My Ex Regretted Losing Me, But I Already Found My True Alpha novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: The Cabin

Juno takes the dress back in front of the staff, then Torin comes to her door at night begging, and a camera flashes in the trees.

"Take it off," I said.

Odette's smile didn't move.

"Excuse me?"

"That's my mother's dress. Take it off."

"Kendrick said it was just sitting in a box." She turned side on to the mirror.

"Honestly, Juno, you left. You left everything. Did you want it to rot?"

"I want it off you."

I stepped toward her.

She screamed.

It was a real scream, high and wounded, loud enough to carry down the stairs.

Then she backed into the vanity so hard the perfume bottles went over.

Glass hit the floor.

The smell of roses flooded the room.

Feet pounded up the stairs.

The housekeeper came first, then two of the caterers, then a pair of pack warriors who'd been carrying chairs.

Kendrick pushed through them all.

"What the hell is going on?"

Odette was pressed back against the wall with her hands up in front of her face.

"I just wanted to show her," she sobbed. "I thought she'd be happy it was being worn."

"She screamed before I touched her," I said.

"You came at me!"

Kendrick looked at the broken glass.

Then at me.

He didn't ask a single question.

"You've been in this house an hour," he said. "One hour."

"That's Mom's dress, Kendrick."

"Mom's dead. She doesn't need it." He put his arm around Odette.

"Odette's getting marked on Saturday. She's family. She stayed. She sat with Grandpa in the hospital while you were off doing God knows what."

The warriors in the doorway were staring at me.

I knew them both.

One of the warriors had taught me to track when I was ten.

He looked away when I met his eyes.

"Mom promised that dress to me," I said. "You were there when she said it."

"You gave up everything she promised you when you ran."

"I didn't run. You hit me in front of the whole pack, and I left."

The hallway went dead quiet.

Kendrick's face turned dark red.

"Get out," he said. "Get out of this room."

"That's enough."

The voice came from behind the crowd.

Everyone parted.

Grandpa stood in the hall, leaning hard on his cane.

He was breathing like he'd climbed a mountain.

"The dress," he said. "Is Juno's."

"Grandpa..." Kendrick started.

"I was at your mother's bedside, Kendrick. I heard her too." He looked at Odette. "Take it off, sweetheart. Give it to her."

Odette's mouth trembled.

For one second her eyes went flat and cold as the lake.

Then she burst into tears and ran into the bathroom.

The door slammed.

A minute later it opened just wide enough for a heap of silver silk to be thrown out onto the floor.

I picked it up and shook the glass out of the skirt.

Nobody helped me.

"You'll sleep in the lake cabin," Kendrick said. "I'm not having you under the same roof as her."

"Fine."

"And the moonstone stays where it is. Grandpa didn't say anything about the moonstone."

I didn't answer that.

I carried my mother's dress down to the water in the dark.

The lake cabin was one room and a woodstove.

Nobody had lit it in years.

I got a fire going with old newspaper and hung the dress on the back of the door.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Soren.

"Landed in Oslo for the council vote. How is he?"

I knew he meant Grandpa.

He never asked about the others.

"Frail," I wrote. "Something smells wrong on him. Kendrick hid his letters from me for three years."

The three dots came and went.

"Say the word and I'm on a plane."

"Not yet. Let me do this."

"Then I'll wait for Saturday. I love you, Juno."

I was still holding the phone against my chest when someone knocked.

I knew the knock.

Two quick, one slow.

It was the way he knocked on my window when we were nineteen.

I opened the door.

Torin stood on the porch with his hands in his pockets.

He looked tired.

"I can't sleep," he said. "I keep seeing it. That bite on you."

"Go home, Torin."

"I made a mistake."

He said it fast.

"Three years ago. That night."

"I was scared and angry and Kendrick was yelling, and Odette was blue in the face, and I just... I picked wrong."

"You picked."

"I know." He took a step closer. "She's not you. She's never been you. I look at her and I see you."

"That's a sad thing to do to her."

"Juno, please."

He reached for my face.

I stepped back.

He came forward anyway, until the door frame was against my spine.

His mouth came down toward mine.

I turned my head.

His lips hit my cheek.

"Don't," I said. "I'm married."

"To a stranger. I've known you your whole life."

"Then you should know I don't lie."

I put a flat hand on his chest and pushed.

He stumbled back onto the porch.

For a moment he just stood there, breathing hard, looking wrecked.

Then, out in the black pines behind him, a bright white light went off.

Once.

Twice.

A camera flash.

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