Page 11 of Sold Rejected Mate
It’s Lachlan’s voice, his hand around a glass of water. I take it, the water roiling in the cup as I try to calm myself down, taking careful breaths until I can sip it. The water is soothing and painful at once, but I find myself taking another sip, and another, until it’s gone.
“Alright,” Xeran Sorel says, standing at the end of the hospital bed, his arms crossed. I know it’s him from his scent, from the way he stands, from the fact that he looks exactly like an adult version of his teenage self. “Can you tell us what you were doing in that motel?”
I blink at him, wondering how I can condense the events of the past ten years into a simple explanation. How do I explain the depression I fell into after high school? The trouble I had finding and keeping jobs?
The shitty boyfriends I ended up with again and again, despite the fact that my body wanted nobody but the other man in this room?
Lachlan stands against the other wall, watching me carefully.
I open my mouth, try to talk, but nothing comes out but a strangled, croaking sound.
After Lachlan hands me another glass, and I drink it—a little slower this time—Xeran tries again.
“Why don’t you just start with your name?”
I feel my brow wrinkling, the confusion that must show on my face. We went to high school together. Why is he asking me for my name?
Then again, maybe he’s just trying to make sureIknow.
But when I open my mouth and try to speak again, I simply can’t. Not through the pain in my throat. Not with how dry it is, scraping like a husk in my neck.
“She can’t talk,” Lachlan says, and I almost laugh, want to sayno shit. But then he goes on, appealing to Xeran. “If she can’t talk, she can’t plead her case. Which means you can’t make any decisions about it yet.”
Xeran gives his friend a careful look, assessing him, but Lachlan stands firm beneath it.
“You can’t just dole out punishments to a stranger, to a member of some other pack,” Lachlan argues, swinging his arm out toward me.
And that’s when it hits me—he doesn’t recognize me. Neither of them recognizes me.
How is that possible? Surely, even if I don’t look exactly like I did in high school, they would know me from my scent? And what does he mean, the member of some other pack?
I haven’t been back to Silverville in years, but surely I wouldn’t have lost my scent that quickly. It’s not like I’ve been that far away.
Even though it doesn’t make sense, Xeran sighs, his eyes cutting to me once more, still not even an ounce of recognition in them.
They really don’t know who I am.
After everything—after Lachlan Cambias breaking my heart and sending me into the spiral of events that would ruin my life—he doesn’t even know who I am.
The man I once thought was mymatedoesn’t even recognize my face.
Chapter 6 - Lachlan
When we first get the green-haired woman to the hospital, Xeran tells the nurses it’s not urgent, that the woman in my arms can wait.
I heft her up, telling the nurses matter-of-factly that we just rescued her from a fire. Not a lie, but Xeran glares at me, anyway, clearly wanting me to downplay her needs.
“Just because she doesn’t have visible injuries,” I say, following the nurse back as she attempts to find a solution to please both of us, “doesn’t mean she’s not hurt.”
“Pretty sure she probably healed anything wrong using her magic,” Xeran retorts, his voice only barely audible, his gaze cutting to the nurse as she returns and instructs me to bring the woman to a back room.
“This is where you can put her,” the nurse says, gesturing to what looks like a hastily put-together cot. “Should be private, and I ran a call light through here so we won’t forget she’s here.”
I thank her and set the woman down on the cot, feeling strangely empty without the weight of her in my arms. Something inside me urges me to stay by her side.
And so I do, looking down at her until the nurse finishes her examination and says that, at least externally, the woman looks okay.
“We’ll need to do an examination when she comes to,” the nurse says, looping her stethoscope around her neck. “Keep an eye on her. But there’s nothing worrying right now.”
