My Mate Gambled Me Away to the Lycan King novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Thirty Grand

Marlo makes Dane's cousin pay Winnie the thirty-grand bet in front of the pack, rejects Dane's mark aloud and feels no pain at all, and leaves with the Lycan King, who says her mark smells like medicine.

Nobody in the hall breathed loudly enough to cover the sound of Dane's chair.

He came around the front table with his arms already open and his best smile back on.

"There she is," he said to the room. "My girl. Everybody, she flew in overnight to catch the joke."

A few wolves laughed.

Then more of them did, because Dane was the Acting Alpha and he had told them it was funny.

"Did you see the picture?" a man at the nearest table called out. "Mouth open like a mailbox!"

The laughing rolled across the hall and came back louder.

I looked at the King.

Caius Hargrove stood at the back with his hands in his pockets, and he did not move.

He let it go on.

The seconds dragged on, and he still did not move.

Dane stopped in front of me and put his palm on my cheek.

"Come out back with me," he said, low enough for only me. "We'll fix this in two minutes. Tabitha's got the couch ready. Don't make me look bad in front of him."

His palm was dry and steady.

Nothing in my body moved toward it.

I took his wrist and lifted his hand off my face.

"Winnie," I said, loud enough to reach the back wall. "Where are you?"

"Right here!" Winnie shoved through the crowd by the kitchen door in her yellow rain jacket, grinning.

"You bet on me," I said.

"Thirty thousand dollars on you," she said. "Dane's cousin is holding the pot."

"Then he can hand it over," I said. "Right here, in front of all of you. I showed my face."

The man holding the pot was Dane's cousin, and he went pale.

"Marlo," Dane said. "Don't."

"You made the bet in the chat, in writing, with two hundred witnesses," I said. "Pay her."

The cousin looked at Dane.

Dane looked at the King.

Caius said, in his dry, unhurried voice, "Pack law says a wager made in the pack channel is a debt. Pay the lady."

It was the first thing he had said since his name was spoken, and the hall went quiet fast.

The cousin pulled a white envelope out of his jacket with shaking fingers and put it into Winnie's hands.

Winnie kissed the envelope and then kissed my cheek, hard, and whispered, "I love you, I hate this, go get him."

Then Tabitha was there, soft and warm in her cream sweater, putting an arm around my shoulders.

"Oh, hon," she said. "You look amazing. Give me your keys and I'll take your bags to my place so you don't have to deal with any of this."

I handed her my keys without thinking, because she was so kind about it.

Dane stepped in front of me again, and this time he lowered his voice to a growl.

"You're my mate," he said. "Whatever that paper says, you're mine. Nobody's taking you anywhere."

"Then this should be easy," I said, and turned to face the room.

"I'm Marlo Haskett of the Silver Creek pack, and I refuse the mark of Dane Brickell. I don't want it, I don't accept it, and I won't answer to it."

An old woman at the table by the window dropped her fork.

Everyone knows what happens next when a wolf rejects a bond.

The mark bleeds.

It tears, and the one who is rejected goes down on their knees from the pain of it.

I stood and waited for the blood.

My neck did not bleed or ache, and I did not even feel a pinch.

Dane did not go to his knees either.

He went white instead, and for one second his eyes dropped to my mark and then jumped away.

I saw it, and I put it away to think about later.

"You can't just say it," he said. "You didn't mean it."

"I meant every word," I said. "Go ahead and tell them I'm lying."

He could not do it, because the hall had seen exactly what I had seen.

The King took his hands out of his pockets and came down the aisle between the tables.

He walked past Dane without a glance.

"Miss Haskett," he said, "the paper in my pocket says I hold your name for twelve months and a day. Pack law says the stake is mine unless you pay it off or your mate claims you back."

"He's not my mate anymore," I said.

"Then it's a clean stake." His grey eyes did not leave my face. "I won't force you out that door. Pick one."

"Pick what?"

"Go to Silver Creek's couch and be Dane's problem," he said, "or walk out with me and be mine for a year. You get terms either way."

The whole hall waited.

I looked at Dane, who had written my name on a scrap of paper because he thought nobody would ever collect.

"I'll go with you," I said. "On my terms."

"Name them in the car."

He turned and walked toward the door, and I followed him with my chin up past two hundred wolves who had stopped laughing.

His driver held the back door of a black car.

When I slid in beside him, Caius Hargrove did not look at the road.

He was looking at my neck.

"A rejection should have cost you blood," he said quietly. "It didn't. And your mark smells like medicine."

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