Rejected By My Alpha: My White Wolf Ignited novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: First Night

The whole hilltop waited for me to ask.

I didn't give Alaric the pleasure.

"I know why," I said. "Because I told him to wait until after the court."

Alaric's eyes came to me at last.

"Did he tell you what you're waiting for?"

"That's between me and him."

"It's not," he said. "It was never just between you and him."

"Go home, Alaric," said Rhys quietly.

Alaric looked at him a long moment.

Then he turned and walked back to the Stalbridge side, and his mother put her hand on his arm, and he shook it off.

Kinloch Hall went off that night.

Somebody had a fiddle.

Somebody else had two.

Greer had baked six pies for a victory she'd decided we were having two days before the court, and they were gone in ten minutes.

The midwife sat in the best chair by the fire in her borrowed hat and let three different Kinloch men ask her to dance.

She said yes to all of them.

Greer stood up on a bench with a mug of cider and banged a spoon on it.

"A toast!"

"Get down," said Rhys.

"No. A toast. To Linnet Harrowby, who walked into a court full of both packs, made the Luna of Stalbridge eat her own book, and set Cressida Pyle's hand on fire without lifting a finger."

"I didn't set her hand on fire."

"You let her do it to herself, which is classier." Greer lifted her mug. "And to my brother, who's been walking around for four days like a dog that swallowed a bee, because she won't let him do anything about it."

The whole hall roared.

Rhys put his face in his hand.

I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the table.

Later, when the fiddles had gone slow, I found him at the back door with the cold coming in, looking at the river.

He was in a clean dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the one he'd worn to court.

"You're supposed to tell me now," I said. "It's after."

"I know."

"Tell me in the morning."

He turned his head.

"I've had four days of everybody knowing something," I said. "Tonight I don't want to know anything except you."

His eyes went gold at the rims.

"Linnet."

"I'm asking you," I said. "Take me to bed."

He didn't say anything else.

He took my hand and walked me straight through the middle of the party, past the fiddlers and the pies and his sister's open mouth, and up the stairs.

Behind us, Greer yelled, "FINALLY," and the whole hall cheered.

He didn't let go of my hand until we were inside his room.

The door clicked shut behind us.

I turned and pushed him back against it.

The wood hit his shoulders with a solid thump.

He let out a breath, half a laugh, and I kissed him before he could say anything.

He tasted like cider and smoke and the cold air from the back door.

"You taste like smoke," he said against my mouth.

"You said that in the snow."

"It's still true."

I pulled at the buttons on his shirt.

They came loose under my fingers, one after another, until the dark fabric hung open over his chest.

I put both hands flat on him.

Warm skin, the hard muscle under it, the dark hair that trailed down from his chest toward his belt.

He watched me do it, his eyes gone gold all the way through.

"I told you I wouldn't touch you until you asked," he said.

His voice was low and rough.

"I asked."

"You did."

"Then touch me."

He grabbed me by the hips and lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him without thinking.

He carried me across the room to the bed and laid me down on the quilt.

Then he stood over me, shrugging off the open shirt, and I looked at him.

Broad shoulders, the old scars on his forearms, the way his chest rose and fell too fast.

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