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Twenty Three
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
FATED ESCAPE Twenty Four
“It might have something to do with a certain girl tossing his car keys into the forest, and him snarling at the people on a nearby bus who offered to help him look for them. He was still looking when I came after you, and I couldn’t help but notice in completely the wrong place.”My mouth falls open in surprise because I hadn’t thought I’d tossed the keys that far, or that he’d have such difficulties finding them.Before I can ask Mack how he can be so sure Shane was looking for his keys in the wrong place, he steps out of the forest. I take in the blue Sedan parked at the side of the road, which I’m guessing must be his.After helping me into the passenger seat and closing my door, Mack rounds the car and climbs in. Once he’s started the engine, he doesn’t move. Instead, he turns to me and his eyes dip down. “Seatbelt, love.”I smile at him and buckle up as he does the same, and then in no time at all, we’re heading back toward Winter Lake before I can think to ask him about Shane.
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED ESCAPE Twenty Five
Mack shrugs. “It might. It might not. But I’m guessing you probably haven’t eaten a decent meal in a while if you’ve been driving for hours to get here. The diner in town can give you a chance to eat and rest.”Is he being serious?By now, even Shane, who’s stopped a few feet away, is looking as stunned as I feel. I’ve long since abandoned my mission to drag Mack inside, to observe him instead. I consider pinching myself because I’m becoming increasingly convinced that I didn’t wake up from my nap and none of this is happening.Shane blinks. “Are you suggesting I rest and eat before I come back and kill you?”“No,” Mack says, still in the same calm tone. “I’m saying that tonight when we fight, I wouldn’t want you thinking for even a second that the reason you lost was because you weren’t well-rested. This way, you’ll know you had just as much rest as I did.”I stare at the back of Mack’s head with my mouth hanging half-opened. Slowly, I lift one hand to my arm and pinch myself. I don
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED ESCAPE Twenty Six
I get ready to close my eyes because, despite the Winter Lake Pack’s utter confidence in their alpha, they don’t know Shane the way I do.Before I can close my eyes, Mack steps out of the way of Shane’s attack with time to spare. I inhale sharply because I did not see that coming. As I’m busy coughing and choking because it felt like air went down the wrong way, Mack makes his move.Bennett, or someone—I’m not about to take my eyes away from the fight to see—claps me on my back as I stare, stunned, as Mack, with a speed and a ferocity I’m not expecting, clamps his jaws around Shane’s throat and slams him hard enough to the ground that I flinch.No matter how hard Shane struggles and fights, nothing he can do can get Mack to release his grip.Slowly, Mack’s jaws tighten until it’s clear what’s going to happen if Shane doesn’t stop fighting.To my utter disbelief, with my mouth hanging open, I watch the impossible happen. Shane stills his struggles and concedes the fight.He won. Mack w
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED 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
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED 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
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED 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
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED 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
Last Updated : 2024-10-29FATED 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
Last Updated : 2024-10-29
Latest chapter
FATED ESCAPE Fifty Six
‘Why not?’ Sylvie had questioned curiously, her adoring teenage heart thumping frantically at the thought of being married to Ran, of being his wife, of sharing his life, his bed… A delicious shiver of anticipatory pleasure had run through her as she’d willed her stepbrother to say that there was a mysterious someone in Ran’s life, far too young for him as yet, a special someone...herself…But instead, disappointingly, prosaically, Alex had told her, ‘An estate manager’s salary and tied accommodation in a small cottage are hardly up to the standard or style of living that the women Ran dates are used to, and he’s far too proud to want to live off his wife...’‘The women...?’ Sylvie had flared unhappily, whilst her mother, who had been listening to their conversation, had chipped in disparagingly.‘Ran would be far better off marrying some farmer’s daughter, a girl who’s been brought up for that kind of lifestyle...’Sylvie remembered how Alex’s eyebrows had risen at this display of s
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Five
It was several seconds before Ran bothered to respond to her unrehearsed but determinedly distancing little speech, and for a moment Sylvie thought that he was actually going to ignore what she had said, but then he turned towards her and said, ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s to be purely business between us, is that it?’It took every ounce of courage that Sylvie possessed, and then some, for her to be able to meet the look he was giving her full-on, but somehow or other she managed to do so, even if the effort left her perilously short of breath and with her heart pounding almost as painfully as her head, She agreed coolly, ‘Yes.’Ran was the one to look away first, his face hardening as he glanced briefly at her mouth before doing so.‘Well, if that’s what you want, so be it,’ he told her crisply, returning his attention to his driving.His response, instead of making her feel relieved, left her feeling... What?Disappointed that he hadn’t challenged her, hadn’t given her the o
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Four
The next thing she knew, Ran was taking her very firmly by the arm and propelling her towards the door, ignoring her protests to leave her alone.At the top of the stairs, to her infuriated chagrin, he turned round and swung her up into his arms, telling her through gritted teeth, ‘If you’re going to faint on me, Sylvie, then here’s the best place to do it.’She wanted to tell him that fainting was the last thing she intended to do, but her face was pressed against the warm flesh of his throat and if she tried to speak her lips would be touching his skin and then…Swallowing hard, Sylvie tried to concentrate on banishing the agonizing pain in her head but it was something that she couldn’t just will away. As she knew from past experience, the only way of getting rid of it was for her to go to bed and sleep it off.They were downstairs now and Ran was crossing the hallway, thrusting open the door and carrying her out into the fresh air.‘What are you doing?’ she demanded as he walked p
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Three
They were supposed to be confined to the park area surrounding the house and not cropping the grazing he needed for his sheep. There must be a break in the fence somewhere—the new fence which he had just severely depleted his carefully hoarded bank balance to buy—which meant…There had been rumors about rustlers being in the area; other farmers had reported break-ins and losses.Once he had seen Sylvie settled at the house he would have to come back out and check the fencing.Sylvie winced as the Land Rover hit a rut in the road, sitting up and just about managing to suppress a sharp cry of pain—or at least she thought she had suppressed it until she heard Ran asking her curtly, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’‘Nothing... I’ve got a headache, that’s all,’ she stressed offhandedly, but her face flushed as she saw the look he was giving her and she realized that he wasn’t deceived.‘A headache?’ he queried dryly. ‘It looks more like a migraine to me. Have you got some medication for it
FATED ESCAPE Sixty Two
Haverton Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Sylvie had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank at the thought of inspecting its lofty plasterwork ceiling and its elegantly inlaid paneling. And they still had the upper floors to go over! But she couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of Ran and have him crowing over her. No way. And so, ignoring the warning beginnings of a throbbing headache, she took a deep breath and began to inspect the paneling.‘The first thing we’re going to need to do is to get a report on the extent of the dry rot,’ she told Ran in a firmly businesslike voice.He stopped her. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Sylvie paused and turned to look angrily at him.‘Ran, there’
FATED ESCAPE Sixty One
The shaming fact was that, no matter how she tried to convince herself otherwise, she had done exactly what she had promised herself she would not do and allowed him to take the upper hand. And worse than that...far worse...she had... Quickly she swallowed the frighteningly familiar and painful lump of aching emptiness she could feel blocking the back of her throat. No way... She was not going down that road again...not for a king’s ransom. The arrogant, selfish, almost cruel way Ran had just behaved towards her proved everything she had ever learned about him. She was under no illusions about why he had kissed her like that... It was his way of reminding her not just of the past, but also of his superiority...of telling her that, whilst she might be the one who was in charge of the project they were going to be working on together, he still had the power to control her...to control her and to hurt her.Sylvie turned swiftly on her heel, not waiting for him to see the emotions she
FATED ESCAPE Sixty
FIVE miles or so before her ultimate destination Sylvie pulled the car she had hired at the airport over to the side of the road and switched off the engine—not because she was unsure of where she was going, not even because she wanted to absorb the beauty of the Derbyshire countryside around her, magnificent though it was as it basked warmly in the mid-afternoon sunshine, devoid of any sign of human occupation apart from her own.No, the reason she had stopped was that she had been tellingly aware for the last few miles not just of the slight dampness of her hands on the steering wheel but, even more betraying, of the increasing turmoil of her thoughts and the nervous butterflies churning her stomach.When she finally met...confronted...Ran, she wanted to be calm and in control of both herself and the situation. She was not, she reminded herself sternly, meeting him as an idealistic teenager who had fallen so disastrously and desperately in love with him, but as a woman, a woman who
FATED ESCAPE Fifty Nine
‘Just wait until you see it, though, Sylvie. You’ll love it. It’s a perfect example of...’ ‘We’re already very close to the limit of this year’s budget,’ Sylvie warned him sternly, ‘and—’ ‘So what? We’ll just have to increase this year’s funding,’ Lloyd told her with typical laid-back geniality.‘Lloyd,’ Sylvie protested, ‘you’re talking about an increase of heaven alone knows how many million dollars... The Trust...’‘I am the Trust,’ Lloyd reminded her gently, and Sylvie had to acknowledge that he spoke the truth. Even so, she gave him an ironic look to which he responded by informing her loftily, ‘I’m just doing what I know the old man would have wanted me to do...’‘By buying a decaying neoclassical pile in the middle of Derbyshire?’ Sylvie asked him dryly.And she was still shaking her head as Lloyd told her winningly, ‘You’ll love it, Sylvie...I promise you!’Cravenly Sylvie was tempted to tell him that she was far too busy and that he would have to find someone else to take ch
FATED ESCAPE Fifty Eight
‘YOU’RE not serious...’Sylvie frowned as she studied the synopsis pinned to the front of the file her employer had just handed her.Lloyd Kelmer the fourth was the kind of eccentric billionaire who, by rights, only ought to have existed in fairy stories—as a particularly genial and indulgent godfather, Sylvie thought. She had been introduced to him at a party to which she had been invited by some acquaintances of her stepbrother’s. She had only gone to the party because she had been feeling particularly lost and insignificant, having only recently left her American college and moved to New York. They had got chatting and Lloyd had begun to tell her about the trials and traumas he had experienced in running the huge wealthy Trust set up by his grandfather.‘The old man had this thing about stately homes, I guess I kinda feel the same.He owned a fair handful of the things himself, so he kinda had a taste for them, if you know what I mean. There was the plantation down in Carolina an
