The Alpha Who Rejected His Queen novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Her Choice
The cabin on the ridge had a stove, a bed, a window facing the valley and nothing else.
I lit the lamp and waited.
He came at dusk on foot, from Iron Moon, all the way up the mountain road, because I had not said he could take a truck.
He stood in the doorway with his boots white with dust and his hands empty.
"Come in," I said.
He shut the door behind him.
He didn't come closer.
"You walked," I said.
"You didn't say I could drive."
"I didn't say you couldn't."
"I wanted to arrive tired," he said. "I wanted to feel I'd come a long way."
I crossed the floor and stood in front of him.
The thread at my wrist was glowing, and so was the one at his.
"Say it," I said. "The thing you never said in the hall."
His throat moved.
"I rejected you because I felt your pulse in my chest every night for six years," he said. "I thought it was a weakness. I thought if I cut it out I'd be free. I was cutting out the only thing in me that was alive."
"Better."
"I'm sorry, Ilse."
"I know," I said. "Now take off your shirt."
He pulled it over his head with one hand.
The lamplight found the new scars, one under the ribs and one below the shoulder, and I put my fingers on them both.
He closed his eyes.
"Rule," he said, hoarse. "No touching unless you start it."
"I started it."
"The terms were thirty days."
"You've taken a long time to learn I can change my mind."
I unbuttoned my shirt one button at a time while he watched.
He did not reach for me.
His hands closed into fists at his sides, and I saw the muscle in his forearms jump.
I let the shirt fall.
I stepped out of my jeans, and I stood in front of him in nothing but the lamplight.
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