Page 65 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Forty-Five

THORNE

W e’re a few hours into our patrol when I feel it.

Like a damn knife being driven through the top of my head and into my brain.

It’s hot and sharp, so bright, that everything goes white for a second before I’m able to refocus.

I stumble and Lucian immediately notices.

My wolf never makes mistakes, and he definitely doesn’t stumble.

I shouldn’t do it but I do, I shift. I can’t stop it. The pain forces me out of my skin and I drop to the ground.

“Thorne?” Lucian asks. He shifted right along with me and I hold a hand out to stop him from coming closer.

“I’m good. Just…need a second.”

The rest of the Defenders are fanned out.

We’re running the perimeter in a line, looking for any sign of Moonshadow Pack fucking with our shit but so far there’s been nothing.

It’s like they vanished into thin air from the quarry.

We’ve been tracking them moving steadily east to push further into their border.

Right now, we’re making for the Eastern Ridge.

It borders their southernmost reach. If there are Moonshadows coming into our land we’ll find signs of it there.

“I have to go back,” I tell him. There’s only one place the pain would come from.

I don’t even have to check the Soul Tie to know its Cordelia.

I’d let go of it enough to concentrate on the patrol, and by that I mean I wasn’t checking on it every other minute.

The last I’d checked, Cordelia had been happy.

Excited. The kind of joy that’s effervescent in the way it bubbles up and overtakes a soul.

That is gone now. Whatever is happening is bad.

“What is it?” Lucian asks.

I know he’s not going to understand if I don’t tell him. We’re on patrol, a direct order from the Alpha and Moonshadow was just trying to light our woods on fire.

I don’t even hesitate, I bite the bullet and tell him. “I’m Soul Tied to Cordelia. She feels wrong.” Lucian’s mouth drops open. He doesn’t say anything for a half second before he bursts into laughter. I watch the idiot laugh so hard that he slaps his knee. “What the fuck?” I ask.

“A Soul Tie ?!” Lucian howls and drops to a knee. “Oh my gods. Of all the shifters in the world, you get a Soul Tie?” He’s wiping tears from his eyes at this point.

“It's not funny.”

“You have the emotional vulnerability of a brick wall.”

“And you have the emotional maturity of a boiled turnip. This is serious.”

Lucian hops up. “Fair. That I do,” he says and holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I knew you had something with her but I didn’t know it was that.”

“The fuck you did.” There’s no way he knew shit about Cordelia and I. I kept my distance. Made sure to keep everything between us strictly by the book. “Ronan ordered me to keep an eye on her.”

That sends Lucian into another fit of laughter. “I bet he did. I’ve seen where your eyes have been going when it comes to her.”

I flip him off. “Fuck you. I’m going. She needs me.

I’ll catch up to you on the east ridge in the morning.

” I’m a couple of hours from Red River. It’s midnight now, plenty of time till daylight.

I’ll get to Cordelia and sort this out before I rejoin Lucian and the others.

If I push myself hard I can get there quicker.

The Soul Tie spikes. Fear floods me and then anger rushes in.

I’ve felt Cordelia feel a lot of things but anger?

That’s not an emotion she’s prone to. Whatever it is that’s happening is big.

I have to fucking make some moves and get to her now.

“The ridge. Tomorrow,” I bark at Lucian and start to sprint out of the clearing.

“Wait,” Lucian calls out and I skid to a stop.

“What?”

“Who else knows? About the Soul Tie.”

“No one, just you.” I look at him over my shoulder. All traces of laughter are gone from Lucian’s face. He’s serious now. He knows what a Soul Tie means. “Not a word.”

Lucian crosses his heart. “Not a word. Run fast.”

The run back to Red River is calm, a gift, because Codelia’s emotions are anything but.

They rage. Her anger and fear are so potent I can taste them.

It gets worse the more time passes. I’m practically choking on them when I sprint through town and up the lane to her cottage.

I shift the second I’m within sight of her cottage and discover there’s a new scent.

Citrus? What the fuck is this? I turn my head to track the smell, it’s all over.

An alpha that smells like one of those frou frou drinks the girls get at the bars in Oak Fast. Sickly sweet.

Cloying. The alpha’s scent is everywhere.

He was trying to mark her space, claim it.

I didn’t smell the alpha when I was on my way in, so where did that fucker come from?

I start to investigate when the door to the cottage flies open.

Cordelia is there silhouetted in the light of her fireplace.

There’s a loud clang of her dropping something before she says my name.

“Thorne?” Her voice cracks.

That sound in her voice shouldn’t be there. That fear should not be there.

I forget tracking the alpha and do the one thing I want to.

I go to my omega.