My Family Stole My Alpha, I Married Someone Stronger novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Seated Beside Him
Tilda arrives at Pinewater Lodge on her husband's arm; her ex-fiancé's wolf rises in front of the whole pack, and the place cards put her beside him.
Two hundred wolves stood in the snow outside my mother's lodge and watched my husband park the truck.
His beta cut the engine and whistled through the gap in his front tooth.
"That's a lot of people for a family Christmas."
"They came to look at me," I said.
My husband put his hand over mine on the seat.
It was a big, warm hand, and it did not squeeze.
He never squeezed when I was scared. He just left it there until I stopped shaking.
"Tilda, we can drive back out," he said. "Right now. I'll tell them the road washed out."
"There's no river for forty miles."
"Then I'll tell them I'm a liar."
I laughed, and the sound came out thin.
In the week of my eighteenth birthday, my mother and the pack council gave my fiancé to my older sister.
The moon had picked him for me, and his name was Alaric.
I left that night with one bag and never came back.
Ten years later my mother called and cried into the phone for an hour.
She said she was old and she missed me and she wanted one Christmas with both of her girls.
So I opened the truck door and stepped out into the snow.
Corwin came around and took my arm. His beta, Perrin, followed with the bags.
The crowd parted for us without a word.
My mother, Greer Brannoch, stood at the top of the porch steps in the same grey cardigan she wore when I was ten.
She came down fast, with her arms already open.
"Matilda. Oh, my baby. You came."
"Hello, Mom."
She held on to me so hard that her pins dug into my cheek.
Then she stepped back and tugged the knit hat down over my ears.
"It's colder than you remember," she said. "Keep that on, and keep your eyes down around the oldest elder inside. She gets confused by faces."
"I'm not nine, Mom."
"I know. I know you're not."
She smiled at Corwin with all her teeth.
"And this is your husband. Alpha Haldane. We're honored."
"Mrs. Brannoch," Corwin said. "Thank you for having us."
"Please don't mention the old business to anyone tonight," she said to both of us, low. "It's all buried. Beatrix wanted that to be the first thing I told you. Nobody here will say a word."
I looked past her.
Everyone in the yard was looking at me, and nobody was saying a word.
My sister came out of the lodge doors in a white wool coat with her blonde braid over one shoulder.
She was beautiful. She had always been the beautiful one.
"Tilly!"
She hugged me too, and she smelled like cinnamon and woodsmoke.
"I made the cocoa you like," she said into my hair. "The one with the cardamom. I can't believe you're really here."
"Hi, Bea."
"Come in, come in, you're frozen." She turned to Corwin and put out both hands. "You must be the man who finally got her to eat on a schedule."
"I'm the man who cooks," Corwin said. "She eats what I give her."
Beatrix laughed, and half the porch laughed with her.
I felt my shoulders come down an inch.
Then I smelled pine and iron and something under it that I had not smelled in ten years.
It was the smell of a boy standing in a kitchen doorway, holding my face in both hands.
The crowd went quiet in a different way.
Alaric Penhale had come out onto the top step.
He was taller than I remembered and much thinner. His sandy hair had gone dull, and the shirt hung off his shoulders.
His eyes had been hazel when I knew him, and now they were flat gold and wide open.
That was his wolf, and it was looking straight at me.
"Alaric," Beatrix said brightly. "Honey. Say hello to my sister."
He didn't hear her.
He took one step down, and the pack drew back from him.
"Mine," he said.
It was barely a word. It was a rasp out of a throat that had been choked a long time.
Two hundred people heard it.
Beatrix's smile stayed exactly where it was.
Corwin moved half a step in front of me, and his scent went cold and heavy.
Alaric's gold eyes flicked to him, and he flinched.
He flinched, in front of his own pack.
"I think we should all go in," my mother said loudly. "The roast is ready. Everyone, inside, please."
She took my elbow.
Inside the great hall, a long table ran the length of the room, hung with pine garland. Little cards stood at every plate.
My card sat at the head of the table, in a seat beside the Alpha's chair.
Corwin's card was at the very foot, among the omegas and the delivery wolves.
"Oh, that's a mix-up," Beatrix said sweetly, and she did not move a single card.
Alaric was already sitting in the Alpha's chair.
He was staring at the empty seat beside him, and he was shaking.
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