Page 26 of The Enforcer's Rejected Mate

“You are going to have an amazing, beautiful life, do you hear me?” Maud steps back and smooths my hair over my shoulders. “Now promise me one thing. Swear it to me.”

“What? Anything.”

“When things get hard, and trust me, they will get hard because anything worth having is worth sacrificing for, promise me that you’ll fight for it.”

My brow knits in confusion.“Fight? Fight for what?”

“Yes, fight. You’ll fight for what’s yours. Promise me you’ll know what belongs to you,who belongs to you. If you decide that right now, everything will fall in line. You can’t run from fate, Cordelia. It will always find you, even if you lock the door on it. So don’t even try.”

Maud’s words land like a weight around my neck. I don’t understand them, not wholly but at the same time I do. I’ve lived my whole life not having much and never fighting for myself because there was no use but that was the old me’s life. The life where I was trapped in Frostclaw Pack. No more of that, I tell myself. My wolf thumps her tail in agreement. She’s keen on the idea of a fight.

No more letting what belongs to us slip away. From now on we fight for what we are owed.

“I-yes, I promise, I’ll fight for what’s mine,” I promise Maud.

She smiles and pats me on the shoulder. The bus pulls up then and we walk towards it together. There’s not many people boarding the bus out of town this morning. Only a half dozen or so. I scan their faces and wonder where they’re going. Some of them look excited, but most look sleepy or anxious to be out of the rain. It’s coming down heavily now. The easy drizzle shiftedto a steady downpour, but even in the rain I can tell I’m the only shifter getting on the bus out of Winthrop.

“I’m going to miss you,” Maud tells me. She dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief and I give her a watery smile.

“I think you’ll miss me chopping wood the most.”

She laughs. “Clearly.”

To anyone that doesn’t know us, we look like a grandmother and granddaughter bidding each other a tearful goodbye. If I had a grandmother I know she would have been like Maud. I hug her once more.

“I’ll write.”

“Only once you’re settled and only to the PO Box.” Maud has a box in town at the post office. I don’t know who she writes to or why, but now I’m glad for it.

“I will. I promise.”

I take a deep breath and turn to face the bus. Even in the gloomy morning light the chrome of it shines. The lights are turned on and cast a warm glow out into the morning. I can see people through the windows storing their luggage and taking their seats. The paper ticket in my hoodie pocket feels like a firebrand. I press my hand to it and run a finger along the edge to convince myself it’s there and I haven’t lost it by accident.

This is it. I’m really leaving Frostclaw.

I look over my shoulder at Maud and wave. “Goodbye, Maud.”

“Goodbye, sweet girl.”

I move towards the bus and climb the three steps up into the bus. The driver is standing in the aisle. He’s an older man with salt and pepper hair and kind blue eyes. When he smiles at me I’m grateful and the tightness in my chest at leaving Frostclaw loosens. I smile back. I can do this.

“Ticket, please.” He’s got a hole punch in one hand and holds out a hand to take my ticket.

“Sure, it’s right here.” I reach into my hoodie but fumble the ticket and drop it. The ticket flutters away and lands in the aisle. “Shoot, sorry,” I tell them and bend down to grab it. It’s when I’m half bent over that I hear Keiran.

“Where is she?” I freeze and drop into a squat. What the hell is he doing here? I shuffle over to the side, into the aisle with the driver.

“Miss, what are you doing?” I can hear the ‘what the fuck?’ in his voice and my cheeks burn hot with embarrassment. I know I look like a freak scuttling around on the ground like I am.

“Ah, the ticket,” I explain, “It went um, under here somewhere,” I say and start patting around like I’m searching for my ticket even though I’ve got it in my hand. I move further into the aisle and away from the door. “Just a second. So sorry!”

I crawl forward and peek around the edge of the aisle and see Maud squaring off with Keiran. Surprisingly, he’s alone. No Bella in sight. Interesting.

“None of your business,” Maud tells him and moves past him to walk back to her truck but Keiran gets in her way.

“She’s on that bus, isn’t she?” he asks and turns to look up at where I’m hiding. I fall back so fast that I land on my ass and onto the driver’s foot.

“Miss, are you okay? Should I get the woman you were with to help you?” The driver asks. He moves to call out to Maud but I stop him.