Page 58 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
Four years later, after the first time I managed to wield, I gained access to the internet, and that’s where I learned more about magic. I learned that some packs don’t punish magic wielders for simply being who they are. I learned that some packs actually celebrate those omegas for the abilities they bring. And I learned that there were some packsmuchworse than Silverville, where wolves might kill their babies at the slightest hint of wielding ability.
Maybe I should have been grateful that I existed in the pack I did. Maybe I should have just gone along with all of it.
But I didn’t. Instead, I grew spiteful. Resentful of the fact that I had this great power, and I wasn’t allowed to use it. Because the alphas, the leaders around me, were afraid.
So I practiced quietly. Alone in my room, or out in the woods behind our house, I’d cast tiny little spells, bringing a leaf alive for a moment, watching it dance across a log. Tidying up my room justslightlyfaster with my magic, enough that it was impressive, but not so much that my mom would notice.
I’d use my magic to dull the hunger pains. To make even the dullest foods—like celery and iceberg lettuce—taste like elk and mashed potatoes and chocolate cake.
And by the time I got to high school, though on the outside I looked quiet and meek and small, I was harboring a resentment so huge that it could have swallowed me whole. An anger, a silent, seething anger that grew and grew, pulsing until it had a heartbeat of its own. I’d carried it, and nurtured it, and fed into it slowly over the years, never realizing what it was.
Not even the day it finally separated from me, created by my magic and hungry for more.
That first day in the hallway, the first time I met Tara, I had no idea who she was. No idea that I’d made her.
But now I do.
When Tara sends that first bolt of magic hurtling toward me, zipping through space so quickly that even another supernatural might have been caught by it, I simply step to the side, watching it continue harmlessly through the air, petering out at the end of its path.
“What?” Tara breathes, her eyes adjusting, locking on me. They glow with the unnatural blaze of the daemon fire, a bright blue that’s almost neon. “What did you do?”
For a time, I’d wondered if she was a daemon herself. But now I understand her. Made by my magic, and hungry for more. And when I stopped giving it to her, or when I wasn’t enough, she went seeking more energy anywhere she could find it. Even if that meant pulling up the daemon energy from below.
And she didn’t care about starting that fire back in high school because shewantedme broken. It’s what created her in the first place.
When I met Soren and started to feel whole again, she couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand the way I grew content, stopped casting as much, and stopped coming to the little club.
Because it meant she was dying.
“What did you do?” Tara shrieks, and I swear the clouds above us bounce with the force of her voice; it’s so loud and ear-twisting. But it doesn’t bother me. A strange serenity wraps around my body.
My back is to the ridge, so I don’t see Soren, but I know he’s here, standing behind me. He came all this way to me, to save me. To support me. To fight by my side.
Everything is like what happened before.
But also, nothing is like what happened before. In high school, the first time this happened, we were alone. Just Tara and the four of us, scared and unsure. We had no idea what was going on, no idea what she would do, and how it would affect our lives going forward.
Now, I know her. I know what she is, and I know what she wants.
“You’vealwaysbeen a follower!” Tara booms, frantic and desperate, her words echoing through the clouds like thunder following a crack of lightning. “That’sallyou are, Aurela. You’d be better off coming with me.”
She’s furious, but I can see the fear in her face, even from here, and even through the flames. I can see how terrified she is that I’m not reacting. An emotional outburst right now would just give her more of what she wants, and I’m not going to do that.
I’m not going to keep making this monster.
“Answer me!”
I don’t. And when she fires at me again, this time sending a ball of blue daemon fire directly for my head, I step to the side easily, letting it roll past me through the air. I float easily, my magic feeling endless and unfettered, coming to me with a steady flow like Silverville Creek running down along the mountain.
Before, the magic felt like a tiny explosion. Like a fire igniting. But now it feels cool, soothing, comforting. A balm. Not something to hurt me, but a part of me.
“You can’t hurt me,” I say simply, meeting Tara’s furious gaze, holding it, knowing that at some point in my life, I felt just how she looks right now. Like a blazing ball of impossibly hotfire, roiling in the sky, drifting without a tether and screaming mad at the entire world.
Tara just screams again, a combination of fire and ice bursting out of her like a sun flare. I dodge it easily, as if I were aiming the attacks at myself.
“You can’t hurt me,” I repeat, “because you’re usingmymagic, Tara. Everything about you came from me.”
“I’m not your fuckingdaughter, Aury,” she spits, dancing a bit closer to me in the sky. We rotate a bit, so she has her back to the ridge, and I’m able to see what’s playing out there.
