Run Away From the Cruel Alpha novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: Celia First

Mireya tells Rhett what the Harvest Moon cost her, then finds Dominic on her porch at midnight telling her the council will give her back to him.

I didn't touch the flower.

I stood in the glass and called Rhett.

He answered on the first ring.

"Talk to me."

"Somebody broke the window. They left a moonflower on the counter."

"Don't touch anything. I'm five minutes out."

He was there in three.

Mae came right behind him in a bathrobe and rubber boots, her gray braid down her back.

Rhett walked the whole shop with his head low, breathing in.

He came back to the counter and looked at the flower for a long time.

"Two scents," he said. "One's a rogue. Road dirt and no pack."

"And the other?"

"Perfume. Something expensive."

Mae snorted. "Well, we know who wears expensive."

"We know," Rhett said. "Proving it's something else."

He picked up the moonflower by the ribbon and held it out to me.

"This mean something to you?"

"They grow on the hills above the Ironclaw packhouse. They only open at night."

"And the black ribbon?"

"It's how Ironclaw buries its dead."

Mae put an arm around me.

I let her.

"Sit down, baby," she said. "You're white as milk."

We sat at the one table that had no glass on it.

Rhett pulled a chair around backwards and sat across from me.

"I never asked you," he said. "Three years, and I never once asked."

"I know."

"I'm asking now. What happened up there?"

I looked at the dark street through the empty window.

"The Harvest Moon," I said. "Three years ago in October. There was a feast in the east hall."

"I remember the news. A rogue attack."

"They came through the west gate at midnight. Nobody knew how. That gate was always locked."

Rhett didn't say anything.

"The east hall caught fire. I don't know who started it. A beam came down across my legs."

My hands were flat on the table.

I kept them there.

"I called Dominic through the mind-link. Mates can do that."

"I know."

"I said, Dominic, the beam."

Mae's arm tightened around me.

"And he answered me," I said. "I heard him perfectly. He said, Celia first."

Rhett's hands closed into fists on the back of the chair.

"I saw him through the smoke," I said. "He picked her up and carried her out the door. She had a cut on her arm. That was all."

"And you?"

"Three rogues came in through the window. I couldn't get up."

I didn't finish.

Rhett looked at the scars I knew he'd seen when he found me. Four long lines across my back, under my sweater.

"Sable fought them off," I said. "My wolf. She got me free of the beam. She got me to the river."

"And then she went quiet."

"She used everything she had. I felt her break."

Mae wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bathrobe.

"At the river I had a silver knife on my belt," I said. "I cut the mark out. I left my ring on the rocks. I got on a bus in the morning and I didn't look back."

"You let them think you were dead."

"He'd already chosen. I just made it easy for him."

Rhett stood up.

He walked to the empty window and stood there with his back to us for a long time.

"He'll come back," he said finally.

"I know."

"Leave town for the week. I have a cabin at the lake. Mae can go with you."

"No."

"Wren."

"I ran once. I'm not running from my own shop."

He turned around.

He looked at me.

Then he nodded.

"Then I'll board this window myself," he said.

He did.

It took him an hour.

I got home a little after four in the morning.

My house was a small white rental at the end of Pecan Street, with a porch swing I'd painted blue.

Somebody was sitting on it.

The swing creaked as he stood up.

Dominic.

He'd taken off the charcoal coat. His shirt was open at the collar.

He smelled like whiskey.

"How did you find my house?"

"It's a small town, Mireya. I asked a waitress."

I stayed at the bottom of the steps.

"Get off my porch."

"Do you know what I did every Sunday?" He came down one step. "I drove up the hill. I picked the moonflowers myself. I knelt on your grave in the snow."

"You posted pictures of it."

"The pack needed to see it."

"The pack needed to see you."

He came down another step.

"I didn't sleep for a year. I had your side of the bed left made."

"And then you married Celia."

His mouth went hard.

"You were dead."

"I was in the river." I held his eyes. "You left me under the beam. I called you. You heard me."

He stopped.

For one second something moved in his face.

Then it was gone.

"There was smoke," he said. "I couldn't see."

"You said, Celia first."

He didn't deny it.

That was worse than a lie.

"The summit ends Saturday," he said. "I've read the council's law. A severed bond has to be ratified by the council, or it isn't severed at all."

My stomach turned over.

"Yours never was," he said. "You didn't come to them. You were busy being dead."

He walked down the last step and stopped beside me.

He bent to my ear.

"By law, you're still mine. Saturday, you're coming home."

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