Rejected by My Mate, Claimed by the Alpha King novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The King's Terms

In the King's truck Alaric sets his terms: she can leave any day and he won't touch her until she asks. She takes the balcony room at his Hall instead of fleeing it, and her sister's texts follow her there: the nursery paint is already up, and the King will drop her by Sunday.

The King's truck was black, and the heater was already running.

His driver held the back door for me and looked at nothing.

I climbed in with my duffel on my lap.

The King got in beside me, and the door shut out the rain.

For a mile, neither of us spoke.

Silver Creek slid by the window in the dark. The pack house, the bakery, the school where I had learned to read.

I thought about how it would look in the morning, with my room already emptied.

"Why did you do it?" I asked.

"Your father was going to put you over the border," he said. "I wasn't going to watch that."

"That's not an answer. You don't know me."

"I know you put your whole weight into a split lip and didn't cry in front of three wolves."

"I cried in the rain," I said.

"I didn't see that part."

I almost smiled, and then I remembered I had been rejected an hour ago and stopped.

He looked out his own window.

"I'm taking you to my house in the mountains," he said. "Two hours north. I'll set the terms now, so you never have to guess them."

"Terms."

"You can leave any day. The driver will take you wherever you say, and no wolf will stop you."

"All right."

"And I won't touch you until you ask me to."

I turned and stared at him.

"We're mates," I said. "Aren't you supposed to want to?"

"A bond isn't a leash," he said. "You were rejected tonight. You don't owe me anything for it."

He said it quietly, and he looked directly at me.

I felt it in my chest, a slow warm pull. It wasn't pain. It wasn't pity either.

Inside me, my wolf was quiet for the first time in years.

"Her name is Dusk," I said. I hadn't known I was going to tell him.

"I'm glad she finally talked to you," he said.

"How did you know she hadn't?"

"You've been listening to something that wasn't there all night," he said. "I know what that looks like."

He pulled a folded handkerchief from his coat.

"Your lip," he said.

I hesitated.

Then I held still, and he pressed the cloth to my mouth.

His thumb rested on my chin.

His hand was warm and rough. It stayed longer than it needed to.

The skin under his thumb burned the way it had at the clinic.

"Does that hurt?" he asked.

"No," I said.

He took his hand away. I wanted it back, and that scared me more than the rain had.

"You were in Agnes's back room," I said, to say something. "She makes you a sleep tea."

"Valerian and fennel."

"And lemon balm. She adds that last, and she lies about it."

For the first time he almost laughed. "She told me it was just chamomile."

"She tells everyone that."

"I haven't slept a full night in six years," he said. "It's the only thing that works."

I looked at him. The Alpha King of Montana, with shadows under his eyes.

"I can make it stronger," I said. "I know what she leaves out."

"Then you're already useful," he said, and I couldn't tell if he was joking.

The road climbed. The rain thinned into sleet.

I fell asleep against the window with the heater running.

I woke when the truck stopped.

The Hall was built of grey stone and sat against the mountain, with every window lit. A housekeeper in a cardigan stood at the door with a lantern.

"The east rooms are ready, Majesty," she said.

She led me up a staircase wide enough for four wolves and opened a door at the end of a hall.

The room was big and warm. A fire was lit. There was a bed with a green quilt.

There was a balcony.

I stopped on the threshold.

My sister had always had the room with the balcony.

"There's another room along the hall," the King said from behind me. "It's smaller. Say the word."

I looked at the balcony doors for a long time.

"No," I said. "I'll take this one."

Nobody was going to carry me out of it before a party.

"Good," he said.

He stepped back and waited until I had gone in. Then he said, "Lock the door if you like. I won't need a key."

He shut it gently.

I sat down on the quilt.

My phone buzzed in my bag.

It was a number I'd never saved, because I had never needed to. Delphine.

The first message was a photo. My old room, the walls bare, with four yellow paint samples taped over where my herb charts had hung.

The second message came a second later.

Mama's picking yellow. Thanks for the room!

The third came while I was still staring.

He'll drop you by Sunday. Kings don't keep spares.

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