Page 66 of The Enforcer's Rejected Mate
“She’s half-human if she’s Amara’s,” I remind Ronan, even though he’s the last soul I need to remind of that fact. He raised Cordelia with Amara until she was taken. He knows her better than any of us. I don’t remember much when it comes to her. A laughing bright eyed pup that followed behind me and the others. She was smaller than the rest of us, but fast. I remember that. Ronan wasn’t lying. Her mother was the best teacher the pack ever knew. She was kind to me when I didn’t get the math problems right away. She’d teach us with Cordelia on her hip sometimes. The windows in the school house open, the air sweet with the promise of summer while Cordelia napped in her mother’s arms and we recited times tables.
Life was easy then. Everything was easy before Frostclaw.
Ronan grunts in acknowledgement. “Half human or not she’s back and she’s not a witch,” he says before he jerks his chin at the door behind us. “I want you to take her to her cottage.”
“Clyde’s seeing to her, isn’t he?” I ask but I stand because my Alpha told me to. “I know who Cordelia is to you,” I tell him. I bite back the part of me that wants to insist that she’s someone to us too. “Are you sure we can trust her? She’s spent her whole life with the Frostclaw. She could have been sent here to spy.”
Ronan pours himself another glass of wine. “If she was sent here to spy then what better way to keep an eye on her than keeping her close?” He levels a look at me. “Can you keep an eye on her?”
I’m the pack’s Enforcer. I am the law when it comes to Bloodstone. I’m strong enough to challenge for Alpha. I can keep my eyes on one halfling.
“You know I can.”
He sips his wine with a nod. “Then go. See her to the cottage with Clyde. And stick close to her, that’s an order.”
“As you wish, Alpha.”
His lips turn up in a grin. “Don’t Alpha me. Get out of here.”
I don’t waste any time. I turn and leave after Cordelia. She hasn’t gone far from the feel of our Soul Tie. The bond feels different than it did when she was upset. She’s happy right now, steady, the hum of the bond moves through me heavy and slow. I could shut my eyes and relax right into it if I wanted. I shake it off and follow my nose through the Keep and down the path towards Red River. I find Cylde and Cordelia easily enough, they haven’t gone far. They’re at the base of Thorne’s Embrace and when I find them, she has her hand against a root while Clyde tells her about the history of our pack and Thorne’s Embrace. I don’t know what compels me to do it but I step from the shadows and pick up where Clyde leaves off.
“It’s the heartbeat of our ancestors,” I tell her. I surprise her it seems by the jump and yelp she gives when she hears me.
“Where did you come from? Were you just following us?”
“I was making my rounds. We just so happened to be on the same path,” I tell her. Cordelia almost doubles over as she grabs her chest. Is she okay? She looks like she’s about to faint but I don’t feel much through the bond so she’s fine…I think.
Clyde lets out a hacking cough so bad that I wonder if he’s picked up smoking again. I almost ask him but he starts whistling so maybe not smoking but a bug he almost swallowed. Best not to bring up something so embarrassing.
“Nice night for rounds,” he says.
“Sure is,” I tell him and fix my attention back on Cordelia. She’s not fallen over but very nearly. She has her hand on the root which suits me for what I’m about to tell her. I come close and put my hand on the root next to hers.
“This is where their memory lives,” I tell her. All pups learn this to prepare for their first shift. The lore of Thorne’s Embrace is imbued in every little thing the pack does. There’s no escapingit here, not when this is ground zero for the birth of shifters. How does Cordelia not know about it with Frostclaw’s history?
“Its memory?” She tilts her head and looks up at me. The stars shine back at me from her dark eyes. Gods, her eyes are lovely. If this was the only way I was allowed to see the stars ever again I would gladly do it. I must stare into her eyes too damn long because Cordelia shifts nervously away from me and drops her eyes to the ground. I feel the loss of her attention immediately.
“I mean, the tree has a memory?” she asks me.
I sigh and lean forward. I breathe in the night and relax as the energy from the ancient tree at the start of everything seeps into my palm a little more with every second. Sometimes it feels like this is the only moment I’m ever able to fully relax. When I’m connected to Thorne’s Embrace like this with nowhere to go.
“Not the tree. Thorne’s Embrace.” I rub my hand along the root. “This is where our home is.” I can feel the shift in Cordelia’s mood. She’s close to tears but it doesn’t feel bad. There’s no longing or sadness, but there is a weight.
Good. She gets it.
“Everyone that has come before us. Every soul is here. It lives on and always will in Thorne’s Embrace. This is the heart of the pack.” I watch her as I speak. Even if I can feel her emotions, I’d rather watch them play out in real time.
She’s still for a minute and we all three stand there. The wind stirs the leaves overhead and the sound whispers to me of the souls that have gone before us and speaks of the ones yet to come. For right now it invites us to be. I hear Cordelia breathe deep and the heaviness drops from her like water off a duck’s back.
“Our home,” Cordelia says and moves her hand closer to mine. I almost take hers. I don’t though. Instead, I commit thismoment to memory, the way the air smells, the coolness of the night, the comfortable silence that’s settled around us.
“Bloodstone hasa long storied past of partnership with humans. My family served the Bloodstone Alpha’s for centuries. It was lost for a time though when we settled in Oak Fast, but I’ve reclaimed that.”
“Really?” Cordelia asks. I can hear the wonder in her voice. A lot of shifters don’t like humans, or they see them as inferior. Frostclaw holds to that archaic way of thinking but Bloodstone has never been a pack to entertain that way of thought. We get that all beings are magic, even the less obvious ones. Humans are still Luna’s children like we all are. I’m glad she didn’t come back brainwashed to think otherwise.
She’s not a spy.
The voice is quiet but it’s there. I shove it down and keep walking. I don’t like that this female had me standing, nearly holding her hand on a root of Thorne’s Embrace. Itching to touch her during dinner, so much so that I did. Ronan didn’t bring it up but he’s going to be watching me.And that’s saying nothing of how you first met her, my traitorous mind whispers. I grit my teeth and drop back half a step. I tell myself it puts distance between us but it’s not. I’m doing it to better keep an eye on the streets around us. Red River is quiet and still but that could change at any moment. It did once and it can do it again.
