THE ALPHA CEO'S REJECTED MATE

Chapter Two

Sloane's POV

I grew up around wolves. I knew exactly what a voice in my head meant.

“Are you…” I pressed a hand flat against my chest. “Are you my wolf?”

I am.

My eyes stung so fast it was embarrassing. “Then where have you been? Six years I waited! Six years of ceremonies and elders sniffing me like a carton of milk. Why have you been silent?”

I will tell you, she said. With time.

“That’s not an answer.”

It’s the only one you’re getting tonight. Warmth spread through my ribs, steady, like a hand on my back. I am yours, little one. The Moon Goddess did not forget you. That’s all you need to know right now.

“That’s so unfair.”

And yet, said my wolf, sounding extremely pleased with herself, you were magnificent in there.

I laughed again, wetter this time. Twenty-four years of silence, and her first words to me were basically a review.

I’d like to say the good mood lasted.

My room was over a garage. When I got back, my landlord was standing in the driveway with a flashlight, and his wife was standing behind him with her arms folded.

“Sloane,” Dennis said, looking at the gravel. “The Luna called.”

“Already?” That was quick.

“I need the room back by morning. I’m sorry.”

“I paid rent on the first.”

“I’ll refund it.”

“Dennis.” His wife’s voice was sharp. “Look the girl in the face.”

He tried. He got as far as my chin.

“It’s nothing personal,” he said.

“It’s a little personal.”

“He’s the Alpha, Sloane. What do you want me to do?”

I wanted him to fix my sink for free again, honestly. But I just nodded, because I understood. When the Alpha is embarrassed, the whole pack agrees to feel it with him. A dormant girl had accepted his rejection so fast he’d hardly finished the sentence. He wasn’t going to forgive that, and everyone knew it, so they were already lining up behind him.

My phone buzzed on the stairs. My manager.

Don’t come in Monday. HR will mail your final check.

Then another, from a number I didn’t know.

Heard you humiliated the Alpha. Hope you enjoy being nobody. xo Karen

“She put an xo,” I said to the empty stairwell. “Who does that?”

Someone who’s going to have a very long night, said my wolf darkly, if she keeps this up.

“Can you do something about her hair?”

I’m working on it.

I packed in twenty minutes. That’s the sad part of a life like mine. It fits in one duffel bag. Three pairs of jeans, work shoes, my mother’s old blue cardigan, a stack of cracked paperbacks, and the framed photo of her I never hung up because I didn’t want to explain it. I changed out of the borrowed dress and left it folded on the bed. It wasn’t mine to take.

You could burn it, my wolf offered.

It’s borrowed.

Burn it a little.

I called Tessa from the kitchen floor.

Tessa Brandt had been my best friend since freshman orientation. She’d moved to Cascadia Heights two years ago for a nursing job and a roommate who didn’t snore. She was also the only person on earth who knew I got weird around the full moon, and she’d never once asked why.

She picked up on the second ring. “It’s one in the morning. Are you dead?”

“No. Can I have your couch?”

A long silence. A rustle of sheets.

“I’ll make up the couch. Tell me everything when you get here.” A pause. “Do you need me to key someone’s car?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m serious. I know people.”

“You know nurses.”

“Nurses are terrifying, Sloane. We hold all the sharp objects.”

I laughed so hard I had to put my head on my knees.

The first bus to Cascadia Heights left at 5:40.

I sat on the bench at the empty stop outside town with the duffel at my feet, watching the sky go from black to gray. I’d lived here since I was seventeen. I waited for some kind of feeling. Grief, maybe. Nostalgia.

I felt cold, and a little hungry.

We could buy a muffin, said my wolf.

We have nine dollars.

A small muffin.

“Hi,” said a voice beside me.

I nearly came out of my skin.

A man was leaning against the side of the bus shelter. I hadn’t heard him walk up. I hadn’t smelled him either, which was strange, because I could smell everything now. The pine, the wet road, the sugar from the bakery two streets over. Nothing from him. Not a trace.

He was tall, maybe thirty-three, in a wool coat, with dark hair that needed a trim and pale gray eyes so light they looked almost colorless in the dawn. He had a crooked grin that came with trouble attached.

“I’m not buying anything,” I said.

“Good. I’m not selling.” The grin widened. “Early bus.”

“Are you stalking me?”

“Observing. From a respectful distance.” He tilted his head. “Last night was quite a performance.”

Of course. A Redwater wolf. “If you’re here to tell me what a disgrace I am, you’re late. The Luna already did it. In person. With pearls.”

“I’m not from Redwater.”

That surprised me enough to look at him properly. And I was so tired. Tired of men who looked at me like a puzzle somebody had left out in the rain. Heat rolled through my chest, quick and sudden, and my wolf came up behind my eyes like a spotlight clicking on.

His smile fell off his face.

He took a step back. For the first time all morning, he looked rattled.

“Your eyes,” he said quietly.

I turned and caught my reflection in the bus shelter glass.

Brown. They’d always been brown. But for half a second, something pale and bright had flashed behind my pupils, like a camera going off. It was gone before I could name it.

“What about my eyes?” I said, sharper than I meant to.

He was watching me like I’d walked out of a story. Not fear. Something closer to wonder, with a sadness underneath I couldn’t read.

“Silverlune,” he said.

“What?”

The bus pulled in with a hiss of brakes, and the doors folded open.

He reached into his coat, took out a plain white card, and pressed it into my hand before I could argue. A phone number, and one word in black ink. Ronan.

“If you ever need an Alpha who isn’t an i***t,” he said, “call me.”

Then he stepped back into the dark and was gone.

I stood there with the card in my hand and a whole bus waiting.

Little one, said my wolf, very carefully. Get on the bus.

Who was that? He didn’t smell like anything.

That’s on purpose. It’s a scent mask, and a good one. Her voice went flat. People wear those when they don’t want anyone knowing which pack they belong to.

Why would he hide that?

Later. Get on the bus