The Alpha's Regret: Rejecting His Fated White Wolf Mate novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Cold at Midnight
Isla's anniversary Wellington goes cold, and at midnight Torin walks in with his father and rejects her before thirty wolves. She lays the ring on the beef and says she accepts it, and Torin drops to his knees.
At midnight the clock on the dining hall wall struck twelve, and the beef pastry I had cooked for our second anniversary was stone cold.
Thirty members of our pack sat along the mahogany table and watched me not eat it.
The elders had stopped talking an hour ago.
Torin's chair at the head of the table was still pushed in.
My best friend, two seats down, pressed her foot against mine under the cloth.
"He's coming," Cecily said softly from my other side.
She had been the only one who kept saying it.
At seven she had helped me carry the trays in. At nine she had slid the beef back into the oven so it would stay warm.
At ten she had refilled every elder's glass so nobody would have to watch my face.
Her overnight bag sat on the hall chair by the door, because her car was in the shop.
I had thanked her for all of it.
At nine-forty his father had texted me: He is on his way. Keep it warm.
I had kept it warm for two and a half hours.
Beside Torin's empty plate lay the card I put there every year.
It said, in my own handwriting: Still choosing you.
Torin laughed at it the first time. He said bonds aren't chosen, Isla, that's the whole beauty of them, and kissed my forehead.
So I wrote it again the next year anyway.
The great doors opened.
Cold air came in, and then Torin, with his father one step behind him.
Torin did not look at the table. He did not look at the cards or the candles.
He looked at me.
His eyes were hard and gold, and he had the line in his jaw he got when he had already decided.
"Stand up, Isla," he said.
I stood.
Edmund Ashdown walked to the table and laid a cream folder beside my plate, on top of Torin's card.
"I'm sorry it has to be tonight," Edmund said, in his kind voice. "Torin is thirty-two on Sunday. The law is the law."
Nobody breathed.
"A clinic report came back," Torin said. "It says you can never carry a pup."
I stared at him.
"What report?"
"The pack needs an heir. I need one by Sunday or the Council can challenge my seat."
"Torin, I have never been to a clinic for that."
He did not blink.
"My father has the doctor's signature. I'm not going to argue about it in front of the pack."
My best friend stood up so fast her chair went over.
Hugh, at the far end, had gone rigid, and he was the only one who looked at the folder instead of at me.
Torin lifted his chin and spoke the words in the clear flat voice of an Alpha.
"I, Torin Ashdown, Alpha of Cedar Hollow, reject you, Isla Garrow, as my mate and as my Luna."
The hall was silent.
I waited for it to hurt.
It was supposed to hurt. Everyone knew it was supposed to hurt. Wolves had gone mad from it.
"Cecily will stand beside me," Torin said.
Cecily rose, white-faced, with her hand at her throat.
"Torin, not like this," she whispered.
She did not step away from him.
Everyone was looking at me now, waiting for me to scream or fall or beg.
I looked at the ring on my left hand.
It was his grandmother's ring. I had worn it every day for two years, even while I kneaded dough.
So I took it off.
I laid it on the cold beef pastry, in the middle of the crust, where everyone could see it.
"You don't have to finish it for me," Torin said, and his voice cracked on the last word.
"Yes, I do," I said. "That's how it works."
I picked up my own card from under the folder.
I put it in my pocket.
"I accept it."
Something let go in my hand.
It was not a snap. It was a thread that I had been holding very gently for seven years, and I opened my fingers, and it slid away.
There was no pain at all.
I felt light, and cold, and clear.
Torin made a sound I had never heard from a person.
His knees hit the floorboards.
He put one hand flat on the ground, and when he lifted his head, his gold eyes had gone grey.
Every wolf in the room flinched at the howl that came out of him.
I was the only one who didn't, because I was already walking to the door.
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