Rejected at the Altar, Wanted by Three Alphas

Chapter 3: Rules Written in Ink

NADIA

The Alpha King of the Northern Wolf Kingdom took off his reading glasses, folded them very carefully and put them down on his desk.

"Say that again," he said.

"You heard me."

"I want to hear it twice. It's not every day a captain proposes to her king by shouting."

"I'm not shouting."

"You're a little bit shouting."

I took a breath and made my voice calm. "It's a deal, not a proposal. Under pack law, the moment I set foot in Duskfall, Brennan can claim me back under his command as a rejected mate of his pack. His father can make my life hell, and the Council would call it tradition. But a royal fiancée answers only to the crown. Nobody in Duskfall could touch me. Nobody could question me."

"And what do I get?"

"The Council off your back." I folded my arms. "You've got four months until the Winter Moon, and Lady Corinne has already ordered her daughter's wedding dress. Everyone at court knows it."

His jaw moved. "That dress is a rumour."

"It's silk. It has pearls on the sleeves. Her dressmaker drinks at the Trackers' bar."

For a long moment he only looked at me with those black eyes, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking; I never could. Then he sat down behind his desk and pulled a blank sheet of paper toward him.

"If we do this," he said, "we do it on paper. Signed."

"Fine."

"Eight weeks. The length of your time in Duskfall. At the end, we announce that we've decided to part as friends."

"Fine."

"And rules." He picked up a pen. "Rule one. No feelings."

I snorted. "That won't be hard."

"Rule two. No lies to each other. Whatever we tell the world, in private we tell each other the truth."

That one I hadn't expected. "Fine. Rule three?"

He looked up at me, and for one strange second something moved behind his eyes, too fast to catch.

"Rule three," he said, very flat. "We don't sleep together."

My face went hot, and I hated it. "Obviously."

"I'm writing it down anyway."

"Write whatever you want, Your Majesty. I'd rather sleep with a rogue."

"That," he said, still writing, "has been noted."

Then it was my turn. I made him write down every one of my terms for Duskfall, and I watched him do it, word by word.

I would give Portia my blood once a week, for eight weeks, no more. It would happen in a clinic that I controlled, run by Tamsin, so she could study the poison and find a real cure. Brennan would give my Trackers full access to the Cage League's books, offices and buildings. And Brennan would stand in the white chapel on the hill, in front of the whole pack, and tell them the real reason he rejected me.

Evander stopped writing. "You want a public confession."

"I want the truth, in the same place he told the lie."

"He'll refuse."

"Then Portia dies," I said, "and that's his choice, not mine."

He looked at me for a long time. Then he wrote it down.

"And the boy?" he asked quietly.

That was the only question that could make my hands go cold.

"Milo comes with me. I'm not leaving him alone in Highmark with whoever told Delphine my secret. Tamsin will say he's hers, and I'll keep him sprayed every morning."

"And if the spray fails? If Brennan smells his son?"

"It won't fail."

"Nadia."

"It won't," I said again, louder.

He didn't argue. He only wrote one more line, in his small sharp handwriting: Any wolf who touches the child answers to the King. Then he signed his name at the bottom and turned the paper around to face me.

I signed under him. Our names sat together on the page, his neat and black, mine shaky and blue.

Evander opened a drawer, took out a small black box and put it on top of the contract.

"What's that?"

"Your ring."

"You had a ring in your desk?"

"I had a ring in my desk," he said, and he didn't explain.

I opened the box. The diamond inside was huge, clear as ice, in a simple silver band. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and it was a lie.

"It's too big," I said.

"It needs to be seen from the back of a chapel."

I slid it onto my finger. It fit perfectly, and neither of us said anything about that.

"One more thing," he said as I reached the door. "In public, I'll need to touch you. Hold your hand. Maybe more."

"How much more?"

"Whatever makes the Council believe it."

"Then you'd better be a good actor, Your Majesty."

"I was a surgeon for six years," he said quietly. "I've smiled at frightened people while their hearts stopped under my hands. I can pretend to love a captain."

It was the first time he'd ever spoken about his life before the crown, and I didn't know what to say, so I left.

"So let me get this right," Tamsin said that evening, counting on her fingers. "You're engaged to the King, I'm Milo's mother, and we're all moving to the town that threw a rose at your head."

"For eight weeks."

"Do I get a ring too?"

"You get a two-year-old who bites."

"Perfect," she said. "I've always wanted a son who bites."

Then I called Brennan, with Tamsin sitting on the bed beside me, chewing her nails. He picked up on the first ring.

"Nadia?" His voice was rough, like he hadn't slept. "Nadia, please tell me you've changed your mind..."

"I'll come," I said. "But you'll do exactly what I say."

I read him every term. Once a week. Eight weeks. My clinic. My rules. Full access to the league's books. And the chapel.

When I got to the chapel, the line went silent for so long that I thought he'd hung up.

"In front of everyone," he said finally.

"In front of everyone. In the same spot."

"Nadia, the whole pack..."

"The whole pack laughed while I lay on that floor, Brennan. Somebody threw a rose at my head. Now they can listen."

I heard him breathe hard. I heard a glass go down on a table.

"And one more thing," I said. "I won't be coming alone. I'll be coming with my fiancé."

"Your..." He stopped. "Who?"

"Evander Blackwood."

The silence this time was different. It was the silence of a man who'd been punched in the stomach.

"The King," Brennan said slowly. "You're engaged to the Alpha King."

"Do you agree to my terms or not?"

Another long silence. Then, very quietly, "Yes. All of them."

"Good." I was about to hang up.

"Nadia, wait." His voice changed. "Before I drove to Highmark, your aunt said something to me. She said you'd make demands like this. She said I should say yes to every single one, no matter what."

The room went cold around me. Tamsin stopped chewing her nails.

"Why would she say that?" I whispered.

"I don't know. But she told me to give you a message, word for word, if you ever said yes." He swallowed. "She said, tell Nadia her room is ready. She said, tell her I've been waiting fifteen years for her to come home."

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years ago was the night of the fire, the night my parents died and Aunt Delphine carried me out of the smoke.