My Alpha Found a New Love novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Moonstone
On their fifth anniversary Rune brings home Freya Torsen of Kingsfall as his fated mate and tells Kari to keep the title and pin the new bride's braid; Kari rejects him in front of the pack, and a scarred stranger at the gate demands his daughter.
My mate walked into our fifth anniversary an hour late, holding another woman's hand.
The whole pack was in the lodge for the full moon.
Sixty wolves, two long tables, and a cake I'd carried in from Tamarack myself with our names on it in blue icing.
Rune Elling stopped in the doorway so everyone could see.
The girl beside him was tiny and platinum blonde, in a white dress that cost more than my truck.
She smelled like cold lake water and money.
And she smelled like him.
The room went quiet in a ripple, table by table.
Rune smiled the smile he used at council meetings.
"Greyfir, this is Freya Torsen. Of Kingsfall."
Somebody near the fire actually gasped.
Everyone in the north knew that name.
Kingsfall held the whole North Shore.
Its Alpha had one child and no son.
"I met her at the Midsummer moot," Rune said. "The Goddess has given me my fated mate."
He lifted Freya's hand and kissed her knuckles.
My mark, the silver bite on the left side of my neck, started to burn.
I was still holding the cake knife.
"Kari." Rune turned to me as if he'd just noticed I was there. "Don't make a scene. Nothing has to change for you."
"Nothing," I said.
"You'll keep the title. Luna of Greyfir. The pack likes you, and I won't embarrass you."
He said it kindly, loud enough for the back tables.
"You'll move into the guest cabin. Freya takes our room."
Freya looked me up and down.
"She's older than I thought," she said.
A couple of Rune's warriors laughed.
"We'll mate at Kingsfall on the next full moon," Rune went on.
"In front of the whole north. You'll stand with us, Kari. You'll pin her mating braid. It's the right thing, for the pack."
I looked at the cake.
KARI AND RUNE. FIVE YEARS.
"And honestly," Freya said, tilting her head at me, "five years and not one pup? The Goddess was being polite. She smells like a cold den, Rune."
That time more of them laughed.
Not all of them.
My brother didn't.
Espen was on his feet at the end of the second table, twenty years old and white to the lips.
His hand was already on the bench to vault it.
I shook my head at him once.
He stayed where he was.
I put the cake knife down on the table, very gently, next to the plates.
Then I walked around the table to the open floor in front of the fire, where Rune had marked me five years ago tonight.
The pack shuffled back to give me room.
"Rune," I said.
He sighed. "Kari, not here."
"Here's exactly where."
I lifted my chin so every wolf in the lodge could see the mark.
"I, Kari Vold, reject you, Rune Elling, as my mate."
The fire popped.
Nobody breathed.
Rune's face did something I'd never seen it do. For one second he looked caught.
Then Freya squeezed his hand, and he smiled again.
"Accepted," he said. "Gladly."
The bond tore.
It felt like someone had put a hand inside my chest and ripped out a fistful of wire.
My knees hit the floorboards.
Warm blood ran down my neck from the mark and soaked into my collar.
Inside me, my wolf made one small sound and went silent.
I'd heard women describe this. I hadn't believed them.
I stayed on my knees for a long moment.
Then I got up.
Freya was holding a glass of red wine and watching me with her lips parted.
She looked like she'd paid for a show and wasn't sure she'd gotten her money's worth.
I unclasped the moonstone from around my neck.
The Luna's stone of Greyfir.
Pale as milk, on a silver chain.
Rune had put it on me himself, five years ago, in this room.
I walked up to Freya and dropped it in her wine.
It went down with a little plop and sat at the bottom of the glass.
"It's yours," I said. "Wear it in good health."
Freya stared into her glass.
Rune's hand caught my arm.
"You'll regret this tonight," he said, low. "You're nobody without me."
"Then I'll be nobody somewhere else."
I pulled my arm free.
My boots were loud on the floor all the way to the door.
"Espen," I said, without turning around. "Get your coat."
"Espen stays."
Rune's Alpha voice hit the room.
I heard my brother's bench scrape. I heard his breath go out of him.
When I looked back, Espen was frozen halfway out of his seat, shaking, his eyes on me.
His wolf belonged to Rune.
Mine didn't anymore.
"He's a Greyfir warrior," Rune said pleasantly. "Not your luggage. Off my land by morning, Kari."
I stood in the doorway with my own blood drying on my neck.
Then headlights swept across the lodge windows.
Every wolf in the room turned toward the yard.
A black truck had stopped at the gate, engine running, high beams on.
The driver's door opened.
The man who got out was the biggest I'd ever seen.
Gray at the temples.
A scar cut across his cheekbone, white in the headlights.
The pack's two gate guards took one look at him and stepped back.
Behind me, Freya's wine glass hit the floor and broke.
The man walked into the light and looked straight past me, into the lodge.
"Which one of you," he said, "has my daughter?"
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