Page 131 of Rejecting his Mate

Tessa rushes to Abel, wrapping her arms around his naked body and holding him as if she is terrified to let him go.

Sawyer makes a beeline for Roux, getting into her space even as she steps back.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, his fingers trailing over the sticky redness on the side of her face.

I watch as she flinches away from his touch, but there’s a flash of something in her eyes—heat.

“You’re bleeding too.” The words come out breathy and hoarse.

He glances down, his hand pressing to the cut on his side. “You sound worried,” he accuses.

She lifts her chin a little. “I’m not.”

He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek, his brows raised. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

“The fire’s burning pretty good,” Wyatt says,breaking through the awkwardness as Sawyer steps away from her. “We need to put it out.”

“It’s an illusion,” Hester tells him. “It’ll fade when the witch who created it is too far to maintain it.”

Wyatt turns and looks at the burning inferno, and my eyes slide toward it too. That’s a hell of a spell. It looks so real. I can hear the crackling of the wood as it burns, but now that she mentions it, I can’t smell it.

“It’s not real?” Wyatt sounds skeptical.

“Magic has limits,” Hester says, “but it can do many things, including tricking both mind and eyes. Don’t believe everything you see.”

Wyatt says. “I’m gonna grab us all some pants.”

“Some of us don’t mind standing here with our dicks out,” Sawyer jokes, and I notice he glances at Roux as if gauging her response. Her expression is a mask of indifference, but I swear I see a slight quirk of her lips.

Wyatt returns a moment later with a stack of sweatpants. He hands them around, and the guys pull them on.

Cade has to let go of me to do it, but he watches me carefully as if he thinks I might bolt at any moment. I don’t move, though. Even if I go after my mom, she’s not going to listen to me. She doesn’t know who I am.

The fire starts to die down, just as Hester said it would. The cabin I thought was on fire is unscathed as the flames disappear.

“We need to fix the wards,” Hester says. “Are you all up to try?”

“Yeah,” Roux agrees.

“Whatever it takes,” Apryle adds.

“I want to help,” Tessa finishes.

I don’t answer. I let my gaze go out over the grounds, most of which are swallowed by darkness. My thoughts are jumbled and racing, nothing making sense.

A memory flashes back through my mind of my mom and me in my bedroom before we were running. She tucks me in under the covers, telling me she loves me. That’s the mom I remember. That’s the mom I want to get back.

The Order stole her from me. They took thirteen years of our history from us. All that time, I could have had my mother at my side, teaching me, loving me.

I turn back to Hester, fire blazing through my veins. “I want to help.”

“It should be an easy spell with the five of us.”

“I don’t mean with the spell,” I say. “I mean with—whatever it is. I want to save those tau wolves from whatever shit the Order is doing to them. I want to find a way to bring back the ones they took, including my mom, and I want to destroy the hunters. Every last fucking one of them.”

“Me too,” Roux says. “It’s not right.”

Tessa glances up at Abel, who has her pressed against his side, his arm around her. He smiles at her, and I’m not sure what passes between them, but when Tessa meets Hester’s gaze, her expression is resolute.

---