Page 27 of Sold Rejected Mate
That hangs in the air for a moment. His face goes stormy, and I have to look away again, my body pulling the strings, directing me on how to act when it comes to the alpha supreme.
“It was this black SUV,” I say. “They shoved me in the back, took me to the motel. When we got there, Lucian said…”
I’m not usually the kind of person to get choked up, but when I think about being in that motel room with Lucian, the fear comes rushing back, and it makes it hard to speak.
“Take your time,” Phina says while Lachlan hands me a glass of water. I sip from it, take a deep, shaking breath.
“Lucian told me that they’d found a buyer. To buyme. He said some freak was probably looking for damaged goods, and that if I was lucky, he’d kill me quick when he was done with me.”
“What thefuck?” The words burst out of Lachlan all at once, and he’s standing, turning, looking down at me, then to Xeran. “We need to find that fucker—”
“One thing at a time,” Xeran says, though there’s something in his voice that’s softened since this meeting started. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but he seems to be hiding an anger like Lachlan’s. To me, Xeran says, “Can you get to the part about the fire?”
“I was tied to a chair. They said the buyer would be there soon, and they left the room. I knew what was going to happen to me, and I knew nobody was coming to help. So I just…let go. Of all the magic that was inside me. I didn’t know it would start a fire until it was too late, and the world around me was on fire.”
“You saw that motel,” Lachlan says to Xeran. “All the damage wasundoneby the magic, too.”
Surprise jumps in my throat—I didn’t know that. “Was…was anyone hurt?”
It’s the question I’ve been thinking and thinking, but unable to bring myself to ask. Consumed with pain, I’d fought to get through that before lingering on the fire and what might have happened to other people at the motel.
“No,” Xeran says.
“Nobody but you,” Phina amends, her brown eyes on me.
“The circumstances are unique.” Xeran leans forward in his chair and rubs his hands roughly over his eyes like he’s not quite sure what to do with this information. The room is quiet, with nothing but the sound of the ticking clock on the other side to interrupt the silence.
Lachlan sits stock-still beside me. For some reason, I have the feeling that if Xeran delivers a verdict he doesn’t like, he’s going to fight on my behalf.
Phina puts a hand on her husband’s, and Xeran raises his head. He sighs, shakes his head, and looks at Lachlan. “Guess you made the right call here, man.”
There’s more weight to his words, especially when he looks back at me, and I realize why. Because if they had executed me for that fire, they wouldn’t have been killing some random shifter from another pack.
It would have been the death of one of their own, without them even knowing it. And there’s a certain grief to the death of every packmate, no matter how well you know them or not. It would have hurt everyone, and when it eventually came out what my real identity was, it might not have looked good for Xeran.
Or, maybe, to the many people who surely still think I should be killed for the last fire, it would be the long-overdue delivery of justice.
Chapter 14 - Lachlan
I sit in the chair next to Green in the pack hall, listening to her tell Xeran the details, and I have to fight with my wolf to sit still. It claws away inside me, only getting angrier and angrier the longer she goes on, relaying the details of what happened to her. What she’s been going through.
When it starts to be too much, I have to sit on my hands to try to contain the wolf.
Because he wants to burst out of here and find Xeran’s brothers.
Of course, Xeran has already been looking for them, trying to find them, but it’s been difficult between dealing with the fires and taking care of his pregnant wife. Besides, the Sorel brothers have gotten good at avoiding their new supreme.
When I think about them—the guys I would see around the house when I hung out with Xeran back then—I want to find them and rip them to pieces for hurting her. For hurtingallof us. For making a bad name for this pack that I’m proud to have joined all those years ago.
Just a few months ago, we found out that Declan was running that insurance scheme and that Xeran’s other brothers—not Kalen—were involved, starting more fires, even though that’s the last fucking thing Silverville needed.
Dallas, Farris, Tanner—all fucking airheads with no sense of purpose. Blindly following their uncle and now joining up with Lucian’s little circus.
Growing up, I’d hung out with them a few times. Xeran had looked up to Dallas and Tanner like they hung the moon,and once we got older, Farris and Kalen followed us around for a time, turning us into the idolized older guys.
But, like with everything else, the camaraderie between brothers started to fall apart after the fires. And it only got worse when Holden died, and nobody could be sure whether or not Declan was involved.
Xeran told me in confidence that he was almost sure his uncle had poisoned his father rather than officially issue a challenge for the supreme position. And when Xeran tried to enlist the support of his brothers but found they’d aligned themselves with Declan instead, Xeran didn’t challenge Declan for the role of supreme.
