Page 8 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
“I can’t believe it took me so long to draw you out here.”
“Draw me out here,” I repeat somewhat numbly, staring at her because I don’t know what else to say, and also because my body feels strange. Almost like I’ve been drugged.
But I didn’t drink anything at dinner with my family. My mom had commented on it cheekily, and Valerie’s eyes had met mine over the table, a look of worry and surprise in them.
Later that evening, in the bathroom, Valerie stepped up next to me as we washed our hands, her eyes flitting over to mine in the mirror. “Caspian doesn’t really seem like he’s your type, Aur.”
My throat went dry at the sound of that old nickname for me. We were friends, once. But I’ve worked so hard to avoid her in the past few years she and Lachlan have been together that any moment alone with her feels strange. Vulnerable.
I stared in the mirror, swallowing, trying to handle the emotions rising up in my throat, until apparently I took so long to answer that Valerie decided to backpedal, shaking her head and running her fingers through her black-green hair.
“Sorry,” she said, shaking water droplets from the tips of her fingers and moving to the paper towels. “I know it’s none of my business.”
Now, in the woods, I shake my head a bit, trying to clear away the strange buzzing that’s making it hard to think. Everything is hazy from the smoke, but it casts a dream-like quality over the night. Like I’m sleepwalking.
“That’s right,” Tara coos soothingly.
I stay seated in the grass, realizing that even though the smoke is growing thicker, and it’s getting harder to breathe, the ground below me is actually cool and dry. Pleasant to sit on. My hands are still planted on the grass, fingers digging into the dirt.
“I thought you were dead,” I rasp, clearing my throat even though it doesn’t help.
The fire rages on behind Tara as she comes to stand in front of me, looking down at me with the same almost-pitying look I remember from high school.
And the other thing I remember—her going up in that brilliant teardrop of blue light and heat—doesn’t make sense with what I’m looking at now.
“Well,” she says, frowning a little playfully, tilting her head in a pitying way. “Ithought you were better than this.”
“Better than what?”
She kneels down, frowning at me. “I mean, I dig that you’re finally taking up more space, but you’re still right under your mom’s thumb, aren’t you? Just like in high school. Even after everything that happened, you’re still invisible.”
A burst of emotion as bright and volatile as a sun flare flashes through me, and Tara lets out a surprised laugh, tipping her head back, shimmying her shoulders as if she felt it, too.
“Oh, I forgot how good that could feel,” she purrs, opening her eyes and finding mine again. “What else is there? I’m guessing you didn’t get the guy, huh?”
My chest squeezes.The guy.
Soren.
The guy I’ve been doing everything in my power not to think about. Just another person who didn’t want me in high school, and who would definitely not want me now. Not with the way my body has changed, morphing into something I no longer recognize.
All I want is to feel good. To not care what other people think. But it feels impossible.
“That’s right,” Tara says softly, and even though the world around me is on fire, I almost feel lulled to sleep, energy seeping right out of my pores. I lay back in the grass, and after a second, I sense Tara lying right down beside me. “Just relax, Aury.”
“I thought you were dead,” I murmur again, and when I close my eyes, the image of her going up in those blue flames is right there, as if I were watching it on TV.
That was the first time the two of us had ever fought. And it was all my fault.
“I thought you wanted to ruin prom?” Tara had snapped at me that day on the ridge, the wind whipping through her blue hair and turning it to a violent, frizzy halo around her head. “Thiswill ruin prom!”
“This will ruin the whole town!” I’d cried back, reaching out to grab her shoulder and stop her from walking away from me.
The strangest thing happened when I did. I felt a sharp tug right in the center of my chest, almost like I was grabbing an electric fence.
“Don’ttouch me,” she hissed, turning around, her voice dropping an octave when she got to “me.”
“Tara,” I said, my voice dropping to that whisper-soft tone. Chastened, invisible. The voice I used with my parents, my brother. Teachers at school. It only reinforced the idea that I was barely there. Tiny, skinny, and so, so hard to hear.
