Page 35 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
“What do you know about Tara?” Phina asks, her tone dead-serious. “We all need to have an honest chat about what happened back then, and what’s happening now.”
I gulp. Honest, open chats have never been the way in my family. The Cambiases don’t talk about their feelings. They fight against them, guard them closely, ball them up, and stick them in the back of the closet.
They tell them to stay home, starve them, and give them a beautiful room to rot in.
“We have to hurry,” Maeve says, looking at her hands for a moment, then back at the girls. “It looks like Xeran is on the move.”
So we talk. They tell me about everything that’s happened while I’ve been holed up in my room, hiding away for the past fifteen years. Of course, I know that the fires continue to rage, though they’ve never come close to my family’s home. Not with the private firefighters and the intense protection around our area.
Phina tells me about discovering that the previous supreme—Xeran’s uncle Declan—was running a sort of insurance scam, burning down homes and buying up the property. They thought he was the one starting the fires. But after he died, they continued, and they found out Xeran’s brothers—Dallas, Tanner, and Farris—were attempting to harvest daemonic energy, starting even more fires and working with Phina’s brother, Lucian, to sell the daemonic harvest on the black market.
When they all died after unsuccessfully trying to kidnap Valerie and sell her off to repay debts, there was a brief interlude from the fires. Even while I mostly kept to myself and hid away at home, I knew this was true. My parents talked about it constantly, especially in regards to their real estate investment.
And finally, they tell me about the first time they all saw Tara again. All three of them were tugged out to the woods—exactly the same feeling I’ve been having all these years.
“But she was only mildly interested in us,” Maeve says. “She asked aboutyouright away. And she…she mentionedtakingpower from us. Said it’s something she’d done before.”
My mind flashes to that night Soren found me with her. That gentle, easy emptying out of me. The fires around his grandfather’s cabin after that.
How she must have taken my magic to start them, to have the strength to pull up the daemonic energy and set the woods ablaze.
“He’s here,” Phina whispers, and we all tip our noses, catching Xeran’s scent. Fear flushes through me when I remember what Soren said about his missive.
Make it clear that if anyone is harboring Tara, they will be executed. If they make contact with her and don’t immediately tell us, they will be executed. If I find out a single member of this pack is connected to her or these fires, in any way, I will not show mercy.
“Don’t worry,” Phina whispers, moving to my side and taking my hand. “I’m here. We’re all here, and we’re on your side, Aurela.”
Then, the door opens.
Xeran walks in, and I know I have to finally own up to the things I’ve done.
***
When Lachlan and Soren come bursting through the door together, Xeran is sitting in a chair on the other side of the healing chamber, talking to a different patient who’s just come in, asking what he can do for him.
Xeran looks up, and Lach and Soren stand speechless for a moment, both of them looking at me.
“No,” Xeran says, shaking his head and standing up, pointing at them. Phina, Maeve, and Valerie are still standingaround my bed, their hands protectively on the frame. “Not here, and not now.”
“I’m claiming her,” Soren says, looking right at me. It sends a cascade of shivers running the length of my body.
“The fuck you are—” Lachlan starts.
“I saidenough,” Xeran growls, stepping toward them both. “This is a place of healing.”
“I think she’s ready to leave,” Valerie says, her voice quiet. Even a woman as bold as her finds it hard to speak too loudly in the presence of a furious supreme.
“Great,” Xeran says, and his gaze swings around to me, landing heavily. “Remember what we talked about.”
No magic until we do a thorough investigation of what I’m capable of. I have to work directly with Phina. And I’ll be using my magic to participate in the still-ongoing rebuilding efforts, as a way to atone for my involvement in the fires.
And if I see Tara again, if I even so much assmellher, I’m to alert him immediately.
At first, it seemed like Xeran might not believe me, or he might decide to execute me just to make an example. But his wife and the other women were by my side, just like they said. They all corroborated my story about Tara’s pull, admitted that they’d felt it, too, and that’s what drew them up into the mountains the night Felix was almost burned alive by Tara herself.
“I want to go with Soren.”
I see the look on Lachlan’s face, how much his expression darkens. That’s when I realize that I said it, that it was me who spoke those words into existence.
