Unbonding the Ruthless Alpha novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Empty Chair

At Godfrey's monthly dinner Ivy announces the lost pup and her petition in front of the family; Ronan learns it with everyone else, and when she tries to leave, the bond drops her on the porch steps.

Godfrey's driver reached the shoulder of the highway ten minutes after Ronan's taillights had gone.

He opened the back door for me and said nothing about the green dress or the glass in the ditch.

Godfrey was waiting on the porch of the old lodge, leaning on his cane with the silver wolf's head on top.

"There she is," he said, and held out both hands. "You're cold, child. Come in to the fire."

He drew me into the dining room himself.

Twenty Hargroves were already at the long table, cousins and aunts and two old men who had served under Godfrey when he was Alpha.

The candles were lit, and the chair at Godfrey's right hand was mine, the way it was every month.

He poured my wine.

I put my hand over the glass.

"Water, please."

"Of course." He signaled for it. "Where's my grandson?"

"With Mirelle."

Godfrey's mouth went thin for a moment, and then it smoothed over.

"Mirelle had a scare," he said to the table. "Ronan is a good man to sit with her."

A cousin nodded. An aunt sighed.

Nobody looked at me, and I looked at my hands.

They came in twenty minutes later.

Ronan had Mirelle on his arm, and she was in a pale blue sweater with a blanket over her shoulders.

"I'm so sorry," Mirelle said to the room. "I told him not to bring me. The doctor said it was all right."

Godfrey was up out of his chair at once.

"Mirelle, you'll sit by me tonight. Ivy, child, take Ronan's place beside the window. Just for tonight, you're strong."

He said it kindly.

The whole table watched me get up and move down four seats.

Mirelle sank into my chair at the Alpha-emeritus's right hand, and Ronan sat across from me and did not meet my eyes.

The soup came.

I put down my spoon and stood.

"I'd like to say something before we eat," I said.

Godfrey lifted a hand. "Ivy, it's a family dinner, let's let Mirelle rest."

"It's about family."

Twenty faces turned.

"Saturday night a truck hit my car on the county highway. I was eleven weeks pregnant."

Nobody moved.

"I lost the baby that night. I sent my husband ten mindlinks. I want everyone here to know he never read one."

An aunt said, "Oh, my God."

Across the table, Ronan's spoon hit his bowl and stayed there.

"I'm filing the Moon Right," I said. "Hazel Harkin has the petition. The Council will have it by morning."

Mirelle gave a small gasp and put her hand on her stomach.

A cousin got up to fetch her water.

"Child." Godfrey's voice was soft. "Grief makes us hasty. Sit down. We'll talk when you've slept."

"I've slept," I said. "I just woke up."

Ronan stood.

He was very pale, and the scar through his eyebrow showed white.

"You were pregnant."

"Eleven weeks."

"You didn't tell me."

"I was going to tell you tonight. At this table. So you couldn't leave."

He stared at me.

"You closed the link," I said. "You sat upstairs with her and you closed it, and I was bleeding on a gurney."

"I didn't know."

"You didn't ask."

I heard my own voice shake at the end, and I hated it.

Mirelle was crying quietly into a napkin.

"Ivy, I didn't know either," she said. "I would never have kept him if I had known."

I looked at her, and I found I had nothing to say to her at all.

Ronan stepped around the table.

"Sit down," he said, low. "We'll talk at home."

"I don't have a home to talk at."

I took my coat off the back of the chair and walked out of the dining room.

Behind me, a chair scraped, and Godfrey said, "Let her go, Ronan. She'll come to her senses."

The front hall was cold.

I got the door open and walked out onto the porch, down one step, and then another.

At the third step, the bond clamped down on my chest.

It was the sharpest pain I had ever felt, and for a moment I couldn't see.

My knees went, and I heard myself scream.

Hands caught me before my head touched the wood.

"Ivy." Ronan's arms were around me, and his heart was going hard against my shoulder. "Ivy, breathe."

I tried to push him away, and I couldn't.

He was shaking.

In two years it was the first time he had held on to me, and it was only because I was leaving.

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