Page 8 of Hell Kissed
Chapter Three
Personal Space
Rhys
The sound of my sneakers thudding against the pavement almost matches the rapid beating of my heart as I run through town square to make it to the pack gathering at the edge of the woods.
My wolf huffs in dry amusement, and I know if she could pull off human expressions, she’d be arching one perfectly polished eyebrow at me.
Okay… running might be a liberal use of the word.
Her amusement turns downright judgmental.
Fuck, fine. Speed walking.
I’m trying here!
Either way, I hurry my ass off and hope I can slip in unnoticed. If there’s one thing Alpha Morganson hates, it’s tardiness. He sees it as insubordination, and though I’m just a lowly wolf who he views as zero threat to his alpha status, being late will be as inexcusable of an offense as punching his son in that little thing he calls a dick. It doesn’t matter that he deserved a small taste of the same medicine he dishes out daily.
Hurry, hurry, hurry! The mantra pushes me harder, fear of the alpha’s wrath quickening my footsteps until I’m jogging. He won’t care that I just had my life infiltrated by a tall, dark, and frustratingly mysterious stranger. I doubt he’d even believe the tale was true.
A coldness stings across my cheeks as I hustle faster. A chill hits my lungs. My attention lifts to the dark sky to find…
“It’s snowing,” I whisper, and stumble a step.
It was eighty degrees this morning. I’ve never even seen snow before. Not here. The Mountain Wolf Pack north of here has spoken of it, but…
“What’s happening?” I try to keep moving. I try to ignore all the insane things that keep piling onto this day.
The road comes to an intersection, the college on the right and our market to the left. But the four way is closed off by nothing more than people traveling toward the woods.
No one will be using the roads tonight.
I swallow hard when I spot the fringes of the crowd on the hill. The whole pack seems to have gathered for the Dark Moon, but it makes sense. This is Kyvain’s Dark Moon as well, and he demands nearly as much respect as his father, even at his young age.
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that a bunch of older wolves kiss his ass because he may be our next alpha. It’s the most likely scenario, but all it does is inflate his already oversized ego. If it gets any bigger, people are going to have to start moving to the dreaded suburbs just to get some breathing room.
Dwelling on that douchebag is my least favorite pastime, but I welcome the mental break it gives me from thinking about the dark stranger who showed up perfectly prepared to wreck my life.
“Your mother wanted me to tell you that you are loved.”
Those words still echo through my mind with every breath I pull into my lungs as I join the gathering crowd and catch my breath.
There is one thing I know with certainty.
He wasn’t talking about Mary.
I’m not sure my adopted mother feels one ounce of affection for me. I’m no more than her assigned responsibility. Kyvain once told me our alpha made Mary take me in because she was the only widow in our pack without children. I know he was just taunting me, but it doesn’t really sound like a lie. I know she’s hoping to offload me tonight after my wolf appears.
She’s going to be pissed if I come home tonight without a mate or a plan to move out.
But I’ll have a plan. I’ll move into the college dorms for the rest of the semester and then… I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go in the world when it doesn’t feel like there’s a place for me in it.
The stranger’s eerie words about my mother circle my mind.
I’ve always wondered about my birth parents, but my adoption was closed.
I’ve hoped that someday I’d learn who they were, but I gave up wishing they’d magically appear and save me from my shitty life.
