You Are Not Rejecting Me novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Lodge Burns

I went through the broken kitchen door on four legs and hit the first man in the chest.

He went down on the tile with a shout, and his torch rolled away under the table.

The room was full of smoke and noise.

Cadell stood with his back to the stove, bare-chested, with a man on each arm.

He had thrown a third across the room into the cupboards.

He saw me come in, and his gray eyes went wide.

"Nia, the stairs!" he roared.

The letters.

I knew it before he said it.

He had been in the study with the drawer open when the glass broke.

The envelopes lay scattered across the hall floor, with fire licking at the rug.

I could not carry paper in my teeth.

I shifted back, right there in the hall, naked and shaking in the heat.

I snatched up the envelopes in both arms.

A man grabbed at my hair.

I drove my elbow into his face, and he fell back.

"You're burning your own Alpha's house!" I shouted, in a voice I did not know.

He stared at me with blood on his chin.

He was one of the young ones, a boy I had seen at The Antler laughing with Owain.

He looked at the fire, and for a moment I saw him understand what he was doing.

Then more voices came up the drive.

The big gray-haired woman who sold eggs came through the broken door.

She carried a shotgun she did not point at anyone.

Behind her was the patrol boy, white in the face.

A dozen others followed with buckets and a garden hose.

"Put it out," she said, flatly, to no one and everyone. "Put it out right now."

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