My Mate Rejected Me as Wolfless, Then My White Wolf Woke novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Welcome Committee
Three people meet Briony at the airport, a pack watches her get rejected at her grandfather's party, and she accepts it and walks out; her chest answers for the first time in three years and Rafe says she is supposed to be on the floor.
My brother stepped into my path the second the arrivals doors slid open.
"There she is," he said, and he lifted me off the floor with my bag still on my shoulder.
I had told only my brother my flight number.
I had also told him I'd take a cab, and he'd said, "Don't be stupid, we'll be there."
We, it turned out, was three people.
Rafe Kingsley stood at his left in a navy suit, hands in his pockets, watching me with his head a little tilted.
Rafe was my mate.
He had put his mark on the left side of my neck when I was twenty, and I had not seen him in three years.
Carys Mallory stood on his other side, bouncing on her toes and waving with both hands.
"Oh my God, you're so thin," Carys said, and she hugged me so hard my ribs hurt.
She smelled like vanilla, the same as when we were eight and shared a bunk at pack camp.
She straightened my scarf, then she dug a sandwich out of her tote bag.
Turkey, crusts cut off.
"You never eat on planes," she said. "I knew you wouldn't."
I wanted to be angry at her for three years of short, sweet emails.
I couldn't do it with a sandwich in my hand.
Rafe didn't hug me.
He looked at the mark on my neck first, before my face, and touched two fingers to it.
"Still warm," he said.
It was.
It had been warm every single day for six years, even through two Scottish winters when I couldn't feel my own feet.
"Good," Rafe said, and took my suitcase.
In the car Carys sat in back with me and held my hand the whole drive.
My brother, Corbin, talked about the pack, about the new roof on the lodge, about Grandpa Alden's eighty-first birthday.
Nobody mentioned the fact that Grandpa Alden hadn't been able to call me in four months.
Rafe turned around in the front seat just before we reached the gate.
"Whatever anyone says tonight, nothing has changed," he said. "You're home. Okay?"
"Okay," I said.
I should have asked who would be saying anything.
The great hall of the Hartwell lodge held two hundred wolves.
They stood in a ring under the antler chandeliers, and the second I walked in, the talking stopped.
My grandfather sat near the fire in a wheelchair with an oxygen line under his nose.
He had been a big man.
Now his blanket lay flat over his knees.
I crossed the whole room and knelt in front of him, and he took my hand in both of his.
"You came," he said.
"Of course I came, Grandpa."
He opened his mouth to say something else.
"Everyone, a moment," Rafe said behind me.
Two hundred people turned toward him at once.
I stood up.
Phones were already out along the stairs and the balcony, and every one of them was pointed at me.
Rafe walked into the middle of the ring, and Carys went with him.
"Briony Hartwell," he said, "I reject you as my mate, and as Luna of the Redmoor pack."
The words went through the room and nobody gasped.
That was the part I understood last.
Nobody gasped, because they already knew.
"Carys Mallory is my mate," Rafe said. "She is the Luna of Redmoor from tonight."
Carys put her hand through his arm and looked at the floor.
A few people clapped.
Then more.
Corbin, standing at my shoulder, didn't clap and didn't look at me either.
He studied the toes of his shoes.
I looked at my grandfather.
He was the only person in that hall who could have ended it with one word, and he was the person who had raised me.
He looked back at me, and he said nothing at all.
"Say it back, Briony," Rafe said. "It goes easier when you say it back."
I felt the mark on my neck begin to burn.
I knew what came next for a rejected woman.
I had heard the stories my whole life: the bond tears, the wolf screams, and you go down on the floor in front of everyone.
My wolf had never made a sound in me, not once, but I had always felt the bond pulled tight around my ribs.
So I said it.
"I accept."
The rope snapped.
Pain flared white through my chest and up into my throat, and the room tilted.
I put my hand on the back of a chair.
I did not fall.
Rafe was watching my knees.
I breathed in, and breathed out, and stood up straight.
"Happy birthday, Grandpa," I said.
Then I picked up my bag and walked across the great hall through two hundred wolves, and not one of them stopped me.
Outside, the cold hit my face, and the mark on my neck was cold too, for the first time in six years.
Under my breastbone something turned over, slow and heavy.
It lifted its head.
It answered me.
Behind me the doors hadn't shut yet, and I heard Rafe's voice, low and sharp, and not meant for me.
"Corbin," he said. "She's supposed to be on the floor."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend