Wrong Girl, Right Alpha novel · Chapter 3 of 48

Chapter 3: Brother

Dane climbs to her window begging to take it back, Ronan pulls his hand off her wrist, and Dane's last taunt about the scent makes the Alpha go still.

The tapping at my window started a little after ten that night.

I was sitting up in bed with a book I wasn't reading.

Tilly had gone back to the kitchen house at nine, after promising to bring me pancakes at dawn.

Ronan was somewhere downstairs, and I could feel exactly where.

The mark told me he was in the room under mine, standing still.

The tapping came again, three soft knocks on the glass.

I got up and pulled the curtain back.

Dane Hallett crouched on the porch roof in the dark with his hands pressed together.

He was still wearing the gray jacket.

I opened the window two inches and no more.

"You have no business here," I said.

"Nora, please. Two minutes. I climbed the trellis."

"You should have used the stairs and gotten caught."

He tried a smile, and it fell off his face.

"I made a mistake," he said. "A huge, stupid mistake. Mom said it would be easier if I did it quickly, and Vanessa said that if I didn't, everyone would say I was weak."

"You were weak."

"I know."

"You said it so people at the back could hear."

"I know. I'm sorry." His voice cracked. "I didn't know you'd go down like that. I didn't know it would nearly kill you."

I looked at his face, young and wet and handsome, and I felt very little.

Only a day ago that same face had been the whole world.

"What do you want, Dane?"

"I want to take it back. We're mates. You said it yourself. Tell my brother you've changed your mind, and the mark will go. I'll make it right, I swear."

"The mark doesn't work that way."

"It will if you ask."

He pushed the window up a hand's width and reached through.

His fingers closed around my wrist.

"Please, Nora. You belong with me."

I pulled, and he held on.

"Let go."

"You can't want him. He's old. He's been alone since I was a kid. He doesn't even like people."

"Let go of me."

The door of my room opened without a knock.

I felt Ronan before I saw him.

The mark went hot all down my neck and into my chest.

He crossed the floor in three strides and stood behind me, so close I could feel the heat of his body along my back.

He put his hand over Dane's wrist.

He didn't squeeze, and he didn't shout.

He pressed his thumb into the bones of Dane's hand until the fingers opened.

Then his own hand slid down and closed around mine instead.

It was big and rough, with a hard ridge of scar under the thumb.

He turned my wrist over, looking for a mark.

There wasn't one.

His thumb stayed on my pulse, and I forgot to breathe.

"Did he hurt you?" Ronan said, very quietly.

"No."

"Say it again if it's not true."

"It's true. I'm fine."

He let go slowly, one finger at a time.

My wrist stayed warm for a long time after.

Dane had scrambled back onto the porch roof, rubbing his hand.

"Ronan, I only wanted to talk to her."

"You knocked on a window at ten at night and took hold of her."

"I'm your brother."

"That's why you're still standing."

Ronan leaned out over the sill.

He was taller than Dane by a head, and I could see the muscle shift in his back.

"She isn't yours to ask for," he said. "She isn't mine either, and she isn't hers to explain. She rejected nothing. You did."

"She chose me," Dane said.

His voice had a tremor in it, and the old charm was gone.

"At the Rite. She walked right up to me in front of everyone. She came straight across that room like I was the only person in it."

"Get down off my house."

"Ask her whose scent she was following." Dane smiled, a mean, wobbling smile. "Go on, Ronan. Ask her what she smelled."

I frowned.

I didn't understand what he meant, and I was too tired to care.

But I felt Ronan stop breathing.

It was only for a moment, and nobody else would have noticed.

I was standing so close that my back pressed against his chest, and I felt every muscle in him go still.

"Off," Ronan said again.

He didn't raise his voice, and Dane went down the trellis fast.

I heard him land in the flowerbed, curse, and run.

Ronan stayed at the window until the sound was gone.

Then he stepped back from me.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have knocked."

"It's all right."

"It isn't. It's one of the terms."

He was already at the door.

"What did he mean?" I asked. "About the scent?"

Ronan stopped with his back to me.

For a second I thought he would answer.

"He was trying to start a fight," he said. "Go to sleep, Nora."

The door closed.

I stood with my hand around the wrist he had held, listening to his footsteps go down the stairs, slower than they should have been.

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