Rejected by My Mate, Claimed by the Alpha King novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Banished Before the Ceremony

Wynne runs to the pack clinic, where her father's wolves come to drag her over the border; the Alpha King steps out of the back room, takes her hand and calls her his mate, and tells her father she will stand beside him at Saturday's ceremony.

I ran to the only place that had ever felt like mine.

The pack clinic sat at the edge of Silver Creek territory, behind the herb garden my grandmother planted forty years ago.

The lights were on.

Agnes Gowen opened the door before I knocked.

She was sixty-six, with grey hair cut short and reading glasses on a cord.

She had been my teacher since I was twelve.

"I felt the link snap," she said. "Get in here."

She pulled me inside and sat me by the stove.

My lip was split where I had bitten it, and my hands were blue.

Agnes put a towel around my shoulders and a mug in my hands.

"He cast you out with the whole pack listening," she said. "Edmund MacAulay has finally done it."

"He chose her," I said. "They all did."

"I know, child."

I tried to breathe in the steam from the mug.

Nothing came.

The head cold had taken my nose three days ago, and all I could smell was the cold.

"Agnes, I can't stay," I said. "Banished wolves can't be sheltered."

"I'm sixty-six years old," she said. "This door has been open thirty of them. Let him come and tell me to close it."

He came sooner than I thought.

Headlights swung across the window.

Three wolves in dark jackets pushed in without knocking.

The one in front was the Beta's second, a big man who had once eaten at our table.

"The Alpha's word stands," he said. "Wynne MacAulay is cast out. We're to put her over the border tonight."

"In this rain?" Agnes said.

"A banished wolf belongs to no one," he said. "Any Alpha can do what he likes with her. It's kinder if it's us."

He crossed the room and took my wrist.

His grip hurt, and I didn't scream.

I had spent an hour learning that nobody was going to come.

"Let go of her," Agnes said.

"Stay out of this, old woman."

A chair scraped in the back room.

A curtain moved, and a man stepped out into the lamplight in shirtsleeves, holding one of Agnes's chipped mugs.

He was tall, with black hair and grey eyes.

A pale scar showed at the open collar of his shirt.

The wolf holding my wrist went grey in the face.

"Your Majesty," he said.

I didn't know the man.

I knew the title.

Alaric Rooke was the Alpha King of every pack in Montana.

He had come to Silver Creek to witness my sister's mating ceremony, and my father had talked for two weeks about the honor.

"Take your hand off her," the King said.

The wolf let go so fast that he stumbled.

The King set the mug down and crossed the room.

He looked at my split lip.

Then he took my hand in his.

My skin lit up.

It started in my palm and ran up my arm.

Inside me, my wolf went from silent to restless, and she pressed hard against my ribs.

My nose was dead, and I couldn't smell him at all.

But I felt that.

"What's your name?" he asked quietly.

"Wynne."

He looked at the three wolves.

"This is my mate," he said.

Nobody in the room moved.

"Majesty," the Beta's second said, "the Alpha banished her. She was rejected tonight. She has no bond."

"She accepted a rejection tonight," the King said. "A bond that dies leaves a wolf free to answer another."

"Her wolf answered," he said.

He said it flatly, and he did not blink.

Agnes was staring at me.

I was staring at him.

The King still had my hand.

"No Alpha can banish the Crown's mate," he said. "Get out of this clinic."

The three wolves went out into the rain without a word.

I sat down hard on the stool, because my legs wouldn't hold me.

"I don't understand," I said. "I felt nothing from Corbin for a year. I've known this man for a minute."

"That's how it works sometimes," Agnes said.

She said it very carefully, and she didn't look at the King.

"The Goddess can give a second bond when the first one dies."

I had never heard of a second bond.

I didn't say so, because my hand was still in his and I didn't want to pull it back.

More headlights came up the road.

My father walked into the clinic with half the pack's elders behind him.

His grey beard was wet, and the silver ring on his right hand flashed when he saw me.

Then he saw the King's hand around mine.

"Your Majesty," he said slowly. "There must be a mistake. My daughter has no mate. She was rejected a few hours ago."

"Then you banished the Crown's mate within the hour," the King said. "In front of your pack."

My father's face drained.

He glanced at me, and for the first time in my life he looked afraid.

"She comes with me tonight," the King said.

"Your daughter's ceremony goes ahead on Saturday, as planned. I will witness it."

He turned and looked at me.

"And Wynne will stand beside me."

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