The Rejected Mate novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Line Again

On the third evening, six Stormvale she-wolves walked down to the creek to look at him.

Caelen had not moved from the Ironwood bank since the first morning.

He had a blanket, a tin cup of water and three days of stubble.

His shoulder had bled through its bandage twice.

He did not call out to anyone, and he did not step over the line.

"Is that him?" said a heavy woman with flour to her elbows.

"That's him."

"Smaller than I thought."

"He's been sitting in the dirt for three days," said a younger one. "Of course he's smaller."

They stood on the Stormvale side of the water in a row.

Caelen looked up at them.

"Good evening," he said.

"Don't you good evening us," said the heavy woman. "Do you know what she looked like when she came in off that truck?"

"No."

"Like a woman who'd been told to stop breathing. She baked all night."

"I'm sorry."

"That's not what I asked you."

A thin girl with a long braid crouched at the water's edge.

"What did you say to her?" she asked. "The exact words. At the Stone."

His jaw tightened.

"I, Caelen Braithwaite, heir of Ironwood," he said, "reject Willa Ashdown as my mate."

The six of them were silent.

"Before the Moon and before this pack, I release her," he finished. "I can say it word for word. I'll be able to say it until I die."

The heavy woman looked at him for a long moment.

"Well," she said at last. "That's something. Most men have to be dragged to it."

She turned and walked back up the bank.

The girl with the braid lingered, and then she threw a small, hard bread roll across the creek, and it hit him on the chest.

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