Unmarked: My Mate Refused, The Alpha King Didn't novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Three Orders
A royal doctor orders Elsie onto the table, tells her an unmarked wife burns, and her husband and his pregnant lover come to collect her; she stays, and the Alpha King walks in and says he never refused.
The royal doctor did not say hello.
"Take off everything below the waist. Lie flat. Let your knees fall open."
He said it.
I sat on the edge of a cot in the infirmary at Kingsmoor, still in the green dress I had collapsed in.
Ten minutes earlier I had been standing at the Midsummer Moot feast with a cup in my hand.
Then I was on the floor of the great hall with two hundred wolves looking down at me.
My skin felt like it was on fire, and it had felt that way for eight months.
"I'm a married woman," I whispered.
"I know what you are," the doctor said. "You're an unmarked wife. That's exactly why you're burning."
My legs were shaking too hard to argue, so I did what he said.
His hands were cold and fast and did not linger.
He pressed under my ribs, lifted my wrist, and laid his palm flat on my stomach, tracking the rapid flutter of my pulse.
"Who refused you?" he asked.
"My husband."
"When?"
"On our wedding night. At the Moon Stone, in front of the whole Stanmore hall."
I said it.
"He knelt there and said he would not take me as a mate," I said. "He kept me as a wife anyway."
The doctor's mouth went flat.
"Then he left your bond hanging for eight months, and the fever has been building the whole time."
"Can he fix it?"
"Only a mate's mark ends it. A willing partner can bank the fever a night at a time, but nothing else stops it."
He pulled the sheet up to my waist and finally looked me in the eye.
"You have three nights, Lady Stanmore."
"And then?"
"Then your heart stops."
I stared at the ceiling.
Eight months of being the wife nobody touched, and this was where it ended, on a cot with a stranger's cold fingers on my wrist.
"I'll write the Moot's burn notice," the doctor said, and went out.
I had my skirt back on and my hands pressed flat on my knees when the door opened again.
Jasper came in first.
He wore his good blue coat, and he smiled at me.
Behind him came Lavinia, four months along and glowing, with a small flask in both hands.
My father, Eldon Marrow, Alpha of Cold Fen, came last and stood against the wall with his arms folded.
"Elsie, you poor thing," Lavinia said, and she pressed the flask into my fingers. "Fever tea. I had the Stanmore cook brew it before we left, because you looked so flushed on the road."
It smelled of honey and something green.
My throat was raw, so I drank half of it while she watched.
"There," Jasper said. "See? It's only a fever."
He kept his voice low and kind, the voice he used for guests.
"Come home, Elsie. Don't make a scene in front of the King's own physician. Our healer will see to you."
"The doctor says I have three nights," I said.
"Doctors say that to frighten women into staying."
"He said only a mate's mark ends it."
Jasper's smile did not move.
"Then we'll manage it quietly, like any married couple."
"You refused me at the Stone," I said. "In front of two hundred people."
"And I regret it terribly. That's what I'm here to say."
Lavinia put a hand on her stomach and looked at the floor.
My father pushed off the wall.
"Go home with your husband, Elspeth. Quietly. You'll not shame this family at the Moot."
I looked at the three of them.
My husband, the woman carrying his child, and the man who had given me to him.
Not one of them had asked if I was afraid.
"Which of you is going to touch me when the fever peaks tonight?" I asked.
Nobody answered.
Jasper straightened his cuff.
My father looked at the window.
Lavinia's eyes were wet and kind, and she said nothing at all.
"That's what I thought," I said.
I set the flask on the floor.
"I'm staying here."
"Elsie," Jasper said, and now there was an edge in it.
"You can carry my trunk home. You're not carrying me."
So I stayed on the table.
The door opened a third time, and the room went quiet.
The man who came through it was tall enough to duck the lintel.
He had short black hair, a dark coat, and amber eyes that went straight to me and nowhere else.
I knew him by the crown pin on his collar, and by one other thing.
I had seen him once before, eight months ago, leaving my wedding early.
The Moon Stone had flashed gold for a single breath as he passed it.
The Keeper had covered it with her sleeve, and Jasper had said it was only the candles.
Alpha King Thane Kinross looked at my husband, then at the flask on the floor, then at me.
"Which one of you is Stanmore?"
"I am, Majesty," Jasper said, and bowed.
"The husband who refused her at the Stone."
"A misunderstanding, Majesty, that I'm here to put right."
The King did not answer him.
He crossed the room and stopped beside the cot.
Up close, the fever in me jumped like a struck match, and every hair on my arms stood up.
He bent down until only I could hear.
"I didn't refuse you," he said.
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