A Star Crossed Fate
Emilia Hartley
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.
Copyright 2021 © Emilia Hartley
Emilia’s Heartlies
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
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1
Raven Montoya had been keeping a secret for years. Not even her siblings knew about the relationship she’d hidden in her youth. Just seeing Adrien Barnes again turned her skin hot. The room crackled with energy and left her breathless. She could see him out of the corner of her eye no matter how she positioned herself.
Unable to bear the resurging feelings any longer, Raven ducked out the door. She marched toward a pair of chairs around an unlit firepit and sank into one of the seats. The cool November air wasn’t enough to tame the heat still rising inside her. Raven had thought that she was over Adrien. Yet, just the sight of him had brought every feeling back in an all-consuming wave.
She couldn’t have him, though.
Sure, Raven had watched several of her relatives, including her sister, form mate bonds with the Barnes dragons. Raven knew that she wouldn’t be able to do the same. With River out of the house now, their mother would latch onto Raven.
Alice Montoya hated the Barnes family almost as much as she hated the leader of their own family clan. There was no way that Alice would allow herself to lose two of her children to the Barnes clan, even if it was for love. Alice saw it as an offense no matter the reason.
Raven covered her face with her hands and held back a sob. She would never break free. River got her happy ending, which meant that Raven would have to suffer the consequences. The looming dread made Raven crave a plate of the cookies Marjorie Barnes had made. The Barnes matriarch was too kind.
River was lucky to have her as a mother-in-law.
“I don’t think anyone caught on,” a familiar voice said.
Raven shot upright, flinging her hands away from her face. Adrien Barnes stood beside her, his hands in his pockets and his attention on the house behind them. He shook his head and dragged the other chair closer to Raven.
She scowled at him. “We’re not going to convince anyone there’s nothing between us if you sit so close.”
Adrien grumbled something she couldn’t quite make out. He kept the chair where he’d placed it and sat beside her.
He had grown into himself over the years. His boyish features had sharpened. The scar on his cheek from the time they’d been playfighting was nearly eclipsed by golden scruff now. His green eyes slid toward her. A smile reached the corner of his lips.
She had to force herself to look away. Her heart had lodged itself in her throat just from the sight of him. There it hammered an uncertain beat. Her skin tightened in anticipation. She remembered the way he used to touch her. She wanted to feel that again, feel her body fill his hands and hear the way he would growl when he pulled her into him.
But those days were over. She and Adrien had enjoyed their tryst, but it couldn’t keep going. If they still had a spark, Raven had to smother it. She couldn’t bear the wanting that would come from it. The slow burn would devour her from the inside out and leave her a hollowed shell unable to take joy in the world.
But wasn’t that what she already was? What was the harm in tasting happiness for a short while again?
Raven shook herself. She couldn’t give in.
Raven’s fate had already been decided. An arrangement had been made with a shifter from her father’s clan. A man named Bastien was on his way to Nebraska. The wedding plans were already underway. She would walk down the aisle, give Bastien a false promise, and fly away from here with him.
Just the thought of it made Raven want to scream with frustration. She could do nothing about it. The decision had never been in her hands. This man had been plucked from thin air without Raven’s input.
She rubbed the empty space on her ring finger and cursed the world for putting her in this situation.
“You know,” Adrien said, his voice low. The bass of it rumbled through her and reignited that smothered spark again. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing if they caught on. There’s no harm in letting a handful of people know about us.”
“Absolutely not.” She turned her gaze on him. “Besides, there is no us. There hasn’t been for years.”
His jaw clenched as he held her gaze. A fire danced in his eyes, but she couldn’t read it anymore. He was lost to her. They had grown into two very different people. Adrien had power and presence. Raven just wanted to shrink and disappear.
Adrien grabbed the arm of her chair and dragged her closer. When he leaned in and whispered in her ear, she shuddered as a rush of pleasure spread over her.
“I don’t think I can keep my hands off you.”
She clenched her fists atop the arms of the chair. Her core trembled. The spark inside her turned into a blaze. She sucked in a sharp breath, but it only fed the fire. When she turned her gaze toward Adrien, he raised his brows expectantly.
She opened her mouth, the word no on her lips. She didn’t get the chance to say it. Adrien ran his thumb along her lower lip, and she melted, her resolve crumbling into nothing. Just one last time. No one would have to know.
She could remember what it felt like to be wanted. They could pretend to love one another again, like they did back in the day before they knew that their love was actually teenage lust.
Raven stood. She ran a hand through her curls and scanned her surroundings. A trail ahead disappeared into the trees. When she glanced back and was sure that no one was watching, she made the first step. Not long later, she heard Adrien’s footsteps hot on her trail. Anticipation fluttered inside her.
They were barely out of sight of the house before Adrien caught up to her and pulled her against his chest. Their lips crashed together. She wound her hand through his sandy hair and held him close. He pressed harder, as if they could become one.
It was as if they had never stopped. She fit into his hands as she always had. No part of her had outgrown him. An old thought entered her mind, that perhaps she had been made for him. But time had eroded that idea. There was no way she, a Montoya, had been made for him, a Barnes.
She had watched the two families come together. Gale, Cash, and now her sister all had mates from the Barnes family. Raven knew that she would not be so lucky. Sure, she and Adrien had sexual chemistry, but that was due to the illicit nature of their relationship.
They got exc
ited from what they shouldn’t be doing. There was no love between them, not the kind that Raven wished she could have felt before her life was bound to another man.
This wasn’t love. It was only lust.
Though, her dragon did not agree with that statement.
Adrien had one last chance to show Raven that she was the only woman for him.
The way she kissed him, so hard and yet so yielding, scared him. He could feel her need in the way she bit at his lips. He could tell that there was so much pent-up need coursing through her. Yet, it was as if she might fly away at any moment. It was as if she were holding her breath, waiting for something to break.
He tried to pull her closer. He pressed her against a tree and ran his hands along her thighs, hips, and up her waist as if that might show her just how much he worshipped her. He had thought about her every day since they had ended their relationship. He’d thought of her with his cock in his hand. He’d thought of her when his bed was empty.
Hell, he thought of her when his bed was full.
Adrien wanted no other.
He lifted her chin with his hand and lowered his head so that he could nip at the skin of her throat. She whimpered and trembled beneath him. His beast growled happily. He inhaled deep, savoring her scent and the need that was threaded through it.
They could try to throw other women at him, but Adrien could see no other. He was grateful the other woman had revealed her nasty side, or else he wouldn’t have been able to find a way out of the arrangement without revealing his and Raven’s secret. He would never tell a soul so long as Raven wanted to keep it that way.
He did wish, not for the first time, that he could shout his love to the world. He wanted her all for himself every night. If he could throw her over his shoulder and carry her home, he would. She belonged beside him, so he could show her just how appreciated she was every night.
Adrien had learned a lot since they’d been together. He wanted to feel her legs tremble around his ears and hear his name shouted in ecstasy. For now, he settled for a tease. He would show her just what he could do for her.
His hand slid under the waistband of her leggings. Her small gasp turned his blood hot. Adrien wanted to savor the sound but knew it wouldn’t last forever. He needed more. She gripped his shoulders while he parted her folds.
“If you’re any louder, someone might hear,” he teased in her ear.
She swallowed and let her head fall back against the tree behind her. The way her eyes searched the sky above should have bothered him, but Adrien was lost in his own need. It had been too long since he’d touched her. The beast within him drove him forward toward her pleasure.
Her eyes closed when she came. Her lips formed a wide O as her body clenched around his fingers. He grinned and lowered her chin so that he could kiss her. She whimpered into his mouth.
Adrien sighed, pleased. Now, if only he could make this moment last forever.
But it was over before it had begun. He pulled his fingers from her, and she nearly leapt away from him. His heart sank at the sight of the frantic look on her face.
“We said we wouldn’t do that anymore,” she hissed.
Adrien wished he could tell her. The words were in his throat. He only had to let them out. But when she turned her back to him, he swallowed them back down. If Raven wanted him, she would have stayed.
His beast snarled at the idea of giving her up. In the creature’s eyes, she had belonged to them since the day she shyly kissed him behind the town laundromat. His beast’s longing did not make a mate bond, though. If Raven wanted nothing to do with him, he could not force it.
He could only watch as she cast one lonely glance back at him before vanishing down the trail once again.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath.
The beast rioted inside him. It clanged against his ribs and made his skull throb, but he wouldn’t let it out. It would have to settle down before he could shift and let it expend that restless energy.
2
Bastien Lombard’s smile never reached his eyes. He looked Raven up and down, and his smile slipped a bit. It was then that Raven knew he’d been shown family photos. This man had looked at the triplets together and thought he would marry River but got stuck with Raven.
Raven was a nervous eater. That habit had given her wide hips and a buxom chest, but it had also given her a stomach. Men didn’t like big stomachs on women. They wanted all the ass without the gut.
She could tell from the way this man looked at Alice that he would go through with it anyway. This was a political arrangement. There was no love or lust about it.
Her body still ached from what she and Adrien had done in the woods. The ghost of his tender touch haunted her skin. She could almost smell him, still. When she raised her gaze again, she half-expected to see Adrien where Bastien was.
But the man never changed. He held out a hand and formally introduced himself. Raven found her voice, though it remained meek and quiet, and introduced herself in return. Bastien’s smile dipped even lower.
Great, she crashed through all his expectations and proved herself to be a disappointment. What else was new, really?
“I own several properties on my clan territory,” Bastien said, much to Raven’s confusion. He gave a smarmy smirk. “You can have your pick of any of them when you move. That should give you enough time to acclimate without having to learn how to live with me all at the same time.”
Her confusion mingled with relief. His expression didn’t match his words. “That’s…very kind of you.”
“Rent will be due on the fifth of every month, though there will be a discount for you.”
Her stomach dropped. Something about his proposition made it seem like indentured servitude. Though he hadn’t brought up the subject of her duties, it was already clear that he would own her after this. That was just the kind of man he was. She’d seen others like him.
They treated their wives like property. Would he expect heirs from her, even if they lived separately? How long would she be allowed to live on her own? This whole situation left her conflicted.
On the one hand, she would be far away from her mother and the rising conflict among the Montoya family. But that also meant losing her sister, who was knee deep in the coming war. River had gotten hurt once already. If Raven was across the country when her sister got hurt again, she would feel helpless. She doubted Bastien would allow his wife to fly home at the drop of a hat.
Alice waved a hand in the air. “You won’t have to worry about rent. I’ll cover that while you settle in, dear.”
Raven gave her mother a tight-lipped smile. Couldn’t Alice see just how constricting this relationship would be? Of course, not. Alice Montoya had married a powerful shifter and then told him that she would not leave her territory for him. She’d bound the man to her and retained her autonomy.
The triplets’ father spent most of his time among his own clan. Though he wasn’t the leader, he was their second in command. He barely left his clan leader’s side to see his children. Raven could have looked forward to seeing her father more often, but she still had too many fears.
This wasn’t what she wanted. But when she looked to her mother, Raven knew there was no arguing with her. The decision had been made, and now Raven had to follow through on it. This would be Alice’s last chance to protect her children—though she hardly ever thought of Reece because he had not been born frail like the girls.
Reece always got a free pass. He did whatever he wanted, then went and hid among the raptors at the aviary. Raven struggled to understand her brother. Though she and River had never spent much time together, as they had played distraction for one another over the years, she understood River because they shared the same struggles.
Reece was almost a stranger to both of them despite the fact that they had shared a womb for nine months. Sometimes, she wondered if he felt guilt for the way their mother treated River and Raven. If he had been able to give them some s
trength in the womb, then maybe their family would not be fraught with so much tension.
Raven doubted that. Alice Montoya was a force of pure will, and nothing her children did would ever change that. Raven had come to that conclusion years ago. She’d removed the blame from her own shoulders so that her mother’s expectations wouldn’t crush her any more than they already had.
“I do think that you should start a diet before the wedding,” Bastien said pointedly. “I know that the event isn’t far away, but there are a number of crash diets you could use to shed a few pounds. We can discuss a long-term diet after we return home.”
Raven tugged at her clothing, pulling it away from her body as if that might mask the fact that she wasn’t a size 0. Adrien had never brought up her weight. Not even the day before, when they’d touched each other for the first time since high school. Her body was not the same as it had been back then, but Adrien hadn’t given her a second thought. He’d simply pulled her into him like he used to.
She swallowed, suddenly aching for something that could never be. She yearned for a way to follow in her sister’s footsteps, but that would never happen. The Barnes family was in the process of trying to marry Adrien off, too. River had been there for the first attempt at matchmaking. Just because Elise had been a poor match for Adrien didn’t mean that they wouldn’t find one for him eventually.
Their paths would grow further and further apart from here on out. The time they had shared in the woods had been a reach for the past, a final goodbye before they parted once and for all.
A Star Crossed Fate (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 4) Page 1
