Rejected By The Alpha For An Omega novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Check Her
Jarek carries Posy into Imogen's clinic and orders her to be gentle; Imogen notes Posy's pulse is wrong, follows them into the full waiting room and drops her Luna ring in his palm, and Jarek rejects her in front of the pack.
My husband walked into my clinic carrying his mistress, and nobody in the building knew he was my husband.
I was halfway out of my scrub top when the door banged open.
No knock.
Just cold night air, the smell of pine and rain, and Jarek Reyner, Alpha of the Reyner Pack, filling my doorway.
Posy Fairchild was curled against his chest.
Pale hair spilled over his good black suit. Her big brown eyes were wet. One bare foot dangled over his arm.
"Be gentle with her," Jarek said.
He didn't look at me.
He looked down at her and said, softer, "Don't be afraid. I'm here."
I yanked my top back down.
I had just finished twelve hours on a logger who'd gone under his own skidder. I still had his blood on my sleeve.
"Put her on the table," I said.
He set her down.
Then he looked at me, and his gray eyes were the coldest thing in the valley.
"Check her. Now."
The command hit the back of my skull.
My knees wanted to bend.
Three years of marriage had taught me one useful thing. As his true mate, I could push back. It hurt, but I could.
I pushed. The pressure slid off and left a dull ache behind my eyes.
"I was already going to," I said. "That's what the white coat means."
June, my head nurse, made a small noise behind me that might have been a laugh.
I crouched and touched Posy's ankle.
"Ah!" She burrowed into Jarek's arm.
He cupped the back of her head with his whole hand.
He had never once touched my head. He had never once touched any part of me, except to slide a ring onto my finger in front of his grandmother and two Elders.
I pressed my thumb to Posy's wrist out of habit.
Seventy-two beats a minute.
Steady. Light. Not a wolf's pulse. Wolves sit at forty-five when they're calm, and she was a girl in agony.
I looked at her ankle again.
It was barely swollen. I've seen worse on a kid who tripped over a garden hose.
"No fracture," I said, standing. "No ligament damage. Ice, rest, keep it up. I'll write something for the swelling."
"That's it?" Jarek said. "I want X-rays. An MRI."
"There's no medical reason for an MRI."
"I wasn't asking."
"I know. You never do."
June dropped a tray.
Posy let out a delicate little cough. Her hand found Jarek's sleeve.
"Alpha, please. I don't want to cause trouble for the Luna."
She was looking right at me when she said it.
So she knew.
She knew exactly who the pack's hidden Luna was, and she wanted me to know she knew.
Jarek's face went soft when he turned to her.
When he turned back to me, it was stone.
"We're leaving," he said. "We'll go to a human hospital. The doctors there are more responsible."
I wanted to say a lot of things.
I'm the only surgeon this pack has. My father built this clinic with his own money. I just fought death for twelve hours and won.
Instead I wrote the prescription.
He lifted her and walked out of the exam room without looking back.
The door clicked shut.
June stared at me.
"Did he just call you irresponsible? In your own clinic? With that girl's ankle looking like a ham sandwich?"
"It looked fine, June."
"That's my point."
Then his voice cut into my head through the bond, cold and flat.
We need to talk. Don't think this is over.
The pen in my hand snapped in half.
White plastic dug into my palm.
I looked down at it for a long second.
Three years.
Three years of eating dinner alone on Larch Street while he drove up Cutbank Road to her lodge.
Three years of hearing the pack ask who the Luna was, and laughing along when they guessed some rich girl in Helena.
I dropped the pieces in the trash.
Then I picked up the prescription and walked out after him.
The waiting room was full.
Thursday nights always were. The mill shift had just let out.
A dozen wolves sat in plastic chairs with cut hands and bad backs and a feverish pup on his mother's lap. Every one of them was watching their Alpha carry his Omega toward the doors.
"Alpha," I said.
Jarek stopped.
Every head in the room turned.
"You forgot your prescription."
I held it out.
He shifted Posy to one arm and took it, annoyed.
"And this."
I reached into my collar and pulled up the chain I'd worn under my scrubs every day for three years.
The gold ring on it caught the fluorescent light.
The room went so quiet I could hear the vending machine hum.
I snapped the chain.
I took his hand, turned it over, and dropped the ring into his palm.
"I'm done being your secret," I said. "Find someone else to hide."
Someone in the back whispered, "That's the Luna's ring."
Someone else said, "Doc Bracewell?"
The feverish pup's mother put a hand over her mouth.
Posy's eyes went wide and wet.
Jarek looked down at the ring.
Then he looked at me, and for one second I saw something move in his face.
Then it was gone.
He closed his fist.
His voice filled the whole room, low and clear, the way an Alpha speaks to his pack.
"I, Jarek Reyner, Alpha of the Reyner Pack, reject you, Imogen Bracewell, as my mate and my Luna."
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