HIS REJECTED MATE'S SECRETS

Chapter Five: Cracks

~ ZARA ~

I sat on that floor for so long my back started hurting.

And I still did not move.

Because what was I supposed to do? Stand up? Go to bed? Act like I had not almost told Kael Drayden my biggest secret while standing on my own porch at one in the morning like some kind of i***t?

No, thank you.

I sat on the floor.

My wolf thought this was hilarious by the way. She was not pacing anymore. She was just sitting inside me with this energy that felt very much like she was trying not to laugh.

Glad one of us is having a good time, I told her.

She did not respond. But I felt her amusement and I did not appreciate it.

I finally dragged myself to bed around two. Lay there. Stared at the ceiling. Replayed the whole walk in my head approximately forty seven times. The way he asked questions like he actually cared about the answers. The way he did not push when I went quiet. The way he just stood there in the cold outside my door looking at me like he had nowhere else in the world he needed to be.

I groaned into my pillow.

This was a problem.

I gave up on sleep around five and went to the forest to collect herbs. I needed to clear my head and the forest always did that for me. Cold air. Quiet. Just me and the trees and no one asking me anything.

Perfect.

Except.

I had been walking maybe ten minutes when my wolf went completely still inside me.

Not the relaxed kind of still. Something is still wrong kind of still.

I stopped.

Sniffed the air.

And there it was.

A scent. Faint. Sitting under the pine and the cold morning air like someone had tried to hide it but not quite managed. Not a Silverpine wolf. Not anyone I had ever smelled before in my life.

A stranger had been in our forest.

I turned around slowly. Looked at every tree. Every shadow. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Whoever it was they were gone.

But they had been here. Recently. My wolf was sure of it and honestly so was I.

I stood there for a good minute just listening.

Then I turned around and walked straight back to town without collecting a single thing.

Okay. That was fine. Everything was fine.

It was probably nothing.

My wolf gave me a look that said she did not agree.

By seven I had my first patient. Little Cooper. Six years old. Came in holding his hand like it might fall off, dramatic as anything, with his mom behind him trying not to smile.

"I fell off my bike," he announced.

"I can see that," I said.

It was just a cut on his palm. Nothing serious. I cleaned it and talked to him while I worked and made him tell me about the bike, what color it was, how fast he could go, all the important things. He forgot to be scared. That was the goal.

Then I went to wrap his hand.

And my hands.

Glowed.

Not a lot. Not like a flashlight or anything dramatic. Just this soft gold warmth that moved under my skin for about two seconds and then disappeared like it had never been there.

But it had been there.

Cooper's eyes went up amazed.

"WHOA."

I kept my face completely calm. "Hold still."

"Your hands were GLOWING."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"MOM. Her hands were glowing. I SAW it."

His mom laughed. "Cooper, you have such an imagination."

"I'm not imagining it I SAW"

"All done," I said. I held up his perfectly wrapped hand and smiled at him. "Good as new."

He looked at his hand. Then at me. Then at my hands. Very suspicious for a six year old.

"I saw it," he said quietly.

"Go ride your bike carefully this time," I said.

He left still looking at me over his shoulder.

I closed the door.

Stood in the middle of the room.

I looked down at my hands.

They looked completely normal. Just hands. Nothing gold. Nothing glowing. Just my regular hands that I had looked at every day for twenty two years.

Except the cut on Cooper's palm had been deeper than it looked when he came in. I had noticed it when I cleaned it. Deep enough that it should have taken at least a week to properly heal.

When I wrapped it just now it was already closing.

I pressed my lips together.

Okay.

Okay okay okay.

I went and got the book.

I had been reading it slowly for weeks, careful, taking my time. But today I flipped straight to the section I had been avoiding. The section I had told myself I would read later.

Later was now apparently.

I read it once.

Read it again.

Sat there.

The book said fighting the mate bond did not stop the bloodline power. It woke it up. Every time I pushed Kael away the power grew stronger on its own trying to fill the gap. Like it was looking for somewhere to go and since I would not let the bond have it, it was just building up inside me with nowhere to go.

And the longer I kept fighting it the less control I would have over what came out.

I stared at the page for a long time.

So let me get this straight.

Accepting Kael meant waking the power on purpose. Scary but controlled.

Rejecting Kael meant the power woke up anyway. In front of six year olds. In my healer's room. Without my permission.

I had spent three months building a plan to keep my distance and my own blood was sitting there laughing at me.

My wolf made a sound.

I know, I told her. Do not say it.

She said nothing. But I felt her anyway.

I closed the book and sat on the edge of my bed and looked out the window at Silverpine waking up outside. People walking to the diner. Kids heading to school. Old Gerald doing his morning walk.

Normal. All of it is so normal.

And here I was falling apart quietly in my bedroom with glowing hands and a mate I had very publicly rejected and a stranger's scent sitting in the back of my mind like a warning I did not know how to read yet.

Time was running out.

I just did not know which problem was going to catch me first.