Page 68 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Forty-Seven

THORNE

I don’t plan on getting in bed with Cordelia.

It’s one of those things that just happens, which is ironic considering I never believe the people that claim things ‘just happened’.

This isn’t getting caught with my pants down at the wrong time with someone I have no business touching.

It’s Cordelia. I shift and look down at her.

She’s fast asleep, face squished against me while she curls into my side.

I’ve never slept with anyone before but it’s easy with her.

I reach out and run a finger down the bridge of her nose before I trace the space between her brows.

She stirs slightly when I do that so the next time I touch her I make sure to keep my touch light.

Dark lashes fan out against her cheeks, full lips parted with sleep, hair slightly mussed. She’s beautiful.

She’s starlight but I knew she would be without seeing her up close like this. I’ve been up close to Cordelia before but this is new. She’s relaxed in a way I’ve never seen before. She looks younger, innocent, the kind of girl that was never taken away from our pack.

I watch her for another minute before I slide her arm off me and get out of bed.

I managed to get a few hours of sleep which is more than I thought I would get laying in bed with her.

I only meant to watch over her while I waited for a good time to leave.

I’d need to leave before sunrise if I wanted to get to the Eastern Ridge at a decent time.

It was four hours from where we were and I planned to arrive an hour or so after sunrise.

Lucian and the others would be there and ready to make moves after the Moonshadow Pack.

It was a solid plan, a perfectly logical plan that was nearly derailed when I fell asleep next to Cordelia.

The second she curled into me and I felt the soft sigh of her breath on my skin…

everything got foggy. I relaxed and fell the fuck asleep.

I’m lucky I’m trained to wake up early. If I wasn’t…hells, I’d still be sleeping the morning away while the patrol went on without me.

“Playing with fire,” I mutter. I stop at the foot of the bed and look Cordelia over. She rolls into the space I was just in and snuggles into the pillow. She pulls it close, nose pressed to it and only after a deep inhale does she calm and go still again.

Did she just scent me?

It’s a stupid question. I know she did. An alpha’s scent is calming to an omega and vice versa for an alpha when it’s the right omega.

I couldn’t smell her but I knew Cordelia would be the right kind for me.

I grab the blankets that got kicked lower on the bed and rub my wrist on them to make sure they carry my scent.

When I’m satisfied they smell enough like me I tuck them around her.

I brush away the hair that’s fallen over her brow.

“I’ll be back soon,” I tell her softly, being careful not to wake her.

I know she can’t hear me but it’s important I say it because it’s true.

When I’ve gone on patrol I’ve always done so for the pack.

I’ve never had anyone to come home to, no reason that was all my own. Now I do.

I’m going to fix this shit and make it safe for her. I’m going to make the world bend to my will so that she’s never worried or scared again.

I slip out of the cottage and keep a careful nose out for the alpha that was here last night. Her ex-mate. Keiran you little fucker.

I stop at the top of the hill in front of Cordelia’s cottage and scan the woods around it.

The mountain soars up behind the cottage.

How did he get this close? And where did he go?

When I tracked him last night, his scent was the oldest in the backyard and the woods around the house.

He’d been there first. Must have gone straight there and then doubled back over his tracks to where he first came up on the cottage.

I could spell his stench leading back down to Red River but there was no use following it with Cordelia back in the cottage.

I went back to her fully intending on going out to track Keiran down but then she’d asked me to stay.

There was no world that existed where I’d walk away from her if she wanted me. Of course, I laid down beside her and like a fool fell asleep the minute her breathing evened out. I shift and take off at a run with the night I spent with Cordelia running circles in my brain.

She was sweet and warm, body soft against mine. It had been heaven and that hadn’t even been counting the dream that I knew was coming. There was no avoiding it after running into Jazzy. If I was a dumb wolf, I’d write it off as nonsense but it wasn’t.

It was my mate dream.

Cordelia was there in a green dress, a basket of flowers in her arms while I worked on building a new home.

I didn’t know where we were but the smell of warm sweetgrass rose up around us.

The sun was high in the sky. It had to be summer.

Sweetgrass and wild rose. There were some that grew near the Meadows.

That must be where the dream took place.

I normally wouldn’t care about something like where a dream took place, not with the way dreams never make much sense but a mate dream is different.

It’s the whisper of what’s to come, a sacred glimpse of the future.

My mate dream showed me the home I was building for us, for Cordelia.

I’d turned from the plank I’d been sanding down and there she’d been.

Walking into the cleared space with a smile on her face.

“How much longer?” she asked.

“Not long. Do you want to come see?” I’d held out my hand to her. She’d come to me no question, taken my hand and handed me her basket of flowers like we’d done it a thousand times before.

That’s when I’d woken up. Summertime, eh?

That’s when the fates say I’ll have my mate close with a home of our own.

My wolf let out an excited yip. He liked the idea of us having our own space just outside of Red River, somewhere we can hunt and run on our own with our mate.

I like the idea too of being somewhere all our own with Cordelia.

We’ll have time there to slow down, get to know each other.

She’ll lose that haunted look she gets sometimes and I’ll make sure she gets everything she wants.

She’ll be happy and safe. We both will be.

I make it to the Eastern Ridge in no time.

My wolf ran faster with the promise of Cordelia and a home in front of him.

Lucian is the first to spot me when I come trotting up through the trees.

The group made a makeshift camp, breakfast is cooking and they throw me a pair of shorts and a shirt when I shift.

“Where the fuck you been?” Damon, one of the bigger alphas calls out but Lucian holds up a hand.

“Enforcer’s business is his own. Mind yourself.”

Damon shows neck before going back to his breakfast. “I like it when you take charge.”

Lucian rolls his eyes. “You would say that.” He turns to me, “where the fuck have you been?”

“What happened to Enforcer’s business is his own?”

“That’s when it’s everyone but me.” He lowers his voice. “How is she?”

“Good, all things considered,” I say. Lucian gives me a look that says I better keep talking so I do. “Her ex-mate was there. Sniffing around from the looks of it but he was long gone by the time I showed up.”

Lucian sucks on his teeth and shakes his head. “What the fuck is going on lately? Moonshadow and now that? Who is it?”

“Heir to the Frostclaw Pack.”

“Seven hells.”

“More or less.”

He rubs the bridge of his nose and then sighs. “We’re going for him after this, aren’t we?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“That means war with Frostclaw.”

“I’m aware.” I stretch my arms over my head and survey the woods in front of us. We’re high enough up that I can see as far as I like in every direction. I don’t see signs of the Moonshadow fucks anywhere. Damn it to hell. “We can’t allow them to come onto our land. Not like that.”

“What if it’s a one off? Just him being a dick.”

“Oh, I know he’s a dick if he let her go but it still stands.

I’ll talk to Ronan first, though. We’ll give them an opportunity to get their head screwed on straight before I beat the shit out of him.

Anyhow, it might give us a chance to get eyes on the others they took. No doubt they want to come home.”

“That’s true. It could be like a rescue mission.”

I hum in agreement. A rescue mission. War is never a topic I like to think about, I prefer peace but a rescue mission…that I could throw myself behind.

“Come on. We’ve got a lot of territory to cover and not that much time to do it in.”

“You don’t want to rest? You just got in.”

“I’ll rest when this is over,” I tell him and take off at a jog down the ridge. “You bring the others. I’ll run point.”

I don’t wait to hear Lucian’s answer. He’ll follow like he always does. I wasn’t lying to him. There’s no time to rest when I have a world to make safe for my mate.