Beaufort Creek Shifters (10 book series)
The Wolf’s Bullied Mate Chapter 3

Isaiah

Regret wasn't my style.

Rejection, public humiliation, and sore feelings weren't my style either. Yet Jada had done me in public, with enough co-workers watching to send my head spinning. When I dropped that flag at her feet, I was making my stance abundantly clear. Your alpha is not my alpha.

Everyone saw me do it. Everyone knew exactly how I felt. There wasn't a moment that passed out in the field where I didn't speak highly of Troy Albert, the alpha of the Bravecrest pack. One of the few surviving packs from the vampire-wolf wars that could have been wiped out.

But we hadn't been wiped out.

Not until recently.

Not until that shitty doctor and his nosy scientist yuppies had decided to kidnap us, slay our pack, and turn us into experiments. My neck still didn't feel right from that time I'd spent in the basement with Neil and Gwendolyn.

Those two had at least been friendly. Blake was friendly in many ways as well, with enough skills to speak to my alpha respectfully. But the rest of his pack-his precious little mixture of shifters who were spoiled rotten with how things were around here-just didn't get it.

Jada seemed resistant to it too. A little respect went a long way for a guy like me. So long as she bowed her head and admitted she was wrong when she was wrong, I wouldn't have been so pissed off all the time. But no, she had to fight me. She had to make me a damn fool in front of everyone and their damn mother.

She loved doing it. Which was why I had to go after her and rescue my deflated reputation.

After replaceing Jada in the pigpen-fitting, in my opinion-I tried to get her to give me another rematch. She flat-out refused. It was like she was just trying to push my buttons all over again.

And why would she be committed to doing that? Was it because I could match her every feat with even better strength? Was it because she thought she was better than me?

I gritted my teeth when she turned her back on me.

That stuck-up bitch. She had no idea what she had coming for her. Once Troy secured a proper agreement with Blake, we could leave this stupid pack. I would never have to deal with her again. That meant I could drop the whole thing.

But why the hell would I do that when my reputation was on the line? People would be talking about this for months after I left. The tiniest wound in my character presentation would make them feel free to pick at me. That was unacceptable. So, I had to settle the score now.

I swung open the chicken coop door and stomped through the fresh straw she had strewn on the ground. She flipped around and threw straw in my face. It only took a moment for me to recover but I snatched the bucket from her arms and tossed it aside. Chickens clucked nervously and fluttered off into their compartment at eye level.

She growled. "You're scaring them, Isaiah. We work hard to make sure they feel comfortable around us. You're ruining years of training, you goddamn blockhead!"

"I don't give a fuck about your chickens," I snapped while planting my hands on her shoulders. "If you don't give me another match with you to prove that I'm better, then I'm going to turn your entire chore system upside-fucking-down." "You just can't lose."

The softness in her voice smacked me in the face. It felt like she pitied me for a second. Was that how pity sounded? Or was that resolve in her tone, the simple reduction of sound for the sake of preserving herself?

Either way, it wasn't my damn problem. My only goal was to make sure she ate dirt.

I squeezed her shoulders. She winced but kept her features tightened up, refusing to show me an ounce of her true reaction.

My eyes narrowed. "Another match. A race. To the beach and back in under thirty minutes."

"No."

"Perhaps a different competition-less strength and more skill. Archery?"

Her frown deepened. "No."

"Swords?"

"No."

I shook her shoulders. "Then, what?"

"Nothing," she hissed. "I want nothing to do with you, Isaiah. You're a fucking bunion on my foot. You're a loose cannon. You're unreliable and unrealistic. The only thing you're good for is picking things up and putting them down. And even then, you won't listen to where things need to be put down!"

She pushed on my chest. It wasn't a hard hitter or anything like that. It didn't even register with the wall of muscle making up my torso. Yet I felt it somewhere else.

I felt it in my solar plexus.

Rejection.

She stalked past me, swept the bucket from the ground, and sprinted from the chicken coop, leaving the door cracked enough for a chicken to potentially get out. So much for being a good field manager.

What lingered was the smell of something I wanted so badly that I could practically taste it on my tongue. Under the musky smell of barn animals was a far more enticing layer of shifter-a delicacy in my house. It was something that put me at ease when things got to be too much for me.

Mocha. That was one of my favorite drinks. Mocha latte with extra whipped cream and a few espresso chocolate bars. There wasn't a coffee shop in town that had anything remotely as good as my preference. I often had to make it at home.

But when Jada was around, that scent intensified. It made me want to run after her, to grab her, to smash her to pieces in ways that she would never recover from. I wanted to own her. And not in the usual ways I wanted to be in charge. This was different. This was far more organic.

I glared at the chickens. They were clucking still, chittering in the anxious way that prey often does in the presence of an apex predator. I kicked aside the extra straw and marched from the coop. And since Sugar Tits had seen fit to leave the damn door open, I shut it properly and latched it, tugging it a few times to make sure the chickens didn't get out.

What would she do without me? I thought. She would slack if I didn't pick up after her. Doesn't she know that? And she can't even be bothered to prove herself to me.

I clenched my fists. I should talk to Blake and tell him to replace her with me. Then she could be in the right position in my life.

The woods stretched to my right. Beyond that was the beach where I could get some fresh air and recuperate from this stupid resistance from Jada. She would come around sooner or later. She would want to prove herself to me. People often found themselves in heated inner debate when in my presence, but they ultimately came around to wanting to appeal to my better side.

And that would be her. Eventually. She just needed a reason to come crawling back.

Without thinking, I headed for the woods, stripping off my clothes along the way. As soon as I got beyond the tree line, I dropped to my hands and knees, allowing my bones to crack and inevitably break. Red-orange hair sprang forth, creating various patches of sanded birch wood that eventually got swallowed up.

My snout extended and my teeth sharpened to fine points. Canines launched from my gums as my eyes widened. The forest around me became an ocean of sound. Branches creaked above as the breeze sifted between thick trunks of live oak and slash pine. Magnolia trees stalked in the woods beyond. I could smell them all.

The sandy dunes awaited my paws. I darted away from the tree line, ignoring the call of mocha and the rumbling of my gut for something more substantial than coffee. I didn't need to eat; I just needed to run.

Lush green leaves and bushes blurred past me. A flash of violet or periwinkle broke the haze every so often, local flora alluring in all its multicolored petals and sweetness. Succulent scents cracked through my mocha haze and soon the salty air took hold of me, the dunes breaking open in a glorious array of bleached tan mixed with obsidian.

Foaming white waves speckled with seaweed and debris crashed along the shoreline, interrupting delicious teal waves streaked with iridescent blue from the sunlight. I tilted my head to the sky and imbibed every scent of the breeze. Salt, sand, oceanic sludge-all of it wrought my soul with familiarity.

Our pack had been the sort to camp on the beach. Troy and I would always end up coaxing his kid cousin and best friend to the Outer Banks, several hours north of here, where we'd park our asses right next to wild horses and roasted shrimp over an open fire. Every bit of our time together had been precious.

Now we were separated on a ranch with a pack that had rescued us. And that wasn't the only predicament of our forced allegiance. I had to work with a snotty, stuck-up curvaceous woman with lips like liquid diamonds and a scent that drove me mad. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to knock her into a mud pit. I wanted to do dirty things to her while she was dirty.

I shook my head and tousled my fur, then sprinted toward the water.

One cold dip should do the trick, I thought. And if that doesn't get rid of her from my brain...

SPLASH.

Cool water nestled my body and cushioned my impact. A wave rose to swallow me up, encouraging me to swim to the right against the short teal wall. When I broke that wave, I swam for the next one, getting ahead of the cycle of waves, cruising easily with my shifted body that was soaked with salty water and relief.

This was just what I needed. A break from that demanding wolf who didn't seem to want to give me any leniency. She just wanted me to follow her orders instead of earning my respect.

My pack was different. We didn't do that matched mate bullshit. While we were with the Hayden pack, we had to follow those traditions, but I had a feeling that Troy wouldn't subject us to it. Not until he had a proper plan in place. He was too smart for that kind of romantic fairy-tale crap.

I snorted internally. I can't believe these people think their mates are fated to be matched by their alpha.

Just thinking about it put my whole body in a tense mode. That wasn't something I could afford while fluidly floating with the oceanic current. Once I found a comfortable rhythm, I allowed my body to cruise toward a local dock. Once I reached the wood, I could easily swim back without missing too much more of my chores.

Grumpy moods came often enough. Troy understood I had to swim it off. Unlike Jada, who seemed keen on convincing me to do things her way, which didn't suit my tastes in the least.

I shook my head as the dock drew closer. I did need to get back. Some of those field workers just weren't as strong. That was probably why Miss Bossy Pants paired me with them. My body was enough of a bulldozer that we didn't need a bulldozer. Pride swelled inside me. And do they thank me? Nope.

The sea seemed to sour around me. What had once provided relief was now just tugging at my heartstrings. It made me miss my pack too much. I headed for the shore long before I hit the docks and shook off the water, feeling heavily doused with enough regret to turn me into an apologetic man.

Yeah, right, I thought. Jada wishes I was like that.

That thought made me freeze. Why would Jada wish that kind of thing? And why would I ever think that Jada would wish for that sort of thing? It didn't make sense for me to want to become apologetic or that I would know what anyone would want from me. Other than my alpha, the shifters around me remained a mystery. And I didn't care about that. Because it wasn't my job to figure them out.

Yet Jada had a hold on me.

My heartbeat quickened as I trotted up the dunes and headed back through the woods. Returning to the farm took no time at all. I shifted into my human form, located my clothes, and trudged through the fields, side-eyeing whoever saw fit to try to check me out. One piercing glare from me put people right back in their places.

Which was out of my damn way.

A rotten feeling crept into my gut when I couldn't replace Jada. It wasn't like I was looking for her specifically, but I wanted to do more than what I had already accomplished. The measly chore list she had given me earlier in the morning had been completed. What I had left was other people's shit that needed to be fixed up or simply completed.

And she was the person to talk to if I wanted to add those things to my list.

Some more searching located her in the cornfield near the barns. She seemed to spend most of her time there plucking corn. We had plenty of people to do it yet it was the one place that seemed to lack workers aside from her. Did she like doing things the hard way?

When she spotted me, she turned her nose in the air. She grabbed her basket, collected the remaining ears of corn in the line, and stomped away. She headed toward the toolshed on the other side and slammed the door behind her.

Did she think that was going to hide her location? I'd just watched her enter the shed. And the way she denied me was a lot brattier than it was bossy.

My eyebrow shot up. Does she want me to go after her?

Lust swirled around my chest and dropped into my gut. After all this bickering and competing, I couldn't imagine she would actually want me. But all signs pointed to following her into that toolshed. Not to fight. Not to compete. But to do something entirely different.

To do something that I knew might shake me up.