The Rejected Mate novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Study
Willa kisses her fated mate in front of the Alpha and her family and gives him her first night, and at dawn her sister is at his door saying she carries his pup.
Willa Ashdown kissed the heir of Ironwood in front of the Alpha, the Luna, both her parents and her little sister.
Nobody in the Alpha's study looked surprised.
The whole pack had watched the bond catch between them across the hall the night before.
Caelen Braithwaite had come home from two years at Alpha School, and he had been standing under the lanterns with a cup in his hand.
Willa had looked up from her plate and felt the floor go out from under her.
Her wolf had thrown herself against Willa's ribs and howled, and across the room Caelen's head had turned.
Now it was morning, and Alpha Rufus had called the families in to say what everyone already knew.
He sat behind his big desk with his silver-shot beard and his easy, generous smile.
"Fated mates," he said. "The first in this house in three generations. My son was lucky to come home to it."
"My son was lucky to come home at all," said Luna Odette from her chair. "Two years, and one weekend."
"For Grandfather's funeral," Caelen said. "And I was sick for three days of it. I hardly saw the place."
"I made his tea myself," Rufus said. "He wouldn't let anyone else near him. Stubborn boy."
Willa barely heard them.
Her father, the Beta, stood tall and pleased by the bookshelves, and her mother was already dabbing her eyes.
Dinah sat in the window seat with a mug of ginger tea and her knees pulled up, looking pale and happy.
Her sister caught her eye and mouthed, go on.
Willa crossed the carpet.
Caelen met her halfway, and she took his face in both hands and kissed him.
He tasted like coffee and rain.
The bond roared up through her chest, and his hands closed on her waist.
"Mate," he said against her mouth, rough and low.
"Not here. We need to go somewhere quiet and talk."
Willa would have followed him into the river.
His room was at the end of the east hall, with a wide bed and a window full of pine.
He shut the door and turned, and she was already on him again, her fingers in his shirt.
"Willa," he said. "Wait. Before this, there's something I have to..."
She kissed the rest of it out of his mouth.
She had imagined this moment all her life, and her wolf would not be put off one minute more.
He walked her backward until her knees hit the bed, and his mouth went to her throat.
She dragged his shirt over his head and ran her hands over the hard ridges of his stomach and chest.
His heart hammered under her palm, as fast as hers.
"Arms up," he said, and she lifted them.
The cotton went over her head, and he looked at her for one long breath before he put his mouth on her breast.
She gasped and arched into him.
He licked and sucked her nipple until it ached, then moved to the other one, and her hands knotted in his hair.
She had never been touched like this by anyone.
Everything below her stomach went tight and wet and desperate.
He lowered her onto the mattress and pinned her wrists above her head with one big hand.
His other hand slid down between her legs, and he stopped.
"You're so tight," he said, low. "Have you done this before?"
"No."
"Tell me the truth, Willa. Did you keep this for me?"
"Only you," she said. "It's always been only you."
Something in his face gave way, and he kissed her so hard her head spun.
"Then I'll make it good," he said.
He slid down the bed and pushed her thighs apart.
The first stroke of his tongue over her clit made her cry out.
He licked her slowly, then fast, then sucked until her hips lifted off the sheet, and when he slid one thick finger inside her she was so wet it was embarrassing.
He added a second finger and curled them, and she felt the tightness in her belly pull taut.
"Let go," he said into her skin. "I want to feel it."
She came with a shout, shaking, her thighs clamped around his head.
He did not let her rest.
He climbed over her, shoving off the last of his clothes, and she saw the full length of his cock, thick and flushed and already wet at the tip.
Her wolf purred at the sight.
"Look at me," he said, and she did.
He pushed into her slowly, one aching inch at a time.
It burned and stretched, and she dug her nails into his shoulders.
"Breathe," he said. "I've got you."
He stopped when he was all the way in, shaking with the effort of holding still, and she felt every pulse of him inside her.
Then the burn turned into something deeper, and she rocked her hips up to him.
He groaned and began to move.
Long strokes at first, steady and deep, his eyes never leaving hers.
Then harder, as the sounds she made climbed in her throat.
He hooked her knee over his arm, and the angle hit something inside her that made her scream into his shoulder.
"Caelen. Caelen, there."
"There," he agreed, and drove into her again and again until the bed hit the wall.
She came the second time with his name in her mouth, clenching around him, and he swore and buried his face in her neck.
He followed her over with a long, rough groan, hot and deep inside her.
For a while neither of them said anything.
The pines moved outside the window.
He pulled her against his chest and kissed her temple, and she thought she might never feel anything so safe again.
"Willa," he said at last. His voice was strange. "I have to tell you something, and I need you to listen to all of it."
"Tell me later."
"It can't wait."
She turned her face up to him, smiling, and a knock came at the door.
It was soft and careful.
"Caelen?"
Willa knew that voice better than her own.
"I'm sorry," Dinah said through the wood. "I know it's the worst possible time. I came before your father could."
Caelen had gone completely still.
Willa pulled the sheet up over her chest and opened her mouth to say, one minute, Dinah.
Her sister opened the door herself.
She stood there in her robe, one hand flat over her stomach, her big blue eyes already full of tears.
"I'm so sorry, Willa," Dinah said. "Caelen, I'm carrying your pup."
Willa waited for him to say that it was a lie.
He said nothing.
He sat there with the sheet around his hips and the color draining out of his face, and he looked at Dinah.
"Caelen," Willa said.
He turned his head, and his eyes were stricken.
"Willa, I..."
"Is it true?"
His mouth moved, and no sound came out.
Her wolf went silent inside her.
Willa got out of the bed with the sheet wrapped around her and found her dress on the floor.
She pulled it over her head with steady hands.
"Willa, please. Let me say it."
"You've had all night to say it," she said.
So she walked out.
She walked past her sister without looking at her and down the east hall, and she did not run.
At the bottom of the stairs stood Alpha Rufus, already dressed, with his arms folded and a cup of tea in his hand.
He did not look surprised at all.
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