My name is Garnet, and I'm standing in the middle of the kennel yard with mud to my knees and every wolf in Tallowridge looking at me like I stole something.
Rhett is up on the feed shed step, and the yard has that hush on it like before a fight.
Rhett: She works the pens. She eats after the pens. She answers to me.
Rhett: She's under my personal watch. Anybody who's got a problem with that can say it to my face.
Personal watch. He says it like a punishment for me and not a collar on every other wolf in this yard.
My face goes red, and my stomach does something dumb and hopeful that I want to punch.
Hedda: Personal watch. Fuck me, that's what we're calling it now?
Hedda: You gonna check her pen every night, Rhett, or just crawl into it?
Their laughing bounces off the fence posts and lands right on the back of my neck.
I stare at my boots and lock my jaw, because one tear out here and they'll scent it like blood.
Rhett: Hedda. Say one more fucking word and you'll be mucking the sick pens till spring.
Hedda: Over the stray? For real?
Rhett: She answers to me. Not to you. Try and remember that.
His hand comes down on my arm and he walks me out of the yard like I'm a problem he has to move.
Garnet: You're hurting my arm.
Rhett: Then walk faster.
He shoves me through the barn door and the smell hits me all at once. Hay and horse and him, and my heart goes stupid in my chest.
Rhett: You don't take a damn thing off that man's back again. Not his jacket. Not his hat.
Garnet: You don't own my back.
Rhett: You want to test that?
He steps in and I step back until the stall post stops me, and he's close enough that I can see the little scar under his eyebrow.
Garnet: This is jealousy. Big bad Alpha, losing his shit over a water boy and a tin cup.
Rhett: I'm not jealous.
Garnet: You pulled his jacket off me in front of the whole pack.
Garnet: You want me. Say it out loud, or stop growling at every man who looks at me.
A muscle jumps in the side of his face and his knuckles go white where his hands hang, and the left one won't hold still.
Rhett: Don't stand there and name it like you know what's in my head.
Garnet: Then stop making it true.
I don't know which one of us moves first. Then his mouth is on mine and it's not gentle at all.
His hand comes up under my jaw and he holds my head still and kisses me like he's mad at my mouth for being there.
I should shove him off. I get both hands on his chest and I mean to push.
Then my fingers curl in his shirt and drag him closer, and the sound he makes goes all the way down between my legs.
He gets my hips against the post and his thigh between mine, and I'm up on my toes kissing him back like a fool.
Garnet: You want me. You want me so bad it's making you sick.
Rhett: Shut up.
He kisses me harder to shut me up and I let him, and for one dumb second I feel safe, which is the worst lie my body has ever told me.
My hands are in his hair. His are on my ribs under the flannel, hot and rough, and his breathing is wrecked.
Then he pulls back. All at once, like I burned him.
He's shaking. Both hands, bad, and his mouth is red from me.
Rhett: Fuck. Fuck.
Rhett: This doesn't happen again. You hear me? This is not a thing.
He backs off with his hand out like I'm the one who might grab him, and his boots hit the door.
Garnet: Go on then. Tell me you don't want this, straight to my face, and I'll believe you.
He doesn't say it. He stands in the door with the light behind him and his hands shaking, and he doesn't say one damn word.
I'm left in the dust with his taste still on my tongue, and I can't tell if he'll ever admit it out loud or just make me sorry I dragged it out of him.