Page 18 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
Then she does something I’m not expecting—she reaches out to me with her free hand, pulling on my arm and tugging me into bed with her.
Aurela is a skilled magic user. Maybe she could even take me on in a fight. But she’s not physically strong enough to pull me into this bed with her. I do that myself, hefting myself onto the little cot, wrapping my body around her.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m still exhausted from waking up in the middle of the night, from everything that’s happened, the fight with that cryptid. Maybe I’m not thinking clearly, more preoccupied with how I’m going to handle Xeran and how he feels about all this.
Or maybe I’m just looking for any excuse to make it okay that I’m tucking her into my body right now, breathing in her scent, burying my nose in her hair. Having Aurela this close feels like committing a crime.
She is engaged. And I know what will happen if her parents find out we’re together.
But it’s like I can’t stop myself, like my limbs are moving of their own volition, maneuvering me against the wall, tucking her in closer to me. I reach up and release the cuff around her wrist, so she doesn’t feel any more trapped or scared than she has to be.
The next time the thunder claps and she jumps, I’m there to absorb the movement. She snuggles back into me, releasing a breath, and even though I’m the most comfortable I’ve been in a long time, I force myself to stay awake.
Because if I fall asleep, my hands might start to roam. Might start mapping her body, new and different now. Might start staking a claim on the woman I have always believed to be mine, even if I know it’s never going to happen.
Chapter 10 - Aurela
When I wake up the next morning, I realize I’m completely folded into Soren. He has his chin on my shoulder, his arms wrapped around my middle, my ass tucked firmly into his lap. For a second, I wait for the feeling of self-consciousness to flood back to me. For my brain to remember my new body, the places where I’ve changed since the last time he saw me, touched me.
But it doesn’t come.
I feel nothing but comfortable, accepted in his arms.
And I feel his erection against my lower back.
I bite my tongue, trying to ignore the flood of heat that pools into my lower belly, the urge to roll my hips back into him.
I have the wild, impulsive thought that if I have to spend the rest of my life with Caspian, I could at least have Soren right now. I could have him in this bed, in this hidden cabin, and nobody would have to know about it.
All it would take would be for me to wash myself clean of his scent. To scrub myself of him before returning to my life. And maybe the memories of actually having him, being with him, would be enough for me to make it through a life with a man like Caspian.
“Are you awake?” Soren asks, and when his voice rumbles through me like a tiny earthquake, I struggle to control the impulse to press back into him.
Feigning a stretch, I arch my back, my hips rolling against his, and he sucks in a breath. “Yeah,” I say, as though I have no idea what I’m doing, even as I’m hoping he’s going to push back against me. Initiate something.
But he doesn’t. Of course, he doesn’t. Soren is the one who broke this thing off between us all those years ago. He only got into this bed last night because I was afraid of the storm.
And now, he sits up, sliding out of the small bed until he hits the edge, swinging his feet over the side and standing.
“Come on,” he says, clearing his throat and running a hand over his hair, not looking at me. “We can get ready to head back to town.”
For the next hour, Soren prepares the cabin to leave it again, washing the cups we’ve used, prepping the power—which I discover comes from a few solar panels on the roof—and checking all the plumbing.
He takes a quick shower and offers one to me, but I just want to get home.
Then we open the door and step outside, and realize we’re not goinganywhere.
“Oh,shit,” Soren mutters, taking another step, but that’s as far as he can go on the path leading back down to town. It’s a complete mudslide, the occasional fallen tree blocking the space, and mud built up around them like hurdles.
“From the storm,” I whisper as what this means really starts to set in. “We’retrapped.”
“Hey,” Soren says, turning around to me, his brown eyes glinting in the early morning light as he focuses on me. “It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“We’retrappedup here, and you already said Xeran is furious—”
“You let me handle that.” Soren’s voice is determined, steely, and it quiets me instantly. He’s always been this person—knowing what to do next. “We have to wait this out for a fewdays. If anything, this gives us a good reason for why we were up here.”
I close my eyes when something sharp tugs at my stomach, urging me toward the trees beyond. It’s Tara, calling for me. It’s the same thing I’ve been feeling over the years since that first big fire.
