Page 46 of Kidnapped Rejected Mate
“Why do you think they’re like that?” Aurela asks, breaking the sleepy little moment, the pleasant talk of a new tradition.
I sit up a little, glancing over at her, realizing she’s the only one of us who hasn’t had a single sip of alcohol tonight—stolen wine or not.
“Generational trauma?” Lachlan asks, glancing at Valerie, and I get the feeling the two of them have talked about this a lot. “We never really knew our grandparents, but I’m betting that has a lot to do with it. Maybe they grew up with impossible standards, and they didn’t know anything other than how to pass them along.”
“Do you think they’re ever going to…change?” Aurela looks small, and I reach over, wrapping my arm around her, tugging her into me. She sighs into the touch, and I breathe in her scent.
“Don’t know,” Lachlan says, his head tipped back against the couch, his eyes on the ceiling.
Logically, I know the two of them are siblings—twins, even—but this is the first moment it really hits me what that means. They grew up together, spent a million moments side by side. And right now, Aurela is a scared little sister—by just a few minutes, but still—asking her older brother for information he doesn’t have, answers he can’t quite give her.
“For a while, we thought that they would,” Valerie says, her voice low, her eyes rising to meet first Aurela’s, then mine. “The truth is that, even with all their faults, your parents are doing some form of trying. My parents…they were pretty clear about not wanting me when it became obvious that I couldn’t shift. After that first fire, I left town, and they never even tried to look for me. And when I came back, they were already gone, moving on and leaving no trace of them behind.”
Lachlan reaches over to his wife, settling a hand on her knee.
“So, what I’m trying to say,” Val says, after a deep steadying breath, “is that I was really hopeful your parents just needed a wake-up call. It’s clear they care about you both, but I don’t know where the line is between love and control. And I don’t know how to manage a relationship with them when they constantly step over it.”
“When did you get so wise?” Aurela whispers, shaking her head, and I gently use my thumbs to wipe the tears from her face.
Growing up without parents wasn’t fun, but I didn’t go through any of this, so maybe that’s a small saving grace. My parents will always get to be angelic martyrs in my mind, while these guys have to live with the gruesome fact that their parents are, in fact, flawed and broken people.
“No offense, Aur,” Valerie says, laughing and reaching for her wine glass, “but it helps to leave the house every once in a while.”
Aurela laughs, shaking her head and reaching for another piece of pizza, though it’s long gone cold by now.
“Yeah,” she says with a sly glance in my direction. “I’m learning that the easy way, I suppose.”
Chapter 24 - Aurela
This time, when the dream comes to me, I recognize what’s happening and I try to fight it.
Tara is there, standing somewhere in the woods, but the smoke is too thick for me to make her out, for me to see anything clearly but the choppy, uneven blue hair on her head. She stares at me with a hungry sort of look.
I try to wake up, to reach out for Soren, but he’s not there, and no matter how much I resist, I feel myself falling deeper and deeper into the dream, walking closer to her in the clearing, though I try to drag my feet, to turn around and walk away.
“If you were strong enough to resist me,” Tara coos tauntingly, “you would have done it a long time ago, Aury.”
And when I wake up, it’s not just a dream.
“Finally,” Tara says, her real voice harsher, cutting through the space between us with a clarity she didn’t achieve in my dream. “You’d think such a nice, long walk would make you wake up faster, Aury.”
“Don’t call me that,” I say, but my voice comes out weak, half-formed.
When I look around, I realize there’s one difference between this reality and my dream—there’s no fire here. The forest is relatively calm, an owl hooting in the distance, the cicadas just beginning their low, consistent humming, singing through the forest with a haunting reverie.
Just from the sight of the trees alone, it’s hard to figure out exactly where I am, but I know it’s a long, long way from town. My feet hurt, and I get the sense that Tara was telling thetruth about me having walked a long, long way to arrive in this clearing.
“Why not?” Tara asks, tilting her head at me. Slowly, as though she doesn’t want to spook me, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a red lollipop, the kind she used to eat constantly in high school.
Even standing this far from her—ten feet, at least—I can smell her scent. A little sharp, minty. Cool, like menthol.
Popping the sucker into her mouth and dropping the wrapper on the ground, she says, “Hello, earth to Aurela? Are we having a conversation or what?’
“How do you keep bringing me out here?”
She throws her head back and laughs, the sound throaty and impossibly cool. In high school, I thought she was the epitome of the aloof, collected girl I wanted to be. Now that I’m older—and she doesn’t seem like she’s aged a day, physically or in maturity—I see her for what she is. Maybe a little insecure. Trying too hard to act like she doesn’t care because caring means getting your feelings hurt.
“I’m not bringing you out here,” Tara says when she’s done laughing, dropping down onto a tree stump and crossing her legs. “Youjust can’t stay away from me, Aury. It’s like you’re obsessed or something.”
