Revolting

I should have said something. Instead I just stared at him wide eyed and dazed. He sighed deeply, and gently helped me to my feet, handing me the crutches. "You should go now." His words were gentle, and there was a trace of regret in voice, but it still kinda hurt anyway. I could only process that he had kissed me, and now he wanted me to leave. He opened the door for me and stood aside.

I grasped the handles of my crutches and walked myself out. Whatever happened, I was going to hang on to my shredded dignity. "Thank you for your help, Shane."

"Oh, right, here." He slipped two rolls of the elastic tape into a bag and handed them to me. I took the bag and read a message in it. I needed to wrap my own knees in the future. He didn't want to do it again. I mumbled another thank you, and went down the hall on my crutches without looking back. I heard his bedroom door close quietly behind me.

Why was my life such a disaster??

I was nearly to the end of the hallway when Nolan came tearing around the corner. His face was pale, and his grey-blue eyes looked a little wild. When I saw him, I felt fear rise up in my throat. I hated being afraid of anything, and my own fear made me angry. Angry at him, and angry at myself. "Who!? Who was it? Who TOUCHED YOU?"

I lifted my chin and stared at him defiantly. "What are you yelling about? You get to fuck anyone you want, but someone touches me, and you lose your shit?"

He rubbed his stomach, like it was still paining him, and realization dawned on me. Shane had kissed me, and Nolan had felt the breech in our mate-bond. He was feeling the pain. I felt half-guilty, and half satisfied. I wanted to gloat, and rub it in his face. I wanted to throw his words back in his face. Was it as good for you as it was for me? But if I admitted it, I realized I'd be putting Shane in a precarious position. God only knew what the punishment was for kissing your Alpha's mate. Nolan grabbed me by my shoulders, and sniffed me.

"Shane? SHANE?!" he roared.

I looked at him very calmly. "Of course you smell Shane on me. He just helped me wrap my knees, you moron." I pushed back at his shoulders and stuck one leg out so he could see my bright pink bandages.

"Your knees?" he looked blankly down at my legs. And then seemed to comprehend for the first time that I was walking with crutches. At the same time Shane came out of his bedroom to see what the commotion was. He moved slowly and gracefully. His body looked relaxed, but I felt his tension. He was like a tiger, coiled and ready to spring at the slightest provocation. I remember what he had said in the hospital room, about protecting me. Was that what he intended to do now?

"What is wrong with your knees? Why do you need to be taped up?" Nolan growled.

I shook my head at him, and I had this moment of devious inspiration. As far as I knew, Nolan had never caught on to the fact that I am disabled. He was too self-absorbed to notice much of anything about me. I'm sure if he had known, he would have been very cruel and severe. I saw this little window of opportunity to push the blame off on him. I didn't have it in me to lie out-right, but what if I just planted that seed? "You really have no idea what you did to me, do you?" He stared at me. I felt his eyes move over my bruised face, my discolored and swollen neck, the aluminum crutches, and finally to my wrapped knees. "You don't even remember it, do you?" I said coldly, absorbing his blank look. I pushed past him and continued down the hall toward my own room, leaving Nolan and Shane alone in the hallway. I think I had suitably distracted Nolan from the fact that he'd felt the beginnings of my infidelity that at least he wouldn't take out his rage on Shane.

I went into my own room and gave the door a good and satisifying slam that I knew would echo down the corridors. Then I locked the door and slid the deadbolt into place. I knew that if he really wanted, Nolan could break the door down like. it was made of matchsticks, but at least he could no longer use a key to randomly invade my personal space.

I was in a very precarious situation now. Before all this happened I had thought I could simply reject the mating bond, but continue to live in the Gold Mountain pack, continue to be Nolan's legal wife, continue to uphold the marriage alliance. But now there were two complicated and confusing problems. I was pregnant. And I had a thing for the beta. I didn't even know it was possible to have two bonds at the same time. That was crazy. I desperately wished I could talk to my mother about it, or talk to an elder. But my mother was gone, and I could hardly ask an elder such a loaded question without revealing my secrets.

The only thing I felt absolutely sure about, was that no one must know about the pregnancy, and I didn't have much time. Someone would start to smell the changes in my hormones soon, and within a month or so I would start to show. I had poured over the marriage alliance agreement, and had found the wording very vague. We had to be married, and the marriage consummated. But it didn't say we had to live together as husband and wife, or that we even had to STAY married. According to the legal verbiage, I was pretty sure that I could even divorce my husband and not destroy the alliance. But I knew in my heart that I could not simply walk away, and go back to my family. My father would not accept it, and neither would my new family in the Gold Mountain pack.

I had only one choice. I had to run away and go rogue. That thing that I'd been afraid of from the first day now seemed like my only option. All my life I'd heard terrible stories of what happens to to wolves that go rogue. Wolves are pack creatures. They need their families to survive. Rogues lose their connection to the pack, and sometimes they go insane. And if a rogue is caught on pack territory, justice is swift, brutal, and sometimes deadly. The only safe place for me to run would be into the human cities.

I won't be totally alone, I thought bitterly. I would have my baby, and we would be our own little family. As long as I didn't go back to my father, I hoped that he wouldn't be blamed for my defection.

And Shane? I didn't even know what Shane was to me. But I knew what he was to my husband. There was no way I could pursue a relationship with the Beta without Nolan coming down on both of us. I would have to walk away from Shane

too.