Page 47 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
“I see you in my dreams.”
“Aw, that’s very sweet.”
“Seriously, Tara.” I suck in a breath, taking a step back from her and holding my hands up. “I have to go tell the supreme about this. I don’t understand why you’re doing all this. Yeah, things weren’t great after the fire, but we all turned out okay. You didn’t have to become a feral.”
Tara’s expression shifts subtly, her lips tightening, her brows drawing down. For a moment, I see a flicker of jealousy, of anger, before it dissipates again. “I don’t have achoice, Aurela. Don’t you get that? I never had the option to justjoin the packand have a grand old fucking time like the rest of you. I need the fire.”
“You don’t—”
“I do!”
When Tara shouts, her voice drops an octave, seeming to echo off the foothills around us, bouncing between the trees and sending a shiver up my back. She’s breathing hard, her hands balled into fists, and she takes a deep breath, closing her eyes, trying to compose herself.
Quieter, she says, “I can’t believe you haven’t figured this out yet, Aurela. I know Maeve is the smart one in the group, but it’s not like you’re stupid.”
“Figuredwhatout?” I demand. “Why you’re doing all this? Why you keep starting fires even though it’s hurting people? Hurtingme?”
“Maybe you created me, but I’m not your fucking servant,” Tara hisses, stepping closer to me, her combat boots crunching through the pine needles and the silvery coating of daemon ash that seems to exist everywhere in these woods. “I know you were raised to believe you’re the center of the universe, but you’re not. And that attitudereallystarts to get grating after a while. Maybe your new boy toy is putting up with it for now, but—”
“He is mymate,” I say through my teeth, even though it’s not important. I don’t have to defend myself to Tara. She’s always been against the idea of me being with Soren. Insisted that any of us dating was a bad idea. That boys wouldn’t reallylike us, or if they did, it would be for all the wrong reasons. Whenever I spent time with Soren, Tara would grow sullen, her hair seeming to get duller, her usual sparkle muted. The other girls noticed, too.
Once, when we skipped one of our meetings—each of us occupied with our own stuff—Tara was so angry that when we came back to the little room we usually used, it was trashed. And she was nowhere to be seen.
Together, the four of us had quietly cleaned up the place. I remember it like it happened yesterday, the way my pulse skipped in my wrist, the sense that Tara’s anger was something with much more weight than a teenage girl’s temper tantrum.
And after that was the night with the fish, Tara pushing harder and harder for each of us to see what we were capable of. I’d wake up each morning feeling completely drained, sullen. Foods Club was my only solace, the only place I could restore some of the energy that seemed to be constantly drained from me, either from my mother insisting I skip breakfast or from Tara pushing me as hard as I could go.
“I can see the wheels turning in your head,” Tara says quietly, almost eagerly. “So, what have you figured out?”
The answer is what it’s always been—nothing. Every time I’m around her, it’s like my brain is scrambled. Stuck in neither the past nor present, but hanging somewhere in between.
“Okay,” Tara says, rolling her eyes, laughing, and springing up from the stump. She pops the stick from her mouth and throws her sucker, half-eaten, to the dirt. “Fine—I have to be the one to dofuckingeverything!”
“Tara—”
“Do you remember what it was like for you the last time?”
“Last timewhat?”
“The last time heleft you,” she clarifies, swinging around and stalking just another step toward me. Only five feet between us now.
I shake my head, like the physical movement might keep her words from anchoring in my head. “No—”
“Yes,” she insists, nodding, her eyes locked on mine. “He left you once before, and he’s going to do it again, Aurela. When he finds out that you’re stillbest friendswith me—”
“I’mnot—”
“Then what are you doing up here?” she counters, and my words die in my throat. Chortling, she runs a hand through her blue hair, making it stand even more on end. “Here’s the short and sweet of it, since apparently, nobody else is going to tell you how it is, Aury.”
She pauses for dramatic effect, turning toward me, and unlike the moment with my parents, I feel my will to stand against her failing.
Tara was the only person who saw me in high school. Who made me feel like I was worth something. And after spending a full year following her lead and starting to feel more like a person under her care, it’s hard to write that history off.
It’s hard to struggle against the weight of her charisma, the convincing way she speaks.
Face growing somber, Tara says, “Sorenleftyou. Back then, he dropped you the moment it was no longer fun for him. And in case me being up here hasn’t made this clear to you,people never change. Think about it—what have either of you done to be different? You sat in your house for a decade, and Soren ran around, following orders. The moment he realizeswho you really are, and the fact that you’re here, talking to me, he’s going to go to your supreme, and Sorel is going to cut your fucking head off in front of everything. Make an example out of you.”
“Soren would never,” I insist.
