Page 29 of Bullied Pretend Mate (Silverville Firefighter Wolves #3)

Before coming back to Silverville, I spent a lot of time prepping with my therapist. Talking about what this place might bring back to me. How it might get into my head, trying to convince me that my past is me.

How my grandmother’s house and her legacy might remind me of the trauma I went through as a kid. All the comments about my weight, my appearance. Every time someone made me feel like less of a person because I existed in a different body than they did.

We worked on affirmations and phrases I could use to steer clear of that. Ways I could stay true to myself.

But my therapist could never have predicted this.

Staring at the friend I thought had died.

The friend I watched go up in a blaze of blue, her body licked clean by the ultra-hot flames.

Something none of us had ever seen before—daemon fire.

Burning hotter than the ovens they use to cremate bodies.

Reaching and slinking, more like a snake than a typical flame.

Moving through the forest in a pattern that defied logic.

It came fast, and though I don’t remember much about that night, I do remember looking up and seeing Tara’s silhouette right in the middle of the blaze, her mouth open, her head tipped back.

And after that, Phina and I didn’t talk about her. Valerie was gone. Aurela was swept quickly into her house. Even though graduation was canceled, I’m sure Aurela wouldn’t have been there even if the ceremony had gone on as planned.

I haven’t seen Aurela since that day.

And yet, here’s Tara, fully formed. Looking exactly the same as she did in high school, down to the shape of her hips and the way she holds her body.

Down to the look in her eye, which she levels at me.

“Where in the hells have you been?” she asks, tilting her head at me. “Your clothes got a major upgrade.”

“Tara,” Phina breathes, her surprise quickly turning to loud confusion. “Where in the hells have you been? We thought you died ! We saw you die that night on the ridge.”

“Always so dramatic,” Tara laughs, throwing her head back and waving her arm at Phina. “It’s not that big of a deal, Sera. You’re always blowing things out of proportion.”

Phina steals her gaze and says through a terse jaw, “I go by Phina now, Tara.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tara groans, like a teenager whose mother is telling her to do her chores. Her eyes roam over us, lingering on each, until she gets to me and realizes it’s just the three of us here. She pouts. “Where is Aurela? You guys didn’t bring her to the party?”

“ What party?” Valerie asks, bringing her hands to her hair. “Where did you even come from?”

“Tara.” I step forward, drawing her attention toward me. It feels like we’re talking to a person standing on a ledge, the anticipation crackling in the air. Something inside me says that Tara is capable of a lot more than we ever thought. “Do you have something to do with the fires?”

She blinks at me, her brow wrinkling as she tilts her head playfully. “Are you being dense, Maeve? That’s not like you. You were always the smartest of us.”

“How am I being dense?”

“Starting that fire was always our plan,” Tara says, rolling her eyes and throwing her head back like she’s had to explain this a million times. “It’s what you guys wanted! To get the prom canceled. To make everyone in town hurt for what they did to you.”

“ No ,” Valerie snaps, shaking her head and stepping forward, pointing at our old friend. “No—we never agreed to that. Do you know how many people died that night, Tara? Shifters from our pack. Tourists. Babies .”

Valerie’s voice cracks on the last word, and I know she’s thinking of her baby at home. How a fire could roll through the town right now, and with the strength of the daemon energy in it, we’d never survive.

“Obviously, I didn’t want to kill babies.” Tara rolls her eyes again, and I want to snap at her to stop. That urge makes me feel like my mother. “But you guys seemed pretty on board with it, up until it actually started happening.”

“We never wanted to start a fire,” Phina says.

“ Really ?” Tara asks, spinning on her, pointing at Phina now. “What happened to burning the place down , Sera?”

When Tara says it, those words come out in Phina’s voice, but higher and softer, the way Phina’s voice sounded back in high school. It’s jarring to hear her like that, and when Tara smirks, it’s like she knows she’s getting under our skin.

Phina doesn’t bother correcting her, just grits her teeth. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“I don’t know shit ,” Tara spits, scowling at us. “All I know is that the four of you left me up here.”

“We thought you were dead!” Val calls, throwing her hands up.

I add, “You were in the middle of the fire, and I couldn’t even…I couldn’t even find your bones , Tara.”

Tara makes a pouty face. “Aw, Maeve-y, you looked for my bones.” “This doesn’t feel real,” Phina whispers, and I agree with her. Being here with Tara, hearing her use our names from high school. Watching her stalk around like she used to, commanding the space. “This feels like a nightmare.”

There’s always been something about Tara. The way she tugs at you, like she has her own gravitational pull. Similar to the bond I have with Felix, but less severe. Most gentle and pulling, like the ocean slowly but surely washing you out to sea.

“Why are you still acting like a teenager?” I ask slowly, eying the woman— girl standing in front of me. “Why do you look exactly like you did before?”

“Oh, gods,” Phina whispers, her eyes darting to mine. “Do you think she’s a ghost? Some sort of cryptid?”

“I’m not a fucking cryptid,” Tara snaps, looking first to Phina, then to me. “Aren’t you supposed to be all body-positive and shit? Why are you talking about what I look like?”

“Just tell us what’s going on!” Val shouts, stepping toward her. “You were always like this! So slippery, like you can’t just say what you want.”

Tara lowers her chin, her eyes darkening. “You know what I want.”

“No, I really don’t,” Valerie states. “I’m supremely confused about everything that’s happening right now.”

“I want our group back together,” Tara says, like we’re all stupid. Then, she drops the anger as though it never mattered and switches right into that pouting expression. “I’ve really missed you guys.”

“You could have called,” Phina says, crossing her arms. “Instead of waiting until now to just pop out of nowhere.”

“I’m not popping out of nowhere,” Tara says, swinging her gaze to me. “Maeve was looking for me.”

“I recognized your scent,” I say. “I smelled it in the ash and soot. And I thought you might have something to do with the fires, especially since they’re still happening.”

Tara sighs, turning and walking up a fallen log like she’s walking the plank, her arms up to her sides to hold for balance. “Well, at first, it was me.”

“It was?” I ask, shocked to be right about this.

“I mean, that first night, it was all of us,” she says, cackling a bit as she turns and sits, staring at us. “Right, girls?”

We say nothing, staring right back at her. She rolls her eyes. “Then, for a while, I was having a good time with it. Every fire made me stronger, and after you all left me, I needed something.”

“But how did you…survive?” Phina asks, squinting at her. “Up here in the woods by yourself?”

“The fire made me feel good ,” Tara says, like that’s far more important than how she was able to find shelter, clothes, and feed herself.

She leans back, laughing again. “And then, something else happened—someone else started up with the fires!” She laughs, looking to the sky for a moment.

“You guys know Xeran’s uncle? Slimy guy.

He was out here starting fires left and right.

From what I could tell, he was really into burning down houses.

” Tara looks at Phina. “Like your grandmother’s house. ”

Phina stands tall, but I see her fists tightening at her sides.

“Anyway, after he died—yeah, I saw the day your guy killed him, Phina, all great fun—I thought it was going to be all on me again. But here come these other fuckers, all trying to pull the daemon energy out from the ground. That didn’t start fires on its own, but it was enough for me to get them going—and I did ! ”

“What the fuck?” Valerie hisses, sucking air through her teeth. “Do you know how much damage those fires have caused?”

“Uh, yeah,” Tara says, knocking her lollipop against her teeth. “Kinda the whole point, girl.”

“So, why did you go so long without starting a fire?” I ask, glancing at Phina and Valerie, who both look ready to fight Tara at this point.

But I don’t want to fight her—I want to get information. To understand how she’s alive. To understand what could possibly be the point in living up here in the mountains, starting fire after fire. There has to be something more to it than just having fun.

Tara was always eccentric, but she was never mean. In the time we were friends, she would poke and prod, but she never hurt us. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Not until that night at the ridge.

“I just didn’t have the energy,” Tara says.

She glances at Valerie. “I loved that fire you started at the motel, but I just couldn’t get to it in time.

There was no daemon energy there. And after those Sorel brothers died, it was harder for me to draw the energy up and out.

I didn’t have help anymore, and my power has been getting weaker and weaker since that first night. That’s why I called you all up here.”

“You didn’t call us here,” Phina says, her jaw set. “We came looking for Maeve.”

“And why do you think Maeve is here?” Tara asks, cocking her head, then dropping it back against the bark. “This is getting so boring . Can’t we just get to the good part?”

“What’s the good part?” Valerie asks, and my heart starts to race when Tara turns, hopping down off the log and coming toward us, her eyes drinking us in. She looks like a vampire, ready to taste blood.

“The good part,” she says, grinning, “is when I take your power from you, just like I used to do back then.”