Page 103 of His Rejected Mate

There was a definite resemblance to Lucina. The moon goddess had been sitting there among us all along. She was terrifying to behold.

“Turn the cameras off. Now,” she commanded.

All around the room, the hovering cameras drooped and fluttered to the ground. Heline glared at Von and didn’t see the movement at the rear of the room. Eli rushed one of the lone cameramen and placed a hand on the back of his head. The man’s eyes rolled up, and she and August caught his body, dragging it away. Chelsey turned the camera towards us, awkwardly trying to adjust the huge machine. Crew caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. It all happened in less thanten seconds, and no one was any the wiser. Everyone was too awestruck by the appearance of a goddess in their midst to notice what had happened. Whatever went down next would be broadcast to the world.

“You,” Heline said, turning her gray eyes upon me. She looked both irritated and amused. “Such a clever girl you are. I underestimated you when I began this little game.”

The assistant squeezed my thigh even tighter as Heline took a step toward me. The woman must have been as scared as I was.

“What you said was correct,” Heline said. “You nailed the gist. After tens of thousands of years, I have become bored. These simple run-of-the-mill connections had no fire, no excitement.” Heline stood directly above me now, eyes boring into mine with a fiery intensity. “Countless wolf shifters, countless simple mating connections. You can’t help but get tired of it all.”

“What was the point?” I muttered, surprised I could even speak.

“The point?” Heline repeated with a sad little smile. “To see how far I could push things, of course. I wanted to make life more interesting. I wished to test the limits.”

“Of us?”

She nodded. “I am your chosen god. It is my prerogative to do as I will with my subjects. I twisted the pairings, hid the true matches, and put people with mates who made them miserable.” She chuckled to herself. “It’s the main reasonThe Reject Projectcame to be. In times past, rejected mates were quite rare. My fiddling created a problem, and this show was born. Of course, I had to have a seat at the table. I wanted to watch it all happen. Perhaps through my machinations, a pair I’d kept apart might find themselves surviving great dangers to be with one another.” The goddess leaned down, her eyes level with mine. “After all these years, I saw you and Wyatt as a great test to my skills. Youwere fated and found each other at a young age. It had all worked out perfectly for you. I decided you would be my masterpiece. I did everything in my power to keep you apart, but…” She frowned and reached forward, an icy-cold finger running along the fading claiming mark on my neck. “It seems you have figured out you are fated mates. All the fun is gone now.” She glanced across the table. “Simon? Do as you will. I’m done playing with this toy.”

Chaos erupted. Simon leaped from his chair, laughing maniacally. The others around the table scattered, shouting in fear as he lifted his hand. Magic crackled in the air as Heline took a step back, clearing the way for Simon. Wyatt dropped the pencil, allowing Von to scamper out of the room like a mouse escaping a trap.

“Perhaps,” Simon said to me, “we’ll have you tear your handsome mate apart. Then I’ll wake you to see the aftermath.”

Wyatt was rushing around the table, trying to get to Simon, but magic was faster than any person. A dark spell burst from Simon’s hands, black and writhing like oil dropped in water. When it struck me, a veil seemed to go over my eyes, and the part of me that was actuallymeplunged deep into the rear of my mind.

I could see what was happening, but only dimly, as though watching from far away on a dark night. I had no control over myself. My greatest fear had happened. I watched as the magic Simon had filled me with used my body as its own and stood. Shifting, I lunged across the room, pouncing on Wyatt a moment before he struck Simon.

Stop! Please no, don’t hurt him. Gods, please stop, I screamed out at myself from deep in my mental prison, but through my internal screams, I watched as the jaws that had once belonged to me snapped and bit at Wyatt. He managed to hold me back, his hands under my jaw, but I was strong andhe’d been caught unaware. I couldn’t even hear his thoughts or emotions now. All I could see was the terror in his eyes as my teeth drew nearer his neck.

“Enough!” a shout erupted from behind me.

Even in the manic feral state of my body, whatever controlled me turned to see the mousy woman standing. She lifted her arms and a flash of magic shot forward, surrounding me in a net of darkness, the strands of it digging painfully into me. With a jerk of her hand, I was hauled away from Wyatt, leaving him blessedly safe.

Inside the strange magical net, Simon’s influence melted away, the weird connection between us shattering. Suddenly, I was free. Freer than I’d felt since that night all those years ago. Whatever Simon had done to me all those years ago, what he had continued building in his lab, was gone. I shuddered with relief.

Dark, writhing snakes of shadow coiled around the woman’s feet, and she vanished. Before us stood the stark beauty that was Lucina. Shadows rushed from every corner of the room and enveloped her nakedness. At first glance, she was the polar opposite of Heline. Dark hair and eyes, black dress, but the same milky skin and a shockingly similar face. They could have been twins.

“Holy shit!” a man exclaimed from the rear of the room.

Others expressed similar sentiments. The shock at seeing another mystical being along with Heline was almost too much.

Lucina flicked her wrist, and the shadow net containing me vanished. Shifting back to my human form, I crumpled to the ground. Wyatt was with me in an instant, cradling me in his arms.

Simon looked at me in indignation. “You’ve ruined her!” he bellowed, gesturing to me, then he looked at Lucina. “You ruined my greatest achievement, you bitch!” Spittle flew fromhis mouth as he shouted. I hadn’t thought he could look more psychotic, but he did.

“You,” Lucina said calmly, “are not meant for this world.”

“Fuck you!” he shouted and cast a spell toward her.

Lucina batted it away like a fly and raised her own hands. Rippling shadows burst forth from her chest and enveloped Simon. The mad fae shrieked in horror as the shadows wound around his legs, up his waist and stomach.

“No!” he screamed, trying to push the shadows away, but his hands were sucked in. “Please no. Don’t.” His shouts were manic now, blind terror making his voice jump in octaves until he sounded like a terrified child.

Tendrils of shadow enveloped his face, shutting off his words. Once he’d been fully surrounded, a dark pulse shivered through the tentacles, and when they swept away a moment later, Simon stood, now nothing more than a living shadow. A faded outline that had once been a man.

Lucina grinned. “Time to come home, my child,” she said, and snapped her fingers.

Simon vanished into the rest of the shadows, then flew to rejoin her. He was gone. That quick. That easy. The man who’d tortured my existence for my entire life was gone.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com