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Twenty Nine
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FATED ESCAPE Thirty
I know that Mack’s silence is him taking his time to think of the words that will convince me. The right words. But I don’t let him. Maybe it will hurt less to let him go now, than it would for him to turn from me later.“I think I should stay with Adela for a few days,” I tell the bed. “She offered. And… well, Faith needs you. She wouldn’t have come here if she didn’t need you.”“And is that what you want?”He leaves unsaid the biggest thing. If it was what I wanted, he’d agree, even if it was the very opposite of what he wanted.After a long pause where I consider lying, I shake my head. “No.”I feel his approach, though I don’t turn. “Stay. Faith knows we’re together. She knows I’m not leaving you. She just needs a friend for a few days, and a place to stay.”Faith may say she needs a friend, but a few days with Mack will convince her she wants something more. I know this from personal experience. He saved me and I fell in love with him. There’s every chance lightning is about to s
FATED ESCAPE Thirty One
I wish I couldn’t see the reddish tinges of a soul in pain, because I know it’s my fault that she’s hurting. I could reach out and heal her, but the tension in her back and neck warns me that she wouldn’t thank me for it.An already awkward moment having been made a thousand times worse, I try to think of a safe topic that won’t hurt her any more than the thought of me and Mack being together.“Yes, it’s quiet. Peaceful.” I lean on the wall beside her, abandoning my intention to go sink into one of the white plastic loungers nearer the forest. It would feel—and most likely look—as if I were running away.Since Mack is so sure Faith is only in need of a friend and a place to stay for a few days, perhaps I can be that friend. Maybe this can be the start of me being more positive, and less eager to always think the worst will happen.“If you want to call it that,” Faith mutters beneath her breath.With no idea of how to respond to what sounded like criticism, I choose to ignore it and in
FATED ESCAPE Thirty Two
One swift glance takes in my rumpled sweats, unbrushed hair, and bare feet. Even though I tell myself I have nothing to be embarrassed about, that isn’t enough to stop the dull heat I can feel sweeping over my cheeks and down my neck.His expression doesn’t change, but I feel the judgment all the same. So much so that I can almost hear his voice in my head: This is not you keeping up appearances, Aerin.I brace myself for him to order me back to the Boones, to tell me I’ve embarrassed him and the pack for leaving my mate. That he’s ashamed of me.He stops a few feet away, and just as always, he gets right to the point. “Iain Dacre is dead.” I stare at him like a gormless idiot because that is not what I expected him to say.It takes me a moment to process this information, and then I realize what it might mean for me. His words have me curving my arms protectively over the small swell of my pregnant belly. My three-months-pregnant belly, according to the doctor that Mack took me to
FATED ESCAPE Thirty Three
Now that the shock of coming face to face with a Raleigh has worn off, his feelings about an alpha who’s happy to cook breakfast for everyone while dressed in sweats as rumpled as mine are rising to the surface.He only has to look in Mack’s direction for me to note the derision in his eyes. He doesn’t view Mack as a worthy alpha; that much is clear. At the moment he’s acting distant, but if Mack keeps defending me, soon it’ll turn into anger, and with his enforcer in the room, I know what will happen if my father’s mood turns: Another alpha challenge and one Mack is unlikely to survive.Briefly, I peek over at Adela, who is undoubtedly the only one looking at ease in the room. If things come to it, she’ll use her gift to stamp out the aggression before it can explode, but I’d rather it didn’t come to that. I’d rather we all got through this breakfast as fast as humanly possible, and my father walked out of the front door and didn’t come back again. But that won’t happen.My father w
FATED ESCAPE Thirty Four
“My father…” I try to wrestle my anger back when I feel it surging at the thought of him. “He rarely ever talked about her, at least not to me. What little I know about her I know from his beta, Moses.”When I glance at Adela sitting on the lounger beside me, her expression is unchanged, but there’s a faint line between her brows.Seeing it has me leaning close and resting my head against hers. “Thanks, Adela.”I feel her smile against my cheek. “What for?”I go back to staring at the growing roots. “I’ve learned that when someone annoys you, you get this line right between your brows.”“Is that true?”“Yes, which can only mean one thing.” I glance over at her and find her wearing an innocent expression. A far too innocent one.“And that one thing is what, child?”That the person who’s annoyed you is my father.“That you have my back,” I say. “That you care.”She curves an arm around my back and draws me into a hug. “Don’t be silly, of course I care.”“Is that all you’re going to
FATED ESCAPE Thirty Five
When I swing around to find out why he’s stopped, I discover his face is utterly blank. I take a step back from him because, while his face may be devoid of expression, I glimpse fury burning in his eyes.I get nervous, because even though he’s never lifted a hand toward me, he doesn’t have to. I’m alone in the forest with him and his enforcer, who not only knows where all the bodies of the Boone pack’s enemies have been buried, but he’s also the one who did the burying.“It has been over a year since we were face to face,” he begins, in a deceptively soft voice.I feel my body tensing, because even though this is my father speaking, no shifter wants to be face- to-face with an enraged alpha. Even if that enraged shifter is family.“So perhaps you’ve forgotten how to speak to your father. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I am not only the man who helped give you life but stood between you and the attempts made to carry you away in the middle of the night.”I frown because this is new. “W
FATED ESCAPE Thirty Six
The worst thing about the house being so full is that I can’t even talk to him about all the worries and anxieties running riot in my mind because everyone in the house would hear them. With my father already thinking me weak and incapable, the last thing I’d want is for him to discover new ways that I’m lacking.As I lie wrapped up in Mack’s arms, I find my mind turning to the Dacre pack.Shane killing his father still doesn’t make sense to me. And especially not now. If he was going to do it, he’d have done it when his father was pushing us together, not after I’d left him.But maybe my father is right; maybe I broke something in his mind.It seems possible. Even though I didn’t stay long after hitting Shane with pure emotion, Bennett said he lay whimpering for a long time. With no idea how to control this strange ability, who knows what kind of damage I did?“Aerin?” Mack murmurs. “I can feel you thinking, and I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say it’s about nothing good.”
FATED ESCAPE Thirty Seven
That’s when it hits me that I’m going to have to tell Mack what his fated mate tried to do. How I’m going to do that without it seeming like I’m jealous and looking for a reason to get rid of her, I have no idea.But she came here with a recent trauma. Maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe she’s running from someone trying to hurt her, and whoever tried to kill me with a tree mistook me for her.It seems plausible. More plausible than Faith trying to kill me for what I did to her.“Why the hell didn’t you just hit them with your dangerous curse-like gift?” I mutter beneath my breath as I brush the dirt from my sweatpants.“Then you’d have had all the evidence in the world to show Mack,” I continue as I head for home, because the thought of staying in the forest any longer is suddenly no longer appealing.Now, all the sounds I found restful moments before just put me on edge. Every twig snapping or scuttling animal has me jerking my head to peer through the brush with a racing heart.All
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