Connell

Chapter Four

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Cold river water rushes rapidly through my toes, yet I barely take notice as it numbs my skin. The night begins to vanish, and I can faintly see the sunrise starting to make its presence known. I'm sitting on the shoreline, tensely rigid, feeling the little rocks poke into my tailbone. The both of us are sitting quietly, almost silently, and there is a generous space between our bodies.

Against the warming orange sky, we both watch as Kota plays in the water, giggling as little fish swim around his legs, tickling his toes. He is not yet old enough to feel the tension that is in the air. He doesn't understand, because the only social interaction he's ever had his whole life is with me.

Yet sometimes, I swear I hear him quietly murmuring to himself, vacantly staring into nothing, and I know that it's his wolf slowly beginning to make his way to the surface.

The man and I continue sitting in silence.

I just want to talk, he told me.

I'm no threat to you, he kept saying.

I still don't understand what he wants from me, from my Kota. We have nothing to offer him.

Maybe he's just very lost, needing directions; no other wolf has ever come in this area since I have been here. Maybe he's hurt, but I didn't see any visible injuries when I looked at him before.

Is he a rogue? I kept thinking. He doesn't seem crazed, doesn't seem like the others, like how a normal rogue should be. Then again, I'm a rogue, but rogues like me aren't normal, they aren't supposed to exist. So how does he exist?

It is very hard for rogues to resist; the only possible reason I can understand for fighting off that urge, the temptation of fully going under, is because I am the child of a Beta. I have generational strength running through my veins. I believe it is the only reason I am still alive.

I notice he doesn't have that smell, that scent a rogue would usually bathe in. The smell of death, of rotting decay. I don't smell it on him. But I wouldn't be sitting with him if that's what I smelled, he wouldn't be alive; I would have killed him.

True rogues are dangerous, you can smell them from a mile away. Your wolf detects them before your human side does. It's a warning sign to run, to flee.

I believe that is a rogue's punishment; the stench etched in their fur that steers any living thing away. It is meant to isolate and slowly kill them. All rogues have a punishment, for they would simply not be rogue if they did not do something unforgivable.

I became rogue for a reason.

My pack banished me. They thought I would begin to slowly perish in the wild, that I wouldn't be able to resist the temptations of the subconscious state of a rogue. They thought I would become crazed, taking a true rogue's form.

That is what my punishment was, to die pregnant. They think my child and I are dead.

The man has still not said a word, and I am beginning to grow agitated.

"What do you want from us?" My voice is hard, it slices through the silence.

He slightly moves his head, casting his eyes downwards, watching the water move carefully between his toes. I can only see the profile of his scarred face, and I find it oddly hard to look away from.

"I don't want anything," he quietly rasps.

Well, I don't believe you.