The Rejected Mate novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What the Luna Knew

Willa shoved Caelen into the wardrobe and pulled the door shut on his bare feet.

"Not a sound," she whispered.

"Willa..."

"Not one."

She yanked the quilt off the bed and tossed it over the muddy rug.

Then she opened the door a hand's width and showed the enforcers a face full of sleepy outrage.

There were three of them in the corridor.

The one in front was a thick-necked man she had once seen carry a drunk wolf off the bakery step.

"The heir's missing," he said. "We've been told he'd come to you."

"I'm in my slip."

"We have orders to search."

"I'm in my slip, and I'm the Alpha's guest."

"I'd like to know which of you will tell him you stood in my doorway at three in the morning."

The man's eyes flicked past her to the room.

"That's enough," said a cool voice from the dark.

Odette Braithwaite came down the corridor in a grey wool robe with her hair in a braid.

She walked up to the enforcer and looked at him until he lowered his eyes.

"My husband's orders end at this door," she said. "A Luna's guest is a Luna's guest. Search the grounds. Search the stables."

"Luna..."

"You may tell the Alpha I said so."

They went.

Odette stepped into the room, shut the door and locked it.

She opened the wardrobe with two fingers.

Caelen stepped out among the dresses with a woman's scarf draped across his bare shoulder.

"Mother," he said.

She looked at the cut on his forehead, then at his torn knuckles.

She put her hand on his face and held it there, one long moment.

"You are alive," she said. "That will do for now. Sit."

He sat on the edge of the bed, and Willa tore a strip from the hem of her slip for the cut.

"I'll tell you what I know," Odette said. "I'll tell it plainly, because there isn't time for the other kind."

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