Why, then, did I feel this nagging heaviness about the way things went down? Why was my wolf moping, nudging me to go after her?
I had no idea how long I stood there, but it was enough time for Rob to stalk up from the corral without me noticing.
“You gonna tell me what all this is about?” he rumbled. I was in trouble if I could let a two-hundred plus pound shifter sneak up on me.
I glared at the dust that had kicked up behind Audrey’s car at the end of our long dirt drive.
“Boyd?” he prompted. “What the fuck happened?”
I pulled my gloves out of my pocket and put them on, turning to stalk back to the barn. My dick was hurting, my balls ached to be emptied. I’d take care of it later in the shower, but I had to bleed off the excess energy somehow. Shifting and going for a run would work, but there were chores to be done. Unsaid ranch rules were chores first, run after.
“I asked you a question.” Rob infused alpha command into his voice as he caught my shoulder, and I went still, my body responding instinctively to the pack leader. I didn’t look at him, though. I couldn’t.
He wasn’t just my alpha. He wasn’t just my brother. He’d played the role of my father… hell, both parents, after they’d been killed when I was twelve. It had been my fault he’d been thrust into the role of alpha and parent in the blink of an eye. Mom and Dad had headed into Cooper Valley for me. While Rob and Colton had already started to shift by the time they were my age, they’d called me defective. Two and four years older, they left me behind when they went off and roamed the property. I’d been jealous, hurt and didn’t think myself much of a shifter.
You’re not a shifter if you can’t shift, they’d taunted.
Instead of embracing the pack life, I’d pretended I was completely human. I’d wanted to go to the county fair and meet my school friends. Friends who couldn’t shift, like me. I’d spent the day there, with the plan that my parents would pick me up at ten by the entrance. I’d dared my friend to have a third corndog and go on the Tilt-A-Whirl without hurling. There’d been five dollars in it, and I’d only realized what time it was when thunder clapped overhead. I’d left Bobby Sweetin to puke his guts out minus the five dollars.
I’d been seventeen minutes late.
Seventeen minutes where we could have been through the canyon before the rock slide, before our car had been knocked off the road and partially crushed. I’d survived without a scratch. My parents? The state patrol said they’d been killed in an instant.
They might not have suffered, but I did. Every fucking day. If I hadn’t been such a little shit and kept them waiting, Rob wouldn’t have been forced to skip college to take care of the pack and two little brothers.
It had been my fault, and I knew it. I was the family fuck-up. Turned out, I wasn’t defective because I couldn’t shift—I’d survived the accident because I’d shifted and been able to get out of the mangled truck in my new wolf form. Four paws had gotten me up the wet bank. I was defective because I’d destroyed the Wolf pack with one stupid middle-school prank.
I’d been wild and reckless after that and hadn’t stopped. I might not be an alpha of a pack, but I was king of the rodeo. I was invincible, literally. I had nothing to fear on the back of a bull. I might get hurt, but not for long.
Except this time, I had a lot to worry about. I might have recovered fast, but I’d been distracted, just like at the county fair. This time, it was by Abe’s hand on Audrey’s shoulder. That bit of jealousy could destroy the pack all over again. Audrey suspected. While I had no problem getting her off for the rest of her life to distract her, I didn’t think that was going to work. She wasn’t a ditzy buckle bunny out for a good time. Audrey Ames was all brains… and had one sweet, addictive pussy.
“Talk. Now.” More alpha command.
I sighed, prepared myself for his anger and disappointment and glanced at him over my shoulder. “I got gored at the last rodeo, and she was the arena doc.” I didn’t elaborate on why I got gored in the first place, only highlighting how stupid I’d been. He wouldn’t approve of mating a human. He wouldn't believe I had the urge to mark her as mine.
His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t show much emotion. He never did. I knew never to play poker with the fucker. “Seriously, Boyd? How did that happen?”