Page 12 of Sold Rejected Mate
The moment it’s clear she’s not going to die, Xeran calls me into the hallway.
“This hospital is already full,” he says, swinging his arm out to gesture at the doctors and nurses moving by and around us. “Busy. We should just take her back to the pack hall and finish this—”
“You have to give her a chance,” I cut in. “You’re not just going to punish her without a trial, are you?”
“Trial? You saw the same thing I did. That girl in the middle of that scorch mark, the magic—”
“But maybe it wasn’t her.” Something deep inside me tells me that it wasn’t her. My instinct. My wolf.
“Why are you so torn up about this?” Xeran asks, throwing his hands up. “You’re acting like she’s yourblood. Are you sure you don’t know her? From a bordering pack or something?”
I shake my head, glance at the doorway to the room. “I can’t explain it, I just—” I stop myself, take a deep breath, and return my gaze to Xeran. “I think you should hear what she has to say.”
The sight of her in that hospital bed, unconscious, her breathing shallow, did something to me. Her resting face was driving me crazy, something in the curve of her cupid’s bow, in the set of her eyes, telling me maybe I did know her. An element of her so familiar to me, it very well could have been myself.
I started to think about asking my parents about any long-lost relatives. But that delicate cut to her jaw, the slight upturn at the top of her nose, it’s not like any of us. The Cambiases have strong Roman noses, something Aurela has lamented from the time she was old enough to start hating her features. Even as my father told her those were ancient features, ones that survived centuries to arrive on her face.
Xeran takes a breath like he’s going to respond, but there’s a noise from the room—like coughing,choking—and my body moves before I can think about it.
When we enter, she’s coughing, hacking, trying to sit up and get air. I go to the sink and run water into a paper cup, pushing it into her hand, heart thrumming with anxiety at the sight of her pain. I force myself to back up, to stay on the other side of the room from her before I do something ridiculous, like scooping her into my arms.
The second her episode is over, Xeran begins his questioning. “Can you tell us what you were doing in that motel?”
She sits small in her hospital bed, staring up at him, eyes wide, her hair a dull, sooty green, the paper cup slightly crumpled in her hand. When she opens her mouth, trying to talk, nothing comes out but a single, twisted syllable.
After she drinks a second cup of water, Xeran tries again. “Why don’t you just start with your name?”
Her brow wrinkles immediately, those dark eyebrows coming down, and I wonder if she has some sort of brain damage or memory loss. If she did, that would definitely be in her favor. It would explain how she could have accidentally started the fire.
When she opens her mouth and tries to talk again, she croaks again.
“She can’t talk,” I say, glancing at my friend. “If she can’t talk, she can’t plead her case. Which means you can’t make any decisions about it yet.”
Xeran gives me a careful, stubborn look. I give it right back to him, until I think he might be caving. He might be the alpha supreme, but we’ve been friends since the summer Imoved to this town. I know him well enough to know when I’m wearing him down.
“You can’t just dole out punishments to a stranger, to a member of some other pack,” I go on, gesturing to her. She has a strange, distant expression on her face, and I wonder if she’s going to pass out again, but I can’t focus on that right now. I have to focus on pleading her case.
“Don’t know that it’s going to make a lot of difference,” Xeran says. “You know what the official pack stance is on magic. I can’t go around making exceptions.”
I think of Phina, of Nora, the magic they used, the powers they displayed that day on the ridge. They saved our lives, sure—but Xeran made an exception then. And when I saw Phina in his house that day, she had that sharp, sweet scent of magic around her. Like she’d been using it while living with him.
“Really?” I push, finding his eyes, saying it without saying it. Bringing up that night, and the fact that he swore us all to secrecy.
I can keep his secret for him. I’m a good friend. But friendship is a two-way street. I don’t know why I feel such a strong pull to the green-haired woman, but I do. And I’m not going to stand down until I know he’ll spare her, at least for now.
Because the official pack policy, the rule Xeran’s father put into place before his death nearly ten years ago, is not lenient on magic. After the catastrophe that caused the daemon fires to start, Holden Sorel declared a new, severecapitalpunishment for the use of magic. Especially destructive magic.
Xeran’s jaw ticks. I know he doesn’t want to follow through on his threat any more than I want him to. Since becoming the alpha supreme, he’s had the pressure of dealingwith his brothers and winning back the favor of our packmates, who weren’t all thrilled with him for his decade-long absence.
The execution of a fire-starting stranger might be an easy way to win back some of that favor.
Normally, I wouldn’t stand in the way of that, especially if it was a man or another alpha who was sitting in the center of that scorch mark. But there’s something about this omega, about Green Hair, that strikes a chord within me. I can’t ignore that.
“When she can talk, she’ll have to tell us what happened,” Xeran finally says, relenting.
I study his face for a moment, then feel some of the tension leave my body. He’s right—we’ll need answers. But this still feels like a win. Like a stay of execution.
“But I’m not letting her take a bed in this hospital,” Xeran goes on, his eyes narrowing on the woman, whose dark, dark eyes are directly on me, searching. I ignore the weight of them and focus back on Xeran. “Not even this one,” Xeran continues. “You’re fighting for her, so you’re responsible for her until the trial.”
