Page 33 of Sold Rejected Mate
Chapter 16 - Lachlan
I have never fought a fire like this before.
Not because of the fire, but because of the drive inside me.
“Slow the fuck down, Cambias!” Soren calls. “You’re going to burn yourself out!”
“Ha,” Felix mutters, tromping through some of the gray muck around us. “Burn. What a pun, Riggs.”
But I’m not going to slow down. Because the only thing I want in the entire world is to return home, to go back to Green, to continue what we started.
I don’t know who she is. I have no idea what pack she’s from, or whether or not she’ll stay. I don’t understand the weighted looks from Xeran, how Phina looked at Green, or why everyone seemed to know something I didn’t.
But at this point, I don’t care. My wolf wants what he wants.
And he wants her.
When the fire is reduced to embers and we’re tromping back through the trees, I feel Xeran appear at my side. His silence is not the usual quiet, thoughtful type, but something more brooding.
“Lachlan,” he says, voice rough. “What do you know about the woman staying in your home?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, even as something starts to shift inside me and I realize this moment is going to besomething. The natural destination of the past week, being with Green and watching her talk to Xeran and Phina in the pack hall.
The sense that they knew something I didn’t.
Xeran stops walking, forcing me to turn around and face him. Each step feels like a fight, my gear weighing down on me. When we’re in the thick of it, I don’t notice. But now that the fire is basically done, simmered down, reality comes rushing back to me, and that includes the physical toll of the stuff on my shoulders, my bones.
“Why have you been protecting her?” Xeran asks.
I’m silent for a moment. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“For a stranger? A stranger who tried to burn the motel down?”
“She didn’t—”
“There it is again. Lachlan, I’ve never seen you go to bat for someone like this before. Sowhy?”
“I don’tknow,” I admit, shaking my head. “Why does it matter? She’s going to work on the magic thing, and—”
“It matters because you’re my friend. And it’s important to me that you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.”
“Well, why don’t you justtellme, then? All this insider information you have?”
“Because I promised Phina I wouldn’t.”
We stand still for a second, ashes from the fire drifting through the air, flitting in the moonlight. Around us, trees creak in the night, nearly groaning from the wind, from the aftermath of yet another fire.
The other guys are far enough from us now that they look like miniature versions of themselves, picking their way down the side of the mountain.
“She’s an omega,” Xeran says, eyes intent on me. I open my mouth to speak, but he goes on, “an Omega, who can’t shift. A magic-wielder. A stray.”
I jerk back, blinking at him. “What do you mean, she can’t shift? She told you that—?”
And that’s when it hits me. An omega who can’t shift. Who started a fire with her magic.
My mouth floods with a sour, bitter taste. Battery acid, followed closely by the memory.
Rie.Valerie. Those dark eyes, wide and hopeful. Her leaning forward, her hand on my chest, the wordmatefrom her mouth. The panic that pushed through me like a tidal wave, and how I basically forced her out of the car.
