He's an Alpha: She doesn't Care

CH 11

Jared

It was more than uncomfortable, driving with this rogue she-wolf sitting in the passenger seat, it was obvious to him that she was sulking about him chastising her. Yes, he’d been overly harsh, he now realized. How long was one supposed to wait for someone to pick them up? In the human world he’d seen both men and women leave cafés and restaurants after 20 minutes of waiting.

He had no actual idea how long she’d waited, but long enough for her to give up on him arriving and go right back to work. He wondered what his father would make of that. So he apologized to her after a few minutes to settle himself, they were on their way, and they were going to make it on time.

He now understood that this was the she-wolf his father had been trying to bring into his pack for five years. One he’d told Jared to charm into coming into the pack, he’d not known she was rogue, because his father had left that part out. Though from what he’d heard, she wouldn’t even set foot inside the pack.

This function that was being held, was likely the only time his father had managed to convince her to come to the pack; he’d likely used some underhanded tactic to get it, seeing as she was so very stubborn and resistant to being brought in.

He looked at her a few times from the driver's seat. She was more than pretty, though he already knew that he had seen her work photo. She was not interested in talking to him, just sat staring out the window, hadn’t even accepted his apology. He didn’t think he was going to be able to charm her not after the words he’d spoken.

It was now going to be a Dwane job. He was going to push that chore right to his Beta, wasn’t likely going to have a choice, he was getting nothing from her.

His annoyance with Lotti was out for all to hear, and he couldn’t help it because the girl was always completely irresponsible. But he couldn’t have the pack Beta’s youngest stepdaughter lashed because her car slid off the road and into a ditch. Which meant she couldn’t get back in time and so would take a lashing.

It wasn’t currently raining, and he knew Lotti well enough to know she was going to pitch a she-wolf petulant fit if she had to get in a car with a rogue. Let alone have that rogue sit up front, and her have to be seated behind her. She had come here with her mother, not that it was needed she was old enough to stay in her home pack.

But no if she came here and was bled to Ernesto, she’d rank right up to Beta blood, she’d been ranked up but not bled to Ernesto, and she was a spoiled, selfish brat just about all the time, acted like a 16-year-old when she 27 now, nothing had changed in the 6 years she’d been part of the pack, or so Dwane stated.

Thankfully, neither of them had to have anything to do with her, but he wasn’t about to have Lotti sit in the backseat and make comments about the smell in the car and insult Wynta for no reason which he knew she would. He’d seen her on video calls and had the unpleasant experience of her coming to Europe last year and seen her in action.

He had Wynta get out of the car. There was a well-maintained footpath along the roadside, and he knew the gate guard would call a car to the gate to collect her and take her to the packhouse. It was just 10 or 15 minutes. It wouldn’t hurt her. She could likely do it in just two or three minutes if she used her wolfen speed.

He was more than shocked by that foul language that came out of her and kind of stared at her, not knowing what to stay and then she just slammed the door in his face. He’d had to shake it off she wasn’t actually a pack member at this time, and rogues could be difficult to handle. Five years of refusing to be initiated, she was a handful, he thought absently as he drove away.

His eyes moved to look at her in the revision mirror, standing there on the side of the road, and she kind of looked cold to him, he thought, with her arms wrapped around herself. He shook it off and let it go as he rounded the corner in the bend, and she was gone out of sight. Wolves didn’t really care about the cold unless it was snowing.

Jared put his foot down and sped away down the mountain road as he glanced at the time again, he saw Lotti’s car half in a ditch just next to the back entry to the pack, an old fire trail that was used in emergency situations. She’d not left the car was just standing there waiting for him. He’d told her to move her ass.

He used the pack's access road to do a three-point turn and pulled up next to her. She was wearing a long coat and holding a white gift bag, the present he presumed she’d gone out to get. She hopped in his car “Thanks for coming to get me, Jared. You’re such a sweetie,” she stated, and he was driving away once more. Then he heard her breathe in and mutter, “What stinks in this car?”

That’s not what Wynta had just called him “Shut it girl. I’m doing you a favor, and father is going to beat me senseless if Wynta Morgan doesn’t make it into the pack.”

“I don’t see what’s so special about that rogue. He’s kept her working at the head office for five years, Jared… Did you know she got my job, the one I worked so hard for, and then she got my promotion as well, just last year.” She stated, sounding annoyed and petulant at the same time.

“Did she? I don’t recall Dwane telling me you have a marketing degree of any kind,” he stated simply.

“I was to intern and learn on-site. She took all that away from me and all because your dad wants to initiate her into the pack, and she refuses to do so. Is playing hard to get, so she gets everything handed to her from your own father. All just to try and placate her in the hope she’ll let him bring her in one day. She’s just stringing it along to get bigger dollars out of him. She’s got the bigger office now, and he’s offered her one of the new penthouse apartments.”

Jared rolled his eyes a little. There it was the jealousy he thought, the girl did nothing but expected to have everything. “So you’ve done what in the past five years? Did you go and get that marketing degree? Study and then show you could do the job yourself? Or did you just spend the past five years whinging that she stole something from you?” he asked directly. “I’ve seen Wynta’s resume, it’s full of achievements and her hard work has paid off is all I saw. Not only that she took her whole team with her, that’s not selfish at all.” he stated.

He could feel Lotti’s eyes on him. “You’re siding with her, a filthy rogue and not with me… that’s”

He cut her off. “Watch your tone and words, I could report those very words to my father about how you feel he’s treated you unfavorably, and you’ll get punished…” His words trailed off as his eyes fell on the road ahead and there was rushing water crossing it just on the edge of the pack road.

“Flash flood,” Lotti murmured. “That’s what happened to me.”

He nodded and pulled the car to the very side of the road to avoid the water and turned onto the pack road. The gate guard smiled at him. “You’re just going to make it Alpha Jared.” He waved them through but frowned at Lotti in the seat next to him.

“There's a flash flood near the pack road entrance,” Jared stated.

“I heard it, before I saw it,” he nodded and pointed out to the woods where the stream along the pack border was overflowing. “It kind of cut the road and then washed down it, seems to have settled back into the stream, likely an embankment collapse out there forcing the water is all.”

“No pack injuries reported.”

“Nothing yet. All border patrollers are fine as well. We had to sound off.” He nodded.

“Good.” Jared nodded and put his foot down to race up the pack road. He pulled his car up right out the front of the packhouse and got out. He didn’t even stop for his bag, just shot himself through the packhouse front doors.

“Damned near didn’t make,” Dwane laughed at him.

“Blame Lotti,” he stated, and Creed raced him up the stairs at full wolfen speed and into his suite. He didn’t bother to shower, just pulled on that formal suit waiting for him, already laid out, and ran his hands through his hair before racing back downstairs and into the ballroom to stand himself right next to his father.

“You’re late son.”

“I am not,” he looked at his watch. “I got me 50 seconds to spare.”

“Where is Wynta? You’re late because you were to bring her to my office hours ago to finally be initiated into the pack.” His father smiled at him. “Finally I got her here.”

He looked about, “She’s here somewhere. I dropped her off like 25 minutes ago?" he stated.

His father looked right at him and there was a deep frown on his face, and then he took a breath in “You dropped her off! Where exactly? Because I can’t smell her.”

“Lotti’s car ran off the road, so I dropped Wynta at the pack road and headed back to pick Lotti up. I pointed her in the right direction. To the gates.”

“You left Wynta outside the pack, in the freezing cold.” His father snapped at him.

“Wolves don’t really feel the cold.” Though he did recall she’d looked cold to him.

“She’s without wolf, Jared. Did you not notice that?”

“Oh.” He murmured, and the answer to that was no he hadn’t, he’d not even considered it. She smelt wolfen and rogue, he’d not checked to see if she was wolf-less. Why would he? “I didn’t know. Just presumed because she was wolfen, that she had a wolf.”

“You had one bloody job, Jared. Do you know how hard it was to get that woman onto pack territory? I can only initiate her and give her pack protection if she willingly sets foot inside this pack. That was our agreement. Five bloody years of trying, and you managed to blow it in just one day.”

“She’s here, I tell you,” he stated.

“I think I’d know son, if there was a rogue on pack territory.” His father snarled at him and stalked off.

Dwane’s hand fell on his shoulder. “No rogues have come into the pack, Jared.”

“She was fine, standing by the pack road.” He murmured and then frowned as there was something itching his brain.

He mind-linked to the gate guard and asked, “Did a pretty rogue she-wolf in a blue dress come to the gate and asked to come to the ceremony?” he asked.

“No, Alpha, just you and Lotti after that flash flood,” he was told.

Jared cut the link as he realized what it was, “Oh, father is going to be pissed.” He muttered and turned to look out the ballroom doors in the direction his father had gone. “Fuck.”

“Jared, what is it?” Dwane asked him.

“There were the remnants of a flash flood down the pack road when I brought Lotti into the pack… f**k, she’s wolf-less, and wouldn’t have been able to hear it, smell it or…” he trailed off as he tried not to think about her getting washed away in it.

“Get out of the way of it, like a wolfen folk could,” Dwane murmured.

Jared closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, he surely had screwed this up royally and he knew it. He was getting more than just a lashing. It was likely going to 10 or 20.