Page 29 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
I should have known better than to think that Cambiases wouldn’t catch up with us.
Now, waking up to the early morning light and a thousand shards of wood bursting into the cabin’s small living space, I regret waiting. And I regret sleeping so deeply; I didn’t hear the intruder approaching until it was too late.
In the chaos—the boom of the door breaking in, the growling, Aurela’s scream, and the two of us waking from a deep sleep—it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on. I roll to the side, grabbing Aurela by her hips and easily maneuvering her behind me, getting up off the bed, preparing myself to fight.
“What thefuckis going on?” someone yells.
Lachlan.
He stands in the center of the small cabin, his gaze flitting between me and his sister, who is wearing nothing but one of my old shirts, which hangs past her hips but sits snugly over them. She’s sitting in the bed, her hair still mussed from what we did the night before.
Her lips are parted and pink, her cheeks slightly flushed. She’s gorgeous, like some sort of fucking goddess.
My mark stands proudly on her neck, my scent surely already starting to mingle with hers.
“Youfucker,” Lachlan hisses, stalking toward me, rage sparking in his hazel eyes, so dark now, they might as well be black.
I breathe in and out, my brain desperately trying to muster up an explanation, a strategy for getting out of this.
“I’ll give you three seconds to explain what in the hells is going on before I rip out your fucking throat.”
“Lachlan, don’t—” Aurela starts, but Lachlan bursts out again, spit flying from his lips as he shouts at me.
“Youkidnappedmy sister? Do you know what it’s done to my family? To my mother, to Val? We’ve all been worried fucking sick, and Xeran thought youdiedin that fucking fire, man. We thought you had lost your mind. You’d better start fucking talking. Right. Now.”
In true Lachlan fashion, he continues to demand that I tell him what’s going on without actually giving me space to speak. Even with the space, I’m not sure what to tell him.
I marked Aurela, and she seemed to enjoy it. She doesn’t like her fiancé. And she’s been slowly, over the course of our time here, telling me every one of the reasons for that.
But we haven’t talked about what we are, what we’re doing here. She hasn’t even made it clear that she plans to call off the wedding.
In the early morning glow, Lachlan’s golden hair shines just like his sister’s, and I realize what an ass I’ve made of myself. I allowed our fated connection to muddle my brain, to keep me here, and now I’m not the only one who will face the consequences.
Not to mention how delicate I have to be about what really happened. Why I ran to her that first time, and who I found her with.
“We got stuck,” Aurela says, her smooth voice low but confident. Slowly, she climbs off the bed and stands behind me, but with enough space that we’re not touching. “I was—I thought I could come out to the woods on my own. I came too far. And Soren found me; he saved me from the fire. But then there was the mudslide, and—”
“You expect me to believe you came all the way up here on your own?” Lachlan cuts her off.
“I did,” Aurela insists.
“Butwhy—” Lachlan takes another step forward, then his nose twitches, his gaze snapping first to me, then sliding over to his sister. I see the moment the mating mark registers in hishead, and his gaze shifts to mine, that fury turning into a cold, hard rage.
“Lachlan—” I put my hands up, trying to warn him back from me, but he lunges forward, planting his fist in my jaw. We both stumble to the side as Aurela screams, reaching for me and trying to get between me and her brother.
“Stop!” she shouts.
“You absolutefucker,” Lachlan hisses. “She is engaged—”
“You don’t evenlikeCaspian!” Aurela insists, but her words fall on unhearing ears.
“What kind of friend are you supposed to be?” Lachlan rages. “Worrying my family sick? Bringing her up here and taking advantage of her?Markingher? I’ll kill you before I let you force a bond on my sister—”
I stand, spitting out blood onto the floor, my eyes darting to Aurela’s, the truth building up inside me like a pressure bond.
Not everyone believes in fated mates. Some people act like it’s an old wives’ tale, a silly fable, something like a human soul mate. A cliché little phrase to use when you really like someone, or when you’re in love.
But I know from the way I feel about Aurela that it’s more than that. I’ve been physically sick for the past fifteen years, having to be away from her. My body yearning for hers in a way I could never understand. Like my life couldn’t really begin until I had her in it. She is—and has always been—as vital to me as one of my own organs.
