They Hid My Fated Mate, So I Left With the Rival Alpha novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Ford

Her father blocks the pass; Ronan carries her through the water and the bond hums for her for the first time.

We reached the Silver River an hour before dawn.

There was one bridge across it, a stone span my grandfather's grandfather had built, and it was the only road between Silver Dawn and the mountains.

Six wolves of my own pack stood across it in a line.

My father stood in front of them.

"Turn the horse around, Hazel."

I slid down from the saddle with my bag over one shoulder.

Garth Quill, who had spent the whole ride talking and had learned I would not answer, handed my reins to a Blood Moon rider and wandered off to inspect the river very politely.

"You said you wouldn't open the door," I said.

"This isn't the door. This is the bridge." My father's voice cracked on the last word. "Come home, and I'll forget this."

"Forget what? Everyone keeps telling me what's done is done, and nobody will tell me what was done."

"Hazel."

"Did you take the cloth from my birthday toast, Dad?"

I had not planned to ask it.

Every wolf behind him shifted, and not one of them looked at me.

My father's face went the color of ash.

"Because I'd rather you hate me," he said, very quietly, "than ever be where that man wants you."

It was almost an answer, and it only opened more doors.

"That's not good enough," I said.

I stepped toward the bridge.

Two of the wolves moved to block me, big men I had fed at every Gathering since I was fifteen.

"Move," I said to the nearer one. "You still owe me for the tray you dropped in March."

He looked at my father, and my father said nothing, and the wolf didn't move.

I stopped.

Behind me, gravel crunched, and a hand closed warm around my elbow.

"Not the bridge," Alpha Ronan said. "Your pack's rules are on the bridge. Mine are in the water."

I looked past him at the river.

It was spring, black and fast and loud from the snowmelt upstream.

"I can't swim in that."

"You won't have to."

"I'm not letting you carry me."

"Then you can walk to the middle and see how far you get." He stood with his hand still at my elbow and didn't wait for an answer. "Your father has four more wolves hiding in the willows. You have about a minute."

I looked at the willows.

Something moved in them, and it was a very large wolf's ear.

"Fine," I said. "Fast."

He bent, put one arm behind my knees and the other across my back, and lifted me off the ground.

My bag swung against his side.

My cheek landed on his shoulder, and his shirt was already open at the collar, and under it his skin was hot.

"Hold on," he said.

"I am holding on."

"Hold on harder."

I put my arms around his neck.

He walked into the Silver River without slowing down.

The water came to his waist, then his ribs, and I felt every drag of the current come up through his body into mine.

His heart was hammering against my arm.

It was the cold, I told myself, or the weight of me, or the river.

Behind us, I heard my father shout my name once.

I didn't turn around.

On the far bank, Ronan set me down on the gravel.

His hand closed around my wrist to steady me, and the skin of his palm met the skin of my inner wrist, where my sleeve had ridden up.

Something woke in my chest.

It was small and warm, and it hummed down my arm and out through my fingertips.

Five years of quiet, gone.

I gasped.

His grip tightened.

His eyes went from gold to nearly white, and then I knew he had felt it too, and had felt me feel it.

"Don't," Ronan said.

His voice was rough.

"Don't what?"

"Don't look at me like that. Don't let it." He let go of my wrist. "I am not going to be your mate, Hazel."

"I haven't asked you to be."

"Good," he said. "Then we agree."

He walked up the bank without looking back, and my wrist went on humming where his hand had been.

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