The Heir Apparent's Rejected Mate (Five Packs, #2)

by Cate C. Wells

Sitting on a log all night teaches you that your entire ass can be numb, and yet you still have to pee.

Scavengers, by nature, treasure small things. A bottle cap. A word. An act of common decency. That’s why we’re at the bottom of the pack. We don’t care about the big, important things that matter to the nobs.

My people are creating a diversion so I can get away. My family. My folk. My stomped and squashed heart flops once with a faint sign of life.

by some miracle, the feeling ebbs, and she lets out a wolfish snort. I swear, she says, “His loss.”

My mate, the future alpha, rejected me in front of the entire school, and I could probably eat him in three bites. Well, damn. Ain’t Fate a bitch.

“You don’t know how to go about doing it, but you insist I could if I just tried.” She clicks her cheek. “That’s called gaslighting.”

“You nobs keep throwing everything away like you want to erase the past, but where will we be if we don’t know where we came from and what we really are? We’ll be lost. Can’t you see?”

“Why does it smell like wood?” “That’s Cadoc Collins,” Rosie murmurs in reply. “He smells nice.” “So does cyanide,” she says.

you don’t get mad ’cause a rabid dog foams at the mouth. You get the hell away from the dog.

“Scavengers don’t whore for rank, bitch. We whore for cash and goods.” Nia lifts her upper lip to show her descended fangs. “Only nobs are stupid enough to fuck for recognition. You can’t trade ‘he let me sit next to him at lunch’ for anything.”

“Pack are the folks who give you life. Pack are the ones who would give their life for you. It’s those threads between individuals, woven together, that makes the whole. And the whole doesn’t work if the part doesn’t hold.”

“When in heat, package your meat,”

“You tell Cadoc—if you can understand me at all—you tell him to leave me alone. We’re done. It’s finished.”

Rosie isn’t the scavenger who is my mate, the female who I can’t claim—she’s air. And I thought I could hold my breath forever?

“You’re really hard to impress, Rosie Kemble. How many people do you know who have silver eyes?” “I’m not hard to impress. You’ve just never tried.”