After Rebirth, I Broke Our Bond and My Alpha Regretted It novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Moon Cup
Reborn on the night of the choosing, Kestrel sets down the cup, tears the cord and refuses her Alpha in front of the whole pack; red chain marks show on her wrists and she tells him, 'You will.'
The whole pack stood in the ring of stones while Caleb Rooke held the silver cup out to me.
Two hundred wolves watched from the torchlight.
My father watched from the front, with his chin up and his good coat buttoned wrong.
Caleb was in his black coat, and the split in his left eyebrow looked pale in the firelight.
A braided silver cord lay across each of our right wrists, waiting to be tied.
"Kestrel Thorley," Caleb said, loud enough for the back rows. "At the Moon Cup of Thornwood, I choose you as my mate and my Luna."
Then he leaned in, so only I could hear him.
"Nothing will ever hurt you in my house. I swear it on my wolf."
I knew that oath.
I had heard it once before, in this same ring, and I had believed every word.
I had been alive again since dawn.
At dawn I woke in my old bed with my heart pounding, and the cellar was gone, and the iron on my wrists was gone.
The first thing I heard was the horn from the river gate.
Lenora Hesketh had come home.
Everyone said her name in the yard that morning, and said it gently.
Caleb's childhood sweetheart, back from a year in Ironridge, thin and pale and coughing into her sleeve.
She stood in the ring now at the edge of the torches, with her mother's arm around her.
Maud Hesketh had found me before the ceremony, when I was fumbling with my collar.
She fixed it for me with her soft hands and pinned the silver cord straight.
"You'll be good to him, won't you?" she said. "He's been lost since Lenora left. I'm so glad it's you."
She had a small cup of tea in her other hand, and she did not set it down while she worked.
She never let anyone carry it for her.
Lenora coughed again, and Maud turned and held that cup to her daughter's lips.
I looked back at the man in front of me.
In my first life I said yes in this ring.
I drank, and he tied the cord, and for a year I was the happiest woman in Thornwood.
Then I learned what was in my milk, and he locked me in the cellar under his own house.
I did not leave it alive.
I looked at the cup in his hand now, silver and full of dark wine, and I could smell it.
It was only wine.
It was also the first thing he would ever give me.
"Kestrel," Caleb said, softer. "Take it."
His amber eyes were warm.
He believed he was offering me everything.
I did not take the cup.
I put my hand flat on the stone beside it instead, and the cold went up my arm and stayed.
"No," I said.
The ring went quiet.
A torch cracked.
Caleb's face did not change at first.
"No what?" he said.
"No, I won't drink, and I won't wear your cord." I made my voice carry to the back rows. "I refuse the choosing."
My father said my name once, sharply, from the front row.
I took the silver cord in both hands and pulled it off my wrist.
It did not come away clean.
The threads frayed and burned across my palm, and a pain went down my arm and into my chest.
Across from me, Caleb flinched at the same moment, and his hand went to his own ribs.
He felt it.
I saw him feel it, and I saw that he had no idea why.
I dropped the torn cord on the stone, next to the cup.
"Kestrel." His voice had gone low and dangerous. "You will tell me what this is."
He caught my wrist before I could turn.
My sleeve rode up under his hand.
On the inside of both my wrists, red as fresh welts, ran two rings of marks.
They had not been there that morning.
They were the shape of iron cuffs.
Caleb stared at them, and the whole pack stared with him.
His thumb pressed over the marks, and I felt his pulse stutter against my skin.
"Who put those on you?" he said.
I looked him in the eye.
"You will," I said.
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