Just a Rogue

Corinne

I have a lot to worry about. About the baby. About Xavier refusing to let me come back, or killing me for leaving. If neither of those things happen, I know I will be punished, and I can’t help but worry about how much that is going to hurt. If I manage to get through all that, I worry about finding a way to tell my friends what is coming without Xavier finding out. About not being able to get away before the battle. About failing in everything I am trying to do.

But for some reason, I’m more worried about Evan than anything else. About him finding out what I’m planning, about him feeling scared, or angry, or betrayed by what is coming. I keep thinking about him kissing me last night, and holding me warmly in his bed, not trying to use me for anything, just trying to be kind to me.

Kind.

That’s how he’s always been, since the moment we met, when he gave his sweatshirt to a cold rogue. And I am planning to crush his kind heart by leaving him, and going back to them. Exactly as he tried to stop me from doing.

Maybe I’ll be back someday, or maybe not. I don’t know what will happen, whether I will survive any of this, or what will happen if I do.

But I know that Evan is going to have his feelings hurt, and that is what I am worried about.

I figure he’ll ask me about it. After I get off work we eat dinner together at our table. “Dom and Amelia won’t be here,” he tells me, “they’re going to dinner with her parents. So it’s just us.”

I nod, and wait for him to question me, find out what I have planned with the Lunas. But instead, he tells me funny stories about what he and Dom did with Theo at the hospital, and he somehow is even making me laugh about it. Then, after dinner, I figure that it will be time to tell him, but instead, he suggests that we go watch a movie with some other people, which is how we have spent almost every evening that I’ve been here.

Watching a movie on a huge t.v., all of us laying together comfortably with pillows and blankets and snacks, is just as alien to me as every other part of this experience has been. I know that soon I will be laying in a cave, hoping not to be hurt, wondering if I will be allowed to eat. I try to savor every moment of this experience that I can, and I wonder about how these other people can take such a thing for granted. It seems miraculous to me.

Afterwards, when it is very late, everyone else leaves the room, and Evan and I are alone. Now the worry returns. Surely now he will start asking me questions. But the only question he asks is, “Are you tired?”

I nod. I am, very tired. He seems like he wants to ask me something else, and he hesitates for a long time. Then he says, “Why don’t I walk you to your room.”

He holds my hand while we go, and in front of my door he leans down and gives me a very tender, very gentle kiss. His hand is behind my neck, holding me in place very softly, and when the kiss is over his fingers brush across my cheek. I look up at him, memorizing the lines of his handsome face, his blond hair and blue eyes, his square jaw, his soft lips.

“Good night,” he whispers.

I nod, and I have to whisper too, because I know I can’t trust my voice right now. “Good night.”

The door closes behind me, locking me in, and I am equal parts relieved and devastated. I wish that we could have stayed together one last night, before he finds out what I am planning. I had meant to tell him. But let him have one more night before he knows. It’s going to be an unpleasant surprise.

I dread the look in his eyes when he learns that even after everything he did, after chasing me, after convincing me to come back, after kissing me and holding me and caring for me, I am still leaving him.

Dominic

We follow her brother into the house, and by the time we get there her parents and sister are all standing in the front room like they just burst up out of their seats, waiting for us with shocked expressions.

All eyes are on our marks. Amelia has a sort of sheepish smile on her face. “Um, surprise?” she says.

Her sister is the one who breaks the spell. “Does this mean that you’re, like, my brother?” she squeaks. “I’ve always wanted a brother!”

“Hey!” her brother Christopher protests, and it makes me laugh.

“Oh, not you,” she says, waving her hand over at him dismissively. “I mean a big brother.”

I answer, “Yeah, I guess so,” and add, “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and I’ve always wanted them, so this is cool.”

I realize that Amelia’s mom is standing with her hands on her mouth, staring emotionally at her daughter, and I think there are tears in her eyes. Our conversation breaks the spell, and she lets go of her face and moves over to Amelia with her arms outstretched for a hug.

“I thought so!” she says, “I just had a feeling!”

“I know, Mom,” Amelia says, hugging her back. “You were right, but we were trying to keep it secret until after the Alpha and Luna had their ceremony.”

“Why?” Rachel asks.

“We didn’t want to be a distraction from the leaders,” Amelia says, like that is obvious. “Judging by your reaction, we would have been. So we just waited.”

“Well,” her dad breaks in, “how about you tell us some more over dinner. It’s on the table. And Dominic, we need to get to know you better.”

I nod. “It’s already going well,” I think to Amelia through our mind-link.

She just sends happy feelings back to me.

I let her share the story, and she deftly manages to tell the whole thing without the whole slowly getting closer and closer physically without actually having sex part. But there is plenty else to tell, especially the drama of the cave expedition and the car accident, which I will clearly never hear the end of. It’s embarrassing to have been driving during a crash that wrecked two cars and put my friend in the hospital, no matter how much everybody assures me it wasn’t my fault.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Amelia thinks to me. Ha!

Later, much later, just before we’re getting ready to leave, Amelia’s dad catches me alone. “I’m glad that Amelia found you,” he says, in his rather reserved way.

“Thank you, Sir,” I respond.

“Pfsh. Don’t call me Sir. I’m Jesse.”

“Okay, Jesse.”

“I have to say,” he goes on, “that I can’t really understand what you have experienced. You know I’m just a human, right?”

I nod. I thought so.

“So, I love Brooke, with all my heart, and I can’t imagine any feeling more powerful than that. But from what I understand, the bond of fated mates is somehow stronger.”

I nod again. “It’s, um, overwhelming,” I tell him.

“Good. I guess that if she showed up with a human, I’d have to be warning you against doing anything to hurt her. But the way I understand it, you literally can’t. It would hurt you too much.”

Sheesh, it actually hurts, physically, just to think about it, a little sting in my heart like I felt that first day we were apart. Hurt Amelia? I’d literally rather die. I think I literally would die. “I couldn’t,” I murmur. “I wouldn’t want to, though. I’m, uh, I feel like we’re almost the same person now.”

“Like I said, I don’t really understand it. But I’m glad my daughter has someone who will remain devoted to her.”

“I will,” I reply, nodding earnestly. Nothing could be truer.

He looks at me with a funny little smile on his face. “Is it true that you can hear each other? Like telepathy?”

I grin. “Actually, yeah. It’s weird but very cool.”

“Could you, I don’t know, show me?”

Uh… I silently tell Amelia that her dad wants proof of our mind-link.

She hollers from across the house, where she is in the kitchen with her mom, “Yes, Dad, I can hear Dominic’s thoughts!”

Her brother and sister are in the den where they’re playing some computer game together, and I hear them bust out laughing, and Christopher says, “Coooool!”

On the way home, I tell her, “I should have known that I would love your family. There’s no way that someone so loveable wouldn’t have a great family.”

“I still have to meet yours,” she points out.

“That’ll be easy, it’s just my parents. We’ll get out there soon.”

“You really like my family?” she confirms.

“I seriously do. Your Dad told me he’s glad we’re mated, since it means that I couldn’t possibly do anything to hurt you. It’s true.”

She nods, and reaches over to hold my right hand, while I keep the left one on the wheel.

“I wonder, though,” I say, then I’m not really sure how to put it.

“What?”

“He’s just a human, right? He told me that he’ll never understand how you and I feel, he just can’t. Humans don’t do this. So I wonder if he worries about it. You know, happening to your mom.”

“Probably,” she tells me. “Who wouldn’t? Everyone in the pack saw how destroyed Kanen was when his girlfriend left him a few months ago when she found her mate.”

“It worked out well for him, though,” I point out. Kanen and Janine are as happy as Amelia and I are.

I can tell it kind of bothers her to think about it. It would mean that her parents would split up, if her mom’s fated mate showed up, even after all this time. I’m kind of sorry I brought it up. Well, I have another topic. “Um, when we get back to the packhouse, I’d like to do something, if it’s all right with you.”

“What is it?” she asks, and starts hopefully sending some images to me of activities involving a lot of tongues and other body parts.

“Heh! Yes, all of that, but first, would you mind if I grab my suitcase and just bring it down to your room?”

“Oh! Yes, of course you should! Yeah, no point in still pretending to be staying in the Dark Woods wing upstairs, is there?”

“Okay. I’ll run up real quick and grab my stuff as soon as we get back. And then….” I send her an image of licking all the way down her torso, and she shivers.

Then she says, “Are you trying to make yourself crash this car?”

I laugh. “Fine, I’ll stop. Later.”

“Later,” she agrees.

Evan

I hated dropping Corinne off in her dungeon, but she said she was tired and I didn’t want to press things. She was super alarmed when she woke up in here this morning. I want her to be comfortable.

So I’m moping around alone in my room, procrastinating even getting ready for bed, when the door opens.

“Oh! Dom! I didn’t expect to see you here!” I think for a second. “You’re not, like, staying here tonight, are you?”

“Ha! Of course not. I’m just grabbing my stuff. I’m not going to pretend to be rooming with you any more.”

Ahhhh. “Yeah, of course. Not like you’ve slept here even once.”

“I did,” he says as he starts yanking stuff off his bed and cramming it into his duffle bag. “I took a nap here one afternoon. Maybe even twice.”

Heh. It only takes him a couple of minutes to zoom around grabbing everything. He goes into the bathroom and I see one more thing that is on the dresser. I step over and pick it up, and toss it to him when he comes out of the bathroom holding his shaving kit.

“Here, don’t forget this,” I say, and he catches it one-handed.

“Ah! My fez!” he says with a huge grin, and immediately puts it on his head.

“I can’t believe she gave you a fez,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“Fezzes are cool!” he says defensively, zipping up his duffel with everything inside.

I laugh. “Yeah, they are. Um, congratulations again, man. I guess I’ll see you around.”

He nods. “Good night!”

In less than ten minutes he has blown in here, grabbed all his stuff and gone, and I feel more alone than ever. It shouldn’t be a surprise, of course. It’s obvious that he’ll be staying with his mate. I wonder what they’ll do when Dark Woods leaves to return to our territory.

I wonder what will happen tomorrow at the meeting. I wonder what the leaders will decide about the rogues. I wonder what Corinne will decide about me.

I wonder if I’ll get any sleep tonight.