Fate, Love & Loyalty: (A Havenwood Falls Novella)

by E. J. Fechenda

  Thankfully, only supes remained inside Coffee Haven, because Harlow could get in trouble for casting magic in public. “Let me go, Harlow,” she demanded.

  “Only if you agree to call your dad and let him know what’s up. Willow is already calling the sheriff.”

  Aster stared at the front door long after Damian left. Willow’s warning sank into her conscience, and worry turned her coffee sour in her stomach. I just sent a dangerous, very large male I knew nothing about after Reeve, she thought to herself. What have I done? She let out a cry when she envisioned Reeve, lifeless, in Damian’s clutches.

  “Okay, I promise!” The moment she said this, Harlow released the spell, and Aster almost fell over.

  Without a word, Willow placed the coffee shop phone on the counter next to Aster’s forgotten macchiato.

  Chapter 4

  Reeve woke up to Patrick lightly tracing a finger along her spine. She wiggled closer, forcing him to trail his finger down her side instead. When he hit the soft spot between her ribs and hip, she laughed. Realizing he had discovered a ticklish area, he tickled her even more, until she was breathless from laughing so hard. She’d forgotten what it was like to let her guard down and couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that. Then she remembered—it was before she met Damian Stone. Stone. His last name was appropriate, because she felt his weight like a boulder strapped to her back; just being in the same room as the alpha made it hard to breathe.

  Thinking about Damian sobered her up, and she rolled away from Patrick, pulling the comforter over her naked body.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, placing soft kisses on the top of her shoulder, which remained exposed. She knew she had to tell him about the situation she left behind in Denver and may have followed her to Havenwood Falls, but she struggled to form the words. “You can tell me anything. Whatever you’re scared of, you have me now to protect you.”

  “What makes you think I’m scared?” she asked.

  “We’re bonded. I can feel what you’re feeling.”

  “Right, I forgot about that part.” Reeve closed her eyes and exhaled deeply before rolling over to face Patrick. His brown eyes were so different from Damian’s. Where Damian’s were hard and glinted like onyx, Patrick’s were warm, like a dark honey. Yes, her mate swore to protect her, but Damian was a ruthless force. She placed a hand on Patrick’s chest and ran her fingers through the coarse hair blanketing his pecs. His heart beat strong and steady under her palm.

  “Talk to me, babe,” he urged, placing a kiss on her forehead. “I bet you’ll feel better after.”

  Reeve took a shaky breath and started from when she first met Damian Stone.

  Denver, Late September

  Reeve was working for Elite Catering, which had been selected by the Denver mountain lion shifters for their Founders Day Celebration, a huge event that everyone in the shifter community anticipated each year. Since this past year was their twentieth annual party, the alpha wanted it to be special, so Reeve was brought in as the event planner. The party’s venue was a warehouse that normally sat empty, providing a blank canvas every year for decorations and logistics.

  When Reeve arrived at the warehouse for the first meeting, she met Damian Stone along with his beta, Gage Barrows, and Elite’s executive chef. The meeting was typical—they went over the client’s vision, timeline, and what to include on the menu. Reeve walked around the space, mapping out her ideas for decorations, table layout, and where to place the dance floor. The only thing atypical was Damian’s behavior toward her. He came on strong and was relentless, despite her turning him down, citing Elite’s non-fraternization policy prohibiting dating and personal relationships with current clients. Eventually, his beta got him to back off. Unfortunately, there were other meetings where Reeve didn’t have anyone to run interference. She left those meetings disheveled from being pawed at. She asked her boss to remove her from the project, but there wasn’t anyone else to take over. Reeve’s boss asked her to stay on the job, and refuse Damian’s advances as politely as possible. Then things really started to escalate.

  Reeve had been casually dating a soldier with the Denver den. It was nothing serious—more like a friends with benefits situation—but when Damian found out, he ordered his soldier to stay away. Not too long after that, Reeve was at a club with some friends, having fun out on the dance floor. Reeve was dancing with some random guy, a human, and they started dancing pretty close. Her back was to his front, grinding to the beat, when suddenly he was gone. She turned around to see where he went, and Damian stood in his place. The poor human was sprawled out on the floor, unconscious, and by the way the bottom part of his jaw hung at an angle, she knew it was broken.

  “You fucking psycho! What’s wrong with you?” Reeve screamed in Damian’s face. At this point, she’d had a couple of drinks and didn’t think about the fact that Damian was a client. He had crossed a line, and she needed to push back.

  “Nobody touches what’s mine.”

  He said it with such arrogance that Reeve hauled off and slapped him, hoping to knock the smirk off his face. She didn’t expect it to excite him, but he grabbed her by the hips, forcing her body against him.

  Havenwood Falls

  The sound of Patrick growling caused Reeve to pause. His arm tightened around her from where it was draped across her side.

  “Do you want me to stop?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Did he…he hasn’t raped you, has he?” He spat this question out like the very words choked him.

  “No. No, never.”

  “Oh thank the gods!” he said with a deep exhale, and his body softened behind her.

  Denver

  Nobody was allowed to grab her like he did, like she was a piece of property, so she kneed him in the balls. By this time, they were creating quite the scene, and two of the club’s bouncers arrived. When Damian’s eyes started to glow, Reeve was afraid he would shift right there, but he managed to bring himself under control . . . barely. While the bouncers were busy with him, Reeve and her friends slipped out of the club.

  The next day, her boss called and lit into Reeve about assaulting the company’s number one client. Damian had twisted it all around, and made it seem like she was the one out of control—that she was the aggressor. Reeve gave her side of the story, and pleaded to be transferred to a different event, but Damian still insisted that Reeve be the event planner. Rather than be bullied and forced into a bad situation, she quit.

  Two days later, her boss called, groveling. Reeve decided to go back to work not only because she loved her job, but because her boss agreed she would never have to be alone with Damian again. Her boss made sure Reeve had someone accompany her to any meeting or gathering. That worked for a few months, but Damian had a way of finding her outside of work. She’d run into him at Trader Joe’s or at the coffee shop on the corner by her apartment. Fortunately, her building had security, and required a key card to get in; otherwise he probably would have shown up inside.

  Havenwood Falls

  Reeve shivered at what she was about to tell Patrick. She’d been reliving the series of events over and over in her head since she fled Denver, and no one knew why she had returned to Havenwood Falls. Patrick would be the first to hear about her situation, and it was only fair that she tell her mate. The bond compelled her to reveal everything—to bare her soul. There would be no secrets between them. She rolled over to face him, and he must have sensed her emotional distress because he tucked her close to his chest. She breathed in his scent, and noticing that hers mixed with his helped her to relax. Feeling better, she continued her story.

  Denver

  The Founders Day event celebrated the founding mountain lion shifters who established the den in Denver. They made it possible for other supes to move into the area, and helped build a strong community. Damian was really into family history and purity of bloodlines. Every time they had a meeting about the event, he made a point to talk about his herita
ge and how he’s a direct descendent of Ransom Stone, the founding alpha. Reeve made the mistake of mentioning her father, and that he was an alpha. When Damian heard that, he certainly seemed to perk up, but Reeve had no idea just how obsessed he was in his belief that he needed to mate with the daughters of alphas, mating bond or not.

  On the day of the Founders Day party, Reeve was busy working, attending to last minute details, and Damian was busy being host, so their paths never crossed, which was a relief to Reeve. After the party, only mountain lion shifters hung around. There was a nervous, pent-up energy in the warehouse that she recognized. The night was still young and the woods behind the warehouse beckoned. One of the Denver members asked if she wanted to shift and run with them.

  “God yes,” she exclaimed, relishing the perfect opportunity to unwind from a long, crazy day. On top of that, it had been at least two months since her last shift. Her skin itched with the need to let her cat out and play. So she filed out the back doors with the rest of the group, and they all stripped naked. Reeve’s cat was anxious, and she shifted immediately then paced around the parking lot until everyone else had shifted.

  Damian’s cat was easy to spot. He was the biggest, with a square, masculine face. The dark markings around his eyes and nose looked like war paint, and added to his fierce intensity. His amber eyes locked on Reeve’s before he bounded off across a small field that separated the warehouse from the trees. The warehouse was located on the border of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, and provided the perfect cover for shifters. Mountain lion sightings weren’t unusual and never drew much attention. The rest of the shifters followed suit, and soon Reeve was running in the wilderness, the city lights of Denver just a distant, hazy glow on the horizon.

  They ran for the thickest section of the forest, to minimize the risk of crossing paths with humans. With the wind ruffling through her fur and a hint of summer in the warm night air, Reeve let the stress of the past few weeks melt away. The more she ran and her paws connected with the soft earth, the more the human part of her let go—it was such a release. She was so caught up in the moment that she didn’t realize she had split off from the group and run into an unfamiliar area. She sniffed the air and surrounding trees, brushes, and rocks for any familiar scents, but didn’t detect anything. She came across a stream and crouched down for a drink. The entire time her ears were at attention, twitching at every noise. In the distance she heard the cry of prey expelling its last breath. Reeve lifted her head from the cold water and looked in the direction of the hunt. Moments later, a faint trace of blood clung to the wind, and her nostrils flared with interest. Scenting her kind, she started heading in that direction.

  By the time she arrived, traces of the fresh kill were all that remained. Tufts of gray rabbit fur floated in the air, while some clumps were glued to the earth with blood and guts. Multiple paw prints in the mud showed that more than one mountain lion had passed through. Reeve was also back in familiar territory. The night sky was fading into dawn when she arrived back at the warehouse, and she immediately noticed something was amiss.

  Her dress and heels, which she had left in a neat pile by the door, were missing. She quickly shifted, and the moment she felt her bones pop into the right place, she stood up straight from where she was crouched. Figuring someone had mistakenly moved them, she went inside to look. There she did find them—in Damian’s hands. Reeve didn’t sense anyone else in the building. They were alone in the dimly lit space, and she immediately went on the defensive.

  “Why do you have my clothes?” she asked, and held her arm out in a silent demand for their return. Her other arm was pressed across her breasts, where Damian’s gaze had been fixed since she walked in.

  “Because you’re mine, and I can do what I want.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake! How many times do I have to tell you? I am not yours. Now give me my damn clothes.”

  Reeve made it a point to stay in one place and not move toward him. He could come to her, and she had the exit at her back in case he tried anything stupid. His dark eyes glinted in the faint light, and his smirk turned into a wide grin full of sharp teeth. His canines lengthened, and he took a step closer. Reeve tensed and resisted taking a step back, not wanting him to see that she was intimidated. Instead she stood up taller and adjusted her long hair so it covered her breasts. Her arms appeared relaxed at her sides, but she was ready to fight if it came to that. Reeve didn’t know Damian very well, but she’d been around him enough to know he was drunk on his power, and he struggled to keep control of his beast. The display of teeth just confirmed it for her.

  “You definitely have alpha blood flowing through your veins. So proud and defiant, but you will submit to me,” he said.

  “No. I won’t,” she replied, never taking her eyes off him. Damian took another step toward her. He was stalking his prey, and she prepared to spring backwards. Her toes sought out some sort of purchase on the concrete.

  He handed Reeve her dress, and she flinched at first, which made him chuckle. Glaring at him, she reached for the thin silk and fell right into his trap. As soon as she had the dress in her hand, he snatched her wrist and yanked her toward him, crushing her against his chest. She started to resist, and at first didn’t register the sting in her left butt cheek. The fucker had a syringe full of sedative, and Reeve’s ability to fight evaporated. She still tried, even though her arms and legs felt like they were made of lead.

  When she came to, Reeve was in a small bedroom, lying on a single bed. Sunlight streamed in through the only window. It took her a few minutes to shake the grogginess off. Her eyelids felt weighed down, but Reeve wasn’t about to go back under, so she forced herself to sit up, and the room spun. Finally, the dizzy spell passed, and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet making contact with cold tiles provided enough of a jolt to wake her up fully. She took stock of her situation and realized someone had dressed her—at least partially—while she was unconscious. She was wearing a large Harley Davidson T-shirt that fit more like a dress, it was so big. It also carried a scent she was becoming too familiar with—Damian’s. There was a sour smell underneath the male musk that repelled her. Her inner cat had zero interest in his pheromones—they were definitely not a match.

  Reeve wanted so badly to rip the shirt off, but she left it on to avoid being naked and more vulnerable. She did a quick inventory of her body to see if anything was wrong. Anything could have happened while she was unconscious, but fortunately, she found she wasn’t injured and didn’t have any tenderness to indicate she had been raped. She slowly rose to her feet, anticipating another round of dizziness that didn’t come. There was a bottle of water on the floor next to the bed, and she drained it in seconds. Whatever Damian had drugged her with had left her with severe cottonmouth.

  It didn’t take her long to check the bedroom for weapons or a way out. The door was locked, and the window had bars on it. The closet was empty, and the bed was just a mattress on a frame, so there weren’t any bedposts to snap off and use as a weapon. Reeve peered out the window to get an idea of where she was being held. She was on the second floor and had a view of a nondescript backyard that was surrounded by tall oak trees blocking the view of anything beyond. Sitting on the windowsill in the sunshine, she closed her eyes and listened to her surroundings.

  Through the wall to her right, she heard soft whimpers like a woman crying, and to the left, someone was pacing. A male voice could be heard on the first floor. It was muffled and hard to tell whether it belonged to Damian or one of his men, or if it was just a TV show. A second male voice joined in, and the muffled conversation that followed was interrupted by what sounded like plates clanging against each other. None of this information helped Reeve, so she sat back down on the bed to think. If she was only asleep for a few hours, then it was Saturday. If she didn’t show up for work on Monday, someone would come to look for her. She was last seen at the party, but she could have been in another county for
all she knew. She didn’t have her bag, phone, or car, since they were probably left at the warehouse.

  As she sat there, more noises came from downstairs, as well as the smell of food. Her stomach growled when she caught a whiff of bacon. Minutes later, footsteps approached, and they stopped nearby. She heard a door open and close. Not long after that, the same door opened and closed, a squeak of the hinges its tell. Then the footsteps stopped outside of the room Reeve was being held in, and she waited with uneasy anticipation as a key slid into the lock and the knob turned. Reflexively, she assumed a defensive crouched position on top of the bed. A guy about her sister’s age came into the room carrying a tray of food.

  “Scott, right?” she asked, recognizing him as one of the den’s soldiers from the party.

  He didn’t acknowledge her at all, or even look at her. He placed the tray on the floor by the bed and backed out of the room. It only took a few seconds.

  “Wait—come back!” she yelled. His retreating footsteps paused in what she assumed was a hallway. “I need to use the bathroom.” This wasn’t a lie. She really did have to go, but she also wanted an opportunity to learn more about where she was being held, such as the layout and exit points.

  Scott came back. He stood in the doorway and held up a pair of handcuffs. “You’re not leaving the room until you put these on,” he said, still not meeting her eyes. He was at least six feet tall and had a muscular build like Reeve’s brother, Braden. While he wasn’t making eye contact, Scott was tracking her every move. He didn’t have to worry. She wasn’t going to challenge him—at least not yet.