The Werewolf Alpha Rejected Me at the Lake and I Said Thank You novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Thank-You
The Alpha rejects Sigrid before the whole pack at the Founders' Gathering; she says thank you, holds up the deed to the lake house, and kisses the Beta who asks her out loud for dinner.
"I, Leighton Arkwright, Alpha of the Tamarack pack, refuse you, Sigrid Ashgrove, as my mate."
He said it from the dais in the Lodge, with the long fire behind him and two hundred wolves on the benches.
"The bond is cut. Let the pack witness it."
A low growl ran along the benches, the sound wolves make when they have seen a rejection done properly.
Then the hall went quiet, and every face turned to the back, where the plain wolves sit.
They were waiting for me to cry.
The bond tore in my chest, and it hurt more than anyone had told me it would.
I let it hurt and kept my face still.
I stood up, buttoned my coat, and said it loud enough for the rafters.
"Thank you."
Somebody near the front made a small, astonished noise.
Leighton's green eyes found me over all those heads.
"I'm sorry?" he said.
"Thank you," I said again, and walked down the aisle between the benches.
I am twenty-seven.
The pack calls me plain, and I have never had a seat on any council.
I know exactly how it looks when a plain wolf is cut loose in front of everyone.
On Wednesday, the whole marina had known before I did.
The Alpha would speak at the Founders' Gathering, and the council had already picked a Luna.
So I had put two papers in my coat that morning and driven up the ridge.
At the foot of the dais, Odile Prentiss sat at the council table with her hand over her mouth.
She was the pick, tall, dark-braided and twenty-nine, and she looked sicker than I felt.
I took the first paper out and held it up where the fire could light it.
"Last April you gave me the deed to the lake house on Kettle Point, Leighton."
"It's recorded at the county, in my name alone," I said.
"Thank you for that, too."
"The house stays in the pack's book," Leighton said.
"It's in the county's book," I said.
"It's also mine, and it stays mine."
He came down the dais steps, six foot three in a charcoal coat, with the Alpha's silver chain at his throat.
I took the second paper out, a plain white envelope with a date written across the flap.
"I'd like the council to read this," I said.
"It's a copy of a letter I wrote to the Alpha, and it's dated one week ago today."
The council chair, a heavy old man, started to rise.
Leighton's face went white before I'd finished the sentence.
He crossed the floor in three strides and took the envelope out of my hand.
He did not open it, and he did not look at it.
He folded it once and put it inside his coat.
"The council reads nothing at a Gathering," he said, low.
"The rejection stands as spoken."
"Then it stands," I said.
"I said thank you, and I meant it every way you can take it."
I turned to go, and the Beta of the Tamarack pack came down off the dais.
Casimir Ness had been sitting at the Alpha's left hand all night with his silver bar pinned to his collar.
When the pack made the witness sound, he had not made it.
He walked past his Alpha without a glance and crossed the floor to me.
He was a broad man in a flannel shirt, with a scar through one eyebrow.
I had seen him around town for years and had never once been looked at the way he was looking at me.
He stopped close enough that I could smell cedar smoke on him.
"Sigrid Ashgrove," he said, loud enough to carry to the back wall.
"Have dinner with me Friday."
"I'm asking in front of the Alpha and the whole pack, so nobody can say later I did it quietly."
His hand settled at the small of my back, warm through my coat, and every nerve I had turned toward it.
"You're shaking," he said, for me alone.
"It's the bond," I said.
"It's not only the bond," he said.
Two hundred wolves stared at us.
"You're cooking," I told him.
Then I took a fistful of his collar, pulled his mouth down to mine, and kissed him in front of the whole pack.
Behind me, the Alpha's chair went over on the dais.
I did not turn around.
I kept kissing him.
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