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Twenty Six
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FATED ESCAPE Twenty Seven
“You want to stay for lunch, Bennett? I told my father to let me live my own life, and we’re having a celebratory meal. By meal, I mean a pile of bacon.”Bennett blinks at me and shifts his confused gaze to Mack. “Yeah, just bacon,” Mack confirms.After a long pause, Bennett shakes his head, only this time, the hint of a smile curves his lips. “Uh, no. I’m good. I need to get back to the shop.”We say our goodbyes and once he’s disappeared back around the house, I follow Mack inside. I’m heading for the kitchen when Mack grabs my hand and tugs me upstairs instead.“But…bacon?” I cry out mournfully, turning to gaze back down the stairs.“We have to work up an appetite first, and stop looking at me like I just kicked your puppy,” Mack says when he glimpses the expression on my face.“You promised me bacon and failed to deliver.”“But I note you’re not stopping me,” Mack says, as he backs me to his—no, to our bed with his hands on my hips.“Aren’t I?” When the back of my legs hit the bed
FATED ESCAPE Twenty Eight
I turn to face him when he draws me closer. In my simple white cotton dress, I have some idea where his thoughts have gone.“Mack, it’s our mating party,” I remind him, trying to sound severe.In response, he dips his head and kisses me. “I know. A party. Which means celebration, and what better way to celebrate than—”“Mack?”At the strange note in Adela’s voice, we break our kiss and turn to her, but she isn’t looking at us, and she’s not alone gazing back toward the house. All the rest of the pack are facing in the same direction.When I turn, my smile falls away at the sight of a beautiful young woman with long red hair and bright green eyes.Something about the sight of her fills me with dread, and I don’t know why.It’s only when I realize that she’s not gazing at me as I first thought, but at Mack that the feeling transforms into fear.My eyes dip into her mouth because her lips are moving, and even though no sound emerges, it isn’t hard to read the single word she mouths. Mate
FATED ESCAPE Twenty Nine
In the time that I’ve been turned to Adela, they’ve gotten even closer together than they were before. Mack is assuring Faith that she’s safe now, that whatever happened in her past can’t touch her here. That she has a place for as long as she wants one.I wonder if Mack even knows he’s taken a step closer.I know Mack loves me, just as I love him, but he doesn’t know the pull of the fated mate bond the way I do. And that’s before the bite. After Shane bit me, it forged a deeper connection between us, strengthening our bond, which made the attraction even more intense.He stayed away from me for a long time then. He never said why, not that we talked much about anything, but I knew it was so he wouldn’t forget himself and find himself wanting me instead of Bree. His staying away was why his father started pushing harder for us to produce an heir, as an alpha pair should do.Seeing his bite on Bree’s throat changed things. Or broke something in me. Or maybe it just broke us. Stayi
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
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