It turns out that I wasn’t as special as I thought after all. But honestly, this is fantastic. I love my mates, but they can never truly understand what I had to go through. Patrick was excluded, like me, for his pacifist ways, but he still got his wolf at thirteen, even if it wasn’t very dominant. And Hunter has always been respected because of who he’s related to.
But now here is someone who knows what it’s like to watch their kin get their wolves. Someone who knows what it’s like to be left behind.
Butch chuckles. “Well, I’ll leave you kids to it. Must be nice to meet someone who’s finally as hopeless as you are...”
He stalks off, laughing to himself as I glare at the back of his peppered gray head. Hopeless is going a little too far. I had a lot to offer before I was even gifted a wolf.
Zack hardly seems to hear the older male’s words. He just gawks at me, and I start to feel a little unnerved.
He moves his mouth. “So... you’re a dud too, huh?”
“Was,” I correct. “I have a wolf now.”
I don’t bother telling him that my wolf was a gift from the moon. I don’t want to get his hopes up. Besides, I’m sure he will find his inner wolf someday. We all have one inside us, after all.
I can tell Zack is having the same thoughts, and I move forward, inclining my head for him to follow.
“So, I take it you were hated by your pack too?” I ask.
Zack bows his head as he tries to keep up, and I can see he’s struggling. He has the meager human strength of a dud, and my heart bleeds for him.
“Yes,” he replies. “Even my own father didn’t want to know me.”
My heart stings and I stop now, peering up at him. The pain of his rejection is all too clear inside his big, guileless eyes, and I reach out, placing a hand on his shoulder. I smile.
“My mother ignored me my whole life, too. So you’re in good company, Zack.”
He beams, and dimples form on his round baby face. “Thanks, Ylfa. Finally... Someone who understands what I’m going through...”
Now that I definitely do.
I’m glad we stumbled upon the abandoned city after all. Or I never would have met a fellow dud.