Don't Touch Him! He's Not An Alpha, He's My Patient novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lap
Five years after her sister stole her mate, Freja comes home to Stonemere to save her patient's life, finds Tilly on his lap while her family guards the door, and drags Tilly off, until she sees her sister's teeth marks on his neck.
My sister Tilly always took whatever I loved.
She'd play with it until she got bored, and then she'd throw it away.
When I was eight, she took the pearl necklace Gran gave me.
Mom didn't even look up from the stove.
"You know how she is. She'll lose interest in a few days. Just let her have it."
Within a week, Tilly had given it to a stranger.
When I was fourteen, she wanted the cat I brought home from the shelter.
His name was Biscuit, and he slept on my feet.
Tilly cried until Mom moved him into her room.
A few days later he scratched her new couch, so she drove him out past the county line and opened the car door.
I searched for him for nine days.
I never found him.
Dad said, "It's just a cat. Don't make a big deal out of it."
When I was twenty, she wanted my mate.
I pushed open Dillon's door, and my sister's bare back was the first thing I saw.
My brother Ansel came up behind me in the hall and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't worry about it. She'll get bored of him soon enough."
That night I walked down to the pack stone with a silver knife.
I cut my palm and said the words, and every bond I had with Stonemere Pack went dark.
Then I left.
Five years later, I came home for the first time.
The silver pine cone of Hollow Pine's Luna was pinned to my coat.
I hadn't come for my family.
I'd come for the Moonwell.
The man in the truck beside me had been silent for five years.
A she-wolf had rejected him, and his wolf had gone still, and the man had gone still with it.
He ate when I fed him.
He sat where I put him.
Gran's records were very clear about wolves like him.
Not one of them had lived past the fifth Hunter's Moon.
His was twelve days away.
The only thing that had ever called a stilled wolf back was the spring on Stonemere's hill, and it only answered to a healer of Gran's blood.
There was exactly one of those left.
So I drove him through my father's iron gates.
My whole family was waiting on the stone stairs.
Tilly came down first.
Her honey-blond curls bounced, and her blue eyes went straight past me to the man getting out of my truck.
Wylie Caine was tall and dark and very still, with black hair grown past his collar.
He was beautiful.
Tilly looked at him for a long moment.
Then she touched the top button of her blouse and opened her collar a little wider.
I put my hand on Wylie's arm and walked him inside.
Mom put him in the guest lounge at the end of the upstairs hall.
I gave him his drops and tucked a blanket over his knees.
Late that night, I heard a door open.
I stepped into the hall in my socks.
Tilly was slipping into the lounge in a thin silk robe.
I ran.
Mom stepped out of the dark and filled the doorway.
Ansel caught my wrist and held it.
"Tilly just wants a little thrill for a few days," he said. "Once she's bored, he'll be yours again."
I stared at the door.
They had it all wrong.
That man had never been my mate.
And the reason I was fighting had nothing to do with jealousy.
The lounge door had been left open a crack.
Through it I could see the lamp, and the daybed, and my sister sitting on Wylie's lap.
Wylie's hands hung at his sides.
He didn't push her away.
He didn't touch her.
He sat there.
I opened my mouth, and Mom clamped her hand over it.
"Tilly is still young," she whispered. "Do you have to turn this into a public scandal and ruin her name?"
Ansel stepped in front of me.
"Freja, stop being so selfish. Tilly's just curious. She'll give him back once she's had her fun. Can't you just be the bigger sister for once?"
I peeled Mom's fingers off my face one at a time.
"Sure," I said. "Then lend her your mate for a few days, Ansel. She'll give her back."
Ansel's face went red to the ears.
Dad came up the stairs in his undershirt, his face dark.
"Five years away and you're still as stubborn and unreasonable as ever. We don't need a malicious daughter like you."
I looked at the three of them.
"Are you all insane? He's not my Alpha!"
Nobody moved.
So I did.
I ducked under Ansel's arm and hit the lounge door with my shoulder.
Tilly squealed.
I took a fistful of her curls and pulled her off his lap and onto the rug.
Then I knelt in front of Wylie and put two fingers on his throat.
His pulse was stumbling.
Fast, then nothing, then fast again.
A thin line of blood ran out of his nose and over his lip.
"Wylie," I said. "Wylie, look at me."
His eyes didn't move.
Tilly sat up on the rug, rubbing her scalp.
"Oh my God. She's crazy. Mom, she pulled my hair out."
Mom and Ansel crowded the doorway.
Dad pushed between them.
I didn't take my fingers off Wylie's pulse.
"He's my patient," I said. "Not my mate. Not my Alpha. My patient. He's been in the stillness for five years, and one more shock could stop his heart. Your darling just sat on a dying man."
Tilly laughed.
"He didn't say no."
"He can't say no, Tilly. That's the point."
Mom's voice went soft and sharp at the same time.
"We'll talk about this in the morning, quietly. Nobody needs to hear about it."
I stood up.
"Everybody's going to hear about it. I'm going to tell them at breakfast."
I turned back to Wylie and tilted his head to stop the bleeding.
His collar was open where Tilly had pulled it.
On the side of his neck, under the open shirt, were two curved rows of small red marks.
My sister's teeth.
She hadn't just been sitting on him.
She'd tried to mark him.
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