Page 50 of The Alpha's Rejected Mate

She flashed a smile at Lothair, “My pleasure, love.” So, I realized, this was Lothair’s mate.

The female shifter grasped my upper arm and pulled me on through the forest. That scent of ozone wafted from her, and I wanted to shrink away from her, but she tightened her hold on me as we walked on.

I noticed that the green dragon had shifted into another oversized man too and loomed off to the right of us, the sound of cracking twigs and brush of pine needles under his footfalls accompanying ours. Lothair’s heavy steps issued from behind us, and my skin crawled with the certainty that I was hemmed in.

Alarm beat through me as Sibyelle and I crossed into Dalesbloom territory. Guilt hit me hard, too. I’d allowed myself to be captured. I thought of how Gavin and I had just managed to mend things between us tonight, and my heart squeezed. I pictured his face when he heard that I’d been captured. The look of ardor and want that had sung across his face tonight being replaced with shock and betrayal. My heart ached at the thought of him finding out that I’d gone off alone after our heart-to-heart.

But as we trekked deeper into Dalesbloom forests, I tried to reassure myself. We were going toward Colt, too.Hewas why I’d come into the forest in the first place. I’d at least know that he was all right. As Sibyelle gripped my arm hard enough to bruise, I thought tenderly of my adoptive brother. He’d helped me escape David’s captivity before. Faith beat through me. He’d help me.

When we reached Dalesbloom meadow, my pulse resounded with how surreal it felt to walk through these grasses again. My vision just discerned the top branches of my cottonwood tree through the night. But as I saw her, regret twisted my insides as I thought of her sister cottonwood in Grandbay beneath which Gavin and I had picnicked earlier.

Too soon, Hexen Manor’s imposing structure loomed over us. We proceeded up the main path, standing beneath the columned porch. Sibyelle pounded the knocker of the double doors.

My breath caught in my throat, and my chest constricted as Catrina’s dark curtain of hair swished into view. Her blue eyes took me in, and a shrewd smile wound over her face. “Come in,” she told Sibyelle, practically purring as she drew back the door to allow the dragon shifter in, who drew me into the hall, too.

Coming into the main vestibule, with its polished black-and-white tiles and wood-paneled walls, felt foreign. David had always had the pack use the rear door into the kitchen. But I reminded myself I wasn’t one of the pack. In fact, I’d never been. He’d always been my enemy. He’d stolen me from Grandbay when I’d been a child. All my desire for answers about what had happened to my real parents and how this cruel man had gotten me awoke as I waited for the Dalesbloom Alpha to appear. As my heart struck my chest, a storm of emotions thrashed through me, a potent mixture of anger and fear dominating.

Lothair, who had come farther into the hall to stand the other side of me, said, “We found this Grandbay wolf in the woods while on patrol of the borders.”

David strode into the hall, stopping abruptly as his stare hit me. His cold blue stare filled with greed. “Well, well, this is a surprise. Welcome back, Billie.”

My skin crawled as I felt Catrina’s stare on me, too, and I knew without looking it was as greedy and calculated as David’s.

Angry heat seared through me as I knew that the two Hexens had leaped straight to scheming about how they were going to use me as a bargaining chip against Gavin and my pack.

Sibyelle had dropped my arm, and I tightened my hands into fists as I seethed at the man who had been my adoptive father. “You owe me answers, David. What did you do to my real parents?”

Catrina’s laugh sounded behind me, and she sashayed past the dragon shifters and me to stand by her father. “Oh, Billie, are you seriously telling me that you came back here for answers?”

She was looking at me with mock pity, her patronizing tone telling me she thought I was a simpleton.

“I deserve to know the truth,” I ground out, my eyes fixed on David, who watched me with the same indifference he’d always reserved for me.

Then he said, “We’ll soon find out what you’re worth, Billie. Maybe if it’s a good exchange, then I’ll indulge you with answers.” His words and the detached tone they were spoken in had me terrified about what they were going to ask Gavin and Grandbay for.

Panic thumped through me as I thought of Muriel. I knew that David and Catrina sought my friend’s horn. Disgust whipped through me as I looked at my adoptive family, hating that I was back here with them and that I’d been foolish enough to give them power against my friend.

Just then, Colt wandered into the hallway. My eyes widened in surprise at seeing his smooth movement, his arms hung perfectly at ease by his side. My gaze wound over his torso and shoulders, their definition clear beneath the tight black T-shirt he wore. There was no sign of injury or pain in the way he held himself.

Relief sputtered through me. Colt was all right. My friend’s presence gave me a spurt of hope. But, as I found his eyes, I barely recognized them.

As he came to stand by his father, I felt as if I’d had the breath knocked out of me. Colt’s blue stare was a mirror image of his father’s: distant and unyielding.

Chapter 26

Gavin

Banging penetrated my sleep. I blinked open my eyes, then shot out of bed. My first thought was that we must be under attack. But, as I wrenched the front door open, preparing to shift, I took in Oslo and Gretel’s bare forms heaving in great lungfuls.

“Why aren’t you at the borders?” I demanded. They’d both been on sentry duty, but judging by the way they were heaving in breaths, they’d just sprinted here from Pine Creek.

Oslo thrust out a scroll of paper.

I flicked a switch on the wall, flooding the porch with light, then undrew the paper. David’s writing littered the page, and I wondered what threat he could have sent to my Betas that could have gotten thembothrunning here and abandoning their watch of our boundaries.

I read the message, recognizing David’s writing.“Your fated mate is in my custody once more.”My breath caught in my throat, and my grip tightened on the letter.“Deliver Muriel tonight, or Billie is dead.”David’s scrawl seemed like claws rending my chest open.

As I crumpled the edge of the letter, my first thought was that David Hexen was a damned liar. My gaze charged to the Mundy’s front door. I’d seen Billie back here safely tonight. David couldn’t have taken her from the cabin only forty feet away from my door.

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