Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 2 of 48

Chapter 2: The Terms

Nora wakes in the Alpha's house, hears Ronan's terms for the mark, and is mothered by Celia, until the bond starts pulling her toward the door he walked out of.

I woke in a bed that wasn't mine, under a quilt that smelled of woodsmoke.

For one second I was happy, and then I remembered the hall.

The ceiling was dark timber.

Gray light came through the window, and the clock on the wall said a quarter past seven.

Ronan sat in a wooden chair by the door with his elbows on his knees.

He still wore the black shirt from the Rite, and there was dried blood on the cuff.

He looked like he hadn't slept at all.

"You're in my house," he said. "The Alpha's house, behind the pack hall. You've been out since midnight."

I put a hand to my neck.

The bite was under a thick square of gauze, and it throbbed in time with my pulse.

"Is it done?" I asked. "Am I?"

"You're alive. The rejection is gone, and your heart is steady."

"Because of you."

"Because of the mark."

He said it flatly.

I sat up slowly.

My head spun, and he was out of the chair before I could say so.

He put a glass of water in my hand and stepped back again, out of reach.

I noticed that, and I noticed that I didn't like it.

"There are terms," he said. "I want you to hear them before anyone else tells you what you are."

"Terms."

"A mark can be undone after a year. Until then you are Luna by pack law, and nobody in this pack touches you or speaks down to you without answering to me."

He held up one finger.

"You have your own room. It's the one you're in."

A second finger.

"I knock before I come in. Always."

A third.

"And you can leave any day you choose. You'd keep my protection, and I won't ask you why."

I looked at his hand, at the pale scar across the back of his forearm.

"A year," I said.

"A year."

"And then I'm free of you."

"Then you're free of me," he said.

Nothing in his face moved when he said it.

I wanted to ask him why he had waited so long to cross the hall.

I had watched his boots stand still while I begged.

The words were right there in my mouth, and I swallowed them, because he had just saved my life and it felt ungrateful.

The door banged open.

Tilly came through it at a run, red braid flying, and landed on the edge of the bed hard enough to bounce the water out of my glass.

"I got past three guards," she said. "Three. One of them is crying. Are you dead? You don't look dead."

"I'm not dead."

"I'm going to kill Dane Hallett with a spatula."

"Tilly."

"Slowly. In the kitchen. With witnesses."

For the first time since the hall, I laughed, and it hurt my neck.

Ronan watched her with something that was nearly a smile.

"Tilly Marsh can stay," he said. "She has the run of the house. Eat something, both of you."

He stopped at the door with his hand on the frame.

"Nora."

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry it happened in front of them."

He went out.

Tilly stared after him with her mouth open.

"He apologized," she whispered. "The Alpha. To you. He doesn't apologize to anyone."

A soft knock came a minute later.

Celia Hallett stood in the doorway with a tray in both hands.

She wore a gray cardigan and pearl earrings, and her eyes were red.

"Luna," she said. "Is it all right if I come in?"

It took me a second to realize she meant me.

"Please," I said.

She set the tray on the dresser.

There was soup, a roll, and a pot of tea, and under the tray was a neat stack of folded clothes.

"I had your things brought up from the kitchen house," she said. "I thought you'd want your own sweaters. The Luna's rooms haven't been aired since I left them, so I won't hurry you."

She sat on the end of the bed and took my hand.

"I'm so sorry about my son," she said. "He isn't himself. He was frightened of the Rite, and he said a cruel thing, and now he can't eat. I'm only asking you to be gentle with him."

"I'm not going to be anything to him," I said.

"Of course not." She patted my hand. "Of course. You've been through enough."

Her hand was dry and warm and kind.

She stood, smoothed the quilt, and told Tilly to make sure I finished the soup.

Then she was gone, and I ate every bite, and Tilly ate the roll.

We were laughing about something when the front door closed downstairs.

Ronan's boots crossed the porch and went down the path toward the hall.

The moment he was out of sight, the mark on my neck began to burn.

It wasn't pain.

It was a pull, low and steady, toward the door.

My wolf, silent for a full day, turned over once inside me, and she faced the door he had gone through.

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