Just a Rogue

Dominic

When Janine pulls out of the garage, Corinne sitting in the back seat looking back at me, I exhale slowly. I can hardly believe that she has agreed to do this. It’s so dangerous. She’s awfully committed to the safety of the other rogue girls. I hope they’re worth all this trouble she’s going to.

I close the big garage door and go out the side door, then I hear the big door opening again behind me, and turn to see. Is there a glitch in the controller?

No, another car is pulling in, and I wait to see who it is.

Beta Malcolm gets out, unfolding his big form from the front seat. “Hey Dom,” he tells me.

“Hi,” I respond, and wonder where he’s been, but I’m not about to start questioning the River Moon Beta.

He answers my unspoken question, though. “I was just picking up Theo from his parents’ house,” he says. “I dropped him off in front.”

“Oh?” I say, as we start walking back towards the packhouse. “I thought he was out of commission for another couple of days.”

“Pfsh,” he scoffs. “He demanded that I come and get him or he’d walk. He heard what Luna Janine is doing and insists on being part of it. I figure that he can watch the monitors with a cast on his leg just fine.”

“Cool,” I say, then fall silent. I did spend several days with this guy last week, but he’s still totally intimidating, huge and dark and serious. I’m sure he’s perfectly friendly, but I’m not about to try to find out. So we walk the rest of the way in silence, just a couple of guys strolling along. Ha!

When we get into the packhouse, he heads to the back somewhere, and I go straight to the cafeteria, looking for Amelia. I see her hovering around Theo as he swings in on crutches, trying to get him to sit down, while he laughs at her and waves her off.

Phew! He seems fine, that’s a relief. At least he’s agreeing to use the crutches.

Amelia turns to me, probably sensing my presence, and I see the glow of love in her soft blue eyes. Mmmm. I will never get tired of that.

I have to smile a little, remembering our promise to each other yesterday. No more sleeping alone. At least not if either of us should be trying to do something productive. Learning that we can apparently accost each other from our dreams is very interesting, though, and I reaaaallllly want to experiment with that more later. When this whole thing is over, hopefully.

Evan

I know that Janine plans to take Corinne into Arcata at dawn, and I fight with myself all night about whether to violate the suggestion that we all leave her alone and don’t get in the way of her departure.

I want so badly to say goodbye to her one more time, to see her gray eyes looking up at me, to get another little whiff of her scent. I remember the first time I smelled her, in the forest, and all I thought was that it was an unwelcome scent, just a rogue, an enemy, a foe to hunt down. How little I understood then.

My brain wins the fight with my heart, and I force myself to stay inside my room. I watch the sky slowly growing lighter outside the window overlooking the back of the packhouse. I finally stop lying in bed sulking, and move over to the window to stare out. I hope to catch a glimpse of her as she goes. I assume she’ll be walking out to the garage.

My patience is rewarded, as I see two figures leave from the back door and start crossing the lawn. They are so similar. They are both slender, about the same height, and they both have long dark hair that swings as they walk away together.

But they are so different. Janine is a Luna now, a powerful leader, her brilliant potential realized as she shares control of River Moon pack.

Corinne is just a rogue. Just a vulnerable girl, wearing her little crop top and booty shorts again, her hair so long that it blocks the glimpse of flesh on her torso that I wish I was able to see.

She is just the most courageous person I know. Nobody else knows that she tried to run off and face the rogues alone, but she was willing to do that. I’m so glad I stopped her long enough to get her this backup.

She is just the woman I love. I haven’t told her, it would be too overwhelming, but I have fallen so hard for her. My wolf doesn’t even try to talk me out of it, even though she’s not our mate. He knows how much I want her.

I watch until I see them enter the garage, then in a couple minutes drive away. I press my face against the glass of the window, to catch every single second of the view of her car moving past the packhouse.

Then she is gone. I lean my forehead against the glass, feeling a loneliness so severe that it almost hurts. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself. I have to control my emotions and do whatever I can from this end to help her.

I look up and see that Dom is walking towards the packhouse with Malcolm. When did the Beta get back there?

I shake my head violently to reset my brain. Time to work, Evan. Go join the guys.

Theo

Man, the way that everyone has been trying to pamper me, you’d think I was hurt way worse than I was in the accident. I had a broken leg, big deal. It’s not like it was… well, to be honest, I don’t know what it was like, because I never got the chance to get a good look at the injury. I think that the leaders were deliberately trying not to let me see how bad it was. The x-rays that Dr. Hughes showed me sure weren’t pretty.

So, I’m trying to be patient with all of their fussing. The doctor, my parents, my aunts and uncles and cousins who have been flowing through the house in a constant stream of well wishes and cheek pinches and forehead kisses.

I text Malcolm as soon as I wake up, before anyone has the chance to ask me if I need anything. “Get me out of here!”

“Why?” is the immediate reply text. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re babying me to death. I’m begging you, let me tell them you’re making me get back to work.”

He sends a laughy face emoji, then, “I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Thank god!

I use my crutches to get into the kitchen, where Mom is already up cooking pancakes, my favorite. “Hey Mom,” I lean down and kiss her cheek as she stands over the griddle.

“Sit down!” she instructs me, “you need to keep that foot elevated!”

“Um, actually, Mom, Beta Malcolm just texted me. I’m gonna have to get back into work. He’s coming to pick me up right now.”

“What?” She stands with her hands on her hips, one hand holding a spatula, looking outraged. “You just got back yesterday! Dr. Hughes said to take it easy for three or four days!”

I shrug. “Well, I guess they need my help with a project they’re working on.”

“I’m going to have a word with that Beta!” she threatens, and it makes me laugh. No she’s not. She knows that I have to do what I’m told. Or do what I’m pretending I have been told.

“It’s okay Mom, I’m feeling a lot better. I’ll be fine, I think the project just involves sitting down and staring at computer monitors.”

She huffs and starts peeling cooked pancakes up from the grill with her spatula and stacking them on a plate. “Here, have some pancakes before you go, at least,” she orders me.

I happily comply. I’m just finishing when I hear his car pull into the driveway. I use my crutches to get up. “Gotta go Mom, thanks! Tell everyone thank you for everything.”

I’m out the door and getting in the passenger seat before Malcolm has even gotten out of the car, and he laughs at me.

“Were they torturing you?” he asks as he shifts into reverse.

“Feeding me pancakes,” I answer with a grin, “it was terrible. Thanks for the rescue.”

He shakes his head and laughs.

“So what’s going on?” I ask him, and he spends the rest of the drive explaining to me about the situation with the rogues, and Janine’s whole plan.

“One of the tasks is going to be just monitoring the tracking devices, I figure that’ll suit your gimpy self,” he says, looking at me sideways with a smirk.

“Hey!”

It’s all good, though. When I get to the packhouse, he drops me in front so I don’t have to walk all the way in from the garage, which I have to admit to myself I appreciate. I’ve already been up longer today than I have since I got out of the hospital, and my leg is starting to throb a little inside the cast.

“That’s your own fault,” my wolf chides me. “They told you to stay lying down.”

I silently think to him, “Well, hurry up that healing and it won’t be a problem!”

“Hmph,” he snorts, “you’re not making it easy!”

Amelia tries to fuss over me when I get inside, but thank god the guys show up and start teasing me. Dom and Evan offer to bring me breakfast, and I don’t mention that I already had pancakes. Using crutches is hard work, I need my sustenance.

After breakfast we all go into the conference room, where Luna Janine has a row of laptops and phones and things all lined up. She only has a couple of them turned on.

“What can we do?” Evan immediately asks.

“Not much yet,” she replies, gesturing to the one open laptop. “There isn’t much to see so far, Corinne just got to the shelter this morning. We don’t really expect anything else to develop today, she’ll probably start heading out to the cave tomorrow.”

Well that’s not very interesting. I was ready to jump into action immediately. So to speak. I’m obviously not jumping anywhere right now, or participating in any action.

We sort of lurk around, wishing there was something to do. Janine looks up at us. “There is actually something you could do right now,” she suggests, possibly trying to get rid of us. A bunch of restless guys poking around is probably not assisting her concentration.

“Yes?” Evan says eagerly.

She indicates a pile of unopened boxes with some sort of tech inside. “I picked up a bunch of drones yesterday, with the thought that we could survey the area around the cave with them. How about you take them outside and figure out how to work them?”

Oh yes! This is more like it!

Amelia, after giving Dom a kiss so huge that it’s almost embarrassing, says that she’ll stay in here. I already found out that they’re mated, but I hadn’t seen her until this morning, and I love the way that she is just glowing with happiness. That little girl who came to work in the packhouse last year seems all grown up.

Us guys head out, Evan and Dom’s arms loaded up with the boxes of stuff while I follow on my crutches.

We get out to the back, and start digging into the boxes, and soon are fully engaged in figuring out how to use the controllers to get the tiny flying helicopters in the air, watching their video stream, downloading apps, syncing everything up, figuring out the whole thing.

It’s important work, so I feel justified in fibbing to my Mom that they needed me. But it’s also so much fun. It feels like we’re just a group of guys playing a game. I accidentally crash a drone into a tree from where I am controlling it, lounging on a recliner. Dom looks at Evan and says, “Your turn!” Evan groans and trots off to retrieve it.

Man, it’s good to be back.