My Fated Alpha Used Me as Revenge Obeyed 100 Rules and Still Got Rejected in Front of His Pack? novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The East Room

Autumn moves into the Radcliffe house under Roland's smile and Cordelia's help; Jasper's plan to flaunt her at Lottie's training yard collapses, and in the dark hallway he grabs her wrist and the bond flares.

The east room of the Radcliffe house had a narrow bed and a window that looked down on the old Luna's garden.

Jasper had pointed at its door and walked away.

I sat on the bed with the brown page open on my knees and read it from the top.

Rule two said I walked one step behind him in public.

Rule three said I ate after he ate.

Rule nine said I never touched him unless he touched me first.

Rule fourteen said I slept in the east room, alone, and Rule twenty-two said I never entered his.

The letters were tall, old and slanted, and every rule was numbered in the same brown ink.

I read all the way to ninety-nine and stopped.

The hundredth line was written in a different script, a looping one, and I could not read it.

I folded the page and put it inside my shirt.

At breakfast the long table in the great hall was full, and everyone stopped talking when I came in.

Jasper was already sitting.

Alpha Roland sat at the head, buttering bread.

"Autumn," he said warmly. "Did you sleep well? The east room used to be my wife's sewing room. It gets the morning sun."

"Very well, Alpha. Thank you."

"Sit, sit."

I sat at the far end, and I did not touch the food, because Jasper had not touched his.

He took his time.

He cut his eggs into six pieces and ate each one, looking down the table at me.

By the time he finished, the porridge in front of me was cold.

I ate it anyway.

Cordelia Sunderland slid into the chair beside me with her own plate.

"I never finish my toast," she said, and put half of it on my saucer. "Eat. It's a long day, and he's going to drag you through all of it."

She was right about that.

At noon Jasper walked me out to the training yard, where Lottie ran drills with the warriors.

I walked one step behind him, as Rule two said.

He stopped in the middle of the yard, in front of everyone, and took my hand.

The burn went up my arm, and I saw his shoulders lock.

"My Luna-in-waiting," he said loudly. "She brought me lunch."

I had brought him nothing.

He had told me to carry a basket and I had, and there was nothing in it but a napkin.

Lottie stopped in the middle of a drill.

She looked at him, then at me, then at the empty basket.

She started to clap.

It was slow, and it echoed off the yard wall.

"Congratulations," she called. "Autumn, he has finally picked someone who can cook."

A warrior behind her snorted.

Another one coughed into his fist.

Lottie crossed the yard in six long strides and wrapped her arms around me, basket and all.

"You look terrible," she told Jasper over my shoulder. "Do you need a tissue? I can run and get you one."

"Greer," Jasper said, very quietly.

"Alpha-to-be."

"You will run the yard until sundown."

"Happy to." She grinned at him, with her gap tooth showing. "I run it every day anyway."

The whole yard was laughing now, and it was not at me.

Jasper let go of my hand.

He turned and walked off, and he did not look back once.

Lottie held me at arm's length.

"Why did you do this?" she said in my ear.

"Your rank. Your den."

"I'd rather have lost them."

"I wouldn't."

She stared at me for a moment.

Then she said, "When he gave you the flowers. Did your hands burn?"

"No," I lied.

"Mm," said Lottie.

That night I went down the dark hall to the kitchen for a glass of water.

I had passed the library door when a hand closed around my wrist.

Jasper stood in the doorway with no lamp on and his shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

"Where are you going?"

"To the kitchen. Rule fourteen says the east room, but it doesn't say I can't be thirsty."

He didn't answer.

His thumb sat over my pulse, and it was racing.

The burn came up through my arm and into my chest, and my wolf went quiet and still and leaned toward him.

I felt him lean too.

Neither of us moved.

Then he dropped my wrist and stepped back.

"It's the moon," he said roughly. "Go to bed."

He went back into the library and shut the door.

I looked at my wrist, where the print of his fingers was still warm.

Through the wood, I heard him sit down hard on the floor.

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