Page 15 of Found (Mate Rejected #8)

15

AERIN

A s the door handle slowly turns, I reach for the bottle of water from my tray and sit up.

I don’t so much as blink as I stare.

Running to slam that door shut is not an option. I’m too pregnant to make any fast movements.

All I have is the element of surprise.

I’m on my feet, inches from the door with the bottle of water in one hand, when the door opens the rest of the way.

I throw it as hard as I can. The man growls as he recoils, water dripping from his face. That’s when I grab the handle and slam the door shut.

Then I start yelling.

I don’t care what I yell.

Anything that will attract attention to this man who was sneaking into my room.

And I hold the door shut closed so he can’t try to force his way in anyway.

I yell for so long that eventually, a few doors away, someone angrily shouts back. “Shut the fuck up. I’m trying to sleep.”

A door slams.

Someone else screams something, and I fall silent as I stare at the door, not sure if the man I flung the water at has left.

It was the same man from before.

Now that my heart is no longer pounding as hard as a gazelle running for its life, I know it had to be that same man from before.

I don’t think Franklin told him to bring me anything at all.

I think he heard Shane had died, and he was fabricating a reason to come to my door and make sure I was here, alone, before he came back to do something worse to me when he thought I’d gone to sleep.

That’s why his steps were so much heavier when he was walking away from the door than when he was returning.

That’s why he waited an hour before coming back. Plenty of time, he must have thought, for me to have gone back to sleep.

I stand in front of the door until my lower back hurts and my legs hurt too from standing so long.

Then, when the sun has risen in the sky and I hear people moving around in the hallway, I risk opening the door a crack to make sure no one is outside my room.

No one is.

But there are splatters of water on the floor, though the water bottle I flung into his face is gone. He must have taken it so no one would wonder what it was doing out there.

I close the door again and hurry toward the bathroom when my bladder reminds me it’s been far too long since I’ve emptied it.

After last night and the fear of the man coming back, I don’t dare risk having a shower. I brush my teeth with the bathroom door open and my eyes locked on the handle in case it starts to turn again.

I wash my hands and return to the bed, sitting closer to the door in case I need to get to it and hold it shut again.

No one comes to check on me.

Not Franklin.

Not a single person knocks on my door.

I hear them walking past, and I tense at each footstep, dreading the moment they might slow, or, worse, stop.

The only thing I have to eat is the apple and jerky, and after sniffing both twice to make sure he didn’t drug them or something, I slowly eat a meal I stretch out to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And at no point during the long day, short of blinking, do I take my eyes from the door.

When my head gets heavy, I lay down, telling myself not to dare risk sleeping. But I need to get as much rest as I can during the day while there are still people around, because if anyone is going to creep into my room, it’ll happen at night.

A door creaks and my eyes fly open.

I glance at the window, taking in the darkness outside, and can’t believe I actually fell asleep.

Another creak sounds and I panic as I scramble to get up.

I don’t have anything to fling at the man if he came back. Everything else in the room is furniture, too heavy to move.

Then my eyes snag on the lamp on the bedside table.

Bending to unplug it hurts my belly, but I grasp it, tiptoe to the slowly opening door, and just as it swings open, I launch the lamp at…

“ Mack !”

He catches the lamp before it can smack him in the face, eyes the lamp wryly, then me. The corners of his warm, brown eyes crease in a smile. “Hi, love. Uh, is there something I should know?”

I burst into tears.

He drops the lamp and crosses the room, slamming the door shut behind him before he gathers me into his arms.

Within seconds, he’s perched on the side of the bed with me in his lap.

I tuck my face against his throat, wind my arms around him and hold on tight in case this is a dream I’ll wake up from if I let him go.

“You’re okay, Aerin. Everything is okay,” he reassures me as he strokes a hand up and down my back.

It’s honestly embarrassing how long I cry for. Mack just holds me, and waits until I’m all cried out.

Then I hear the sound of footsteps moving toward my room. I peel my face from his throat and stare at the door.

“Aerin? What is it?” he asks, bouncing his gaze between me and the door.

I swallow. “There was someone last night.” I lower my voice. “He tried to creep into my room.”

His hold on me tightens a little, though his expression remains perfectly calm. “Ah, the lamp. Give me a second.”

He places me on the bed, and before I can tell him not to open the door, he’s across the room and swinging the door open.

I brace myself for a violent confrontation.

Mack stands in the open doorway, peering one way, then the next. “No one is there.”

But there was.

“He probably heard you in here,” I say.

Mack backs into the room and returns to me, lifting me again into his arms. “Then it’s a good thing I came back when I did.”

“Yeah.” I smile at him, never so relieved to see a person as I am to see him.

Then my brain wakes up.

I grip the front of his shirt as I simultaneously try to get up and push him toward the door. “You can’t be here. They want you. You have to?—”

He gently pries my fingers from his shirt and frowns at me. “It’s okay. I walked in through the front door. You have blood on your face. What happened?”

Shane’s blood. After what happened with that guy, I didn’t even think to wash my face.

“Aerin?” Mack prompts when I struggle to summon a response.

I stopped feeling anything for Shane a long time ago. Probably back when I first left him and Minnesota. The last time I saw him then, the reason I had run from him, had been when I saw him having sex with Bree.

And the bite on her throat. The bite that he must have given her when he shouldn’t have. Only mates bite each other.

But he died in front of me.

Died because of me, and I can’t close my mind to that.

Even if the only reason I’m in this mess is because he kidnapped me.

He was still my fated mate, and it still hurt knowing he died, even though I know it shouldn’t.

Mack frames my face with both hands, his frown deepening. “Aerin?”

“I tried to escape,” I whisper, in case anyone is near my room. “Last night, I tried to escape, but Franklin—he’s in charge here—caught me. Then Shane stepped in front of me. And… and Franklin killed him to warn me so I wouldn’t try to run away again. It was my fault. I don’t love him. But I—” A tear drips from my eye and slides down my cheek.

Mack draws me closer, kissing the top of my head. “It’s okay, Aerin. I understand.”

We hold each other for a long time.

“Let me get up, love, and I can clean the blood off your face.”

I tighten my hold on him. “Not yet.”

He just got here and I’m not nearly ready to let him go yet.

“Okay,” he whispers.

Outside, it’s night again.

I don’t know if anyone will come to check that I’m not trying to run away again. Maybe they don’t care. I ran before and they came after me and killed Shane.

Maybe they want me to run so they have an excuse to kill me and they can tell Mack it was all my fault.

He rubs a hand up and down my back. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I think I’d rather run as far away from this place with you as possible.”

He chuckles. “Me too.”

I don’t want to tell him about what happened. It’s still so fresh, but opening up to Mack has always been easy, so I start from the beginning.

I tell him about what happened at the house in Winter Lake, the shock of coming face to face with Shane, and how he had someone set fire to the den.

Here, I stop. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone is fine,” he reassures me. “And your grandparents are busy redecorating and wiping all traces of the fire from the den. Including ordering new windows.”

It’s a relief knowing the house didn’t burn down.

Talking more slowly, I reluctantly tell Mack about waking in the cabin. “I’d been dreaming of you and…”

He seems to recognize I don’t want to tell him this. “It’s okay, Aerin. You can tell me.”

Still reluctant to admit this, even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong, I still wince as I say it. “I dreamed I was with you. And in the dream you kissed me, but when I woke up…”

“Shane was doing the kissing?” His voice is tight.

I move to get up but his arms tighten around me. “I’m not mad at you, Aerin. I’m pissed at him for taking advantage. Never you.” He kisses me then. Softly. Sweetly. But far, far too briefly. “What else happened?”

I continue my story. Including Franklin telling me that he would let the omegas go, but that I didn’t believe he would.

Of how Franklin killed Shane right in front of me, and that a man tried to sneak into my room last night, and when I heard Mack’s footsteps, I thought he was back to do it again.

It’s been two days, and yet I feel like I’ve been here a month.

“I’m sorry you’ve been through so much,” he says a long while later. “But I really wish you hadn’t given yourself up like that.”

“Chris was hurt. I had to,” I tell him. And as much as I hate being here, I don’t regret what I did. Shane would not have just walked away and Chris would have died if Helena didn’t help him.

“ Chris ! Is he?—”

“He’s fine. Warren is still at the house in case there’s any trouble, but he told me that Chris had woken up a couple of times. Moses is staying with him and he assured me he has Lucy on speed dial in case he needs her advice on anything, but he was healing well before we left.”

“Moses?” I scrunch my nose. “What is Moses doing in Winter Lake?”

He sighs tiredly. “Yeah, there’s a lot I need to tell you. But first, you didn’t hurt yourself falling out of the balcony, did you?”

“I’m okay. It’s only the ground floor, and the grass was pretty soft.”

He shakes me slightly. “You need to be more careful, love. You and Thumper are my heart.”

My smile is watery. “Thumper is living up to her name. My bladder is getting all the hits lately.”

He flashes me a grin. “Bathroom break?”

I nod. “Bathroom break.”

But neither of us moves. We just look at each other.

“This is one big mess, huh?” he says, wryly.

I snort laugh. “Tell me about it.”

But it feels like a more manageable mess now I have Mack again.

I desperately need the bathroom, but I look at Mack and he looks at me, and I’m positive that I’m not the only one struggling to let him go.

His fingers are gentle as he caresses my right cheek and his eyes are so soft, I can’t believe this man loves me as much as he does.

“I can’t believe I found you,” he whispers.

I hug him again, relieved he’s here, but scared about what it means. “I’m so glad you did.”

Not a minute into our hug, I wince, pulling away.

Mack takes one look into my face. “Thumper?”

“Yeah.” I rub my side, wincing.

He grins as he picks me up. “Come on, love. Thumper is determined to be a soccer player with all that kicking. Let’s get you to the bathroom and I can focus on taking care of you, including wiping that blood off your face.”