Page 74 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Fifty-Three

CORDELIA

W hen I wake up, I see the last thing on Earth I’d ever want to see.

Keiran.

He’s beside me. Sitting in a chair like he’s a concerned boyfriend at my sick bed.

How many times did I used to wish for this very thing when I was sick and had no one?

Just a stupid fantasy that I used to comfort myself, that Keiran cared about me.

He doesn’t care about anyone or anything. I know that now.

I try to shift but my wolf is barely there. When I reach for her she’s faint. It’s like she’s in another room and can’t hear me. I try to move my head but it feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton. I’m definitely still drugged.

“You’re awake,” Keiran smiles at me and reaches out to touch me. The sight of his hand coming for me is enough to clear my head.

I jerk back from him but the cuffs I’m in make sure I don’t go very far. “What the hells is this?” I yank on the cuffs, they’re leather infused silver from the sting of them. The chain running from the cuffs to the bed I’m on are silver too. Shit. “Uncuff me. Now.”

“I can’t do that, baby.”

“Call me baby again and I’ll snap your neck.” I bare my teeth at him. Even if my wolf isn’t here, I’m angry enough to do it in my human form.

Keiran raises an eyebrow. “You’ve changed.

” He sounds put out. Like he came back to collect his favorite toy and didn’t find it exactly how he left it.

“I don’t like it.” He purses his lips and that’s when I really look at him.

The warm sun-kissed tan I loved is gone.

He’s pale, like he hasn’t seen the sun in a season.

His hair doesn’t shine anymore, it’s dull and stiff.

Holy hells. I lean closer to get a better look at him.

Keiran looks gaunt and skinny. His cheekbones are hollow, the hollows beneath his eyes are dark like he hasn’t been sleeping either.

He’s wasting away.

“So have you. You look like shit,” I tell him.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You think I don’t fucking know that? You did this to me, you bitch.”

“How’s that? I left. You got what you wanted. Your rich, pretty mate and me gone. So how did I do it?”

“That fucking witch cursed me. I know she did.”

I laugh and pull on my cuffs. “Maud wouldn’t do that.”

“Really? That cryptic shit she said at the moon run, what was it? ‘What you do tonight can never be undone. Never. Unforgivable.’ ”

Unforgivable.

From the looks of Keiran, Maud wasn’t kidding about cursing his bloodline either. “You better not have hurt her.”

Keiran rocks back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head. “She’s in the wind. No one’s seen her since you left.”

“What?” Maud wouldn’t leave Frostclaw. That’s her home. Her pack. “You’re lying.”

“The fuck I am. She never came back after she caused that scene at the bus stop. No one knows where she is.”

I bite my bottom lip. There were weeks when Maud didn’t see anyone but me out at her hut. “How do you know how long she’s been gone?”

“Cause I went to see her the second this shit started hitting me,” Keiran says, gesturing at himself with a wave of his hand.

“When was that?”

“The second that bus made it past the city limits. Thought I was fucking dying.” He looks at me and narrows his eyes.

“I’ve been suffering, dying, wasting away with fucking bondrot and when I come looking for you what do I find?

You cozied up with some fucking alpha. Happy and fed without a care in the world.

” He jabs a finger in my face. “And that’s fucked, Cordelia.

You do not get to be happy while I suffer. ”

“How did you find me? You shouldn’t have been able to track me.”

I want to know how he got to my cottage. I don’t have a scent. There’s nothing for this fucker to follow, so how did he do it?

“That’s what you want to know?”

I nod. “It is. How did you do it?” Even if my pack thinks I set them up as a spy, I’m not going to let Frostclaw hurt them again. Red River was my mother’s home and I won’t let it fall. “You went right to my house.”

Keiran is quiet for a second and I think he isn’t going to tell me but then he sighs and shrugs. “What the hell? You’re not going back there ever again,” he says and a shiver runs up my spine because he sounds so sure of it. “That beta bitch sold you out.”

I give him a confused look. “What beta?”

“The blonde. She’s a fucking mean one. She gave you up easily. Gave us the entire map of the place too. That’ll come in handy later when we decide to wipe that pack out for good.”

Oh my gods. Cassidy. “Fuck.” This is bad. She sold me out to get me out of the way. There’s no doubt in my mind that was her play working with Keiran. Does she even know what she’s done? She’s hurting everyone for what? Frostclaw is going to attack Red River and she handed them the keys to do it.

“Oh so you cuss now? Real classy, Cordy.”

I bare my teeth at him. “Don’t you call me that.” I sit up on the bed. “You better let me go, Keiran.”

“I’d ask or what but I don’t give a shit. You’re not going anywhere until I’m healed.”

I throw myself off the bed and there’s enough slack in the chains to end up on the floor beside it. My right arm is stretched painfully across the bed but I don’t care. I’ll do anything to have space between us. I know what Keiran wants from me.

There’s only one way to heal him.

“You don’t even know if this is bondrot.”

“The fuck I don’t. Look at me. This is fucking bondrot and you wanna know how I know that?”

I don’t answer him, just crouch lower while he stands from his chair and starts to pace the room I’m in.

I look around and see it’s a cell. Bars line the left side of the room and I can see a hallway through them but nothing beyond it.

The room is all cinder block walls and concrete floors.

There’s a window high up but it’s too high for me to reach unless I break the silver cuffs I’m wearing. I pull on them, but I’m still too weak.

“I said do you wanna know how I know?” Keiran thunders at me.

I flinch and look at him. He looks…so, so wrong. There’s no trace of the alpha I fell in love with, the man that I dreamed of forever with. That Keiran is gone, it’s like someone turned him inside out, the dark inside of him on display and now I’m finally seeing the real him.

“How, Keiran?” I whisper.

“Because I’m losing my mind,” he says and jabs a finger into his temple with an angry laugh.

“I’m going crazy. Fucking losing it since you’ve been gone.

” He pulls at his hair, a chunk falls out and I muffle my shocked scream in my hands.

“You’re the only thing I think about, the only thing I want, I can’t-I can’t fucking breathe without you.

I don’t exist without you. You’re everywhere I look.

When I wake up you’re there mocking me, when I sleep you’re in my dreams running from me.

” He turns to me, eyes wild and I see his canines have elongated.

His lips pull back and his face ripples before he starts to shift but it doesn’t take all the way.

He walks towards me, a twisted nightmare of human and animal.

“You are the only thing I can think about. There’s nothing else but you. Everything comes back to you, Cordy. ” My name comes out as a garbled snarl. I hunch down low, try to make myself as small as I can but there’s no getting away from Keiran when he comes to me and squats down in front of me.

“So I’m thinking, I'll bond you and fix my shit. Once I’m healed, things will go back to normal.” He touches me, cups my face in his hand and I gag. My skin feels dirty where he touches me but Keiran doesn’t seem to notice.

“Where’s Bella? You have a mate. There’s no way bondrot should be hitting you.”

He jerks his hand away from me and stands with a snarl.

“Don’t you bring that bitch up. She’s worse than you.

Fucking lying whore!” He starts to pace again, his words coming faster as he keeps talking.

“She had a mate this whole time. Can you fucking believe that? How is that for irony? She sold her ass to me and she had a mate the entire time. Two-timing fucking Moonshadow but a deal is a deal. They’re locked in with us if they want to survive.

” Keiran crosses his arms and looks out into the hallway like he sees something.

I look with him but there’s nothing there. Hells, he really is going nuts.

“She thought she could trick me?” he asks the empty hallway and laughs. “Fuck that. Made sure her pack paid their debts to us.”

“She had a mate?”

“Are you fucking dumb? That’s what I just said.”

I flip him off. “Fuck you, you zombie.”

Keiran spits at me. “That Enforcer you’re fucking is a bad influence on you. I’m going to break you of that shit when we get home.”

My hands start to shake at the mention of home.

He doesn’t mean the cottage that I’ve decorated as mine.

He means the hell that I escaped. The hell that he never lifted a finger to save me from.

Even with what happened tonight and losing Thorne the way I did, I’d prefer it to Frostclaw.

I’d figure out how to live peacefully enough even if I had to look at Thorne everyday.

Cassidy. That awful woman. She might have stolen my mate’s heart and wears his ring but she’s not hurting my home.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I tell Keiran.

He narrows his eyes in a glare and charges at me. I jerk back up against the wall but there’s nowhere for me to go. He grabs me and lifts me off the ground like I weigh nothing. Even if Keiran has bondrot, he’s still stronger, more than capable of hurting me.

“Mine,” he growls. I can feel his hot breath on my neck.

His scent is all around us, cloying, rotted fruit that makes me gag.

He presses close to me, the graze of his teeth on my skin tells me what I already know.

He’s going to bond me. I can’t let that happen.

I refuse to be bonded to this monster for the rest of my life.

“Get off me! Let go!” I push him and he actually falls back a step with a snarl. I don’t understand how I did it until I see the silver chain binding me burned him. Perfect. I turn my arm and whip the chain at him and he drops me.

“You fucking bitch!” Keiran yells.

“Fuck you!” I yell back.

The door at the end of the hallway opens with a slam and we both go still. I hear footsteps coming down the hallway towards us, high heels and boots. It’s a group. Irrational hope blooms in me that it might be someone to save me. I hold my breath until they walk into sight.

“Damn it,” I whisper when I see Bella and her parents. Alpha Ashford is there too with a pissed look on his face. Of course it’s them. In what universe is anyone coming to save me? I’m on my own, like always.

“Well isn’t this…cozy,” Bella drawls, giving us a haughty look.

I don’t even have it in me to be mad at her. She tricked Keiran in the worst way possible. I’ve got no problems with her.

I shrug. “Could use a few throw pillows in here honestly.” I lift my chains and stand from where Keiran dropped me. “Maybe a longer chain too.”

She huffs out a laugh while Alpha Ashford growls. “You think this is funny?” He takes keys out of his jacket and opens the cell door. “What is this? You leave us and you suddenly grow a backbone?”

I keep silent and watch him. I know better than to provoke him. Whatever they gave me still has my wolf down. She could take him. Me on the other hand? Not looking good.

“You did this to my son.” He points a finger at me and tsk’s like I should feel bad. I stay quiet and keep watching him. “That fucking witch. I know she cursed him. When I get my hands on her I’m going to rip her apart.”

That gets me talking.

“I thought he got bondrot because she,” I nod my head at Bella, “has a mate. This has nothing to do with Maud and if you remember, she tried to warn you.”

“Is that so? You think you can talk to me like you’re my equal? I’m going to knock your teeth out. Let’s see how you talk after that.” Alpha Ashford starts for me but he only makes it a step before Keiran is there in front of him.

“No.”

“Get out of my way.”

“You touch her, I’ll kill you.”

My mouth drops open. What the hells is going on here?

Keiran never defends me. He would never go against his father.

I’m not the only one surprised by what’s happening.

I see the shock on Alpha Asford’s face at his son intervening.

The others in the room do too. I watch Bella look between them with wide eyes.

No one knows what’s about to happen. In the end, it’s Alpha Ashford that relents.

“I think we’ve all had a long day. Why don’t we go to dinner? We have a lot to discuss.” He looks past Keiran and to me when he keeps speaking. “If she’s going to come home with us there’s ground rules that need to be in place.”

Keiran lets out a huff but nods. “Fine. The ground rules are that she's off limits.”

“Son…”

“I think your dad is right and I’m hungry,” Bella says. She flashes a sweet smile at Keiran. “I know that I messed up bad but we can fix it…together.”

“You have a mate, there's nothing to fix.”

“But we’re married!” She holds up her hand and I can’t stop the gasp that comes out of me at seeing the ring on her finger. It’s too like Cassidy that I’m stunned.

Keiran looks at me over his shoulder. “That shit means nothing to me. I did it for the alliance.”

“Keiran!” His father yells at him.

“It’s true. I never wanted her. I wanted Cordelia. You said there was money but where is it? They’re broke.”

If I wasn’t already sitting, I’d sit down now. Holy hells. Moonshadow is broke?

“We might not have money but we have an army,” The Moonshadow Alpha offers but Keiran just waves him off.

“Let’s get this dinner over with but make no mistake. When it’s over, I’m claiming my mate and when I’m healed things are going to fucking change around here.”

I don’t know what he means by change but the others do from the looks he gets. Keiran doesn’t pay them any mind, though. He forces his father and the others out of the cell. When he locks the cell he looks at me.

“I’m going to fix this. You are going to forgive me.” Keiran’s words are an order. We can all hear it but for the first time I’m not compelled to obey him.

I shake my head. “Never.”