My Alpha Panicked When I Accepted His Rejection novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: I Accept
Rhiannon overhears Corbin swear she will never reject him, hears him say he doesn't know her in front of witnesses, and answers: I accept. The Alpha falls to his knees and every wolf in Hollowmere howls.
I was holding my prenatal prescription when I heard my mate promise another Alpha that I would never leave him.
The pack doctor had just told me I was nine weeks along.
I had walked out of her office smiling.
I was still smiling in the hallway when Corbin's voice came through an open door fifteen feet away.
"Don't worry about the Luna," he said. "She's an omega. She takes whatever I hand her."
"And when my daughter moves into the pack house?" a man asked.
I knew that voice. It belonged to an allied Alpha who sat at the council table where I was never allowed a chair.
"Nothing changes for her," Corbin said. "Whatever I do, she stays. She'd never give up the bond. She'll never reject me."
Somebody laughed.
The paper crinkled in my fist.
Four years in his north wing, and he had never once presented me to the pack.
That morning, like every morning, Corbin had stood outside my door with his palm flat on the wood and said nothing.
I had stopped asking why.
Today he had spoken, though. He had said, "Go to the clinic, Rhia. We'll talk tonight. I promise."
I had thought he meant the baby.
I put the prescription in my coat pocket and walked into the exam room.
Corbin stood by the window with his beta behind him. Alpha Whitcombe sat in the visitor's chair.
On the exam table sat a she-wolf in a Hollowmere grey coat, seven months pregnant, with one hand on her belly.
The nurse was holding a blood pressure cuff and had stopped moving.
Corbin turned around and the color left his face.
The she-wolf looked at me and her expression went soft with worry.
"Oh, you're white as paper," she said. "Please, take my chair. Nurse, could she have some water?"
Her name was Sabine Whitcombe. She was kind to me. I remember that.
"Corbin," she said, turning her head. "Who is this?"
He looked at me.
His eyes were gold. His jaw was set.
"I don't know her," Corbin said. "Why would I know someone like that?"
Nobody in the room moved.
I had heard him say worse behind a door. I had never heard him say it to my face, in front of witnesses.
Wolf law is short on words and long on consequences.
An Alpha who denies his mate before witnesses has rejected her, if she answers.
Most mates never answer. Most of them can't. The bond is the only thing that makes them feel alive.
Corbin was counting on that.
I felt the bond in my chest, the cord that had been pulled tight for four years. It tugged once, hard, and asked me to stay.
I thought of the prescription in my pocket.
I thought of a child who would be born into this house, in the north wing, and learn from the pack to call her mother "the omega."
"Corbin Stroud," I said.
My voice was steady. It surprised me.
"Before these witnesses, you've said you don't know me. I heard you. I accept."
The nurse dropped the cuff.
Alpha Whitcombe stood up so fast the chair hit the wall.
Corbin said, "That's not what I meant."
"It's what you said."
The cord in my chest went slack.
It didn't snap. It loosened, and for the first time in four years I could take a full breath.
I stood there, light and shaking, and understood how heavy it had been.
Corbin grabbed the edge of the exam table. His knuckles went white.
"Rhiannon," he said. "Rhia. Wait."
"Is she hurt?" Sabine asked. "Corbin, what is she talking about?"
He didn't answer her.
He was staring at his own hand, which had begun to shake.
The beta took a step toward him. "Alpha?"
"Don't." Corbin's voice cracked on the word. "Don't touch me."
His legs gave out.
Corbin Stroud, Alpha of Hollowmere, went down on both knees on the clinic floor.
The nurse saw it. The doctor saw it from the doorway. So did an allied Alpha.
"An Alpha doesn't kneel," Alpha Whitcombe whispered.
"Take it back," Corbin said to me. His eyes had gone from gold to a dull brown. "Rhiannon, take it back. Please."
Nobody had ever heard him say please.
I had waited four years for him to choose me.
So I stopped waiting.
"No," I said.
I walked out through the hallway, past the front desk, and through the doors of the clinic into the cold.
Behind me, from every building in Hollowmere, the wolves began to howl, because their Alpha's wolf had just gone quiet.
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