Page 62 of Sold Rejected Mate
I search through the house for her, calling her name, slamming every door, and checking every bathroom. I check the pool, and I look through the yard. I shift and run through the yard, trying to catch her scent and follow it.
It’s tinged with mine now, and that makes it a bit harder to track. A strange in-between scent before the final product of the mating bites, and I can’t keep hold of it.
I shift back, going into the house, thinking I’ll call Felix and ask him to help me. But when I pick up my phone, another contact is already blowing it up.
“Phina?” I ask, a deep, bone-sure feeling that something is wrong lingering in my chest. “What’s wrong?”
“Lachlan,” she says, breathless, sounding like she’s been crying recently. “It’s my brother. He says he has Valerie, and if you don’t pay—”
She cuts off, sucking in a wet, sobbing breath, but I don’t need her to finish. I know what the end of that sentence is, and my wolf is already clawing at the confines inside me, howling to come out and take care of any bastard who would dare to put his hands on my mate.
The phone rustles, and Xeran comes on the line. “Call the other guys,” he orders. “We’ll meet at the firehouse.”
I confirm that and hang up, calling Soren on my way out the door. For the second time tonight, I’m headed to the firehouse.
But this time, I won’t be going alone.
Chapter 31 - Valerie
Though my wrists have long healed from the last time I was zip-tied to a chair, they cry out in protest now, almost as though the blisters were still there from months before.
When I woke up and saw Lachlan was gone, I had the horrible idea in my head that he’d gone out to fight a fire. But once I got out of bed, I saw his gear back in the closet. And when I got to the garage, I found his Jeep there. That’s the car he takes, every time, when there’s a fire. In fact, not a single vehicle was missing—the motorcycle and sleek black sports car were still present, ice-cold when I touched them.
Without thinking, I wandered to the fence, which opened immediately for me. When I called his name, worried that he might have gone out for a run and gotten hurt, a hand wrapped around my mouth, pulling me back, dragging me into an all-too-familiar SUV, throwing me onto the seat so I bounced on the leather, gasping with the pain that shot right through the center of me.
And it was during that drive, the trip from just outside Lachlan’s place to the house I sit in now, that I realized something.
Lachlan wasn’t happy when I told him the news.
I was so consumed in my own happiness that I let his poor performance of happiness convince me. But he’d stiffened up. That look on his face wasn’t one of surprise.
It was fear.
I told Lachlan I was pregnant with his baby, and he ran away.
“I’m tired of tracking you down,” Lucian Winward growls now, drawing me out of my thoughts and bringing me back to the present. To him, lowering his face to me, his pupils dilate when he looks me over. “But it’s gotten easier, now that you’ve got your scent back. What, was it fucking Cambias that put it in you again?”
Gritting my teeth, I resist the urge to spit at him.
The light only shines on one part of the space, but I can tell that the room we’re in is much, much bigger than where we are. There’s the expansive, creaking sound of old wood, and a smell that I swear I recognize. I’m just not sure from where.
I was blindfolded when they brought me in, and though I wanted to kick them, try to get away, I didn’t. I remained calm, thinking about my precious cargo.
And I tried not to think about the logistics of the Sorels being out there at the perfect time. Maybe they watched Lachlan leave, or were spying on us. Maybe it was pure luck.
Or maybe they were out there every night, stalking me, waiting for the perfect chance to scoop me up.
“And hemarkedyou,” Lucian drawls, pushing the hair back from my neck, his eyes landing on the mating mark and feeling like they’re scraping over my raw, naked body. “How sweet. I know some men like to keep track of their conquests that way. Never been like that for me. I don’t like how clingy a marked bitch gets.”
I force myself to stay calm. Last time, when the magic burst out of me, I had nothing to lose. But this time, there’s a life inside me to protect. A life that Lucian doesn’t know about, and I’m not about to show it to him. Give him one more thing to leverage against me.
“He’ll pay you whatever you want,” I say, keeping my voice level, thinking of the baby, of the fear I felt when I was thrown into that SUV, trying to protect my stomach. “Just don’t hurt me, and he’ll give you anything.”
Lucian grins long and slow, opening his mouth to say something, but before he can, the door opens, and Dallas Sorel backs his way in, dragging something into the space.
It’s a large metal canister, looking almost like something from a rocket or a piece of a space station.
“What is that?” I ask before I can stop myself, and Lucian turns to look at Dallas, who shrugs.
