Rejected By My Alpha Mate

Chapter 7 - The Village at the Edge

The border village of Ashfen was a waypoint, not a destination. It had a cluster of stone buildings, a market road, and an inn. The food came out hot and filling. The kitchen took clear pride in its work.

Kaela arrived on the second day, tired and careful. She traded half a day's work in the kitchen for a tiny room above the inn, no bigger than a closet. It had a bed and a lock on the door.

That was everything she required.

Bera, the innkeeper, was a broad-shouldered woman. She sized up Kaela with the skill of someone who had seen many travelers.

"You running from something or toward something?"

"Neither," Kaela said.

Bera handed her a room key. "They all say that."

✦ ✦ ✦

She spent a week in Ashfen.

She worked mornings in the kitchen and evenings at the bar. She was good at both jobs, efficient and polite. Her manner was friendly but did not invite conversation. She ate real meals for the first time in years, a luxury that made her angry as she realized exactly what she had missed.

She watched people. It had always been one of her better skills.

On the fifth day, a traveling merchant arrived.

He was old, with the weathered look of someone who had traveled for a very long time. He had layered clothes, a worn pack, and a face that had seen so much it no longer showed surprise. He sat at the bar with a steaming mug of cider and watched the room with pale, unhurried eyes.

He focused his attention on Kaela.

She noticed. She practiced noticing when others watched her.

After an hour, she set a refill in front of him. "Something I can help you with?"

He looked at her, focusing on the way her fingers lingered on the glass, his gaze steady and respectful.

"You've got the shadow-scent on you," he said. His voice was low, a traveler's voice, accustomed to cutting through noise. "Lycan-touched. That's rare."

The word landed in her chest with the weight of a coin dropped in still water.

Lycan.

"You have me confused with someone else," she said.

"I don't." He was calm about it. No performance, no attempt to make it dramatic. Information. "It's faint, suppressed, more like. Like something with a lid on it. But it's there." He picked up his mug. "The scent is distinctive if you recognize it. Most wolves wouldn't. I've been around long enough to be sure."

She maintained a steady gaze on him. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you look like someone who has heard the wrong things about themselves for a long time," he said. "And I've got enough years on me to recognize that particular expression." He pushed a card across the bar. "If you end up needing help understanding what you are, there are people in the south who can offer it."

She looked at the card. A compass rose, hand-inked. No name.

When she looked up, he was looking at his mug.

She pocketed the card.

✦ ✦ ✦

Two hours later, she was clearing tables when she heard the door.

She didn't look up immediately.

The energy in the room shifted the moment he walked in. As the diner buzzed with the newcomer's presence, focus turned toward the door. Even those outside the Shadow Pack could feel his arrival.

She looked up.

Beta Dace stood in the doorway.

He was Ryker's second. She recognized him right away. He was tough, built for combat. His features were sharp and deliberate, and he wore Shadow Pack colors with pride. He was talking to Bera about road conditions. Border business, from the look of it.

He had not looked her way yet.

She kept moving. Clear the table. Don't stop. Don't look again.

She felt it anyway, the precise moment his gaze found her. A pause in his conversation. A recalibration.

He finished his conversation with Bera. He didn't approach Kaela.

But in her peripheral vision, she saw him take out a communication stone.

She knew what he was doing.

She knew.

She went to her room that night and looked at the compass-rose card.

She had told herself she wasn't in a hurry.

She reconsidered.