Page 36 of Sold Rejected Mate
“Valerie!” Phina says, panicked, letting one of her arms drop as she turns around to face me. “Don’t—you’re—”
Without my hand on Phina, I feel my magic doubling up, starting to head into Nora. And that scares me so much—the idea of overloading her with it—that I pull back altogether.
The push is still there, though, and it flies out of me in little sparks, setting the grass around us up into little flames.
“Shit, shit—” Phina says, trying to put them out.
“MOM?” Nora cries, her voice breaking in the way kids’ voices do, and Phina spins around, realizing too late that she’s withdrawn her power from the fight, and her daughter can’t quite do it alone.
Phina spins, throwing her arms up again, just as something comes bursting through the trees on the other side. At first, fear clogs my throat, but then I realize that when Nora and Phina don’t cower at what it is.
“Xeran!” Phina calls, even though it’s obvious he sees us and is headed in our direction.
Xeran.In his wolf form, barreling toward us.
His fur is golden-brown and rippling in the light from the fire, tinged with blue like something from a comic book, and he’smassive. Once, I caught sight of a moose—a Shiras moose—standing over six feet. The biggest animal I’d ever seen in my life.
And Xeran’s wolf is bigger than that.
Having never shifted, I’ve never been hunting. Never been around a shifter in their wolf form. It shocks me, knocking me off-balance, making me realize exactly how much of the world I’ve been missing out on.
At the same time, there’s the roar of an engine, and I turn to see a fire truck flying up the road, the guys jumping out before the thing has even fully stopped.
“Getback!” Soren Riggs shouts before stopping and raising his hose, a thick, gray, goopy substance flying out and blanketing the tree. The fire goes out, tendrils of smoke still writhing up into the air.
Xeran doesn’t slow, reaching us and grabbing Nora by the back of her shirt with his teeth, gentle but firm, lifting her up and running with her away from the fire. Phina follows, stumblingbackward with her hands up, still trying to maintain whatever she’s doing to keep the fire back.
But without my power—and without Nora—the barrier is crumbling, and the fire reaches around it, surging forward with a retaliatory nature. I scream and fall to the side, stumbling backward as the flame seems to turn, eating at the grass and clawing across the lawn toward me like a living, breathing thing.
Then, the world tilts, and I’m falling. The impact knocks the air from my lungs.
It’s only when the world around me goes cool that I realize I’minthe swimming pool. My clothes grow heavy, tangling around me, but I push against them, trying to swim to the surface, trying to get some air.
I thrash against the water, and it fills my nose, my mouth. Panic claws at my chest—how fucking deep is this pool?
Above me, through the ripples on the water’s surface, I can see the daemon fire reaching over the pool’s edge, covering it like a hand might, pushing down.
If I get to the surface, I’m going to burn, but if I stay here, I’m going to drown. My lungs scream at me for air, and my skin starts to prick with pain—the water around me is heating up.
I’m going to boil alive.
Just as consciousness starts to slip away, something massive hits the water beside me, sinking, forcing bubbles up.
It’s a wolf. Golden-brown fur, familiar scent even underwater.
Lachlan.
He grabs my shirt in his teeth and starts swimming upward, powerful legs kicking. But when we reach the surface,the fire is still there, still covering the water like a burning blanket.
Lachlan doesn’t hesitate. He positions himself above me, his body shielding mine as he swims through the flames. I feel the heat searing through his fur, smell the awful stench of burning. He’s sacrificing himself to get me out.
I try to scream, to tell him to get away, but water fills my mouth, surging into my lungs like the fire, fighting for space.
We break through the fire’s edge, and Lachlan immediately shifts back to his human form, naked and burned, his skin red and blistered. He reaches down, grabbing me under the arms and hauling me to the pool’s edge, where Felix kneels down, helping to pull us out.
“Lachlan,” Felix says, panicked, “Gods, fuck, man, you’re—”
“I’m fine,” Lachlan croaks, crawling into the grass, his breathing labored as he coughs up pool water. “Is Valerie—”
