I Married the Alpha They Threw Away novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: What I Remember

The moment I looked away from the glass, the yard came loose.

Men gasped.

The two big ones scrambled backward on their hands.

Corbin got up onto his knees, and then he didn't get any further for a while.

His camel coat was black with mud from collar to hem.

His Beta tried to help him up, and Corbin shoved him off so hard the man sat down in a puddle.

"What did you do?" Corbin said to me.

His voice was hoarse.

"I told you to get down," I said. "You got down."

He stared at me.

For one second there was something in his face I'd never seen there in two lives.

He was afraid.

Then he walked to his SUV without another word, holding his coat closed, and didn't look back.

His men followed.

Sienna was already in her convertible.

She didn't wait for him.

She backed out across the frost and went up the track alone, and Corbin stood in the yard watching her taillights with his mouth open.

The one-eyed man got up off the ground and brushed off his knees.

He picked up his lawn chair and folded it.

"Well," he said, "I'll put the coffee on."

Bram didn't say anything until the porches were empty.

Then he came and stood in front of me in the yard.

"Your eyes," he said.

"I saw."

"They're still doing it."

I put my hands over my face.

He took my wrists, gently, and lowered them.

"Neve. What are you?"

So I told him.

Not the bedtime story.

The other one.

I told him all of it in the kitchen, by the stove, with the coffee going cold.

The hall, the marriage, the July morning, the pillow.

It took less time than I thought it would.

Bram listened without moving.

When I stopped, he sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging.

"You knew he'd send the challenge before midnight," he said finally.

"Yes."

He rubbed his face with both hands.

"Was I there?" he asked. "In this other year of yours. What happened to me?"

I'd hoped he wouldn't ask.

"In February," I said, "they found you in the lake under the ice. The pack said you walked in."

He was quiet for a long time.

"I can swim," he said.

"I know."

"I'd never have walked in."

"I know that now."

He got up and stood at the window with his back to me.

The lake was gray and flat, and a heron stood on one leg at the end of the dock.

"Six years ago, at my feast," he said, "the old man was standing down. Half the mountain came."

"My stepmother filled my cup herself."

He touched his collar.

"She kissed my cheek and said, 'To the next Alpha.' I drank it."

"Ten minutes later I was on the floor, and my wolf was screaming, and then my wolf was gone."

"You knew it was her."

"I knew. Nobody would've believed me." He turned around. "I've been out here six years waiting for proof that doesn't exist."

He looked at me, at my eyes, which I could feel were still silver.

"And then you walked across the hall."

"You believe me," I said. "About the other life."

"I believe you knew which stair on my porch is rotten," he said.

"You stepped over it in the dark the first night, before you'd ever been here."

I hadn't even noticed I'd done it.

I'd climbed those steps a dozen times in the other life, bringing Hattie's salves out to the north shore.

I stood up and went to him.

He was still wound tight from the yard, with mud on his jeans and fur still fading from his temples.

I put my hand on his chest.

"Come to bed," I said.

"It's two in the afternoon."

"I don't care."

He took my hand and led me down the short hall to the back room.

The gray lake light came through the window and lay across the patchwork quilt.

← Chapter 6 · All chapters · Chapter 8 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend