Five Mates Let Me Burn, So I Rejected Them All novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Reject All Five
Five mates kneel in the Moon Temple and tell Althea to reject them or watch them take her stepsister to bed; she laughs, rejects all five, and takes half their lands. Dahlia offers to pour her wine at the Festival.
"End the bond tonight, Althea, or we take Dahlia to our bed while you watch."
Ronan said it on his knees on the cold marble of the temple.
Beside him knelt four more men.
They were my five mates, and not one of them was looking at me.
They were looking at my stepsister.
She stood in the front row in white with her hand at the pale stone on her collar and tears on her cheeks.
A moment ago I had been on a pyre in the capital square, with the whole kingdom watching me die.
Now I was twenty years old in a temple dress, breathing incense instead of smoke.
I remembered all of it.
In my first life I held on to these five men while they flinched from my touch.
So they slept with Dahlia behind my back, every one of them.
At the festival Dahlia poured the wine, my mates drank it and died, and she lived.
The whole kingdom blamed me.
They called me the jealous she-wolf, the wicked Luna, and they lit the wood.
Dahlia wept in the front row while I burned.
I looked down at the five of them now and felt light, almost glad.
I laughed out loud, and the sound bounced off the marble.
Ronan's red head snapped up. "Something amuses you?"
"Everything," I said.
In Silvermoon the Moon Goddess ties every awakened she-wolf to five mates.
Females are rare, so the law is kind to us.
A male who wants out has to wait three years.
A female only has to say it once.
For months they had begged me to say it, because they could not wait to be free for Dahlia.
"All right," I said.
Elias, the war commander, blinked. "All right?"
"I reject you. All five of you."
I smiled at them.
"A wife shouldn't keep husbands who already belong to her sister."
The temple went still.
The priestess cleared her throat, shocked and thrilled. "Miss Westermark, you understand what Moon Law says about a rejected male?"
"Remind me," I said.
"He gives up half his lands and ten thousand moon-coins to the female he lost."
Five faces turned white.
I had forgotten that part, and it was lovely.
"I understand it completely," I said.
Corin jumped up. "It's a trap. She wants our money, and then she'll go crying to the elders."
"Then keep your lands," I said. "Stay my husbands for three more years."
They were so quick that I almost laughed again.
Five signatures lit up on the moonstone tablet before the priestess had finished reading the terms.
Half the Fitzalan fortune moved into my name.
When I said reject, Dahlia pressed her whole palm over the pale stone at her collar.
I saw her do it, and I did not stop to wonder.
The tablet rang five times as the bonds broke.
I felt five threads snap one after another.
None of it hurt.
Ronan pressed a fist to his chest and scowled.
He had expected to feel free, and he did not look pleased.
"Send the deeds to Fitzalan Hall by noon tomorrow," I told the priestess. "I'll collect them myself."
"Larkspur Manor is ours," Corin snapped.
"Half of it is mine now," I said. "I'll take the half with the roof."
Nolan made a small sound that might have been a laugh, and Elias turned his head to glare at him.
The healer, the eldest of them, stayed on his knees a moment longer than the rest.
His hands shook against the marble.
He looked up at me as if he meant to speak, and Ronan pulled him to his feet.
At the temple doors they turned around.
"Go near Dahlia again," Ronan said, "and I will drag the Westermark name through every street in the capital."
"Leave her alone," Nolan muttered at the floor. "You'll be sorry."
They had no idea what sorry meant.
In my last life Dahlia had worn them out and left them in the dirt.
Now she could have all five and carry them herself.
I held the tablet against my ribs.
Half of every acre, mill and coin the Fitzalan pack owned belonged to me, and I owed those men nothing.
Light footsteps crossed the marble behind me.
Dahlia wrapped her arms around me, warm and soft and smelling of honey soap.
"Oh, Thea," she whispered. "I'm so glad you're free. I never wanted any of this."
"I know you didn't," I said.
I let her hold me and did not push her off.
"The Moon Festival is thirty days away," she said against my hair. "Let me pour for you this year, like when we were girls."
Last time she said those exact words.
Last time I thanked her.
I looked over her shoulder at the five men in the doorway and smiled.
"I'd love that," I said.
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