Page 10 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

I jerk in surprise and that’s when I realize we’ve stopped moving. I lean over to the side and see Maud standing in front of Alpha Ashford. The witch plants her feet and squares her chest. Whatever happens tonight, I know it won’t be Alpha Ashford getting past Maud.

Maud wags a finger at Alpha Ashford and strolls forward. “Take care in what you do next, Alpha .” She spits the word out at him like a curse before she looks down at me. There’s remorse in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Cordelia. I told you it wouldn’t end well for you, didn’t I?”

“Tonight at the moon run the Alpha’s son will announce his mate. It won’t end well for you when he does.”

I feel sick. Maud knew. She told me this would happen even if I didn’t understand. Keiran called me his mate and it's all gone downhill from there. My heat. My wolf. All of it has been wiped out by Keiran’s rejection.

Tears spill down my cheeks. “Maud, please. Help me.” I look to her because who else can I look to? I don’t even bother to look Keiran’s way. It hurts too much to see the proof of it now that he has his chosen mate. There’s no one in this pack to take up for me but Maud.

“I didn’t do it,” I whisper to her. A tremor moves through me. I want to peel my skin off. Every part of me that Alpha Ashford has touched, I want to burn it off until his scent, the memory of him is gone. Vomit rises up in me when I smell him. Creosote and kerosine. I’m going to be sick.

“This female is in heat. She needs peace. Somewhere Alphas like you can’t get to her,” Maud says.

There’s more whispers behind me from the pack at the news of my heat.

Shame is my constant companion with the Frostclaw Pack at my back.

I hate that I feel ashamed of my heat, as if I did something wrong.

“Another trick. You did this, witch. Thinking you can tempt my son to throw his life away for orphan trash.”

Maud lifts her chin at his words. “Don’t you blame me. This is as the moon goddess wills it.”

“The moon goddess’s will? No. I refuse to believe that.

You did this with your spell, didn’t you?

How dare you defy me, witch? I tasked you with crafting a spell to select his mate,” Alpha Ashford rumbles out.

“He chooses Bella of the Moonshadow Pack! Not that. ” He flings a hand in my direction.

That. I’m not even a breathing member of this pack to him.

He stalks over to Maud and I move to try and stop him but it’s useless.

He’s too fast and I’m crawling. In the end it doesn’t matter, because Maud isn’t bothered.

She stares the Alpha down. “No, the spell was to reveal. You heard what you wanted. Don’t blame me because your comprehension skills are limited, Alpha.

” She growls the last word at him. My mouth falls open because never in all the years I’ve known Maud has she ever growled at anyone much less the Alpha.

“You lying witch!”

“Ignorant fool.”

“I ought to have you banned. The pair of you,” Alpha Ashford looks between us both. I want to throw up when I hear the finality in his voice. I don’t have anywhere to go. Even if Frostclaw isn’t much, it's home. The only home that I’ve got and the only one that Maud has.

Except he was going to throw me in the fucking bonfire. I wince because it’s true. At least I think it was. I glance over at the bonfire where it crackles merrily away. If Maud hadn’t stepped in would I be in it now?

Maybe banishment is a solid option after all. Hells. I have to get out of here.

But I can’t let Maud be banished because of me.

She’s an Elder here, anywhere else and she’d be working her way up from the bottom like me.

Like me. My chest burns at the thought of it with shame.

I won’t let her live like me. I love her too much for that.

She deserves more than walking through the world like me.

“No! No, Maud didn’t have anything to do with it. I-send me away. It was me. It’s my fault.” I step forward and raise my hands like I do when I’m trying to prove to the chickens Maud keeps that I’m not going to try and gather their eggs when they’re brooding. “I’ll go. Just send me.”

Alpha Ashford steps forward with a sneer.

“You think you have any ground to make demands of me, orphan?” His hand moves quick as a rattlesnake and he slaps my hands so hard that my hands almost hit my face.

That wakes my wolf up. She snaps her teeth and I know he sees it if the way his face darkens is anything to go by.

“Threaten me again and I’ll send your witch away in pieces.”

I look past him to Maud. She has a sad smile on her face but she tips her head at me encouragingly, the way she does when I’m trying to master a new skill but I’m scared of messing it up. I can almost hear her speaking to me like she did while I fashioned my first knife.

“Go on. See it through.”

“P-please, banish me.” I take a deep breath and lower myself to my knees in front of him.

My bloody knees scream at me when the cobblestone bites into them but I stay kneeling.

“I’m begging you. Banish me. Not Maud. She had nothing to do with any of this.

” I hesitate because I can barely get the words out.

I know Keiran is watching me with his new mate.

The entire pack is watching me. For once, the weight of their stares is almost enough to make me break.

“I-you won’t ever see me again. Let Maud stay and I’ll vow to cut ties with Keiran. You have my word.”

“You give your word?” The Alpha’s eyes narrow and he leans over me. “I don’t give a fuck about your word, bitch. You’ll go because I decree it and it won’t be you cutting ties with Keiran. He will be the one rejecting you,” he snarls.

Keiran’s already rejected me, hasn’t he? It’s true. He has and I shouldn’t flinch at his words but I do anyhow because my heart is a bleeding raw thing when it comes to Keiran Ashford. It always has been.

“Keiran,” he barks. The command in it is plain. The time is now. Alpha Ashford is calling my mate to reject me while the entire pack watches.

I don’t move a muscle as Keiran approaches. I stay kneeling and keep my eyes on Maud. I take what strength I can from her familiar face before I look at the moon and wrap my arms around myself. I can do this. I know I can. I have to.

I’ve made it through every terrible thing before, haven’t I?

Alpha Ashford spits. “Filth like you mated to my son? Never gonna happen.”

I don’t look away from the moon until Keiran speaks.

The second I see him, I wish I’d kept my eyes on the night sky.

Keiran isn’t alone. Bella is pressed up close to him.

She turns into his side and frowns at me.

I want to scream at the expression pulling at her delicate features.

She sighs at me like I’m the one that shouldn’t be here.

Like I’m the one that doesn’t belong.

She’s right. I don’t belong here.

I never have.

“You will leave the pack tonight, do you understand me? Run far from these lands after tonight and never return.” Keiran’s voice is sharp, like the edge of a knife.

I can’t tell the difference when they cut me just the same.

I swallow hard and force myself to look him in the eye.

There’s no trace of the true mate that held me and shared what we knew about our future together.

Not for the first time that night my idiot heart aches.

That future is never going to happen now.

Luna, why do I still want him even though I know what’s coming?

“Keiran-” I start but Bella bares her teeth at me.

“You don’t speak to my mate, whore.”

I ignore her and keep my eyes on Keiran’s. I don’t know what I’m going to say but I have to say something. “Keiran, it doesn’t have to be like this.” It’s true. It doesn’t. I’ll do anything for Maud. We both know it.

“Doesn’t have to be like what?” he asks with a mean smile. He’s playing with me now. He has a mean streak when he has a mind to it. When he decides to pretend he’s his father’s son, Keiran can be heartless but still I press on.

“Cruel,” I say and look at Bella who’s wrapped herself around his arm.

I hate how good they look together. They look perfect.

Like they were meant for each other. I nod at the she-wolf.

“You have the mate you want. The alliance is yours, just like the future of the pack. Just let me go quick and I’m gone. You’ll never see me again. I swear it.”

He barks out a laugh. “Make it quick? Oh no, Cordy. I’m going to take my time and fucking enjoy this.

A whore like you? Filthy fucking orphan that leeched off this pack for years?

No, you don’t deserve quick. I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago, the second I saw you in my dream and rip you out of me from the root. ”

My eyes water because I hear the truth in his voice. The second he saw me in his dream? My stomach drops and if I wasn’t already on the ground I’d probably end up falling down to right where I am. He saw me. He dreamed me.

This whole time Keiran knew I was his mate.

And not just because of a feeling, he knew without a doubt that I was his mate.

The moon goddess showed him and he never said a word to me about it, and now here he was with his new mate about to sever our bond.

My hands shake and I have to press them against my thighs to stay upright.

No matter what happened tonight, no matter how it played out with Alpha Ashford we were always going to end up just the way we were now.

With me not having the strength to reject him and Keiran hurting me right up until the last minute.

The ache in my body is nothing to the way I can already feel the fledgling bond between us fraying and coming apart.

It’s so new that it hasn’t even truly taken root in me and Keiran’s every word cuts into it with the kind of brutality I’ve seen in the Alphas all my life.