You Are Not Rejecting Me novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Exile

The old man struck the ground with his cane, and the ring went quiet.

"Seren Penry," he said. "You have wronged your mate, your sister, and this pack."

Seren stood with her chin high and her hands shaking.

"The law says exile from the land and the roll," the old man said.

"You will leave by the first light, and you will not come back."

"Wait," Cadell said.

He was on one knee beside Idris, with the girl's borrowed coat around his hips.

He looked up at the old man.

"She's no mate of mine now. But she's not going to be hunted."

"Alpha."

"Exile. Nothing else. No one touches her on the way out."

The old man looked at him for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

Cadell turned to Seren.

"I'd have liked to know what I did," he said.

Her mouth trembled.

"Nothing," she said. "You didn't do anything. That was the problem."

"Go on," Cadell said, tiredly.

Marigold and two of the egg woman's sons got a door off the nearest shed and laid Idris on it.

I walked beside him with my hand on his arm.

He was gray and sweating, but his eyes were open, and he kept them on me.

"I'm not leaving you," I said.

"I know."

"I have to do one thing first."

"I know that, too," he said. "Go on."

Seren was at the edge of the pines when I found her.

She had her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, and she was looking at nothing.

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