My Alpha Panicked When I Accepted His Rejection novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: You Don't Know Me At All

Corbin tells the whole ballroom the bond was never sealed and she is still his Luna. Rhiannon sets terms in front of the Alphas: his debt papers burned, seven nights in her old room, no touching, and the Stone on the Hunter's Moon. As he leaves he scents something on her coat and says it smells like something he knows.

Corbin stopped an arm's length from me, and nobody in the ballroom breathed loudly enough to cover what he said.

"We never sealed it," he said. "You are still my Luna."

His voice was lower than I remembered. It had a rasp in it that hadn't been there five years ago.

I kept my hands at my sides.

"I was never your Luna," I said. "You never announced me. You told a room full of people you didn't know me."

A wave of whispers ran down the wall.

Corbin's jaw moved. He looked at Desmond, then at the silver pin in Desmond's hand, his expression going completely flat.

"And you came here to take another man's mark," he said.

"I came here to open a hospital wing."

"You came here to let him bite you."

"That's none of your business, Alpha Stroud."

"It is until the Stone says it isn't." His eyes came back to me. "If you think I'll stand here and watch another man put his teeth in you, you don't know me at all."

I almost laughed.

It was the same sentence I had once spent four years hoping he would say, only it had arrived for the wrong reason.

"I know you perfectly well," I said. "I know exactly what you say when you think I'm not listening."

His mouth tightened.

He hadn't expected me to say it out loud, in public, with an audience of Alphas.

"You've bought eight packs' debt," I said, louder, so the back rows could hear. "You've called in credit from mills and hospitals. Every man who asked me to dinner lost something."

"I did what I had to do."

"You did it to eight men who never touched you."

"They were reaching for what's mine."

"Nothing about me is yours."

Desmond cleared his throat politely behind me. "She's right, Stroud. And you're standing in a neutral hall. Your guards stopped at the door."

"Stay out of this, Kerr."

"Or what? You'll buy my mother's kitchen?"

A woman along the wall made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Corbin didn't look away from me.

"Tell me what you want," he said, and I heard how hard it was for him.

I thought about it for exactly as long as it took to be sure.

"I want the Stone," I said. "I want you standing next to me on the Hunter's Moon, and I want the Stone-keeper to cut it clean."

The whole room murmured at once.

"Eight days from now," Corbin said slowly.

"Yes."

"And if I come, you'll tell me why you left."

"You know why I left."

"I want to hear it from you."

"No. I want your debt papers burned, in writing, in front of the Alphas in this room, before I set foot in Hollowmere."

"You'd set foot in Hollowmere?"

I had not meant to say it. But the words were out and the room was listening.

"Wolf law says a sealing needs both parties under one roof for seven nights beforehand," I said. "So there's no rush and no excuse. You'd know that if you'd opened one of her letters."

His shoulders moved. He had not opened one.

"Seven nights," Corbin said.

"In the north wing. My old room."

"It's yours. It's been yours."

"And you don't touch me," I said. "Not once, not unless I say so."

His throat worked.

"And no mark from anyone, from either of us, before the Stone," he said.

"Agreed."

"And the papers?"

"Tomorrow at noon. Eight signatures, eight packs, in front of witnesses. I'll have Desmond's beta count them."

Desmond's beta lifted his hand.

Corbin looked at the three Alphas by the buffet, who had been listening openly since the first insult.

"Tomorrow at noon," he said. "In writing."

He turned to leave.

Then he stopped at the edge of the dance floor.

He did not turn around.

His head lifted slightly, and I saw his nostrils flare.

I knew what he was scenting.

Poppy had spent the hour before the party curled against my dress while I fixed her braid, and I had never changed.

"Rhiannon," Corbin said quietly, still facing the doors. "You smell like something I know."

My stomach dropped.

"A patient's perfume," I said. "I treat children all day."

He stood there a moment longer.

Then he walked out, and the guards fell in behind him.

Hester's hand found mine and gripped it hard.

"Seven nights," she whispered. "Rhia, what are we going to do about Poppy?"

I looked at the doors he had walked through.

"Nothing," I said. "He'll never know she exists."

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