Page 17 of Sold Rejected Mate
Last time those fantasies went rampant in my brain, I found myself with a broken heart and arson charges.
But the fact that he’s in the shower—and the fact that I can hear the running water—means that he’ll be occupied for at least ten minutes, and I’ll have a heads-up for when he’s coming back my way.
I eye the window, laughing again when I think about what he said about the koi pond. I hate that he made me laugh, that it was so easy for him to charm me like that.
This time, I’m not going to make a break for it because he’s right. With this leg—and, hell, even my throat—I’m not going to make it far. I’m like Bambi, all shaking limbs and uncertain steps. Because of this fucking leg.
The moment I took a bite of the soup today, I felt a tiny spark of magic return to me, and I had an idea—if my leg wasn’t ready to carry me, I could try to use my magic instead.
So, now, I pull the blanket back from my body and stare at the offending leg. From the outside, it looks as normal as ever. I even notice the tiny scar from falling on the gravel as a little girl is gone.
But the inside is clearly fucked, evidenced by the fact that I can’t stand for more than two seconds without it buckling on me. Taking a shaky breath, I hold my hands above my leg and try to think healing thoughts. I try to think about what the doctor said—something about a strained ligament, about limited mobility.
At first, nothing happens.
Then, with a sickeningpop, I feel something inside my leg move. I gasp, pulling my hands back like my own leg is a hot stove, and then the pain comes in a solid, pulsing wave.
I slam my mental walls back in place, pushing the magic down with everything I have, trying to keep it from rising up my throat like bile. When I wanted it here, it was nowhere to be found, and now that I’m trying to stifle it again, it bucks and kicks like an angry child, demanding attention.
Useless.
Of course, in my attempt to heal, I’ve only managed to make everything worse.
The other girls were always so much better at controlling the magic. Making it bend to their will. Phina, shaping it exactly how she wanted it. Aurela, with healing. I remember her raising her hand to my face, the shaking, trembling fear I’d felt as she touched a finger to one of my acne scars.
And just like that—gone. Vanished. My body swallowing the mark like it knew it had made a mistake. Like a single touch from her, a single suggestion from the tip of her finger, convinced my face that it could do better than that.
Even though IknowI didn’t make that much noise and Lachlan shouldn’t have been able to hear me in the shower, the rush of water stops behind me. A moment later, it’s followed by the sound of his feet racing down the stairs.
Then he’s standing in the doorway to the room, dripping wet and only hastily toweled off, that damp towel held loosely around his waist.
Forfuck’ssake—even with all the pain, my body manages to respond to the image of him, breathing hard and half-naked, looking like a Greek god in front of me with the water rolling off his tanned skin.
Stupid fucking omega wiring, always thirsty and wanting.
And, for some reason, especially wantingthisman.
“What happened?” he gasps like he can feel the pain in my leg, too. “Green? Did something—”
He pauses, his gaze darting down to my leg, and before I can stop him, before I can do much of anything, Lachlan is pulling back the blanket, gasping at the colorful array of bruises lighting up the side of my leg, like a lightning strike of purples and blues, deep reds, and a little bit of green.
“Fuck,” he hisses, looking at my face. “Did you try to get up?”
I shake my head—that’s the truth, at least. I haven’t tried to talk since that day in the hospital room, but I don’t try now. What would I tell him? That I tried to heal myself, and only made it worse?
Like I do with everything in my life?
My throat still feels like it’s studded with shards of glass, but even if it wasn’t, I’d still be silent. Afraid that if I open my mouth, I might scream. At myself, at him, at the frustration rising in all parts of my body.
Between my legs.
It hits me with a startling clarity that if I’m around Lachlan for much longer, his presence might trigger a heat. And there’s nothing worse I can think of than being stuck in this bed, writhing from pain and lust, watching him hold his nose and feel sorry for me.
Knowing that even the burst of hormones from my body, designed to lure an alpha in, wouldn’t be enough to entice him to me.
That might actually break me.
Then, even worse than himlookingat me, he starts touching me. Running his hand up and down the inside of my thigh, the inside of my calf, skimming the skin so lightly that I wouldn’t be sure I was feeling it if it weren’t for the bolt of feeling that shoots to the core of me, igniting the insane, insistent wanting I’ve only ever associated with Lachlan Cambias.
