All Chapters of Destined Mates Series: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

"Noel!" she heard her mother cry out, but Noel couldn't do anything about it, her body already shifting, bones popping and transforming. Pain rippled through her as her bear replaced her body, anger and fear fueling the shift. She heard their captors cry out, screaming obscenities and curses at her as they shoved themselves out of her way.Once completely shifted, she reared up on her hind legs, roaring as she sought out the one who had stabbed her mate. The bear's instincts were stronger than hers, overpowering her and setting her course of action."I thought you said she was human," Noel heard one of the men ask, his voice trembling with his fear. She turned her head to face him, and locked eyes onto Jake, his hand over the blood that seeped from his side, his eyes strained with his pain. She wanted to run to him, to make sure he was all right, but her bear only wanted to kill the one who had stabbed him.Noel jerked her head around until she spotted Isaac Prescott standing back agai

Kinsey Pickford sat in Magic Beans sipping a cold strawberry frappe wishing she was anywhere else but there, not the coffee shop, but rather the entire town. As much as she loved Draven Falls, being there now only caused her pain. She stared down at her cup; the condensation dripping down the sides; the straw pointing up like an accusing finger, blaming her for the misery she now felt. None of it was her fault, however. To make matters worse, she had thought she could handle it, thought she could keep the deprivation under control, keep the mating call from consuming her, the mating call that could never be fulfilled.She was wrong, of course. Very wrong. Kinsey glanced down at her drink, no longer wanting it. Her stomach was in knots, and her hands almost always trembled slightly. Her panther yearned for its mate, driving Kinsey crazy with the animal's hunger for one that was no longer within her reach. As cruel as it sounded in her mind, she wished death's coldness was the reason fo

Mandy Everest spent a restless night tossing and turning beside her husband as he snored the night away. Several bottles of Pinot Noir would help anyone sleep at night. Anyone, but her, that is. She couldn't sleep because she knew Fitz refused to talk to her. Whether he was scared or in denial or simply confused, she wasn't sure, but she knew he struggled with his situation, more so than she first thought he would. She had never felt her destined mate, and her father, like Fitz's, thought the whole thing just a fairy tale among shifters. However, she heard the stories from others who knew differently, others like her maternal grandparents. Not everyone found their destined mate, their paths never crossing or life taking them before they could meet. However, according to her grandmother, once your animal felt that pull, there was no denying what it was. The mating call was almost instant, and from that moment on, the animals couldn't do anything else except crave their mate until the bo

Fitz sat at his desk, staring out the window at a couple of squirrels chasing each other around the trunk of a red maple. The distraction wouldn't have been so bad if he had just watched the animals scurrying about for a few moments and then settled back in on the contracts he was supposed to be perusing, but no, Fitz had been watching them for the past thirty minutes while he held his morning cup of coffee in his hand. The morning sun still hung in the east, making its slow crawl across the sky, urging Draven Falls to wakefulness. Fitz, however, had been awake for the past two hours, unable to keep lying there with the words of his inner promise twisting in his gut. Would he be able to do it? It meant staying completely away from Kinsey, he knew, but Mandy deserved his best, his full commitment. Three days had passed since he vowed to do right by his wife, but nothing seemed easier, his panther remained unsettled, almost as if the beast paced within Fitz's breast.Resting on the edge

Fitz couldn't focus for the rest of the day. The only image that played over and over in his mind was his sweet, petite wife standing in his office telling him that his mate was also hers. How was that even possible? By the time he surrendered to his nonproductive day, he had worked himself up into a lather over Mandy's announcement. She just stood there, telling him she knew where Kinsey ran away to and why, and she needed to go after her. Her panther scented Kinsey as her mate and was not permitting her to sit idly by while Kinsey escaped to Bull Creek."But Kinsey's panther scented me as her destined mate," Fitz said as he stood by his window, just staring at his wife. "Why would your panther scent her as her mate? You never told me you were even interested in women in that way. None of this makes sense.""I know it doesn't make sense," Mandy snapped, and he saw the regret of her tone on her face immediately. She took a deep breath. "Since when does the mystical aspects of shifters