Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron)

Chapter 12

perimeter. Everyone in this pack from the Alpha down to the lowest pack member must take a turn at patrolling

the property. We're in an isolated area and his pack owns

hundreds of square miles of property with the whole western.

side flanking a state park, but we can never be too sure.

Humans are everywhere.

And so are enemy wolves.

I can't shift and run the way the rest of the wolves here do, but I know the game trails well enough.

The fresh air fills my lungs carrying the scent of spring and fresh rain and lilacs. Those were my mother's favorites, and I

planted them all around the main house.

Before I cut onto the southern trail, I turn back to the mansion.

It sits like a behemoth on the hillside, and in the distance

are rows and rows of neat little houses and cabins. Some

two hundred families live and work in this area and the

surrounding countryside. I wasn't born here, but it feels like

home.

Most of the time.

Maybe.

I glance at my cell phone. My dad hasn't called. Not to say

thank you or to inquire after me. I turned over every dollar I've

made and saved in my lifetime.

And I just got a confirmation of receipt.

My stomach sinks.

I really need to stop feeling sorry for myself.

3/4

I enter the forest and the scents change. I can only imagine how it must be to smell the pine and birch, the moist earth and fallen leaves. I always wanted my own wolf so I could sense things better. To see and smell and taste and feel with such a deeper connection to the world around me.

I used to run these trails. I'd run as fast and as far as I could

until I was gasping for breath and my muscles shook.

I walk now.

Slowly.

Studying the smaller plants and wildflowers. Looking up at the breaks in the canopy where the sun shines through. Every living thing around me is a circle of life that is both fleeting and so exquisitely perfect.

I'm maybe a mile from the mansion when I hear the rumble.

It's a heavy, fast beat of something big, pounding the earth.

Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret

The flash of gray is familiar.

Aaron is a huge wolf.

Gray from head to tail with darker tones along his chest and

flanks. He runs until he's even with me.

There's a bark and then an inquisitive twist of his head, his wolf's expression of "what's up?"

Part of me wants to rail about Jessica. To demand the truth.

Not that Aaron can answer. And I'm not about to give him an out when all he can do is bark or growl or yip.

His wolf is separate-a soul all its own, wrapped within Aaron.

I'm told it's the other half of one's self, or the primal spirit of a being. Not having a wolf myself, I can't really speak to the

connection between.

We walk side by side for a while.

I'm lost in my thoughts.

My sickness.

Aaron's betrayal.

Jessica's treachery.

A baby...

2/4

I know she flirts with him something awful and he doesn't stop her. But I don't know that he's ever fully crossed that line with

her.

If he has...

Aaron's big wolf brushes along my side, making my hand

run along the length of his shoulder and back. If Aaron is

stubborn, his wolf is ten times as bad.

"Okay, you big brute," I mumble, petting him for real this time and keeping my hand in his fur as we move.

I can't blame the wolf for the man's actions.

There may be a connection and you can't separate the beast from the man, but if a line was crossed, it wasn't by this four-legged creature, it was Aaron. Knowingly and willingly. His head swings into my hip, a gentle nudge for more

attention.