Page 80 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Fifty-Eight

CORDELIA

T he day started normally enough. I wake up with Piper and Clover and the three of us have breakfast in the mess hall. The only difference is that the pack makes a point to come by my table to check on me and make sure I’m feeling good.

“They all showed up when Ronan put out the call. I thought the humans in Oak Fast would hold a grudge with the way we showed up but they’ve smoothed it over after Ronan explained you're like a daughter to him.”

That bit of knowledge almost brought me over the edge I was teetering on after seeing the bruises and scrapes the pack sported at large.

They’d been in a scrap to get me back all right.

Moonshadow and Frostclaw wouldn’t be bothering us for a very long while, if at all.

I wondered about the other orphans still in Frostclaw and if they knew what was happening.

I hoped they’d find their way home one day.

It’s when I’m at work that I realize the day isn’t going to end like it usually does when the last patient leaves and a note is delivered.

Sweetling is scrawled across the front of it. My heart rate spikes when I see that. I know it’s from Thorne. No one else would call me sweetling and if they did he’d take their head off. I smile and open the letter.

Meet me in the Meadows.

I don’t even bother locking up the Healing Rooms before I’m out the door and hurrying down the hallway.

What is he planning? I reach for the bond and take hold of it.

With Maud and Jazzy’s help I’ve learned how to get a decent read on Thorne’s emotions without getting knocked down by them.

I don’t know how Thorne handled it on his own for so long.

I wouldn’t have been able to be as calm as he was with my emotions coming at him full force.

He feels excited. Whatever it is that he has planned is good, very good and gods, I hope it’s something that finally satisfies the ache I’ve had in me from the second I met Thorne. My wolf howls in agreement. She’s tired of being interrupted.

Need to claim him.

“I know, I know,” I tell her and speed up my walk to a jog.

I get a few curious looks as I get through the courtyard and out of the Keep but I don’t pay them much mind.

When I’m on the switchbacks, I pick up my pace into an all out run.

The pent up sexual frustration that’s boiled up in me over the days and weeks of being in the pack is good fuel for my fast pace down the mountain.

When I’m close, I catch Thorne’s scent on the wind.

I take a deep breath and push on. Gods, he smells delicious.

When I arrive in the Meadows, I stop. Thorne stands in the middle of the late summer blooms. All around him the grass ripples, the flowers sway in the wind until it’s like he’s in the middle of a living ocean.

I smile at the sight of my beautiful mate and walk towards him.

When I’m close enough I see that he’s holding something behind his back.

When I’m in front of him, I tilt my head back to look up at him and point to his back.

“Is that a surprise?”

“It is.” He pulls it out from behind him and holds it out to me. It’s a bouquet of sorts, wild roses, pink and red with sweetgrass.

I take the bouquet even if I don’t understand. “Thank you.” I lift the bouquet to my nose and smell it like I’ve seen the other she-wolves do when their mates brought them an offering.

He grins. “Do you like the way it smells?”

I nod at him. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought to put these together, but I like it. It’s wild and warm.”

“That’s what you smell like to me, sweetling.”

I pause and look at him over the bouquet. “What did you say?”

“That’s the way you smell to me. Wild and warm. Like the summer on the hottest day, like the Meadows after a long run and I’ve come home.”

“You can smell me?”

“I can. Realized it last night on your porch.”

I put a hand to my hair and laugh. “I thought I stunk. I was so worried about what you were smelling.”

He takes a step closer to me and loops an arm around my waist. “The only thing you smelled like was my mate. My beautiful, perfect, mate.” He kisses me so hard that I drop the bouquet as he sweeps me up in his arms. “I’m going to claim you tonight, sweetling.”

I nearly weep in relief. “Oh thank Luna.” I launch myself at him and wrap my arms around him. “I need you. Please.”

“Please?” He looks down at me. “You don’t need to ask me for anything. You demand it, you take from me, sweetling. Though, I do have a request for you.”

“Anything.”

“Be wild with me, sweetling.”

His eyes flash and I see his wolf. I understand what he means when he says wild and my wolf is only too happy to take my skin. She howls with delight when I lean in close and kiss Thorne.

“Mine,” I whisper against his lips before I throw myself away from him and into my shift.

I hit the ground on all fours and take off through the meadow.

I clear the treeline and plunge into the forest. I run past the places I’ve gone mushroom hunting.

My wolf sprints to her heart’s content. She feels wild and alive, she yips when she looks behind her and sees our mate a few steps behind us.

She pushes herself harder, wants to give him a proper chase and plunges into the river that snakes through the pack lands.

The cold water is a shock but it’s exhilarating in the best of ways. She shakes off the water from her coat and leaps over a fallen log. She’s about to double back towards the river when she catches Thorne’s scent but it’s coming from the wrong direction. It’s blowing towards us.

The scent is fresh. Our mate has been here recently.

Her curiosity sparks and she takes off down the trail our mate walked.

The run is short. A few minutes later we break through the trees and into a clearing.

She lifts her head and sniffs, the area has been thoroughly marked as our mate’s.

She slows to a trot and throws herself down in the middle of the clearing.

She’s on her back, rubbing her own scent into the grass when Thorne appears above us.

He kneels in front of us and our wolf stands. She rubs her snout against his cheek.

“Do you like it? If you do, I struck a deal with Ronan for it.”

I shift and stare down at my mate. He looks up at me expectantly. I put my hand on his head. “You-wait, this is yours?” I look around the clearing. It’s so familiar. I’ve been here before. Trees ring the clearing, sweetgrass blows around our legs and I can hear the sound of the river nearby.

“It’s ours,” Thorne tells me. “If you’ll have it, this is where I’m going to build our home.”

I realize I do know where I’ve seen the clearing before. This is my first time seeing it in real life, the other time was in the mate dream I had with Thorne.

I grab onto his shoulders. “I love it. I-oh my goodness.”

Home. I’ll have a home. One all my own. One fated and made just for me that I know I’ll never lose. I drop to my knees with Thorne and kiss him.

“I love it. This is the best gift I could have ever been given. Thank you.”

He kisses me back. “No, thank you, sweetling. You’ve given me a life. You gave me my purpose.” He lays me down on the sweetgrass and kisses me again. “For every day that I spent without you, for every single night you were alone, I will give you ten more with me at your side, with you in our home.”

I wrap my arms around him and pull my mate close.

The heat of his body rises up around me, it swallows me whole and mingles with the desire crackling between us across our bond.

I breathe in his scent, press my mouth against the base of his neck and nip the flesh.

Thorne leans over me, bares his neck to me and nudges me closer.

“Claim me, sweetling.”

I don’t think, I act. I bite down and mark my mate.

Thorne moans, arms wrapping tight around me and bringing me with him when he leans back on his knees.

I wrap my legs around his waist already knowing what’s coming next.

A shiver of excitement shoots through me when he slides my hair away from my shoulder and presses a gentle kiss to my neck.

I shift closer, writhing against him so there’s no mistaking what I want from him next. His hard cock moves between my thighs.

“Claim me, Enforcer.”

Thorne does as I ask and I roll my hips so the blunt head of his cock slides through my folds.

I see stars when Thorne grabs my hips and angles me where I’ll take him best. The stretch of him sliding into me has me clinging tight to him.

I’ve wanted this since the day we met. I know he has too.

And a frenzy sets into me, making my blood hot and my body move.

Later there will be time for slow love-making where we explore the other at our leisure, lazy and happy.

But now? I need to be claimed, to feel my mate inside me while his mate bond takes on my neck.

When Thorne thrusts up into me, I move with him and I bring my body down to take him into me.

To the hilt I take my mate. I whimper when we’re flush up against each other, no space between our bodies and the bond that holds us wraps tight.

I can feel it warm against my hot skin, each movement of our bodies pulls the bond tighter.

Thorne lifts me and thrusts up into me and I squeeze my legs tight on either side of him and press a foot to the ground for leverage.

The soil is warm beneath my foot, the earth slides between my toes while my mate fills me.

Thorne wraps an arm around my waist and shifts me higher so his movements have more punch to them.

I put my hands on his shoulders, dig my nails in when I see my mark on his neck.

Everything is as it should be. Nothing will ever come between us.

The bond hums and glows, it sets the air around us on fire while we lose ourselves in the other.

“I love you, I love you, I love you.”

I don’t know who’s saying it, the both of us are by the time I realize the words are coming out of my mouth.

Pleasure zips up my spine at the same time I know Thorne feels it too.

I can feel his pleasure too. It’s all overwhelming, too much and not enough all at the same time.

He digs his fingers into my skin and moves faster until I shatter into a thousand pieces.

My mate falls to his back and brings me with him, my slick covered thighs on either side of his body while he continues to fuck into me.

Thorne wraps an arm around me, forearm pressing close across my back while he cups my face and brings my lips to his.

“Look at me, sweetling.”

I open my eyes and look down at my mate. Love shines back at me from him and I know he sees the same when he looks up at me. A second wave of ecstasy rolls through me and I know I’m about to orgasm again.

“Please don’t stop,” I tell him.

“That’s it. My beautiful mate. My pretty mate. Look at me, look at me when you cum. I want your eyes on me when it happens. It’s my knot and my hand on your neck,” Thorne thrusts up into me, the arm around me brings me down to meet him, “my mark on your neck. Isn’t it, my pretty mate?”

“Yes, yes, your mark and your hand, I’m yours,” I lose control at his question and orgasm again but this time my mate comes with me.

I hear him, feel him inside and around me.

In that moment there is no other soul in the world but his to me.

I cling tight to my mate while he fucks me through my orgasm.

I’m shaking and sobbing when we both come back to ourselves.

When I can breathe again, I almost start weeping but for another reason.

I am with my mate and all is well in the world. Here, in each other’s arms, we’ve found peace.

Thorne shifts me closer and kisses me soft and sweet. I watch him when we part, he looks younger, happier. I kiss him again and lay my head on his chest. Thorne rubs my back and I close my eyes, the sweetgrass blows around us as we lay together in the aftermath of our bonding.

“I love you, Cordelia.”

“I love you, Thorne.”