Page 7 of Sold Rejected Mate
“Should have thought about that before you opened a line of credit with us,” he says, laughing. “But it doesn’t matter. We have a way to get the money back.”
My head snaps up, and when I meet his eyes, he seems to read my fear there, which makes him laugh again.
“Really?” he snorts, shaking his head and running a hand through his dense brown hair. “You think I’d wantyou? Some skinny, little alternative bitch? I’ve got my pick of the litter,Valerie. I’m not interested in you. But we found someone who is.”
A chill runs over my arms as he goes on, clearly pleased with my discomfort. “I don’t know,” he goes on, chuckling, “maybe he wants a little stray freak omega to make some weird-ass babies. I don’t knoworcare.”
Stray. Freak.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard those words, and it won’t be the last. I do my best not to let Lucian see how his insults land, how they hit me exactly how he intended. I’m used to it, but hearing it like this, laid out casually like I’m livestock being appraised, makes my stomach turn.
“You’re sick,” I finally manage, keeping my back ramrod straight, thinking about how I’ll kill whoever they “sell” me to. Leave it to the backwards fucking packs in the mountains to revert back to the old pack laws, like they can own or sell a person.
Leave it to me to let myself get roped up into it. To think it would ever be a good idea to borrow from a fuckingWinward.
“It’s practicality, babe,” he purrs. “It’s business. You didn’t pay us what you owe, so we’re liquidating the asset.”
A board creaks outside the motel room, and fear rises up in me so violently that I jerk, swallowing and easing back, little bursts of breath forcing out of my lungs. The beginning of an attack.
“Easy,” Lucian drawls with a laugh. He crosses the room and tips my chin up to him again. “Wouldn’t want you to stress yourself out, trigger a heat. If that happens, I can’t be held accountable for what these alphas do. You know how they are when they get in a rut.”
Dallas and Farris Sorel—two of the fuckers who took me in that lot—push through the door, looking pissed off.
“Lucian,” Dallas, the biggest of them all, says, “come out here. We need to talk.”
“Fine,” Lucian says, grabbing me and moving me to a chair, using another zip tie to keep me there. I resist the urge to buck against him, thinking that I should probably conserve my energy.
After I’m tied down to the chair, the three of them file out the door. Lucian throws me a look over his shoulder before they disappear into the night.
The open door lets in the smell of sulfur and burning wood. There must be another fire here tonight.
Just another reason that, although I’ve stayed in the area, this is my first time back to Silverville. Because I can’t stand the grief that chokes me, the judging eyes of anyone who might recognize me.
That was the point of the cheap box dye, the reason I’ve kept my normally black hair green. Because the idea of someone recognizing me from high school, knowing that I was involved in the scandal that started the fires, chokes me with regret.
Outside the door, I hear Lucian say, “He’ll be here in two hours.”
I get the feeling he said that louder, knowing I would hear it. Or hoping that I would. Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt me himself, but he’s clearly pleased with the idea that someone else is going to.
For the past ten years—since that day when everything went wrong—I’ve suppressed the magic. Tried to keep something like that from ever happening to me again.
But maybe it’s time to stop.
Stray, freak, magic-wielder.
Maybe it’s time for me to stop hiding from the labels and embrace them. Maybe it’s time for me to let the magic out and stop caring about how other people look at me, think about me.
They all just treat me like shit, anyway. I’ll never outrun the past, outrun this debt, outrun who I am. I’ll never be able to get away from the night of my life that haunts me to this day.
But I might just be able to run away from this motel—right now.
Chapter 4 - Lachlan
The radio crackles to life just as we’re pulling back into town.
This time, the glow on the horizon isexactlythe color of normal fire. Which is troubling in and of itself—with the sheer amount of daemon fire that we go up against, the last thing we need is electrical fires. Old ladies leaving the oven on.
“Is that the motel?” Kalen asks just as a voice comes over the radio. It’s another volunteer Xeran recruited to the team, currently just hanging out at the firehouse, taking local calls.
