Page 58 of The Enforcer's Rejected Mate
That pride in me mingles with Cordelia’s awe and the mix is heady. I have to put a hand out to steady myself from the weight of it. Clyde notices my misstep but doesn’t say anything. He does however give me a look of concern. I wave him off and roll my shoulders as I shake off the wallop I just took.
Shit, is this what tonight is going to be like? So far I’ve managed her pain and sorrow, her loneliness and nervousness have all hit me like a mack truck but they haven’t affected me like this. I felt a spark of her joy earlier but it was still nothing like this. Cordelia truly means what she says to Clyde.She loves this room.Adores it. And I can barely walk in a straight line from the force of it.
I take in a deep breath and let it out slowly while I concentrate. Get it together. Do not stumble like a drunk fuck in front of Ronan and Cordelia. Little by little I’m able to dampen the force of Cordelia’s emotions until I’m more or less normal. By then, Cordelia has gone off with Clyde. He’s telling her about a particular tree and why it’s so special. The only thing I knowabout the plant is that it was a bitch to get up here and that I practically knocked Lucian out with it when we unloaded it from the truck.
It’s a good tree.
I move to join Cordelia and Clyde but we hear the door from Ronan’s private quarters open and close, signaling the Alpha has joined us. Cordelia turns to face him with a shy smile on her face. She drops her head, nervous all over again with Ronan’s appearance. I hear her intake of breath as she goes to speak but before she can get her greeting out Ronan speaks.
“Cordelia, welcome home.”
What the fuck?
Chapter
Twenty-Five
CORDELIA
The dining room is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it in my whole life. In fact, I’ve never imagined something like this could exist. It’s like the forest has broken through the Keep and made its way inside. The walls eroded until the forest spilled inside and made itself at home. The effect is breathtaking.
It’s just magic.
That’s the only way to describe it. I look up and almost cry from the way the ceiling shows me nothing but stars and the moon. The cold light of the moon shines bright and when I close my eyes my spirit feels calm. It feels at home.
Home is such a foreign concept to me but here I am recognizing it in Bloodstone Keep once again.
I spin in a slow circle to truly take in the room. It’s wild and refined in the best of ways. Crimson, sumptuous curtains hang over the few windows at the far end of the room. There’s a throne there in front of the windows. It’s on a raised dais. The Alpha’s throne. It makes Frostclaw’s attempt at a throne in the main meeting hall look cheap and small.
That seat is an overstuffed work of red leather and too shiny gold gilded woodwork that sits under fluorescents and clasheswith the room it sits in, but this? The Bloodstone Alpha’s throne is simple. It’s big enough for a shifter male to sit comfortably in. It’s carved from dark wood stained black and from here I can see the Bloodstone crest carved into the arms of it. The crimson moon stands out on either armrest but aside from that there’s no other adornment to the throne.
“Wow,” I whisper. I can’t help the smile that comes to my lips. I should be nervous going before the Alpha but it’s impossible with how at home I feel here. Clyde guides me forward towards a willow tree.
“This was the first tree planted here when we reconstructed the Keep.”
“Reconstructed?”
Clyde shifts uncomfortably and nods. “The fire destroyed this part of the Keep. The Alpha’s quarters had to be completely gutted and rebuilt. For years this room sat unused because of that but changed a decade ago.”
I nod listening to Clyde’s story but I’m doing math. I glance over at Thorne. I don’t know how old he is but he seems close to my age, maybe a handful of years older. He was here during the fire, wasn’t he? I bite my lip thinking about what that must have been like to be here in the aftermath. What would it have been like to see this place burned and falling down for years?
“Once we had enough funds and a good amount of able-bodied shifters ready, we were able to start rebuilding. I think we’ve done a solid job honoring the pack and the past.”
Was it better to live with your ghosts or to be the ghost? After years with the enemy, I didn’t know. Clyde starts to show me towards the throne but that’s when we hear a door open. I turn to see a broad-shouldered man with dark hair enter the room. He’s in his forties with a peppering of gray in his hair. He looks the same age as Alpha Ashford but there’s something different about this Alpha. Where the Frostclaw Alpha exuded darkness,the Bloodstone Alpha doesn’t. There’s a lightness to him that catches me by surprise.
I step forward trying to pick out my words carefully but he speaks before I do.
“Welcome home, Cordelia.”
That steals my breath away. Welcome home?
“You know me?” I whisper. Not exactly the greeting I imagined giving the Alpha. “I mean, hello, I-I’m happy to meet you. Thank you for having me, Alpha.”
The Alpha waves off my awkward greeting. “Of course, I know you. I’d recognize one of our own coming home anywhere, especially a Fireheart.”
One of our own.
A Fireheart.
