Mated to the Rebel Wolf (Mistwood Omegas #1)

Chapter 1 The Rebel’s Routine

The Rebel's Routine

Roan

My phone buzzes for the fourth time in an hour, rattling against the wooden nightstand like something that wants killing.

I don’t need to look to know it’s my father.

Alpha Chris Mistwood never gives up easily, which is probably an admirable trait in a pack leader but is bloody irritating in a parent.

I roll over and bury my face in the pillow, willing the phone to stop.

Outside my cabin, I can hear the sounds of pack life beginning: children laughing on their way to the makeshift school, adults discussing patrol schedules, the general bustle of a community that has its shit together.

Everything I’m supposed to be part of but can’t stomach.

The phone stops buzzing. I count to ten, then twenty. Just as I start to relax, it goes again.

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, grabbing the phone and squinting at the screen. Five missed calls, all from Dad, and a text that reads: Alpha meeting. 9 AM. Don’t make me come find you.

I check the clock. Half past ten. Fuck it.

I can picture him now. Pack house conference room, his Beta and Gamma around the table, discussing territory boundaries, hunting schedules, all the vital business of keeping forty-three werewolves safe and fed.

They’ll have left an empty chair for me, the heir apparent who can’t be bothered to show up to his own future.

The guilt lasts about three seconds before I remind myself that I never asked for that future.

I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, taking my time because I’m already late anyway.

The hot water feels good on muscles still sore from yesterday’s work helping Tom rebuild his back fence.

Manual labour isn’t glamorous, but it’s honest. No politics, no posturing.

Just sweat and wood and the satisfaction of fixing something that’s broken.

My cabin sits on the edge of the pack lands, far enough from the main compound that I can pretend I live alone but close enough that I can’t completely escape the obligations of being Chris Mistwood’s only son. A compromise that suits no one, least of all me.

By the time I’ve dressed and made coffee, my phone buzzes again. This time it’s Rebecca, my father’s Beta and the closest thing I’ve ever had to a big sister.

“You missed the meeting,” she says without preamble when I answer.

“Did I? Funny how that keeps happening.”

“Roan.” Her voice carries that particular mix of exasperation and affection that only Rebecca can manage. “You know, most rebels actually have a cause. You just have a mattress and a grudge against your alarm clock.”

“That is my cause.”

“He’s trying, you know. We all are.”

I step out onto my tiny front garden, coffee mug in hand, and look toward the main compound. Smoke rises from several chimneys, and I can see figures moving between the buildings. My people. My pack. My responsibility, according to everyone but me.

“I know you are,” I say, because it’s true. “That’s the problem.”

Rebecca sighs. “Look, just... make an appearance today, all right? Help with something. Show your face. Let people see you care.”

“I do care.”

“I know you do. But caring from a distance isn’t the same as leading.”

“Good thing I’m not interested in leading then.”

“Roan...”

“I’ve got to go, Rebecca. Tom’s waiting for me to help with his roof.”

I hang up before she can argue further and drain my coffee.

Tom’s roof is a genuine commitment: the autumn storms tore off half the tiles, and at sixty-eight, he isn’t about to climb up there himself.

But it’s also a convenient excuse to avoid whatever lecture my father has prepared about duty and responsibility and the burden of leadership.

The walk to Tom’s cottage takes me through the heart of the compound, past the pack house and the communal kitchen and the workshop where Emma is teaching the teenagers to work with leather.

I nod to the people I pass, stop to examine young Jamie’s scraped knee, and listen patiently while Mrs Hartwell complains about the foxes getting into her vegetable garden.

This is the part of pack life I can handle: the individual connections, the small kindnesses, the way people look after each other without formal hierarchy or official duties.

It’s when someone tries to make me stand up in front of everyone and make decisions about territory disputes or alliance negotiations that I feel the walls closing in.

“There he is,” Tom calls out as I approach his cottage. “Thought you might have gotten caught up in official business.”

Tom has been part of the pack since before I was born. Steady, practical, with no interest in politics or power. He treats me the same whether I show up to pack meetings or not, which is probably why I genuinely enjoy his company.

“Official business can wait,” I say, picking up a bundle of replacement tiles. “How’s the ladder situation?”

“Rickety but functional.” He gives it a slap. “Held me yesterday, so it’ll hold you.”

We spend the morning working in comfortable silence, me on the roof replacing tiles while Tom sorts materials on the ground. The physical work feels good, purposeful. Meetings never feel like this. When we break for lunch, I’m sweaty and tired and more relaxed than I’ve been in days.

“Your father came by yesterday,” Tom says as we eat the sandwiches his mate Lucy has prepared. “Mentioned you might be taking on more responsibilities soon.”

I nearly choke on my tea. “Did he now?”

“Don’t look so horrified, lad. Leadership isn’t a death sentence.”

“Feels like it sometimes.”

“Felt like it at seventeen, too, I imagine. When you stood up at the solstice gathering and told your father his alliance with the Greymoor pack was built on intimidation rather than respect.” Tom takes a slow bite of his sandwich.

“In front of the entire delegation. I thought Chris was going to have a stroke.”

I wince. “That wasn’t my finest moment.”

“Wasn’t it? The Greymoor alliance collapsed six months later. Exactly the way you said it would.” He brushes crumbs off his trousers. “Pack still talks about it, you know. The night the heir told the Alpha he was wrong and turned out to be right.”

Tom studies me with the patience of someone who’s raised five pups of his own. “You know, I remember when your father was about your age. Fought it just as hard as you do.”

This is news to me. “Dad fought it?”

“Wouldn’t call it fighting, exactly. More like... struggling with the weight of it all. His father, your grandfather, was a hard man. Expected perfection. Demanded absolute obedience. Chris spent years trying to prove he could be something other than a copy of the old man.”

I set down my sandwich, suddenly not hungry. “What changed?”

“He worked out that being a leader didn’t mean being his father. Started doing things his own way, making his own choices about what kind of Alpha he wanted to be.” Tom’s weathered face creases into a smile. “Best decision he ever made, in my opinion.”

The conversation stays with me through the afternoon as we finish the roof.

I’ve never thought of my father as someone who struggled with expectations.

He seems so comfortable in his authority, so certain of his decisions.

The idea that he once felt trapped by his own destiny is both comforting and unsettling.

By the time we finish, clouds have rolled in from the west, heavy and grey, threatening rain. Tom insists on paying me for the work despite my protests, pressing a handful of notes into my palm with the stubborn determination that seems bred into his generation.

“You’re a good lad, Roan,” he says as I pack up my tools. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Even yourself.”

I’m still turning his words over as I walk home through the forest that borders the pack lands.

The afternoon is cool and damp, the air thick with the promise of rain, and my wolf stirs restlessly beneath my skin, wanting to run.

I glance around, confirm I’m alone, and strip off my clothes.

The shift comes easily after so many years: bones lengthening, muscles reshaping, senses sharpening until the world opens up into layers of scent and sound I can’t access on two legs.

On four legs, things are simpler. No complicated emotions, no impossible expectations. Just the forest, the trail, the clean pleasure of moving fast through open ground. I set off at an easy lope, following familiar paths deeper into pack territory.

I’m perhaps a mile from the village when I catch it.

A scent. Human. Female. The word lands with brutal, instinctive certainty.

My wolf surges to the surface, sudden and absolute.

It’s sweet but not cloying, warm like honey but with an underlying complexity that makes my wolf’s ears prick forward.

There’s something else underneath it, something I can’t identify, and every instinct I have locks onto it at once.

I stop dead, nose lifted to the wind.

The scent is fresh. Not fading, not old. Whoever she is, she’s here. Close.

Mine, some savage part of me answers, and every muscle in my body goes tight.

My wolf whines, low and urgent, wanting to follow the trail back to its source. The rational part of my brain points out that interesting scents are hardly unusual in a forest. People hike through these hills all the time. There’s no reason to treat this one differently.

But my wolf isn’t listening. And neither, if I’m honest, am I.

I hold still in the grey afternoon, rain beginning to spot my fur, and breathe her in.