She Stole My Wolf, So I Rejected the Alpha novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The MacNeil Cabin

Wolfless and freezing, Briony is warmed by Merrick, and a charged first kiss ends at dawn with Lorna at the door speaking in the Alpha's voice.

"Can you get it back?" I asked. "My wolf?"

Merrick set my boots by the stove and sat on the floor in front of me, so our eyes were level.

"I don't know yet," he said. "I know what silver does."

"What does it do?"

"It lets a mate hold the thread of the other one's wolf. I can hear yours. I can't pull her home."

"That's all?"

"That's tonight." His mouth twitched. "Tomorrow I'll know more. Tonight you get warm and eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"You've been robbed and hauled across a creek. You're hungry."

He was right. My stomach growled, and for the first time that day I laughed.

He brought me soup from a pot on the stove and a flannel shirt that came to my knees.

I ate with the bowl balanced on my lap while he watched me from across the room.

He did not look away once.

"You keep staring," I said.

"I've waited nine years." He said it without any shame. "I'm allowed."

"You didn't even know it was me."

"I knew it would be someone who could walk into that circle and tell Garth Brackwell no." His eyes dropped to my mouth and came back up. "That's you."

My face went hot.

I put the bowl on the floor and stood. The shirt slid off one shoulder.

I walked the three steps to him.

He rose slowly to meet me.

I put my palm flat on his chest. His heart was pounding as hard as mine.

"I don't have a wolf," I said. "I might be useless to you."

"Briony." His hand covered mine. "I don't want a wolf. I want you."

I kissed him.

I had meant it to be one brave kiss. It turned into something else the second his mouth opened under mine.

He made a rough sound and hauled me against him.

One hand fisted in my hair. The other spread across my back and pressed me closer.

The silver in my chest roared, and every nerve I had lit up at once.

He kissed me like a man starving for nine winters, deep and slow, then fast and hungry when I bit his lip.

He walked me back until my shoulders hit the wall by the door.

My legs wrapped around his hips without my deciding it. The shirt rode up to my waist.

He groaned when he found nothing under it but cotton briefs and my bare skin.

"Briony."

"Don't talk." I tugged his shirt over his head.

His chest was hard and scarred and hot. I dragged my hands down it, learning every ridge.

He bent and put his mouth on my collarbone, then lower, over the flannel on my breast.

I arched into him with a gasp.

His hand slid up the outside of my thigh. His thumb hooked in the edge of the cotton and stopped.

"Tell me what you want," he said, rough.

"You."

"Where?"

"Everywhere." I was already panting. "Touch me, Merrick."

His fingers slid under the cloth and found me wet and aching.

He swore under his breath. Then his thumb found the center of everything, and I cried out against his neck.

He worked me in slow circles and watched my face the whole time.

His other arm held all my weight against the wall.

I fell apart so fast it frightened me.

My head knocked against the wood. I shook, and his name came out of me in pieces.

He held me through it with his forehead pressed to mine.

"There you are," he whispered again.

Then the cold came back.

It hit me from the inside, a huge empty ache under my ribs where my wolf should have been.

A sob tore out of me. I slid down the wall, and he caught me before my knees buckled.

"Hey." He gathered me against his bare chest. "I've got you."

"She's pulling at me." I was shaking. "It hurts, Merrick."

"I know. Put your hand on the silver and breathe."

He carried me to the bed and lay behind me with the quilt over us both.

He held my back to his chest until the aching eased.

I don't remember falling asleep.

I woke to gray light and a knock on the cabin door.

Merrick was already up, pulling on his shirt, with a look on his face I did not like.

"Stay on the bed," he said.

The knock came again, gentle and polite.

"Bri?" Lorna's voice floated through the wood. "It's me. Can I come in?"

Merrick looked at me. I shook my head.

He opened the door a hand's width.

My sister stood on the step in my old blue coat, her hair braided the way I always wore mine.

Her eyes were ringed in gold.

She looked thin and pale.

"I just want to talk to my sister," she said.

Then her mouth opened wider than it should have, and a man's voice came out of it.

"Come home, Briony," said Alpha Garth, from inside my twin. "I'm not asking twice."

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