Page 128 of Rejected By the Alpha

I returned to the kitchen to see Ember staring down that cake like she wanted to devour it, and more warmth spread through my chest. I had never felt like this before with someone, and that smell … it was becoming sweeter and sweeter every step I took toward her.

Had the Moon Goddess really answered my prayers?

Before I could reach her, the front door knob jiggled.

“Knock, knock,” Pavel said, peeking just his head into the room. “I have a surprise.”

Ember beamed at him, and I found my shoulders relaxing slightly.

When he opened the door wider, a wall of the sweet scent hit me like a fucking truck. Pavel stepped into the living room with a huge grin stretched across his face, peering outside the house at the empty porch.

“Come in!” he said.

A woman stepped out from behind the door, her long red hair blowing in the breeze, her sweet scent wrapping around her like it had been made for me, and her hazel eyes locked on to mine. My eyes widened.

“What … what are you …” I started, trying to find the words. “How …”

“Cade,” she said, her lips curling into a small smile. “Goddess, I’ve missed you.”

Before I could make sense of any of this, I ran toward her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and pulled her into the air, burying my face into the crook of her neck. My wolf howled inside my head, all the anguish from the past few years gone in an instant.

My mate … my mate, Lilliana, was alive. Standing right in front of me. In my arms.

Mine.

Chapter Seventy

Ember

I opened and closed my mouth a handful of times, no words and not even a single breath leaving it. Cade embraced the woman like he had known her all his life, like he had missed her, like … he loved her.

Was this his mate? But I … I thought she had died.

When Cade pulled away, Hazel gasped, finally seeing the woman.

“Oh my Goddess,” Hazel said, placing Daisy on the couch and running over to her. She threw her arms around her shoulders and embraced her. “Oh my fucking Goddess, Lilliana. You’re alive. You’re alive!”

Lilliana … that was his mate.

Hazel and Lilliana were both sobbing as Cade looked at her, his golden wolf eyes never leaving her once. Everything was tightening inside me, my legs wobbling so hard that I had to grasp on to the kitchen counter to hold myself up.

When Hazel pulled away slightly, she placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders, scanning her face, brows drawn together. “How are you alive? You … you died. I watched it. We buried you. There’s no way that you can be …”

“I don’t know,” Lilliana said, giggling and sobbing at the same time. “I don’t know how it happened, but now I can be with you and Davix and”—she looked over at Cade—“and you again, my love.”

My shoulders shrank forward, and I crossed my arms. Where’d I fit in all of this? Anywhere at all? Davix had just rejected me, Hazel was the only friend I had in Black Hollows, and Cade was … my lover.

Or at least, I thought he had been.

I brushed away a tear from my cheek before anyone could see it and forced myself to smile because my life was absolute fucking shit on my own birthday, and it just kept getting worse and worse.

Cade smiled at her. Then his golden eyes faded into his human ones, and he peered over at me, something unreadable crossing his face.

“I’m so happy for you,” I said to Cade before he could say anything.

Cade’s eyes softened, the way others did when they pitied me for my condition. But I had never ever seen that expression on his face before. He never pitied me—ever. And now … now it was all I could see in his eyes.

“Ember, I—” he started, reaching for me.