying to do a sneak,’ Colt sniggered, hearing the faint metallic clink of our knife being withdrawn from our bag.

‘I’m aware.’ I chuckled to myself. ‘I gotta let her feel a little bit smug before I put her on her ass.’

She held her scent well, I’d give her that. She must have been a pretty strong she-wolf to keep it hidden as long as she had, especially through her sleep.

As the knife swooshed down in an arc, I spun to grasp her wrist, trapping it in a vice hold to make her drop it. I was able to catch it midair and held it up to her neck.

“You’ve never handled one of these before and it shows.” I rose to my full height above the young girl. Her balance of the weapon was rudimentary at best.

She backed up like a frightened animal cornered, a wild look in her eye.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you.” I held up my hands, letting her see the knife clearly in my hold away from her. “I’m Conner, I brought you here last night.”

But she was having none of it, clutching the fabric of my shirt on her body tighter, as well as her baby-blue backpack, and eyeing her escape routes past me.

“If you wanna run, I won’t stop you,” I interrupted her thoughts of bolting, giving her clear access to make a break for it. “But where are you gonna go? If you stay, I can give you breakfast. It’s just a can of pork and beans, but it’s food.”

I nudged the can sitting in the fire that I would have eaten, watching her slowly approach, eyeing me the whole time as though I was a trap ready to snap shut on her. In a quick motion and before I could stop her, she tried to snatch the hot metal, burning her hand and leaving the can to spin to a stop.

“Yeah, the can’s hot, genius.”

She was not impressed with my teasing, snarling and clutching her hand to her chest. Skinny but sassy.

“Ok, firecracker, it’s just a joke. Here.” I gave her a thick fold of fabric and a beat-up, dented spoon.

She dug in, ravenously devouring the contents, a lump of bean and sauce dribbling down her chin without a care on her part. I was hungry as well, but I could weather fasting another day or two. She needed it more than I did.

‘I don’t think she’s eaten in days,’ Colt worriedly muttered. ‘The kid doesn’t know how to hunt or anything.’

What she needed was someone to look out for her, teach her, provided she let us. What she also needed was clothes and her own supplies. None of my clothing would fit her. They’d hang off of her like a sack.

As she finished up, I slowly inched forward to grab my bag, making sure she could see every move I made and that I wasn’t about to hurt her. I looked through what little crumpled-up money I had left, blowing a tight breath through my teeth. There was enough to get her a few bits of clothing from the human town I had purposely avoided on the way here and maybe a few cans… f**k, I would have to find some random labouring jobs sooner than I anticipated.

“Ok, I have to leave for a little while to get you some things.” I dropped my bag and reached into my waistband to pull out the knife she didn’t know how to use.

‘This could go bad in so many ways.’ Colt worriedly shook his head.

Flipping the knife in the air and catching the tip, I handed her the handle. “I’m trusting you with this, as in, not to stick it in me again. And I like this knife, so if you vanish with it, firecracker, I’ll be pissed.”

Her eyes were untrusting, narrowed in scepticism, but steadily, she reached out a hand and grabbed the knife, holding it out and aiming at me.

“Kid,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “If I was gonna hurt you, I’d have done it while you were unconscious. Or I would have left you in that clearing you passed out in.”

She didn’t exactly lower her weapon, but at least she stopped scowling at me long enough for her features to soften and for her large ice-blue eyes to open wider than the aggressive slits they had formed. With a little training, this girl could be a force of nature as a warrior.

In my wolf form, the human town would be roughly an hour away. As soon as I was out of her line of sight, I stripped down and folded my clothes and boots into a handy carry pouch and sped away.

I doubted the humans would take kindly to a wolf wandering about their town, shifting. So in a quiet spot on the outskirts of the commercial district, I found an alleyway to shift and change. On any given day, I normally looked like the drifter hobo I was. But my obsessive bathing to hide my scent now worked in my favour, so, hopefully, I looked like some work-a-day guy going about his business…

…Which led to my next problem.

I hadn’t the first clue about women. I had never so much as held hands with one, let alone shopped for one.

I had no sister, only a piece of s**t brother who landed me on this path of being a homeless runaway rogue.

‘Colt, what the hell do I buy a woman?’ I ran a concerned hand through my hair as I jogged across the street, spotting a Walmart parking lot.

‘You’re asking me? Do I look like I have a manual? This is something you’ll have to work out on your own, potato brain.’

‘Thanks, wolf. Why do I even keep you around?’

‘For witty conversation.’

If his idea of ‘wit’ involved acting like a horse’s ass, then he was full of it, and the excrement that came out of one, too.

I tried to ignore the stares of the humans as I approached the automated doors, a natural shiver hitting my skin from the burst of the air conditioner.

“Hi, welcome to Walma-aahrt—” the greeter fumbled and his eyes bulged, taking in my size.

I was abnormally tall and broad for a wolf. To a human, I was a damn mountain. This was why I avoided their areas and settlements. It was hard to fly under the radar when I naturally stood out so much; everything about me screamed ‘werewolf’.

Spotting what I needed directly in front of me, I gave a brief nod of acknowledgement to the store greeter and dashed off to the racks of clothing.

Goddess above, I’m out of my depth, I thought as I flipped through some of the items.

I hadn’t a clue about sizes. I hadn’t the first idea of what was too big or small. And I wouldn’t even know where to begin with underwear…

I couldn’t afford to be wandering around aimlessly. For all I knew, the redhead was putting as much distance as possible between me and my favourite knife.

“Can I help you, sir? You look a little lost.” A brunette approached, wearing a Walmart vest. It was safe to assume she was a member of staff.

She stared up at me with an eager smile, curling a strand of her ponytail around the tip of her finger.

“Uh, yeah, I think I need a hand.” I accepted the help. Anything that moved this along faster, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at.

“Well, let’s see if we can find you what you need. I’m Kelli, by the way, with an ‘i’.”

‘I think Kelli with an i is trying to seduce you,’ Colt sniggered at the small human woman pouting her lips out and batting her eyelashes.

‘I might be clueless about women, but even I can tell that.’

“My sister appeared on my doorstep, escaping a bad situation. I need to get her a few things because she came with nothing.”

Not exactly a full lie.

“Oooh, aren’t you sweet. So you need help with sizes?” She eyed my frame up and down.

…Oh hell, I couldn’t mentally deal with this right now.

“Yeah, she’s kinda on the skinny side, but tall. Nothing of my girlfriend’s fits her,” I artfully deflected as best as I could.

“Oh.” Her whole exuberance deflated, but she still helped in pointing out some basic staples and advised which sizes would be best.

I stuck to basic t-shirts in black that would be most practical, some skinny jeans that would most likely be too short but they’d make do for now, a light rain jacket and a pair of hiking boots. None of it would be practical come winter, but nothing was out on the racks for colder seasons yet. That would be a bridge to cross in later months.

The underwear truly had me lost. I knew what went in a bra cup, but how the size was determined of what would fill it remained a mystery. So I got a pack of something called a ‘lace bralette’, whatever the f**k one of those was, and some basic briefs.

Next on my list was a new pack, because the one the she-wolf had would be of no use or practicality, no matter how much sentimental value it held. After raiding through for a decent backpack, matches and a water bottle, I grabbed as many canned goods as my last dollars would afford and quickly left, before Kelli with an i came back to flirt some more. I crammed everything as best I could into the new backpack and retraced my steps back to the rocky overhang, praying the entire time I hadn’t wasted my time and money.

Please goddess, don’t tell me I was duped by a skinny kid, taken for a sucker and lost everything I owned, I chanted on repeat.

I let out a heavy sigh of relief when I caught the girl still in our makeshift camp, rifling through my bag. Clearing my throat from my silent approach, she leapt and dropped the bag as though it had scalded her. She shuffled away backwards, the knife drawn and aimed at me once again.

“Would you put that thing down?” I approached the burnt-out scraps of the fire and dropped the new bag to take out the few cans of food. “It weighs more than you do.”

Her frame relaxed a fraction, but the knife didn’t drop its level much.

“Yes, it’s great to see you too. I’m fine, got you plenty of stuff. Hey, you’re welcome,” I filled in the imaginary conversation, shaking my head in humour at her serious demeanour.

I nudged the new bag over to her, watching her scoot cautiously closer and tentatively pull it towards her.

“So, you got a name yet?”

She gave me the stink eye for asking, the clothing half yanked out of the backpack, and remained silent.

“Fine, firecracker it is. Change if you want and let’s go.”

I stood and brushed my hands clean of grit, amused by the look of confusion in her wide pale blue eyes.

“You wanna learn how to hunt or what?”

Given that she changed, I took it as a sign that she didn’t want to be around me in her wolf form and have to deal with nudity. I fished through my bag for one of the silver knives I had and gave her the handle, instructing her to keep her touch away from the metal end.

The feeling I had that the young she-wolf didn’t know how to hunt was proven in excruciating fashion. She hadn’t any sense of how to move, stalk or watch her footing. She was a naturally strong she-wolf; a given since she was still suppressing her scent without an ounce of effort on her part, but it was as though she didn’t know how to be a wolf. Highly strange and a riddle I knew wouldn’t be solved without her telling me.

It was like I was training a pup, having to show her how to watch her footing because if she snapped one more twig, our hunt would be thoroughly f****d. She had scared more animals away with her ironically fat feet than I could shake a pole at. I corrected her stance, demonstrating how to keep low to the ground and centre her weight to keep her balance upright.

After the world’s longest hunt, I finally managed to show her how to bring down a wild turkey stag. She winced and grimaced at how to gut and prep it, but if she wanted to eat, she needed to see the gorier side as well.

My next task was showing her how to make a fire from scratch, how to strike up a flame and k****e it to life and how to make a spit to roast the cut meat.

If I thought I could eat, it was nothing compared to the girl. For a skinny and lanky firecracker, she could pack her meal away, finishing more than I thought possible. The girl liked her food, that was a given. If her future mate had any sense in them, they’d ply her with grub to get in her good graces.

With the night setting in and our fire crackling away merrily, I took out the book that grabbed my attention in Walmart. It wasn’t often I indulged in a tiny luxury, but it neither took up much space nor would it hinder my survival. I could afford this one small thing for myself.

As I began reading to myself, my eyes flicked up to the redhead, gazing at the book cover and showing interest.

“You want me to read aloud or you wanna read with me?” I patted the spot next to me, expecting her little scowl or snarl and instead, I was pleasantly surprised that she crept closer, almost snuggling into my side to read the pages alongside me.

Eventually, I felt her head hit my shoulder, her body leaning into mine as she grew limp with sleep. I hadn’t gotten any words from her, but that hardened outer shell had melted just a tad.