My Mate Rejected Me as Wolfless, Then My White Wolf Woke novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: What Killed My Mother

In Ewan's cabin Briony learns what a rejection did to her mother; he cools the burned mark with a wet cloth, and at dawn Carys is at the door in tears.

Ewan's cabin had one room, one woodstove and one chair that wasn't broken.

He put me in the chair and a wool blanket around my shoulders, and then he stood by the door with his arms crossed and looked at my wrists.

The burns were gone.

Two hours ago the silver had cut to the bone, and now there was only pink skin.

"I've never healed like that," I said. "I've never healed at all. I get colds. I can't even shift."

"You were never wolfless," Ewan said.

"Everybody said I was."

"Everybody said it because they needed you to believe it."

I laughed at him, and it came out cracked.

"Rafe told them to leave me on that lawn until I died," I said. "He said it like he was ordering lunch."

"Yes."

"Why? I haven't done anything to him. I was in Scotland."

Ewan didn't answer right away.

He took a tin mug off a hook and poured water from a kettle and held it out, and I took it without drinking.

"What did your family tell you about how your mother died?" he asked.

"Her heart. She was thirty-four."

"She was the old Alpha's mate. Rafe's father."

"I know that."

"He rejected her at the winter gala when you were nine. In front of the pack, same as tonight. Three days later she was dead."

The water in the mug shook.

"They told me she had a weak heart," I said.

"A rejection does that to a Hartwell woman. The mark drains you for years, and then the rejection finishes it."

He said it flat and plain, and my stomach went cold.

"Why only Hartwell women?"

"I don't know. I know the pattern. Your grandmother married a Kingsley first, before Alden. She died young too."

"Stop," I said.

He stopped.

I put the mug on the floor and pressed my palm against my neck, over the mark, because it had started to burn again.

It had been cold on the lawn.

Now it burned hot enough to make my eyes water.

I made a sound I didn't want him to hear.

Ewan crossed the room before I finished it.

He wet a dish towel at the sink and knelt in front of the chair.

"Move your hand."

I moved it.

He laid the cold cloth against the side of my neck, over the mark, and held it there with the flat of his palm.

His hand was warm and rough and steady.

I was so used to Rafe's two quick fingers on that spot that I forgot to breathe.

Ewan breathed in, slowly, through his nose, and his hand went still.

Then he looked at the floor.

He is tired, I told myself. He's been standing guard all night.

"Better?" he asked.

"Yes."

Neither of us moved.

The cloth was warm by now.

He kept it there anyway, and I let him.

"I'm going back to see my grandfather," I said.

"No."

"He's dying. He took my hand tonight and said I came. That was the only thing he said."

"Briony, he sat there while Rafe rejected you."

"I know."

"He's the only man in that room who could have stopped it."

"I know that too."

"Then why go?"

I pulled in a breath.

"Because I need to hear him say why," I said. "And because if I don't see him before he dies, I won't ever forgive myself, and I'm tired of letting people decide what I'll have to live with."

Ewan took the cloth away.

His fingers brushed my jaw on the way, and I felt it all the way down my back.

I didn't say that.

"They'll be looking for you," he said. "Wait until dark. I'll take you to the fence line, and we'll go up the back side."

"You'd do that?"

"I said I would."

He was already at the stove, feeding it, with his back to me.

I watched the line of his shoulders for a long time before I let myself sleep in the chair.

The knock came at dawn.

Three soft taps, then two, the pack's old knock for a friend.

Ewan was at the door before I opened my eyes, and I felt him stiffen.

He opened it a hand's width.

Carys stood on the porch in a cream coat with her face wet, her hair in a loose braid and her hands shaking so hard her tote bag swung.

"Please," she said, past him, to me. "Bri, please. I'm so sorry."

"How did you find this place?" I said.

"I followed Corbin's truck last night. I saw where Ewan went." She wiped her eyes. "Rafe doesn't know I'm here. Nobody does."

She held out her hand.

In her palm lay a small brass key, the kind that opened the service stairs behind the lodge kitchen.

"Your grandfather's awake," she said. "He's asking for you. I can get you into his room."

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