The Rejected Mate novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Sisters

The seamstress came the next morning with a mouthful of pins and a bolt of white lace.

Two enforcers walked Willa down the east hall to her sister's rooms, and one of them stayed on the threshold with his arms folded.

Dinah sat on a stool in the middle of the carpet in her slip, with the lace pinned around her.

She smiled when she saw Willa.

"There you are. Doesn't it look lovely? Rufus chose the pattern himself."

"Rufus," Willa said.

"The Alpha. I keep forgetting."

The seamstress knelt at the hem and made small noises through the pins.

For twenty minutes Willa stood at the window and held a corner of the veil when she was told, and said nothing.

She watched her sister's reflection in the glass.

Dinah turned her wrist to admire the emerald pin.

She hummed.

She touched her stomach every minute or two, lightly.

At last the seamstress gathered her kit and went out, and the enforcer shut the door and stood outside it.

The room was suddenly very quiet.

"Well," Dinah said, stepping down from the stool. "That's done."

Willa turned from the window.

"Whose is it, Dinah?"

Her sister laughed, bright and easy.

"Caelen's, silly. You were there when I said so."

"I was there when you said it. I put my hand on you at the blessing, and your belly smells of cedar smoke."

For the length of a breath, nothing moved in Dinah's face.

It was watching a pond when a stone lands in the middle of it, and then the rings go out.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do."

"You're jealous," Dinah said, and her voice had gone small and shaking. "You've always been jealous. I never wanted to hurt you. I only..."

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