Page 96 of Rejecting his Mate

With our combined force, it doesn’t feel difficult, and my head doesn’t feel as if it is going to explode with the weight of everything pushing against it. I find the wound, and I slowly knit the skin back together.

After a moment, Hester pulls her magic back, and mine winks out. When I open my eyes and peer down at Cade’s shoulder, his skin is still stained with blood, but I don’t see any injury.

“You good?” Sawyer asks, stepping forward slightly to peer at the wound.

Cade glances down, his fingers trailing over the site where he was shot. “I’m…Great.”

He sits up and opens his arms to me. I go to him without question, needing to touch him, to know that he is okay. Not caring that we are not alone, he wraps himself around me, his strong grip keeping me in place. I breathe him in, feeling as if he’s the one who healed me and not the other way around.

“I want to learn more,” I tell Hester, not letting go of Cade as I do. “I need to know how to do everything.”

She smiles. “You will, in time. But Tessa is right. Your body has been through a lot today. Let me assign you a cabin each so you can get some rest. Tomorrow we can learn.”

I open my mouth to protest, but Tessa speaks first. “This isn’t a sprint, Halle. I’ve been here for two months, and despite training every day, I have barely scratched the surface of what I am capable of doing.”

Squeezing my hand, Cade brings my attention to him. “They’re right. We haven’t eaten or slept properly from the moment we went on the run. You need to rest. And even if you don’t, I sure as fuck do.”

I don’t want to give in and step back, but Cade is right. My body feels exhausted. I’m not entirely sure I have the energy to move, but I also don’t want to show weakness.

I let Jackson pull me up, and Cade follows me to his feet. Hester leads into the kitchen, grabbing a load of keys from a board hanging near the back door.

The back of the house opens out, with cabins spread as far as the eye can see. There is a lake at the bottom, surrounded by grass, sitting against a backdrop of mountains and trees. I can feel the magic thrumming around us, protecting us from outsiders.

As we walk between the cabins, I notice Sawyer becoming agitated. His eyes are darting around, and his head is too. He keeps sucking in air through his nose, and I’m wondering what he’s scenting.

Hunters?

Dalton?

I drop back slightly, grabbing his arm and making him focus on me. “What’s wrong?”

I’ve never seen him look so serious, but as he locks eyes with me, I see fear play within them. “I don’t know. I feel kind of weird. My skin is prickling, and my legs feel weak as fuck.” He glances around, trying to work out what has him so unsettled.

Cade steps up to his brother, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, focus on me.”

Sawyer’s pupils are blown wide, and the way he keeps scrunching his face up tells me he’s suffering, though I can’t tell if he’s in pain or not.

“Chills.” Sawyer shakes himself as if clearing the shivers from his spine. “I feel like I’m coming out of my skin.” My own fear starts to grow. This is not the Sawyer I know.

He suddenly drops, falling forward on his hands and knees on the gravel path. I move to his side before I think about what I’m doing.

Through our pack link, I sense his fear, but something else, something I can’t quite place.

“What’s happening?”

Hester touches his shoulder and then retracts her hand as if he’s burned her. Her eyes snap to the cabin across from us.

“Shit,” she gasps.

“What?” I demand, my fear getting the better of me, but Sawyer’s body twitches, and his back bows, arching like an angry cat. He drags his shirt off as he jerks and cries out. My heart squeezes so tight. I’ve seen him shift before, and there was never pain like this for him, and yet as his bones break and snap, I know this is different. This is happening against Sawyer’s will. His wolf is forcing himself free, and Sawyer is fighting him every step of the way.

I watch, horrified, as his fingers dig into the gravel beneath him, and he rocks back and forth on all fours. “No.” The word is forced out, sounding strangled, but the change keeps happening. “No…” He repeats, and I hear the desperation in his tone.

“Sawyer…” I whisper his name, my eyes nearly as wide as his as I watch his animal take control.

Cade pulls me back, shoving me behind him as his brother shifts into a huge white wolf, the clothes he didn’t manage to remove shredding along the way.

The air feels charged with the small amount of magic used to bring about a shift. I’ve never sensed it before, but this time I do.

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