Page 32 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Twenty-One

CORDELIA

C lover’s a lot more powerful and clever than she gives herself credit for.

I wonder why she doesn’t see it. I turn on my side and look out the window.

It’s still raining. A lot harder than it was before, the drizzle from when we arrived at Bloodstone Keep is back to a downpour.

The sky lights up before I hear the boom of thunder.

The window panes shake in their frame and I pull the quilt higher.

I’m in bed now under two thick quilts and a mess full of fluffy pillows thanks to the wardrobe in the room.

Clover spelled that too and it spits out anything you can dream of.

After dinner, she took me in here to give me a lesson on how the cupboard and the wardrobe work. All you have to do is think of what you want, clothes, shoes, soaps, anything inanimate and open the wardrobe and BAM! It’s there. I still can’t believe that it’s real.

“Everything is energy. That’s what witchcraft and spellwork is, just moving energy around.

A lot of shifters don’t know that about magic which is silly because it’s the same stuff that helps us shift.

I use sigils to do this kind of work though.

Be careful what you think of though because one time I filled this place with seashells. ”

I don’t quite understand the sigils she was talking about or how she harnessed the power but it was still fun to sit and learn.

She brought out a grimoire just like the one Maud uses and went through a few of the spells in there.

I think we’re going to try and change my hair color the next full moon.

It was nice to think that I would be here in a month and if I did, I’d have a friend like Clover.

“I have to pass, well I have to get the Alpha to agree to letting me stay though.”

“Ronan will agree. You’ll see. I know it.”

Clover is a good friend.

After dinner and our study session on runes and magic was over I helped her clean the kitchen and pack away the stew she’d made for the week even though she insisted that I didn’t have to.

Cleaning the kitchens after a pack meal was never my favorite activity but that was more because of who I was cleaning it with.

Working to leave the kitchen spotless with the food packed away for the next few days was fun with Clover.

The most fun I’d had in a long while even though I was periodically checking over my shoulder for Thorne.

He hadn’t been in the kitchen when we came back from my room, a nice big room at the end of the hall with a queen bed and a writing desk, wardrobe and fireplace, but I had noticed there was a clean bowl and plate sitting nice and neat on the dry rack.

An alpha that cleaned up after himself? Color me impressed.

He didn’t show but that didn’t mean I wasn’t feeling his presence. I could still feel his eyes on me, see the way he looked at me when I came back from my shower.

“He fusses,” Clover explained when she saw me looking at the plate and bowl, “you saw him with your dinner.”

“My dinner?”

“Thought he was going to put two bowls of stew on there for you with the way he was fussing about it being enough.”

That surprised me. I’d seen him by the tray but I hadn’t realized he’d been the one to pack the stew in as much as he had.

There had been nothing but the best cuts of venison in it.

Every spoon had given me another and the bread had been slathered in butter and ready for me. I’d never had so much to eat on my own.

Thorne didn’t make sense. If he was angry at me asking to stay in the pack then why would he feed me so well?

Part of me screams that I know why but it’s the dumb part of me that loved Keiran so I try not to listen to it.

That doesn’t mean it shuts up. The longer I think on the bowl of stew and the pieces of thick crusty buttered bread the louder it gets.

Finally, like a bruise I can’t resist pressing on, I let the thought come.

Alphas feed their Omegas.

It’s common practice. When an alpha chooses a mate or decides to court one, he shows he can provide by personally feeding their intended. Not only does it show their prospective mate that they will be taken care of but it sends a clear message to the rest of the pack.

This one’s mine.

I used to dream of Keiran breaking from his table and bringing me a fat juicy steak at dinner.

It never happened but it didn’t stop me from trotting out the tired old daydream when I was eating half a peanut butter sandwich on a heel of bread in between clearing dishes.

Keiran never even so much as looked my way when I worked in the kitchens and mess hall at dinner time.

He was too wrapped up in his own world. A world that I was never going to be good enough or strong enough to enter.

“Keiran.”

“Don’t you ever say my name again, you slut.”

It sounds pathetic now that I’m not in Frostclaw.

That all my hopes and daydreams went into the alpha I was seeing bringing me a steak or a burger to eat at dinner time.

Tears prick my eyes. I pull the quilt over my head and try to shut out the replay of Keiran rejecting me but there it is burned into my memory and tormenting me.

“Keiran, please,” I whisper in the dark room. It’s a plea to a ghost. A phantom that I’ve conjured all on my own.

“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.”

A sob rips out of me and I have to bury my face in the pillows to muffle it.

It’s almost worse knowing that I’m alone, that this is all my doing, my inability to leave my memories alone.

If Keiran was here, I could run from him like I did when I left Frostclaw and got on that bus but there’s nowhere to run now that I reached my destination.

It’s then that I realize this is the first night I’ve slept alone.

Every other night of my life I’ve been in the dormitories for unmated females, with Maud, with Keiran or on the bus with Gus driving and Jenny and the other passengers snoring around me. Is that why my memories are so loud? Why it feels like it’s hitting me for the first time all over again?

My chest aches where the mate bond had been and I press my hands tight to it as I cry.

No matter how I lay or rub at the pain, I can’t soothe the hurt away.

If anything, it makes me cry more. I wish…

I wish I wasn’t alone right now and in a place I don’t know.

As comfortable as the room is, it’s not mine and I’m so so tired of the loneliness that’s eaten away at me until I feel hollowed out.

A walking husk of who I should be right now and no one else can see my wounds.

How can I explain to them that it feels like I’m screaming alone underwater with no one to pull me out?

Like I’m drowning in the dark, no sense of up or down, of how much further I have to swim to take that one breath of life sustaining air?

It’s simple. I can’t explain it.

So I don’t and I never have. Not that I’ve had many opportunities outside of Maud and Keiran.

“Fucking hells,” I whisper. “Stop, please stop.” These pleas are for me and me alone. I have to stop thinking of him, remembering what he was to me.

“It won’t be when I’m Alpha. I promise you, Cordy. I’m going to make this place safe for you. I swear I will.”

The only thing I do when I think of Keiran is torture myself. I break my heart all over again. I know that but it’s no use. I accepted his rejection so why does it feel like I’m dying?

Heartbreak.

It’s heartbreak.

I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.

Keiran has been the only one I’ve ever loved.

Until now I’ve been hurt by our relationship but never broken-hearted.

I sniffle and swipe at my tears that just keep coming no matter what I do.

When I felt upset about something Maud always made me a cup of chamomile tea.

I wish I had one now, it might help me calm down.

I think about going to the kitchen but I’m not sure where everything is and I don’t want to wake Clover.

She’s nearby. Up a set of stairs with a room above the kitchen and the last thing I want to do is wake her, but that’s when I remember the wardrobe.

I sit up and look at the big wardrobe. What little light there is from the moon shines on it, beckoning me forward. I have to try at least.

“A cup of tea is inanimate. It could work.” When Clover went over the wardrobe with me the only guidelines she gave me was nothing living. I didn’t think of food and drink though but it did make soap and clothes for me so why not tea?

I get up from my bed and pad towards the wardrobe.

The only thing on my mind is chamomile tea.

Clover said to hold as many details of what you wanted in your mind for the highest success rate.

I haven’t thought too hard on anything that I’ve conjured but now I focus hard.

The way it smelled in Maud’s hut, how the ceramic mug felt in my hands as I cupped it close and sipped my tea.

I can taste it as it warms me from the inside.

I stop in front of the wardrobe. I’m not crying now. Focusing on the tea was enough to stop me from having a breakdown. That’s already a win, right? I sigh and pull open the wardrobe and right there sitting in it is a steaming mug of chamomile tea. I smile and pull it towards me to take a sip.

At the first taste of chamomile, I relax.

I inhale deep, hold it for a beat and then exhale.

It’s like I’m there with Maud where nothing can touch me and I suddenly don’t feel so alone anymore.

I take another drink of tea and turn to go back to my bed but a creak outside of my door stops me.

I freeze and look at the door. My hearing is better now, I probably wouldn’t have heard the creak if I didn’t have my shifter hearing.

I take a half step towards the door and listen but there’s nothing else. I keep walking to the door and it’s when I’m a foot away from the door that I hear a slight thump on the floor before more silence.

Someone is outside my door but who?

I press my ear to the wall and hold my breath but there’s nothing.

I move to the door and do the same thing but again, I hear nothing.

I look down at the knob and consider it.

If I was braver, I’d pull open the door.

I might do it now if I felt scared but there’s something about the creak and the thump that doesn’t scare me.

It’s nice to know I’m not alone.

I stare at the door for another second before I walk back to my bed to sit and finish my tea. When I’m done, I lay down and pull the quilts tight around me. The ache in my chest is gone, like it was never there. That’s the last thing I think before my head hits the pillow and I go to sleep.