Page 1 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
Chapter 1 - Soren
“Another hundred acres,” Xeran says, slamming into the firehouse and pulling his gloves off jerkily before tossing them to the ground. I’m the first to follow him out of the engine and into the bay, which hangs with the faint haze of smoke.
“Oh, boy,” Felix mutters, popping his head out, his pink hair still just as startling as the day he dyed it. He runs a dirty hand over it and bends his knees, dramatically leaping from the truck and to the ground. “I think he’s pissed off.”
The engine bay hangs with the putrid, slightly rotten smell of daemon fire—a scent that feels as synonymous with Silverville as the namesake ridge itself.
“You think?” Lachlan mutters, the next one to step out of the engine, pulling off a ball cap to reveal sooty golden hair. It’s a far cry from his normal look—designer clothes and fancy watches.
“Baby Holden has wolves’ tooth,” Kalen whispers, the youngest of us and the last to emerge from the fire truck.
I’m sure Xeran’s toddler having a toothache isn’t making things easy, but that’s the least of his worries right now.
We all stand quietly as Xeran paces, waiting. This is normally the time we’d do a post-fire recap and run through what we plan to put in our reports.
As Xeran paces, he lifts his soot-stained arms and drives his fingers into his hair, looking up at the ceiling of the firehouse as if the answer to our problem might be written in the rafters.
We all stare at him quietly, waiting for him to pull himself together, and I take it as an opportunity to cross to my locker, strip off my gear, and grab my tablet so I’ll be ready. The rest ofthe guys wait patiently. They’re all covered in fine, shimmering daemon dust from head to toe, and I’m sure if I looked in a mirror, I would be, too.
Normally, Xeran is unshakable. Xeran Sorel, our supreme alpha. Leader of the pack for almost five years now. We grew up together, and I watched him train for this position his entire life.
Except he never thought he’d be dealing with wildfires, on top of all the other pack issues.
Heaving in a massive breath, he leans down, picks up his gloves, tucks them into his belt, and turns to us, his eyes flicking over to me.
“Numbers? Casualties?”
“Looks like eighty-nine acres of dense forestry,” I say, glancing down at the tablet in my hand. After we invested in a drone-surveillance system for the fires, it’s been a lot easier to keep track of their path. And their destruction. “And two casualties,” I add.
It’s not the worst fire we’ve fought, not by a long shot, but we’re getting worn down. There’s something about breathing in the daemon fire that leaves your lungs feeling raw, and I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in two weeks.
“What about that bitch?” Xeran asks, turning and stalking toward his office.
I give the others a glance—I’ll follow him while they stay behind to check on the engine, strip off their gear, and pray for more time before the next call.
“No news,” I mutter, an image popping into my mind of the blue-haired woman. “The Denver and Fort Collins packs have both been in our neck of the woods, helping with patrol,but beyond the odd sighting of a figure in the woods, there’s nothing.”
“She must be feral,” Xeran mutters, dropping into his chair and rubbing at his brow. We’ve talked about this a million times already—gone over and over that day in the woods.
The woman who’s been starting the fires around Silverville.
Xeran reaches into his desk and grabs a little fan. He plugs it into his computer and points it in his direction, though it looks too weak to actually cool him off much. Although he’s only thirty-three—the same age as me—the past five years have aged him much further than that. Between trying to rebuild after every fire and keep morale up, it’s been brutal.
Xeran goes on, “I just don’t see how someone could live out in the woods like that—no civilization—for so fucking long.”
A feral shifter—more wolf than human—spending their time hunting and living like a wolf would. Most of them end up losing touch with their human side. Hurting people. And when Xeran sayscivilization, what he really means ispack.Wolves need their packs. We need supremes.
He already knows what I think, but I say, “I don’t think she’s feral.”
“Then how do you explain none of the other packs knowing her?” Xeran counters, like he has every time we’ve had this conversation. “How do you explain her surviving this long up there without losing her shit?”
Images from a few weeks ago flash into my mind—all of us up in the mountains, in a clearing. Watching Phina, Valerie, and Maeve talk to the blue-haired woman. Tara.
Felix, defending his mate. Lachlan and Xeran doing the same.
Tara, going up in a blaze of blue light and flames. Her screaming at Felix to let go of her. Him, holding tight and refusing to let go, likely because it was the only way he could protect Maeve.
“Soren?”
