Page 60 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
But in the end, it didn’t matter, because Phina and Valerie thought fast, sprinting out and throwing their hands up, using what was left of their magic to catch Aurela’s body, bring it back up to a piece of the ground that was in one piece.
Then, all of them collapsed.
Now, Gramps disappears from the doorway, and I listen to the sound of his slippers rustling over the floor. He’ll go sit somewhere in the house, waiting a decent amount of time before he returns to see if there’s any news.
Aurela is already his granddaughter-in-law—daughter-in-law, really—and we haven’t even made anything official. I continue doing what I have been doing from the momentI scooped her body up into my arms—staying by her side. Watching to see if—no,when—she wakes up.
She has to wake up. I didn’t wait this long for her, suffer this much, only to have her ripped away from me at the last moment. I love her. She is my mate. And I know, deep inside me, that it’s enough to keep her here.
Aurela is stronger than any of us ever realized. And she’s going to make it through whatever is going on inside her body right now.
After I had her in my arms, Xeran and Frederic were both asking the same question.
“What happened to the blue-haired bitch?” Xeran growled, prowling around once he knew his mate was safe and alive. He had his nose to the air, sniffing for Tara.
“She was up in the air,” Frederic said, pointing to the place his daughter and Tara had occupied just minutes before. “And then…”
“I think she’s gone,” I said, even though I didn’t just think it. I knew. As much as I knew Aurela was my mate, I knew, with her there in my arms, that something tremendous had happened up in the air. That the woman I held was a little heavier, a little fuller than she had been before she went up there.
“We’ll have to be sure,” Xeran had said, immediately launching into the clean-up efforts, search and rescue, and securing the town. My only hope for him is that now, with Tara gone, he can finally take some time to occupy a semi-reasonable leadership role.
In the day since, there’s been no sight of Tara. Not near town, not anywhere in the mountains.
And, though it’s probably too soon to call, I know there will be no more daemon fires.
At least, not until someone else comes along trying to harvest the energy. But it won’t be because of Tara. And with her gone, I have a feeling the energy will simmer back down, becoming much harder to access in the first place.
“Soren?”
I jolt, eyes flying to Aurela, who sits up in bed like nothing is wrong, rolling her neck and holding her hand out. The glass of water on the bedside table is in her palm before I have the chance to hand it to her.
“Aurela,” I whisper, not caring about the water, not caring about anything but being close to her. Standing, I crawl into bed with her, gathering her up and pulling her into my arms. “How do you feel? Are you okay?”
She nuzzles back into me, sighing contentedly. Something is markedly different about her. More centered, more confident.
And I like it.
“Better now,” she says, smiling and turning her head to look at me.
“Will you marry me?” I ask, glancing over at the side table. I grab the ring box, open it, and show it to her. “Sorry—I wanted it to be special, but I also didn’t want to wait another second before asking you. We can have whatever wedding you want—”
She cuts me off with a kiss, twisting in my arms and swallowing my words. I kiss her back slowly, my hand falling to her back, holding her body against mine.
Aurela still smells like smoke and ash, but she also smells intoxicatingly like herself.
When she pulls back suddenly, her eyes searching my face, I breathe, “What? Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“There is something I need.”
I start to sit up, “What? I can—”
But she holds her hand up, positioning herself so she’s straddling me, her knees on either side of my hips. I’ve been so busy worrying about her that it takes my body a moment to catch up to this new development.
“Aurela,” I whisper, but her name dies in my throat, along with anything else I thought I was going to say.
Her hair tickles my chest when she leans down, places a brief kiss on my neck, then buries her teeth in my flesh. My head tips to the side automatically, giving her more access, a groan escaping me at the pure ecstasy of the moment.
Some people dabble in casual biting, just to see what it’s like. Some shifters don’t take it as seriously as others. But I have barely been with another woman, let alone let her teeth anywhere near my skin. I’d always known, deep down, that the only bite I’d want would be from Aurela, serious or not.
