Page 52 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
“Because she wielded, too,” I say, feeling a note of defensiveness creeping into my tone, and not knowing how to get rid of it. “She was an early opposer to the magic laws.”
“Or maybe she was just hungry for destruction,” Maeve says quietly, as though she knows how hard this is for me. Like she can see how much I still care about Tara, despite everything.
And I don’t know why. She’s objectively a bad person. Evil, even. She’s hurt me. Her fires nearly killed my brother.
Plus, she’s been toying with me for a long time. Calling to me, to the point I wake up in the woods disoriented and scared, not in control of my own body.
“Here’s the thing,” Maeve says quietly. “I always thought Tara wasn’t in the yearbook because she was just…like that.”
“A rebel,” Valerie agrees, rolling her eyes.
“But I checked the school records,” Maeve says, voice low. “And there is not a single record of her there. None at all.”
My heart moves into my throat. “What are you saying? Are you saying she wasn’t a student there?”
Maeve’s gaze stays serious, stony, her lips pressing together. “I didn’t just check with the school—I looked into some other databases. Voter registration, social security—”
“How did you get access to that?” Phina asks, eyes wide, but Maeve waves her off.
“I have some friends back in LA with powerful connections,” Maeve grins. “It’s not that important. What is important is that Tara Bredon doesn’t show up in a single database. Not only that, but I reached out to the International Pack Alliance.”
“And?” Phina pushes, and a part of me wishes she wouldn’t, because my brain is already racing ahead, seeing where all this is going.
“And I’m not saying Tara wasn’t justnota student,” Maeve whispers, a cool wind blowing through the clearing and ruffling her curls. “I’m saying she’s not a shifterat all.”
Chapter 27 - Soren
The sun sets over the horizon, plunging Silverville and the surrounding mountains into a deep, golden light. It would be beautiful, if it weren’t for the tense energy in the air.
“They’re moving,” I say, nose lifted to the air, Aurela’s scent drifting to me on the wind, clear to me even through the rotten egg stink of the daemon fire, burning somewhere on the horizon but still not close enough for us to do anything.
It’s our bond, the connection between us, that enables me to pick her out among all the other smells. I recognize it like my own heartbeat, something that’s been there since the first day I noticed her in high school.
“I’m catching it, too,” Lachlan says, tipping his head back to better smell the air, likely searching for Valerie’s scent like I am for Aurela’s. “To the east.”
Everything feels charged tonight, and we’re all on edge. Without flames around us, or fire daemons to fight, everything feels unstarted, unfinished. There’s mounting energy, pressure, adrenaline, and nothing to take it out on. No outlet we can use to stop from feeling like bottle rockets, fuses lit, and getting dangerously close to detonation.
“To the ridge,” Xeran says, and there’s a note of caution in his voice as he also lifts his nose, closing his eyes, sensing Phina’s pull.
Years ago, Xeran nearly lost his daughter, his mate, and his own life on the ridge. Fighting his uncle, killing him, taking his spot as the supreme of the pack. Nearly getting swallowed by flame, until Nora and Phina were able to put a stop to it in an incredible show of magic.
Of course, they’re going to the ridge. It’s like this town’s namesake has some otherworldly draw to it, like it can usher the inhabitants of this town out there, and there’s nothing we can do to resist it.
Aurela told me that’s where everything happened all those years ago, with their group. That the five of them were out there, fighting, crying. They wanted to do something to sabotage prom. Use their magic to make all of us—specifically, the guys—pay for the ways we’d mistreated them.
It was almost perfectly horrible, the way everything lined up. All of us being shitty, or doing what we thought was right, just in time to push them to do something in retaliation.
And still, all Aurela had wanted to do was spike the punch. Steal the decorations. Maybe cut the power to the building and scare everyone, or work their magic to make everyone feel ugly. What they didn’t want to do was start a fire.
That was all Tara, a sort of longing for destruction Aurela described to me with fear—and almost a fraction of reverence—in her expression. Maybe Aurela didn’t want to set the town on fire, but I imagine there’s a part of her, so used to being timid and meek, who thought that kind of boldness was wholly unattainable.
And now that Valerie and Maeve are back, it makes sense that Tara would try to get them all together again.
Which explains this feeling in the air, like this fire is going to be bad.
Just like it was before, back in high school.
We stop moving, Xeran circling around and looking at us. We fall silent, breathing hard, listening to him. I take it as an opportunity to suck a long drink from my water bottle.
