Page 62 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Forty-Three

THORNE

S omeone set fire to our eastern border. When I find them, I’m going to kill them. Not so much for the fire but because it took me away from the pack meeting, and Cordelia.

She’d just been embraced by the Elders when Lucian appeared at my side to tell me about the fire.

“We spotted smoke on the horizon. Looks like it’s the old quarry. If we leave now, we can be there in half an hour.”

I grit my teeth. “Fuck. Let’s move.” A fire in the forest can spread in minutes. A half hour was already too long but we had to try. “Grab everyone we’re taking on patrol and double it. Put in a call to Oak Fast in case we can’t contain it. I’m heading to the quarry now.”

“Got it. Be right behind you.”

Lucian left and I stood there when I knew I should go too.

I couldn’t help it, not with the way the pack was taking to Cordelia.

She was being treated exactly the way she should be coming home.

Annie stepped up to give her a hug. Good.

She should be hugging Cordelia, not running her mouth.

She better not start any shit while I’m gone.

I hadn’t had time to give her and Ceelie a talk.

I thought I had more time, meant to grab her after the pack meeting but damn this fire.

I weave my way through the crowd and stop in the doorway.

I look back at Cordelia and fuck is she beautiful.

She’s crying now but the bond tells me all is well.

It’s happy. I can feel it snapping and alive in my chest. I rub my hand against my sternum and watch her for another second before I tear myself away and stride through the doors.

Now I’m running full speed towards the quarry.

Can’t even drive there with the way the road got washed out two summers ago.

Worst fuckin’ place for a fire. At least the storms we’ve had this week should have slowed down spread.

The woods are too damp to really catch fire.

Still, I run harder, push myself faster until the only thing I can hear is my heartbeat and the ragged sound of my breathing.

I make it to the quarry in twenty minutes.

It’s abandoned now, used to be run by some out of stater that did a half-ass job.

Ronan bought it from them and shut it down as soon as he had the deed in hand.

“Best to let the land retake it.”

And the forest had been retaking it, saplings and trees a few years old grow up where the miners dug.

The machinery they used is still here, rusted and gutted for parts we could sell.

Vines wrap around the old metal, like the forest floor is rising back up to swallow the machines whole.

I scan the area for the fire but there’s nothing that I can see.

It’s twilight now, about to be properly dark.

A human would be stumbling around but I can see just fine.

“What the fuck,” I mutter. I keep moving along the ridge and up to higher ground. When I get to the top I see the smoke Lucian spotted. It’s just behind the quarry, from the looks of it but it’s not a big fire. Good, maybe I got here in time.

There’s a few old pumps we’ve maintained just for this sort of event that still work, I can use those for water if I need it. I jog over to the one closest to the fire’s location and unwind the thick hose. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to put this thing out and make it back to the pack meeting.

Move fast. Get back to our mate.

I yank the hose harder and ignore my damn wolf. He knows how to piss me off all right. I turn the hose on and head out towards the fire. I break through the treeline and scan the area. There’s no sign of a fire yet, which is…curious.

Not natural.

I keep walking, deeper into the forest. There’s a hill in front of me. The fire has to be up that way. I walk up the hill, pine needles crunching underfoot as I go and when I get to the top of the hill it’s not the fire that I see. It’s a woman.

An old woman in a long yellow dress and silvery hair that falls down to her waist. Silver flashes in the moonlight on her wrists when she scratches at something in the ground. Is she writing something?

She’s bent low over where the fire once was.

There’s blackened earth all around her. It spans about forty feet in either direction.

The trees around it are burned too but not completely.

Half of them are dead, charred to ash and the other half are wholly untouched.

It’s like the fire stopped halfway through burning them.

The wind shifts and the bitter smell of magic hits my nose.

Ash floats past me in the wind like snow as the woman stands. The silver bracelets she wears fall in a jangle down her arms when she stretches her arms over her head with a yawn. “I’ve been waiting on you. Took you long enough.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a witch.”

“I said who, not what.”

It’s obvious she’s a witch. There’s no way I’d get a noseful of magic without her being one.

She turns to look at me over her shoulder with a tsk . “You’re a mean one, aren’t you?”

I stay silent and watch her. My wolf is on high alert and a growl rumbles in my chest when she turns to face me. The witch wags a finger at me. “That’s no way to greet someone, now is it?”

“Suits me fine for a stranger.”

She clucks her tongue. “Such treatment and after I put out this fire for you. You don’t even want to know what would have happened if I’d let it be.

I reckon it would have burned up a few acres by now.

That hose wouldn’t have done you much good,” she says, jerking her chin at the hose I’m still holding.

I drop the damn hose and cross my arms over my chest. “Well, then I guess it’s a good thing I don’t need it.”

She snorts. “Now I get why they’ve paired you two together. You need some softening.”

Cordelia.

What the hells does this witch know about Cordelia?

Was I right? Is she working with witches? Is she planning on leaving? I don’t say a word, even though I want to ask her what she knows about Cordelia. The witch watches me for a minute before she sighs and pulls a cigarette out of her pocket. She lights it, takes a deep drag and then looks me over.

“You want one?”

“Don’t smoke anymore.”

“Smart.” I grunt in response and she takes another puff of her cigarette before she starts to pace, slowly walking the perimeter of the burnt ground. “It was Moonshadow Pack that did this.”

An Alpha making a power play because he’s broke is one thing but this?

Setting fire to the land? Not a lot of shifters would stoop that low.

We’re connected to the world in a way humans aren’t.

Destroying the forest would be fucked all around…

and yet, I believe her. Moonshadow’s corrupt and wrong.

They don’t act the way proper shifters ought. They would do something this fucked.

“Why would they do that?”

“You got something they want. Something that belongs to them.”

“There isn’t a thing on our land that belongs to those fuckers.”

She flicks her cigarette, the end of it flares red when she takes another drag. “You’re right but it’s not a thing, it’s a someone. ”

“What?” I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. She better not fucking say it. This damn witch. Not her. Not her. If she says-

“Cordelia Fireheart’s come home hasn’t she?”

I snarl. My wolf snaps his teeth. “She’s mine.”

The witch wiggles her fingers at me. “Ohhhh, there you are my Soul Tied fated mate. I knew you had it in you.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I’m a witch. I know all kinds of things.”

I rein my wolf back in. Not easy since he wants her blood. He thinks she’s a threat to Cordelia and there’s no end he sees to this where he isn’t snapping her neck in half. “Stop fucking with me, it’s not polite.”

The witch sighs and looks up at the moon. “You know, Clover is a lot more fun to deal with than you. You’re very,” she waves her arms around before she points her cigarette at me, “tightly wound. Real serious type, aren’t ya?”

“You know Clover?”

“Of course, I do. Who do you think taught her that cool conjuring trick she’s worked on the closets and cabinets? Not to mention that little voice trick for the stage?”

Realization hits me. I know this witch.

“ Jazzy ?”

She throws her arms out and bows. “The one and only. Pleased to meet you, Thorne.” I think about demanding how she knows me but that seems stupid as hell considering she knows I’m Soul Tied to Cordelia so I shut up and let her keep talking.

“Now, you’re a lot stiffer than I thought you’d be because Clover is a bundle of fun, but that’s okay.

Families come in all kinds, right?” She winks at me. I stay quiet.

Jazzy sighs and lights another cigarette.

“You might be wondering what I’m doing out here all alone in the great wilds of your territory.

The answer is simple. I was mushroom hunting just up the way in a lovely patch of morels I found when I saw the fire start.

Smelled those Moonshadow goons straight away.

They weren’t keen on sticking around so it was an easy enough thing to get sorted,” she says, flicking a hand around the burnt wood.

I hold up a hand. “Ma’am. That’s not what I want to know.”

“Ah, yes, your mate.”

“She’s not my mate.”

“Stop lying. I know you’re just waiting until the time is right.”

I jerk back like she slapped me. “What the hells?”

“Witches are a lot more plugged into the way of things than shifters want to believe. Cordelia and you are old news as far as I’m concerned, but you’re fighting it, huh?” She gives me an expectant look.

I clear my throat and then nod. “Yeah, that’s the way of it.”

“Because you think you’re keeping her safe?”

“I don’t think, I know I’m keeping her safe by not claiming her.”

“You’re right. You are.”

Damn. This witch keeps surprising me. Everything she says is never what I think it’s going to be. I take a step back from her and watch her for a second before I speak. “Keeping her safe from what?”