Leave Janelle by Sarah Spade
1
The front door to my cabin slams closed and, going right where it hurts the most, I gingerly lift the hem of my ripped and bloody blouse.
I know better than to look while Jack is still in the cabin with me. It’ll only ramp up his desire if I react to the marks he leaves behind, and after three years of being forced to mate whenever he’s in the mood, I do what is expected of me.
No more.
No less.
I know what gets him off, and I know that even the smallest whimper is enough to ensure that he’ll pound harder, bite deeper, and he won’t leave my bed until he’s come at least twice.
He likes it when I whimper.
When I scream. When I cry.
My pain turns him on, and the mating becomes as fierce and as wild and as cruel as he is. Whoever first gave him his name of Wicked Wolf Walker was probably an enemy rather than a bedmate, but they got it right anyway. Even when he’s in his skin, he’s more beastly than any other wolf I’ve ever known.
For three years, he’s pushed me to take his marks. There isn’t an inch on my body that hasn’t been scored up by his claws at some point, but I refuse to accept a single scar. I might be his fated mate. I might be the female he claims as his, even when he’s stalking out of my cabin to visit a much more willing packmate. But until I wear his marks and let him fuck me under the Luna’s watchful gaze, I’m not irrevocably tied to him for the rest of my life.
Jack is a contradiction. His possessive streak demands that I give in to him, accepting his mark and becoming his bonded mate with the whole pack as witness. But he’s insatiable, too, and he knows that if we do perform the Luna Ceremony, I won’t only be stuck with him.
He’ll be stuck with me.
And since the idea of being tied to one female for life is probably the only thing in this world that... I won’t say frightens because he’s not afraid of anything... that concerns him, Jack fucks me and he marks me and he knows as well as I do that, when he’s in the mood, he’ll get to do it all over again.
And he’ll do it with the tips of his canine fangs burrowing into his bottom lip as his gold shifter’s eyes turn molten with lust and excitement.
But that’s later. I know he’ll return much sooner than I’d like. He always does. Until then, I need to check the damage from his last rutting.
Taking a deep breath, I inch the ruined shirt higher. That breath turns into a wince when I see the mess he’s made of my belly and my side. Four jagged tears split my skin, wrapping around to my back. Remembering the way he gripped me as he pounded into me, I’m sure the claw on his thumb has burrowed nearly into my freaking kidney.
It certainly feels like it.
Another breath. I can already see the wound knitting together around the edges. Give it an hour and there’ll be no sign that the marks were ever there.
A shaky exhale as I realize that it could’ve been worse.
It has been worse.
Jack was actually in a pretty decent mood today. He was gentle as he mounted me, and though I’ve learned to expect the cuts, the gouges, the marks, he barely nibbled on my shoulder as he pinned me beneath his powerful body. He marked me because of course he did—he’ll never not take the opportunity to do so—but it was almost like an afterthought.
It could’ve been worse—
My senses ping. As I sit on the edge of my bed, my inner wolf cocks her head, suddenly alert. I could’ve sworn I heard something in the main room of my cabin just then and, before I can figure out what it could be, a small blonde pup pokes her snout in past the open door to my bedroom.
I should’ve known better. Only a year old and my daughter is a pro at tracking and stalking. Unlike some other pups, she is almost noiseless in her approach and she smells so much like me that I often find it difficult to scent her in the cabin—a fact which her wolf instinctively seems to understand. I’m her favorite target, and normally I adore that.
Normally—but not when I’m recovering from another one of her father’s visits.
She shouldn’t be here. As soon as I could sense Jack coming to the cabin, I put her down for a nap. He was quick today, as if he had other places to be and was just stopping in for an afternoon mating, so she should still be in her crib. I don’t even pause to wonder how she got out, though. Seeing her in her shifted form tells me all I need to know.
A keening whine escapes her. When she’s in her skin, she can say a few words: Mama. Wolf. Play. In her fur? She’s even more expressive. That one high-pitched cry tells me that she knows I’m hurt, and that she wants to do something to help me.
She knows, but she doesn’t have to see. I quickly lower my shirt, careful to cover up the healing marks. Then, before she can think I’m ignoring her, I whistle softly through my teeth.
Ruby bounds into my room. Her ears are flat against her skull, her tiny canine fangs bared as if she expected to find an enemy in here with me.
She isn’t wrong.
My heart breaks for her. I hide that, too, pasting an encouraging smile on my face as I pat my lap. “Ah, baby. Come here, Ruby girl.”
She runs for me, rearing back and leaping to make the jump before curling up in my lap. I feel her snuffling breath as her nose pokes through the rips in my blouse, then the soft tentative lick of her warm tongue when she finds the marks. When she scents her father on my skin, she rumbles with a growl.
My girl. My poor, poor pup.
I run my trembling fingers through her soft, downy fur. “Why aren’t you sleeping, Ruby? It’s nap time.”
Tapping into my inner wolf, I can use the bond between mother and pup to… encourage her to sleep through the worst of what happens when Jack comes to our cabin. Her true nature is making it harder and harder, though. Too young to know why I’m so desperate to protect her, my daughter’s instincts are already revving her to protect me instead.
But that’s not her job. And, if I have it my way, it never will be.
She lifts up her head, a tiny alpha wolf who—despite being barely one—is more dominant than I’ll ever be.
Though I know it’ll slow the healing of my marks, I pour more of my omega aura over Ruby. From the moment I recognized directly after her birth that she was different, that she was special, I’ve done everything possible to hide the truth of her nature.
As far back as pack lore goes, there’s only ever been one born female alpha wolf: the Luna, our goddess that ascended millennia ago and who is worshipped as the moon in the sky. She was stronger than any other alpha, she could control any wolf with only her howl, and she had the ability to choose a mate and make him a god in his own right. Simply put: she’s the greatest of our kind and revered as such.
And maybe the story of the Luna is just that: a story. A legend. A myth. It could be, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s this: my pup is as much an alpha as her father, and if any other shifter discovered the truth, she wouldn’t be my pup any longer. Whether Jack put her down as a threat or our people thought of her as the second coming of the Luna, I don’t know, but I’m not willing to risk it.
I’m not willing to risk her.
I pick my daughter up, nuzzling her with my cheek. As I do, she shifts back to her skin. I adjust my hold on her as Ruby glances up at me. Her honey gold eyes are a little bit glassy; she must’ve woken up from her sleep and run right to me. Her pudgy fingers reach for my long, brown hair. My scalp is sensitive from where Jack yanked as he mated me, but if Ruby wants to pull my hair to get closer to me, that’s fine. She might be an alpha wolf, but she’s also a confused child who needs to be reassured by her mama.
This is all my fault. When I became pregnant—a shock since we’re mates, but we’re not bonded mates—I thought this might be my chance. That Jack might finally change. Be the mate I always dreamed of, and the father my pup deserved.
But as proud as he was to have knocked me up in the first place, that all changed when I had Ruby. He was furious that I dare give him a daughter instead of a son to carry on his legacy, and when I boldly lied and said she was an omega, I thought he might kill us both.
To my surprise, he didn’t. And then I thought that maybe he might finally forsake us, that I might finally be free from him, but he didn’t reject us, either.
Sometimes, I wish he had. Because while I’ve successfully hidden the truth about my daughter from him this last year, I’m not so sure I’ll be able to much longer.
And if he discovered that his pup was an alpha like him… something that was supposed to be impossible—
No. I don’t even want to think about it.
Instead, I squeeze my Ruby to my chest, burrowing my nose in her blonde curls.
Jack can force me. Hit me. Carve me up like so much meat. He can put me down for not being the female he believes he deserves. He can flaunt our broken mating by fucking every available female packmate in his free time like he has a habit of doing. Whether he’s trying to prove something to me or the rest of the pack, I don’t know. I don’t care, either. So long as my girl’s safe, I’ll deal with it.
I’ll deal with it all.
* * *
Spinning in circles,Ruby snaps her baby fangs at the tip of her blonde tail. She’s not fast enough to catch it, though she ends up with a few pieces of fur sticking out of her muzzle as she chuffs happily.
It’s been a couple of hours since Jack left. Bringing Ruby into the bathroom with me, I took a quick shower to rinse off as much of his scent as I could. I made sure to open the windows before I did to help air out the bedroom. She seemed to settle down once the reminder of her father was gone. My marks were almost completely faded, too, and as soon as I threw out the ripped and bloody blouse, Ruby shifted back to her fur.
Her good mood is contagious. Feeling a bit better myself, I fed her—and once she was content, I made myself some lunch, too—and tried to put her down for another nap, but she refused to leave my side. Instead, she’s amusing the both of us as she chases her tail.
My pup spends most of her time as a wolf. I don’t blame her. As a human, she can walk now, but that’s about all. Her reflexes are far more keen when she’s shifted, and her senses have only grown over the last few months.
Most pups don’t have their first shift until they’ve reached at least a year. Ruby was a wolf by the time she was four months old, and while that’s not unheard of, it’s usually a mark of an alpha.
The fact that no one’s ever heard of a female alpha—save for the Luna—works in my favor. It’s impossible, therefore no one ever guesses that Ruby is anything other than what I present her as: an advanced omega. Besides, I’m the only omega that currently lives in the Western Pack. Most of my packmates know diddly squat when it comes to my kind of wolf so it doesn’t take much to explain away some of Ruby’s idiosyncrasies.
Of course, that was when she was much younger. Lately, she gets more and more questioning looks on the rare occasions I let her out of the cabin, and though the pack gossips stay far away from me and my pup thanks to her father, I can sense their growing curiosity.
That’s why I prefer to stay inside the cabin with Ruby. Openly disappointed with an omega mate and an omega pup, Jack encourages us to keep out of sight. He sends some of the less dominant packmates—those who worship the ground the Alpha walks on and who would never question his commands—to make sure we have everything we need; Luna forbid any of the pack think he doesn’t provide for his mate. But just because I’d rather keep out of sight, sometimes there’s no avoiding it.
Later that afternoon, I realize that I’m out of milk. And I know I should wait until one of Jack’s runners stops by, but Ruby gave up on chasing her tail a while ago. When she shifted back to her skin, using two of the words she’s most fondest of—“Walk, Mama, walk”—I decide that going to the District store for milk is as good an excuse as any to let her get some fresh air.
Everything is going fine until we leave the more secluded part of pack territory where my cabin is and enter the crowded center of the square. Ruby doesn’t shift, though she does stop short, nearly tripping over her unsteady feet as something catches her attention.
A second later, I pick up on the same familiar scent that she must have.
Jack.
I search the crowd ahead of us, but I don’t see him—and, believe me, there’s no missing that male. However, when I follow my nose, I see a pretty redhead glaring at me from about twenty feet away.
Ah, Sandy McGee. I should’ve known.
Sandy is one of Jack’s girls. Even from this distance, I can smell him all over her.
Well... at least now I know where he ran off to after he left me bloody and marked earlier.
As soon as she sees that she has my attention, Sandy sniffs noticeably, then snaps her blunt human teeth at me.
Yup. Despite my shower, she can smell him on me, too.
Sandy is considered a delta wolf. A basic pack member. Compared to Jack and his ever-changing retinue of Betas, her dominance level is much closer to mine. She doesn’t have that gentle nature that belongs to my rank, and she proves it by continuing to glare at me as if she wants nothing more than to fight me for the right to be Jack’s mate.
If only she knew that I’d change positions with her in a heartbeat—and not just because of her status.
I’m an omega wolf, but I’m also the Omega here. In some packs, it’s a status that is almost as highly ranked as the alpha. Not in the Western Pack. Here, in the hidden community known as the Wolf District, my nature is seen as a weakness all because Jack believes that.
Still, no one in the Wolf District will challenge me. Why bother? I can’t get any lower than the bottom, and my status as Jack’s sole fated mate means that I have a tiny bit of protection against his jealous bedmates. I’m the mother of his pup, the mate the Luna chose for him, and even if he gets perverse enjoyment out of making me bleed, he’ll tear the throat out of anyone who tries to lay a claw on me.
Not out of love, though. It’s possession. I’m his, and even if he fucks every available female—and some not so available, except to the Alpha—in the Wolf District, I’m off-limits. Just… not in the way that omega wolves usually are.
Not like he needs to use me as an excuse to come down hard on any packmate he feels is questioning him. Whether it’s his leadership as pack Alpha or his relationship with me, Jack reacts swiftly to even the tiniest hint of a challenge against him.
Swiftly, and cruelly.
So, instead of lowering my gaze and giving Sandy the satisfaction that she’s bullied the weak Omega, I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and smile warmly at her.
She can have Jack if she wants him. Nothing would make me happier than for him to decide to break our mating, rejecting me to choose another. I could move back to the midwest with Ruby, leaving the Wolf District far, far behind me.
But that’ll never happen. I know it. So does Sandy.
Still, I smile, and when another of Jack’s girls glares daggers at my pup and me, I smile at her, too.
I’m an omega. Honestly, it’s all I can do.