The Alpha Rejected Her at Midnight, Then the Land Chose Her novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Hanging Bond

Hester finds her at dawn and explains that an unanswered rejection tears at both of them, begs her not to say "Accepted" to anyone, and gives her a ring that was her mother's. Lachlan's truck comes up the road.

Rowena woke naked in a frozen ditch with her cheek on the gravel.

Her whole body hurt. Her chest hurt worst.

A blanket landed on top of her, and a rough hand turned her over.

"Drink this before you try to talk," said Hester Quill.

The old healer knelt in the frost with a thermos, her white braid hanging over one shoulder.

"How did you find me?" Rowena croaked.

"Your tracks were wider than my hand with the fingers spread. I followed those."

Rowena sat up, and the pain flared and took her breath.

It was not a clean pain. It came in waves, and each wave tugged her back up the mountain.

"Hester, what is this? He said the words. It should be over."

"It would be over, if you had said yours."

Hester pressed the thermos into her hands.

"A rejection only closes when the one rejected answers. You answered with a no. So it hangs, and it tears at both of you."

Rowena drank. The tea was bitter and sharp, and the waves dropped by half.

"At both of us?" she said.

"He coughed blood on the ground at the fire. Half the pack saw it before Orson got him inside."

Rowena thought of the blood in her own mouth on the road.

"Good," she said.

"Not good." Hester gripped her wrist. "Listen to me, child, because I'll say this once while you're still too sore to argue."

"Don't say Accepted. Not to him, not to Vivian, not to Orson, not to anyone who asks. Not for a day, not for a week."

"You think I want to say it? I'm holding it open to spite him."

"Hold it open for whatever reason you like. Just hold it."

"Why?"

Hester looked down the empty road for a long moment.

"Because the second you say it, you stop being someone certain people need to worry about. I'll tell you the rest when you can stand on your own two feet."

"You've never told me anything," Rowena said. Her voice broke on it. "I'm eighteen. I've been nobody's for eighteen years."

"I've been telling you every morning with a cup of tea in your hand."

Rowena stared at the thermos.

The tea she had drunk every morning of her life. The bitter one Hester said was for her blood.

"Monkshood," she said slowly. "It's always been monkshood."

"A pinch, and never more."

"Why?"

"Because you were always going to need it."

Hester dug into her coat and pulled out a plain silver ring on a loop of string. A tiny flower had been cut into the band.

"Your mother's. She had it on the day she died. I took it off her hand myself."

Rowena took it. The metal was warm from Hester's pocket.

"You said she died of a fever."

"She did." Hester said it too fast. "Put it on."

It fit her thumb exactly.

"One more thing, and it matters." Hester held her eyes. "What did your wolf look like?"

"I didn't see her. Big. Bigger than Lachlan's." Rowena swallowed. "Pale."

The old healer's face crumpled for one second and smoothed again.

"Then listen. You tell nobody that. Not Vivian, not Junie, not that boy. Not until I say."

"Hester, you're scaring me."

"Good. You were never scared enough."

"Where's Junie?"

"Her mother sat on her to stop her coming after you. She bit the Beta's boot on the way out."

"Tell her I'm alive."

"Tell her yourself, once you're safe."

Rowena pulled the blanket tight and tried to stand.

Her legs held. The pain surged as she rose, and it tugged hard to the north, up the mountain, toward the one man who had done this to her.

She hated that she knew exactly which way he was.

"It's pulling me," she said.

"It will, the farther you go. And him, the same, only worse, because he's the one who said the words."

"Then he can crawl down here and say sorry."

"Rowena."

"I'm serious. He stood in front of everyone I know and said I wasn't good enough to be seen with. If it hurts him, I want it to hurt."

Hester opened her mouth.

An engine growled below them on the mountain road.

It was a black truck, driving much too fast, and it slid on the frost as it took the last curve.

Hester's hand went to Rowena's arm and squeezed.

The truck stopped in the middle of the road with the door already opening.

Lachlan Kerr got out. He had to hold on to the frame to do it.

His shirt was open at the collar and stained down the front. His face was grey, and the scar through his eyebrow stood out white.

In one fist he held the iron-wood disc she had dropped at his boots.

"Rowena," he said. "I'm not here to apologize."

"Good," she said. "I'd hate to hear you lie."

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