My Alpha Rejected Me for a Dare, So I Walked Away novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: The Roses
Three years after rejecting her on a dare, Bowen turns up at Elodie's door with roses to re-mark her, smells a pup on her, and runs when Evangeline calls, never knowing the pup he's asking about died the night he rejected her.
Three years after he rejected me in front of his whole pack, Bowen Ironwood knocked on my door with a dozen red roses.
He was grinning.
"Mate," he said. "I kept my word. I'm here to re-mark you."
I stood in the doorway in my socks, a dish towel still in my hand.
He looked the same.
Black hair swept back. Dark eyes. That easy Alpha lean against my doorframe.
I could smell the pine of the Ironwood woods on his coat.
And under it, sweet and cheap, Evangeline's vanilla perfume.
Three years ago it was the Harvest Moon bonfire.
The whole pack sat around the fire, drinking and laughing.
Evangeline Delancey had her legs tucked up beside Bowen on the log, where I should've been sitting.
She'd grown up with him. She never let anyone forget it.
She touched his arm when she laughed. She whispered in his ear. She always found a reason to be close.
Bowen and I fought about it every week.
That night he lost a round of truth or dare to her.
Evangeline clapped her hands.
"I want to know if you and your Luna are really true mates."
The circle went quiet.
"So reject her. Three years, no contact. If she lets you re-mark her after that, I'll admit you two are the real thing."
I waited for him to laugh.
He slapped his knee instead.
"Deal! A dare's a dare!"
His Beta, Rhys, set down his beer.
"Bowen. Think about this. Rejecting your mate isn't a game."
Bowen looked straight across the fire at me.
His eyes glowed gold.
"I trust what we have. My Luna would never leave me."
"She'll take me back. I know it."
I didn't say a word.
He didn't know that was the last chance I would ever give him.
"Elodie?"
The roses were in my face now.
I stepped back.
I didn't touch them.
"My mate doesn't like other males bringing me flowers."
Bowen's mouth curled.
"Oh, you're mad."
"Come on. Come on, I'm here now, aren't I?"
"Easy, baby. Don't be upset."
It was the voice he used to use after every fight. Soft and teasing. It used to work.
He dropped the roses on my entry table and opened his arms.
I stepped back again.
"Back off, Alpha Ironwood."
His hands stopped in the air.
His eyes stayed on mine, warm and patient.
"Okay. So you're really mad this time."
"Tell me what it takes. I'll do anything."
He stepped closer.
I stepped back.
He stepped closer.
I stepped back.
His eyes went darker. His wolf was rising behind them, and it was looking at me.
"Bowen. Three years is long enough for everything to change."
He tilted his head.
"True."
My back hit the hallway wall.
He put both palms flat on the plaster, one on each side of my head.
The old move.
When we were twenty-one and freshly mated, he used to pin me against the pack house walls under the moon and kiss me until I couldn't stand.
He leaned in.
His nose skimmed along my jaw, down to my collarbone.
He was scenting me.
Then his whole body went still.
He'd caught it. The faint milky smell that clings to every mother.
"You had my pup."
His voice dropped low.
"Boy or girl?"
He slid one hand up to my face and brushed my cheek with his thumb.
The question went through my ribs.
He had known I was carrying his pup that night.
He knew when he stood up in front of the fire, in front of every wolf in his pack, and said the words.
"I, Bowen Ironwood, Alpha of the Ironwood Pack, reject you, Elodie Linden, as my mate."
Because Evangeline dared him.
Then three years.
Not one call. Not one message.
And now he stood in my hallway, sure I'd carried his pup to term and waited for him to come back.
I smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
I opened my mouth to tell him.
His phone rang.
He pulled it out of his pocket.
The screen lit up between us.
My Princess.
That was his name for Evangeline. It had been his name for her for as long as I'd known him.
I used to watch him stroke her hair at pack dinners and call her his little princess, right in front of me, his Luna.
He answered on the first ring.
"Bowen." Evangeline was sobbing. "Please hurry. My cramps are so bad. It hurts so much."
His wolf surged up.
I watched it happen. His pupils blew wide. His jaw went tight.
He was scared.
Not for me.
Never once for me.
"Don't be scared, Princess. I'm coming right now."
He hung up.
He patted the top of my head. Twice. Quick and careless.
"Let me go check on Evangeline. I'll come back for you later."
The door banged shut behind him.
I heard his truck tear out of my street.
The roses lay on the table where he'd dropped them.
I picked them up and put them in the trash, stems first.
Then I sat down on my kitchen floor.
He'd asked me if it was a boy or a girl.
I never found out.
His pup died on the floor of the Ironwood pack house twenty minutes after he said those words.
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