Page 8 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Six

CORDELIA

“ C ordelia,” he growls out and the sound of it sets my soul alight and my heart racing.

He comes forward another two paces before Bella rushes forward and tries to pull Keiran back but he shakes her off and keeps moving towards me.

There’s no one to hold me back but I know Maud would if she were closer.

The second I go to Keiran I know I was right about that because Maud shouts at me.

“Cordelia! No!” She yells but it doesn’t do anything to stop me. Not when I hear Keiran.

“ Mate ,” he snarls.

The pack gasps and Alpha Ashford loses his shit but neither Keiran or I look away from each other.

My wolf howls with joy. She coaxes our mate to come closer and he does.

She wants to run and play, to feel the night with Keiran.

I don’t even think about it, I run forward and throw myself into Keiran’s arms. He feels strong and warm.

I turn my head and bury my nose into his chest and inhale the cranberry sweet scent of him.

His arms tighten around me and he holds me close.

The fire inside of me stays, it calms while Keiran holds me. My mate is here.

My Alpha.

He’s the one that will take care of me. The one that will see me through my heat and give me his pups. This is the way it should be, the two of us together. I’m almost dizzy from it.

“You…” That one word is whispered in my ear and I smile at the warmth I hear in it. He’s smiling, I can tell when he turns his face and presses a kiss to the top of my ear.

“Keiran,” I whisper when I lift my head to look up at him.

The entire universe is in his eyes. This world, the next, every second of every day that I have yet to live is there in Keiran.

All of it unfolds in front of me with exaggerated slowness.

I can see us walking together out in the meadow near Maud’s hut.

We’ll build a cabin there, something big and warm, safe.

There will be moon runs and feasts, pack meetings where our pups run and play with the others.

I’ll be welcome—more than welcome, I’ll be Luna.

I’ll be strong enough to stand next to Keiran.

What’s more, he’ll be proud to have me there beside him.

His arm around me and a smile on his face meant only for me.

We have our whole lives to live, and we get to do it together.

Tears fill my eyes at the future stretching out in front of us. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted and it’s all here laid out for us. For me. My heart squeezes and the pressure in my chest is back again but it’s different now.

It doesn’t ache or feel like I’m being crushed under the weight of the world.

Instead, it's like I’m being filled with Keiran’s love, right to the brim until I’m too full and overflowing.

I’ve never felt like this. Keiran’s eyes on mine are my anchor into the present.

I stroke his cheek, and drink up his attention.

His eyes are a window right into the future I saw.

It’s too much and not enough all at the same time until I’m practically gasping.

All the breath in my body has been stolen.

Keiran sees what I see. I know he does from the way his gaze softens on me.

My smile wobbles and my eyes water as I reach up to touch his face. “It’s you.” My fingers graze his jaw when he stops me.

Keiran puts a hand over mine, the size of it dwarfs mine. I’ve always loved his hands. He leans in close to me and my lips part in anticipation of the kiss that Keiran has given me hundreds of times before. He’ll kiss me and claim me in front of the whole pack. My real life will start now.

“I don’t know why I couldn’t see you before,” I whisper to him.

He knows about my mate dreams. He knows about my anger and frustration at never seeing my mate’s face.

At how badly I’ve wished to see the one I’m meant for.

“I tried to see you. You know I did.” My voice breaks.

Turns ragged because I did try. I tried until I had nothing left and woke up exhausted from another sleepless night.

“It’ll fix itself. Everyone has a mate,” Keiran told me and put an arm around my shoulder. “Give it time. You’ll see him when it’s meant for you to.”

Time. He said exactly what Maud said but in all of that time…

“Didn’t you dream me?” I ask him. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t say it was my face in his dream when I told him about mine. “I-you saw me before tonight, right?”

Keiran smiles at me. “It’s always been you.

” Keiran’s fingers move over mine. He pulls me into his arms and it’s hard to think about dreams when he’s touching me the way he is.

I relax into his arms, the ache of holding myself strong slides off me.

I’m safe in his hands. I don’t have to be the one to watch my back with Keiran as my mate to do it.

He drops his head lower and I know he’s going to kiss me from the look in his eyes.

I’ve seen it a thousand times before when it was just us.

Now it isn’t us. If I wasn’t trembling from the force of my heat and my wolf trying to take my skin I’d smile at the chaos Keiran choosing me has unleashed in Frostclaw Pack.

Every wolf around us, and probably every wolf in the tri-state area too from the sounds of it, lose their collective shit but they don’t dare come any closer.

I know why. They’re afraid of Keiran. My mate.

My wolf lets out a happy huff and turns in a circle.

She’s proud to have such a strong mate. One that would make even an entire pack stand down.

But even if they didn’t, I wouldn’t know with the way I stay focused on Keiran.

We smile at each other and gentleness and sweetness wrap itself around us like a bubble capable of blocking out the world, but then like all things in my life, everything goes sideways.

Keiran’s fingers tighten on mine and I gasp. He’s holding me too tight.

It hurts.

My wolf snarls, her hackles are up. Something is wrong. She pulls at me and wants me far away from Keiran but even with her trying to pull me away, I don’t listen. I double down and go after the man that I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.

I take a deep breath and tell Keiran the words I’ve never said before now because I never dreamed they would be mine to say. “Keiran, I-I love-” I don’t get any further before Keiran cuts me off.

“ No ,” he grits out between clenched teeth. Stone shutters slam down over his eyes and my mate is gone. The Alpha’s son, the Heir, glares back at me now.

“Scrape that bitch off now,” Alpha Ashford orders.

Keiran throws me away from him so fast that I almost fall. Déjà vu from this afternoon washes over me. Once again, I’m left alone and confused.

I feel weak from the early stages of my heat and I sway as I manage to keep my feet under me.

“Keiran? What’s going on?” My voice comes out hoarse because the world is shrinking again, and the smaller it gets the heavier it weighs on me.

I can barely breathe. The pressure is back along with the familiar ache that settles too readily into my body like a home.

I thought I knew what my worst nightmare was but I was wrong.

It’s not being wolf-less and orphaned for the rest of my life, the least of the pack, it’s this.

My living nightmare come to life is finding my wolf and my mate and still losing my mate all the same.

How can anyone survive losing everything they’ve ever wanted? Right now I don’t think it’s possible. Not with the way my still beating heart has been ripped out of my chest.