Undone By Destiny

by Allyson Young

  Michelle faded into the background as she focused on her mate and Peyton. Tahl’s features were hard, his eyes narrowed, and strain was evident in his tense stance. The redhead, in contrast, was all sexy flutters.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Peyton.”

  Tossing all that hair, a near flame in the warmly lit display area, Peyton smiled, seduction visibly dripping. “I love to shop.”

  “But not in Blue Star. Not in pack territory that isn’t yours.”

  Pouting, the female laid a caressing hand on Tahl’s arm. “That’s old news. Years old.”

  “Etched in stone, Peyton. Does your grandfather know you’re flouting pack law?”

  “He’s old too. His Council should be looking at a change. Looking to become a more progressive pack, like yours.”

  “And was his Council receptive to your ideas?” The implicit silky threat baffled Desi, but clearly not Peyton, who snatched her hand back.

  “It’s a work in progress.”

  “I’m sure it is. Now best you start the drive back. It gets dark early this time of year.”

  “I’ll do that.” Peyton stepped close to Tahl, going up on her toes in an effort to kiss him. He eased away and she stumbled to compensate. He didn’t react to the look of fury that twisted her lovely face, but it made Desi shudder.

  The other female stalked from the boutique, the door jangling and clattering behind her as if she sucked out all the air with her departure. Michelle whistled, an entirely unexpected reaction from someone so fussy.

  Tahl’s body relaxed a little, but Desi detected a certain agitation in her mate. He turned to follow Peyton, and she couldn’t control her protest. It emerged as a faint, choking sound, but he heard.

  “Hey.” His gaze snapped to her and regret flashed over his features. Her heart sank. He really hadn’t wanted her to witness that little meeting. And now he was going after the other female to have an additional conversation in private.

  Instead, he said, “Almost closing time, Michelle. Head out, okay?”

  Her stare bouncing between them, the other woman nodded. “Sure. See you tomorrow.”

  Knowing the little incident would be all over the pack grapevine within minutes, Desi resigned herself. No point in making it worse. She forced a wide, happy smile and waved Michelle out. “Tomorrow. Don’t be late!”

  Into the quiet after her departure, Tahl said, “Sorry about that.” Was that relief or disappointment in his voice? Desi couldn’t tell. But he was here, with her, and the other female was long gone.

  She lifted a shoulder. “I never had much use for Peyton anyhow. Not someone I want to spend time with.”

  “She shouldn’t be in Blue Star.”

  “How come?”

  “It was in our agreement.” His eyes shuttered and she felt him close down.

  “Agreement?”

  Leaning against a rack, he rubbed his hand over his chin. Fine stubble rasped and her senses pricked. She waited, though wanted to press him before he could choose his words too carefully.

  “In exchange for my help, Peyton wasn’t to return here.”

  “What happened, Tahl?” She was afraid of the answer, but she had to know.

  “What I felt … thought … well, it wasn’t true.” He looked her straight in the eye and she fell into the honesty brimming in that verdant green. “I realized the female I wanted wasn’t Peyton.”

  Her belly flipped and cramped. I hope you get what you need, regardless. Maybe a person could interpret that curse differently. If what he thought about Peyton wasn’t true, then she wasn’t what he needed. But was she? Or had she changed Peyton somehow? Some weapon she’d turn out to be when she couldn’t determine cause and effect. Her head ached, joining the party.

  “Desi?”

  “I can’t say that I really understand. Okay, so she wasn’t supposed to darken Blue Star’s territory. Just her or all of those pack members?”

  “I’ve said all I can say.”

  “Why’d you get so agitated about us coming face-to-face?”

  He flat-out lied, and she read him clearly. “I guess I had visions of an incident, and wanted to head it off. Pack relations and all.”

  “Right.” She imbued her answer with as much sarcasm as it could hold without crumbling under its own weight.

  “Want to go out to dinner? Maybe stop by Jett and River’s?”

  Like a happily mated couple, doing stuff together around the elephant in the room—in their lives. Seeing as she was likely responsible for the behemoth, she shook her head. “I’ll be home around six.” She supposed it was her home. “I have a few things to finish up here.”

  “You’re upset.”

  She sighed. “Tahl, our union isn’t what one might call auspicious, what with the way it began. But I’m trying. I just need some space, is all.”

  He flinched. “I love you, baby. Know that if you know anything.”

  “You think you love me, Tahl,” she said quietly. “Yet you followed Peyton.”

  “I was wrong, I told you. Sometimes we don’t see what’s in front of our noses.”

  “Or maybe something happens to change our minds. Something … unnatural.”

  “What do you know?” He stepped into her, looming, his wolf near the surface, and her heart skipped a beat, not that she was afraid of him. She cursed herself for skirting the truth so closely, for giving such a specific hint. Did he suspect? Was that why his wolf rose?

  She backpedaled. “Nothing for sure, Tahl. It would be easier if I did.” Tears welled and she blinked furiously.

  “Ah, baby.” He softened immediately. “Don’t. It’ll be fine. I know it.”

  Desi knew no such thing, but nodded and sniffed, turning to pull a tissue from the box on the counter while Tahl stroked her back. “I’m okay.”

  “Come with me to River and Jett’s,” he coaxed. “I need to talk to our Alpha and you haven’t seen River in days. Leave your car in the lot. We can get it on the way back or I’ll bring you in the morning.”

  “My mother might be home soon,” she muttered. “And I won’t need to come in.”

  “I can still drive you.”

  Conceding, she grabbed her things and followed him out, his tall, broad-shouldered form a calming beacon to her unsettled mind. She ensured her car was locked before climbing into his, noting that he waited, glancing around the lot.

  Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and worked on relaxing her tense muscles. By focusing on that, her mind quit chipping away and chasing its own tail.

  Jett let them in, his blue gaze connecting with Tahl’s emerald one, and they communicated in that mysterious way they had. Her brother looked at her next. “You okay, Desi?”

  “I’m fine, Jett. Sometimes the past comes back to bite us in the ass.”

  He stared hard, looking behind her words, and then nodded. “River’s upstairs with the kids.”

  Taking her cue, she hurried up the steps, hearing the men move toward Jett’s study.

  “… called Ashton …”

  “… fucked up, Jett. She’s…”

  Out of earshot as they closeted themselves, she found her friend curled up on a wide, low bed, reading to Bella and Andrew.

  “Red Riding Hood? Really, River.”

  “We’re making our way through all the Grimm fairy tales.”

  “Red’s a Grimm fairy tale?”

  “If it isn’t, it should be.” River resumed reading when Andrew tugged at the book. He sounded out several of the words, and Desi didn’t think it was from memory.

  “He’s reading already. Like Jett did.”

  “I know. He’s figured out simple sums too, and understands things I didn’t even think about until middle school.”

  “Fae blood,” she mouthed, behind Andrew’s back.

  Abandoning the book to her son, with her daughter raptly watching his finger move across the printed word, River drew her to the chairs in the corner. “Tell me what happened.”

/>   “I have Fae blood too.”

  “What? I mean, I know. I was wondering about Peyton—”

  Ignoring the clear invitation to share about the redhead, Desi said, “I suppose I was smarter than some. My grades were always good and I breezed through school.”

  “Okay.” River peered at her. “What’s this about?”

  “My mother’s legacy manifested differently in Jett, is all.”

  “Desi, tell me what you mean.”

  “Nothing, really. It’s just that sometimes things come true when I want them to. Not bad things,” she added hurriedly. “Not really. But I can’t believe in coincidences forever.”

  River popped up and went to the intercom. She paged the nanny, and the young woman presented herself within moments. “Glenda, Desi and I need a few minutes alone.”

  “Sure, River. I’ll watch them. No problem. If you want to move the laundry over in a bit?”

  “Deal.”

  Desi loved the easy way River interacted with other shifters, at least most of them. There were a few, females mostly, who hadn’t quite accepted their loss when Jett chose her. Glenda clearly didn’t feel like she was an employee, but part of the household. Yet she showed River the deference due the Alpha’s mate.

  “Cassie’s coming for a spell, so Glenda can take some time off.” Her friend laughed quietly. “Andrew wears her out, though she loves him to pieces.”

  “You miss your sister.”

  “I do, and I wish she’d move here, but she wants to be there for Dad. So I’ll take the time she’ll give me! Let’s head downstairs while the getting’s good.”

  Once they were comfortable, sipping tea out in the yard, River fixed her with a look. “Spill.”

  “I’m pretty average.”

  With a snort, her friend said, “Right. Average. Nearly six feet tall, great body, beautiful, smart, successful, the Alpha’s sister. Average.”

  “I mean average compared to Jett.”

  “Except?”

  “Marlene doesn’t want me to put it out there, and I haven’t because I understand the implications. I’m not always sure it’s even true. And she isn’t either…”

  “Desi, c’mon. What’s happening?”

  “I have an ability, at least that’s what my mother calls it when the coincidences mount up. I guess I told her too many times about things that happened after I said something to people who upset me.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Me neither. I just know to watch what I say, even joking.”

  “Not helping.”

  Ticking situations off, Desi shared six specific events that came to mind where her response seemed to impact the recipient. “There might be more.” She didn’t share her concern about Tahl and Peyton.

  “Marlene thinks you have some kind of power?” There was no skepticism in the other woman’s tone. She’d met Marlene, after all. Not human. Not shifter.

  “She does. And sometimes, so do I. It weighs on me.” She set her cup down and got up to pace to the fence separating the yard from the woods. Jett had cleared a swath and outfitted it with security devices since the rogue alpha had breached the perimeter.

  River’s little hand touched her arm. “I can imagine. Except you’re not a vindictive person.”

  Turning to face her friend, she said, “I hope I’m not.”

  “When did it manifest?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe late high school? It might have been earlier except in the chaos of adolescence I probably didn’t notice that I turned somebody’s life upside down.”

  “It doesn’t sound like that’s what happened.”

  A bitter laugh choked her throat. “They got what was coming to them, you mean?”

  “In a fair world, yes. People don’t always get caught when they do bad stuff, so it’s kind of nice for me to hear that they get theirs.”

  That was a new perspective, except she didn’t fancy herself as some kind of one-woman vigilante. “I don’t want it, but I’m stuck with it.”

  “Does Tahl know?”

  “No!” She bit her lip, but the vehemence had been involuntary.

  River stepped back, worry creasing her brow and darkening her eyes. “He wouldn’t think less of you, or judge you, Desi.”

  All in, she said, “Even if I changed the outcome of his relationship with Peyton Leaf?”

  As a conversation stopper, it was a doozy, because River blinked, opened her mouth, then shut it. Twice.

  “Exactly.”

  “Wait. What could you possibly have said—I mean you say it, right?” At Desi’s nod, she continued, “What could you have said to change the outcome? You didn’t even know he was interested in her. Not that he was, for real, apparently…”

  “You see? It’s so freaking convoluted. It makes my head hurt. He went there, he stayed there and then he came back and settled for me.”

  “Oh, Desi. It has to hurt, regardless. And being so uncertain…”

  “It blisters, River. Scalds. Kicks my self-worth in the face. But the guilt is worse.”

  “I got sidetracked,” the other woman insisted. “What did you say to him?”

  “Regardless, I hope you get what you need. It’s etched in my brain like it was yesterday. I might have congratulated him too.” She shook, disclosing her deepest, most shameful secret, but there was a certain relief—and dark satisfaction—in sharing.

  Head shaking from side to side, River pursed her lips. “I think he needed you.”

  “I was bitter. And vindictive. That’s not how I meant it.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “Back then? I sure didn’t mean for him to get his needs met, not past the physical. I figured if he couldn’t see past the trappings to the nasty center, he deserved her. She was pure trouble during the time she and Alpha Leaf were here. Caused fights between the young males, intimidated and bullied the females and generally stirred things up, although getting others to deal with it at the time fell short. It was almost like it didn’t even mean anything until afterward when friendships had to be rebuilt and amends made. It’s a testimony to Jett’s rule that she didn’t have the effect she might have had.”

  “You were pretty young, Desi.”

  “I was devastated.”

  “I’m still not feeling it.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter, because I’m not telling him. He chose me, second string or not, and we’re stuck. I’m making the best of it, though being second choice stings. I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish, telling you. Sorry.”

  “Friends confide in one another,” River chided. “You know my secret.”

  She hugged the other woman, wrapping her up. “Thanks, hun. I love you too. And I do feel a bit lighter.”

  As they moved back to their tea, River said, “My guess Marlene didn’t want anyone to know your potential. So it wouldn’t get misused.”

  “That’s it, exactly. And we’re not sure, exactly how it works, so it’s best left quiet.”

  “Jett should know.”

  “Not something you can keep from him?”

  “He won’t use you, Desi. He’s not like that.”

  “He’ll be pissed, but we’ll figure it out.” She sagged into a chair. “Tahl’s going to find out.”

  “I think you want him to know.”

  “Not.”

  “He’s not likely to think you … influenced him.”

  “Well, he’ll be on the lookout now, won’t he? It’ll make things more awkward than they are now. I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “I won’t tell Jett until Marlene gets home. You can have a family meeting—and you might want to find a way to tell Tahl beforehand.”

  “He’s family now too, isn’t he? Maybe he did get one thing he needed, anyhow.”

  “Self-pity, Desi?”

  “I waffle between self-pity and loathing.”

  “You have a caring mate, a stable pack, and a pup on the way.”

  “It’ll have to be enough,�
�� she agreed. This whole situation should feel divorced from reality…

  “We’ll talk again, but I see Jett looking out the kitchen window, and he’ll be eavesdropping. Let’s put together some dinner and we can at least share some relaxed time.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tahl couldn’t shake the deep sense of foreboding that tainted the time spent with his Alpha and his family. The kids made everyone laugh, the meal a noisy, happy time. Desiree lightened up and even treated her brother with something like her usual style. Maybe she was going to forgive Jett after all, and he dared hope she might come to forgive him. He’d been living on hope for what felt like forever, and it wasn’t a particularly fulfilling meal, as fickle as it seemed.

  His mate occasionally gave him quick, sideways glances and he sensed her speculation. Jett had cautioned him about saying anything further, at least until he could talk with Alpha Leaf, who wasn’t taking his calls. So his foreboding likely had a solid base. Peyton was on the edge, he could feel it, and he should have done something about that and to hell with the agreement.

  “Unca Tahl?” Andrew had slipped from his chair to crawl beneath the table and pop up between Tahl’s knees. The toddler stared up at him, the assessing look in his pale blue eyes at odds with the childlike features. Tahl blinked.

  “What’s up, little guy?” He tapped the child gently on the bicep.

  “What’s wrong?”

  One didn’t talk down to this child, though Andrew could lose himself in play with enthusiasm, being every bit a kid. “Thinking heavy thoughts, Andrew.”

  “Like sacks of sand?” Jett had just filled a sandbox for the kids, and Tahl well remembered the heft of those bags.

  “About as heavy.”

  “You should tell Desi.” Andrew nodded as if announcing something vastly important.

  Making himself smile, he nodded back. “I should.”

  “She’s your mate, now. Like my mom and my dad.” The slightest childish lisp didn’t detract from the solemn observation.

  “She is, buddy.” He leaned forward, and whispered, “I love her lots.”

  One chubby hand touched his face, right beneath his temple. “Me too.”