Rejected By My Alpha: My White Wolf Ignited novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Kinloch Hall

Greer and the Kinloch kitchen take her in, Rhys promises not to touch her until she asks, she nearly asks, and a rider brings a Moon Court charge that could collar her to Stalbridge.

"Why?" I said.

Alaric opened his mouth.

Then he looked past me at Rhys standing in the middle of the river, and he closed it again.

"Why, Alaric?"

"Because I'm asking you."

"You rejected me in front of three hundred people an hour ago. You don't get to ask me anything."

I pulled my wrist.

This time he let go.

There was a white weal across his palm where my fire had been.

He looked at it, then at me, and then he walked back up the bank into the trees without another word.

I stood in the freezing water until I couldn't feel my feet.

"Linnet," Rhys said quietly. "Your toes."

"I know."

"You can be angry on the other bank. It's drier."

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it, a terrible cracked sound, and it was the first time I'd laughed in a week.

I waded the rest of the way across.

Kinloch Hall was a long log building at the top of a clearing, every window lit.

There was a woman in the kitchen doorway with flour to her elbows and a rolling pin in one hand.

She was tall and freckled with a choppy dark bob, and she looked from me to her brother to me again.

"You went to a mating ceremony," she said, "and you came back with the bride."

"Greer," Rhys said.

"In your shirt."

"Greer."

"Barefoot. In January."

"She's our guest."

"Obviously she's our guest, Rhys, I'm not going to put her in the woodshed." She pointed the rolling pin at me. "Sit by the stove. You're blue. Do you eat meat pie or are you one of those?"

"I eat meat pie," I said.

"Thank God."

I sat by the stove.

Greer put a plate in front of me, and a mug of something hot with whiskey in it, and a pair of thick wool socks she pulled off her own feet.

I put them on.

I didn't cry, but it was close.

She sat across from me with her chin on her fist and looked at the stone in my hand.

"So it's true. The whole valley's going to be talking about this by breakfast. A white wolf." She turned to Rhys. "And you just stood up and said it? In their hall?"

"It said itself."

"That's the most romantic thing you've ever done, and you did it in your work shirt."

He went red above his beard.

I bit the inside of my cheek.

The room they gave me was at the end of the upstairs hall.

It had a quilt, a washstand, a window over the dark river, and a heavy iron bolt on the inside of the door.

Rhys stood in the doorway and didn't come in.

"That bolt's yours," he said. "I won't touch you until you ask me to. Not your hand, not anything."

"And if I never ask?"

"Then I won't."

He said it plainly.

Then he went down the hall to his own room, and I slid the bolt and sat on the bed with the moonstone in my lap.

I didn't sleep.

Around two I went down for water.

The kitchen was dark except for the red glow of the stove.

Rhys was standing at the sink in a gray T-shirt and sweatpants, barefoot, drinking a glass of water.

He turned when he heard me.

Neither of us said anything.

I still had his flannel on over the borrowed leggings Greer had left on my bed.

I came across the kitchen to the sink, and he moved over to give me room, and the room he gave me wasn't much.

I filled a glass.

I could feel the heat of him all down my left side.

My wolf was awake and pacing.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Anything."

"When you stood up. Did you know before? Before the stone?"

"No." He set his glass down. "I'd been sitting at the back for an hour, thinking you were the bravest thing in that room. Then the stone lit up, and you changed, and I smelled you." He stopped. "And then I was on my feet."

"What did I smell like?"

He looked down at me.

His eyes went gold at the rims again.

"Like snow and burning pine," he said. "Like the first morning of winter."

I put my hand flat on his chest.

I didn't mean to.

His heart was going hard under my palm.

He didn't move.

He'd said he wouldn't, and he didn't, not even his hands, which were gripping the edge of the counter on either side of me so hard I heard the wood creak.

I could feel how much he wanted to.

I could feel how much I wanted him to.

I opened my mouth to ask.

Then I thought of the altar, and the scroll, and the laughter in the stands, and I took my hand back.

"Not tonight," I said.

"Not tonight," he agreed, and his voice was rough.

I went back upstairs.

In the morning, Greer was cutting bread and Rhys was at the table with coffee, and I sat down across from them with the stone around my neck.

"I want three things," I said. "My mother's stone, which I have. My mother's cottage, which they locked. And my name back in that hall. I'm done being anybody's charity."

Greer slapped the table. "Good. Eat something first."

Rhys just nodded.

Somebody hammered on the front door.

Rhys got up and opened it, and cold air and a Stalbridge rider in a gray coat came in with it.

The rider held out a sealed paper and didn't look at me.

"For Linnet Harrowby," he said. "A summons to the Moon Court at the full moon. The Luna of Stalbridge charges her with the theft of pack property."

"It was my mother's," I said.

"The Luna swears your mother stole it from Stalbridge first." He finally looked at me. "If the court finds against you, you'll wear the iron collar and serve the Luna's house for the rest of your life."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend