He Rejected His Luna. She Was the Lycan Princess. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Over the Line

Willa steps across the border and her wolf wakes: forty wolves drop to their knees while Jasper shakes on his feet. Torin kneels and says the King is dying.

The gate of Cedar Hollow is a mile down the drive, and I walked every step of it in clinic slippers.

My feet were bleeding by the time I saw the lights.

Four black trucks sat in the road on the far side of the border line, with their engines off.

Men stood in front of them in dark coats, ten or twelve, perfectly still.

None of them had crossed the line.

One man stood in front of the rest, with his hands open at his sides.

He was tall and lean, with dark hair and a scar that split his left eyebrow.

When he saw me he took one step toward me and stopped at the line.

"Don't come to me," he said quickly. "Please. Cross it yourself."

"Why can't you cross?"

"A mated woman's land is hers and her mate's. We can't set foot on it without leave."

"I'm not mated anymore."

"I know," he said, and his voice dropped. "I felt it go."

I didn't understand that, and I was too tired to ask.

Behind me, boots hit the gravel.

"Willa!"

It was Imogen, running down the drive with a paper bag in one hand and her braid coming loose.

She caught up and bent over, gasping.

"Your mother's locket," she said. "It was in your clinic locker. And this."

She pushed the bag into my hands.

Inside was the locket on its chain, and the little printed picture from my last scan.

I held the picture and my breath stopped.

"Listen to me," Imogen said fast. "I asked the sentry again. Nobody was hurt at the north gate tonight, and nobody sent for me. Cora never came to the clinic. Somebody wanted you on that ridge, Willa."

I looked at her.

I thought of the soup, and the coat around my shoulders, and the way Cora had said, I'll get the healer.

"Imogen, I can't think about that yet."

"Then think about it later. But think about it."

She hugged me hard, and I let her.

Then headlights swung across the gate and the pack came down the drive behind us.

There were forty or fifty of them on foot, and in front walked Jasper with his mother at his shoulder.

Cora trotted a little behind with a coat over her arm.

"Willa," Jasper called. "Stop."

I stopped.

I don't know why.

Years of obeying that voice, I suppose.

"You're not leaving my territory in a hospital gown with a bag from the clinic," he said. "Don't make a scene. Come home and we'll talk about this in the morning."

I stared at him.

"You rejected me an hour ago. In front of everyone."

"I was upset about the baby."

"You were upset."

"That's not what I..." He stopped and glanced at his mother, and she shook her head very slightly.

"Alpha Holt," his mother said. "She accepted. Let her go, or she can sleep in the barn like any rogue."

"I'm not your rogue," I said.

My voice shook.

"I'm not your anything."

I turned my back on them for the second time that night, and walked to the line, and stepped over it.

The moment my second foot touched the road, something in my chest woke up all the way.

It wasn't pain.

It was heat and weight and a low, rolling sound that I felt in my teeth before I heard it.

Behind me, forty wolves went down.

I heard them go, a ragged rush of knees on gravel, and then the silence of people who didn't understand why they were on the ground.

I turned around.

Jasper was still on his feet.

He was gripping the gate post with both hands, his face grey, and his knees were trembling so hard I could see it from the road.

His mother was down on one knee with her mouth open.

Cora was flat on her face with the coat spread under her.

Nobody said a word.

"Willa?" Imogen whispered from where she had dropped onto the grass. "What is that?"

"I don't know," I said.

I didn't.

My eyes had gone strange, and I could see every wolf on that road, glowing faintly.

Then I heard the gravel crunch behind me.

The man with the scar had walked up and stopped one pace away, close enough to touch me and not touching.

He went down on one knee in the road.

All the men at his back went down too, in one movement.

"Your Highness," he said, with his head bowed. "Forgive me. I should have said it at once."

"Said what?"

He lifted his eyes, and they were grey and steady and wet at the corners.

"The King is dying, and he won't see the new moon. We've come to take you to him."

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