I am Wolf
Chapter Five

WOLF

I’ve been working out to pass the time while I wait. Confinement is driving me nuts, and it’s either this or break something...

Standing shirtless in front of the pull-up bar, I stare at it almost as if it’s my nemesis; I’m instantly grateful that they have something like this in here, almost as if they read my mind.

I give the pull-up bar a sideways glance as I tilt my head to stare at it. As much as I want to imagine the bar to be something my frustration wants to beat up and break, I can’t because every time that I attempt to envision it as such, all I can see is Sasha, those plump pink lips of hers as she bites down against the bottom rim of that full lip. All I want to do is mount her, fuck, I’m in serious trouble.

I lost count after one hundred and fifty pull-ups on the bar; now, I’m mainly driven by the adrenaline of desire and determination. The desire to have Sasha beneath me, screaming my name, and the sheer determination to get the hell out of here and as far away from her as possible, my conflicting feelings about this girl are enough of a red flag to have me running for the hills.

I don’t get it; I’ve never had this problem before. My feelings have always been on replaceing a girl attractive, getting what I wanted, and moving on.

I’m a man, after all, and far from a saint, I’ve had my fair share of she-wolves; even with being a wild mountain man, I guess the carnal attraction of our wolves crossing paths still held dominance as it overpowered all other senses. Because that’s all it ever was, wild and lewd, nothing more.

But with Sasha, all reason goes out the window; all I want is to get to know her, get close to her, and protect her. It goes against all rhyme and reason; I don’t understand this strange feeling I get deep inside my chest whenever I’m around her.

That’s why I have to get out of here because I can’t trust myself around her; something about her makes me feel nervous and scared.

~

Sometime into the afternoon, I suddenly sense Don standing behind me; lowering myself from the pull-up bar, I slowly turn around to face him as I narrow my eyes questioningly in response to his intimidating stare. What is it with this guy? You would swear I came and took a piss on his favorite tree or something with the way he’s staring me down.

“Working out, I see.” His amused smirk has my wolf wanting to smack it right off his face, but I know it’s not worth the trouble; he still has a lot to learn about life.

“It stops me from doing something stupid,” I retort. Letting out a dry laugh, Don crosses his arms,

“Stupid like what?”

“Trust me, you don’t want me to show you, alpha pup.”

Rolling his eyes, Don sighs at my come back,

“I’m not going to allow you to get to me, wild wolf.” Slightly taken aback by his comment, I furrow my brows in response. That’s new; usually, it’s rogue or mutt. I haven’t ever had an alpha refer to me as a wild wolf.

There’s a long pause as he stares me down. Gathering by the intimidating stare he’s giving me, Don probably wants me to submit to him; unfortunately for him, there is no way that that will happen. He might be an alpha in the making, but he has yet to learn how to be a beast in the wild.

It’s as clear as daylight that Don has been brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and I doubt he would even be able to defend himself against a rogue attack.

Being a rogue doesn’t exempt you from being attacked by them; no moral code says that because you don’t belong to a pack, rogues won’t attack each other. Quite the contrary; I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with rogues who wanted to hand me my ass on a bed of nails. Of course, they wanted me to join their rogue packs, fight alongside them, and overpower alpha packs.

I might not want to belong to a pack, but it doesn’t mean I want to go up against one. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not our kind wants to belong to a pack or live as rogues; what pisses me off is the moment they try and force me into submitting to a side, more specifically, their side.

“So tell me, Wolf, what about you that has my sister acting so strangely?” Smirking, I shake my head as I furrow my brows, suddenly amused by his question.

“Maybe you should ask your sister about that instead, Don.”

“I tried, except the moment I mention your name, she does everything in her power to change the subject, so much so that she starts fidgeting with her fingers, which is a dead giveaway that she’s nervous about something.”

Diverting my eyes down to the hand towel lying on the ground beside me, I stretch to pick it up before standing up straight to wipe the sweat from my brow; the fact that Don knows his sister well enough to pick up on her nervous fidgeting habit- which I had picked up on quite instantly- suddenly has me wondering what else he might have picked up on with regards to how she might have been acting since she met me?

The moment I look up at him, he’s got this look in his eyes that tells me he already knows way more than he’s letting on,

“Well, Don, I wish I could help you; I really do. But if Sasha has a habit of fidgeting when nervous, the best person to ask is her.”

It was almost instant as Don’s eyes narrowed and hardened.

“How do you know her name is Sasha? Who told you her real name?” Snapping at me, his demeanor suddenly shifted instantly from teasing and snarky to hostile and defensive. I immediately realized that I had said something I shouldn’t have.

“It was the maid, wasn’t it? She told you Sam’s real name, didn’t she?” He barked furiously.

My brows furrowed as I stared at him questioningly,

“The maid didn’t tell me her real name is Sasha; she told me herself the moment we met.”

“What!?” He snapped, “You want me to believe that Sam would have told you her real name? What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

I wanted to shoot back with a comeback like, ′I don’t know, Don, how many different types are there?′ but the look in his eyes told me that probably wouldn’t be a good idea; he seemed severely and truthfully angered by the fact that Sasha had told me her real name.

“What does it matter if she told me her real name? I don’t get what the big deal is.”

Narrowing his eyes, Don smirks as he shakes his head,

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Sighing, he slowly walks around to sit down against a chair not too far away from me as he scrubs his hand over his face.

“It’s a big deal because no one in our pack, including my dad and me, has been able to call her by her real name since she was ten.”

Cocking my head, I scoff at how strange that sounds,

“What is she just ish’ about you calling her by her real name or something?” I was trying to make sense of something so trivial because it sounded odd.

“No, it’s not that at all. It’s got to do with our mom,” He mumbles. He instantly had my attention the moment he said, Mom, don’t ask me why, but the moment he said that a sudden sharp pang of pain shot through my chest, and I didn’t understand why that was.

“What does your mother have to do with Sasha not wanting to be called by her true name?” I grumble,

“Fuck, where do I even begin?” He lets out a deep breath as he clenches his jaw; clearly, whatever memory he was about to share with me also had a heavy impact on him.

“Sam got her first name from our mom; it was mom’s second name. She was named after her, and Mom and Sam were very close. One could say they looked identical with braided hair; at least that’s what my father used to say.”

“So she was named after your mother; I don’t see why that would be a reason to give up a name, though.”

“Will you let me finish?” He grumbles, his eyes once again narrowing as he stares at me. I immediately zip it, knowing better than to push a man when he’s laying out some heavy, deep shit like this.

Nodding once, I take a deep breath as I wait for a bomb to drop, but nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what he would say next...

“Eight years ago, our mom died. There was a rogue attack, and Mom and Sam were out near the forest perimeter collecting wildflowers. Dad and I were inside the pack house when we heard a shrill guttural scream; by the time we reached them, it was already too late. The rogue wanted Sam, and Mom protected her by getting in the way of the damn mutt, but she could not react fast enough before he sliced her throat with his sharp claws. She bled out instantly, and the moment we got to them, Sam was already cradling Mom’s lifeless body against her tiny little frame. I can still remember the look in her eyes as she sobbed bitterly for Mom; there was so much blood pooling around Sam that we thought she had also been injured. But then we quickly realized it was all just from Mom.”

Swallowing hard, for some reason, I instantly feel like someone has kicked me in the stomach; the thought of a younger version of Sasha holding her mom as she died in her arms causes such a deep ache to form within my chest, such a strange sensation, one I’ve only felt once before when I was little and had clung to that dead deer as if it was my own mother.

“Did you replace the rogue?” I murmur, my brows furrowing. My question has Don clenching his fists as he shakes his head,

“No, he got away. We tried tracking him, but he just vanished into thin air.”

Looking me straight in the eyes, I can see the pain of that memory reflecting in Don’s eyes as he relives it.

“Sam blamed herself for Mom’s death, and she still does. And from that day on, no one has been allowed to call her by her first name, just over eight years ago, so you see... It’s impossible to believe that she would have told you her name is...”

“Sasha?”

Nodding, Don clenches his jaw as he stares blankly at me for a moment; clearly, he, too, would rather not say her name, not even when staring at a complete stranger. The trauma must run deep with this family, I think to myself as I lower my eyes to the ground.

“Man, I don’t know what to say to what you just told me. I can’t even remember my own family, but I’m pretty sure if something as traumatic as that had happened, it would have scarred me for life.”

Nodding, Don clenches his jaw,

“Yeah, it’s a shit reality for all of us, but it’s been worse for my dad and Sam. My dad hasn’t been able to heal since mom died; everyone expected him to die soon after she did, the whole fated mate thing, but somehow he didn’t. His relationship with Sam has never been the same either.”

“He doesn’t blame your sister for what happened, does he?” I grumble, suddenly feeling annoyed at the sheer idea of it,

“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t think he ever did, but resentment has a funny way of growing like cancer. Dad’s been in a lot of pain for a very long time,”

“Yeah, but so have you and your sister...” I retort,

“It’s different when you lose your fated mate; I haven’t found mine yet, but if I go by what I’ve seen my dad go through after losing my mom, then it must be soul-destroying to lose your fated, mate.”

“I wouldn’t know what that feels like; I don’t see myself running into my fated mate anytime soon,” I smirk sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. Huffing, Don scoffs,

“You never know, Wolf. It could happen, then what? You gonna turn your back on your fated mate?” Smirking, I narrow my eyes challengingly,

“I’m a rogue; I doubt I’m meant to be fated to anyone. Besides, isn’t that kind of thing more like a pack or alpha thing anyway?” Don lets out a dry laugh as he shakes his head,

“Do you know anything about the mate bond, Wolf?”

“I know enough to stay the fuck away from it when it crosses my path one day,” I grumble. Don narrows his eyes at me, wanting to say something else, but he keeps it to himself instead. Huffing before slowly pulling a key from his back pocket.

“My sister managed to convince my father to let you go. I don’t know what she told him, but it made him change his mind about keeping you locked up within our pack walls.” I only stared at him blankly because Sasha’s words kept ringing in my head from earlier this morning. The way her eyes had looked so sad and disappointed the moment I told her I liked being alone, I hadn’t precisely expected her to be able to sway the alpha. After all, I’m a rogue, and packs hate rogues, so having me all caged up kind of makes sense, right?

Don stands up then, which instantly pulls me from my thoughts; running his hand through his hair, I can see something is on his mind, but instead of voicing it, he decides not to. “I’ll be back in about an hour; once Dad gives the go-ahead, I’ll come and fetch you.”

Nodding, I watch him with cautious curiosity as he turns and leaves the room. He doesn’t seem hostile towards me anymore; he seems more concerned about something. It’s almost as if he wants to tell me something, but something’s stopping him. It irks me; if he wants to say something, just say it.

There was something about how Sasha had convinced her father to let me go that was now plaguing me. I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels off. The fact that I even want to know makes me more determined to get the hell out of here because everything about this girl is sending off alarm bells in my head. I’m unable to concentrate or focus when she’s around me, and when she’s absent, all I can think of is her.

‘It’s time to get out of here, Wolf.’ I tell myself as I close my eyes for just a moment to gather my thoughts, but my wolf is resisting; typically, we’re on the same page about everything, but since we met Sasha, it seems we couldn’t be more disconnected somehow.