After My Fiancé Rejected Me, I Became His Uncle's Fated Mate novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Clearing
Cade refuses to mark June before the whole pack and rejects her aloud; she takes off his ring, and the Alpha turns around with gold eyes.
Tonight the whole Cold Creek pack stood in the moon clearing to watch Cade Brannigan mark me.
I had waited three years for this night.
I wore the white dress Pearl had hemmed for me, and my hands would not stop shaking.
Two hundred wolves in human skin ringed the fire, and every one of them was looking at me.
Cade stood across the flames in his pressed shirt, with the pack signet ring on his hand.
His mother stood behind him with her arms folded. She was one of the five elders, and she had never once smiled at me.
At the far edge of the clearing, under the pines, stood his uncle.
Lachlan Brannigan, our Alpha, had stood in that same spot at every gathering for three years.
He had never spoken a word to me in all that time.
The moment I stepped into the firelight, he turned and walked into the dark.
"Come on, June," Cade said. His smile was easy and very bright. "Everyone's waiting."
I crossed the grass and stopped in front of him.
I tilted my head and bared my shoulder.
I felt his breath on my neck.
Then he stepped back.
I opened my eyes.
Cade had his hands in his pockets, and he was not looking at my shoulder at all.
"I can't do it," he said.
I thought I had heard him wrong. "What?"
"I'm not going to mark you."
The clearing went silent.
Someone behind me sucked in a breath. A log cracked in the fire.
A laugh cut across the quiet, high and bright.
Mirabel Slingsby came out of the crowd in a cream silk blouse, with her red lips curled up.
"Oh, June," she said. "Did you really think he would?"
She slid her hand into Cade's, and he let her.
"Cade doesn't want to mark you," she said. "He never did."
The pack laughed.
It started with one man near the back, and then it spread.
My face burned.
"Cade," I said. My voice cracked on his name. "We're engaged. You asked me."
"I did," he said, and shrugged. "That was a long time ago."
"You gave me a ring."
"Then you can keep it."
He said it.
Mirabel leaned against his arm. "Say it, baby. Do it properly, so she can't pretend she misheard."
Cade looked at his mother, and his mother gave him a slow nod.
He faced me and raised his voice so the back rows could hear.
"I, Cade Brannigan, reject June Rowley as my mate."
The words hit me.
My knees nearly gave. Something inside my chest tore loose, and the pain ran down both arms.
Nobody moved to help me.
Pearl pushed forward at the edge of the crowd, her braid swinging, and two elders caught her arms and held her back.
I could have stayed on the grass and cried.
That was what they all wanted, a pitiful show to carry home and tell their children.
I looked at the ring on my left hand.
Every birthday for three years, a jar of wild honey had been left on my doorstep with no card, and every year I'd sat on the step and told myself that Cade was shy.
I wasn't telling myself anything anymore.
So I pulled his ring off my finger.
It came over the knuckle hard, and it hurt.
I walked up to him, took his hand, and put the ring in his palm.
"You keep it," I said. "You can give it to her. It'll probably fit, since she'll be wearing it second-hand."
Mirabel's smile slipped.
Someone in the crowd coughed to hide a laugh.
Cade's jaw went tight. "Don't make this ugly."
"You made it ugly," I said. "I'm just not helping you clean it up."
I turned to go.
I got three steps.
Then my heart stopped, and started again, and it did not beat the same.
It beat twice, one beat of mine and one beat that wasn't mine, as if another heart had been set inside my ribs and woken up.
Heat rolled through me from my scalp to my heels.
I knew the scent that rolled through the clearing after it: pine smoke, cold iron, and something dark and warm underneath.
I had smelled it before. I had smelled it on every night he walked away from me.
My head came up.
At the edge of the trees, the Alpha had stopped walking.
He stood with his back to the clearing and his fists clenched at his sides.
Cade's mother stopped smiling.
Then Lachlan Brannigan turned around, and in the dark under the pines, his eyes were gold.
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