Forbidden by Fate

by Kristin Miller

  Her father waved for Damon to sit in a leather-wrapped chair inside their circle, next to one of the smaller Weres, who was still a husky six feet tall. Damon took the seat, eyeing the room from stone ceiling to dry wood floor. Then he swung his legs over the arm of the massive chair and glanced at Kenyon over his shoulder.

  “We’ve known for some time that the hot springs remain…I guess you could say they’re lost in clouded territory. We want to change that. Our queen no longer wishes to leave any part of the isle unclaimed, though those are her words.” He leaned forward as if sharing a secret. “To be frank, I think her OCD has taken over and she wants the boundary lines to be neat and tidy, and you see, those springs skew the map near Were Mountain and jack her shit all up. I’m here to see if there’s interest in the hot springs from this side.”

  “There is,” the pack spoke in unison.

  “Whoa.” Damon’s penetrating gaze skidded around the room before flattening on Kenyon. “We thought that would be the case. No dog wants a bone until another bitch is licking the hard, dry length of it.”

  Sasha didn’t have to hear her father’s thoughts to know he was sending death threats throughout the pack. His anger was palpable.

  “Anyhow,” Damon added quickly, “I’m here to negotiate the terms.”

  “The hot springs are flush against our mountain.” Her father stood before Damon, arms crossed, black eyes piercing, a massive wall of pissed-off Were. “Its streams flow beneath our caves. It only makes sense that the hot springs remain on our side.”

  “But the trickling streams are not the springs themselves, so it doesn’t matter how much of the water treks beneath your rock. And only one edge of the water rests against your territory anyhow. The majority of the outer rim lines the rainforest. It should be Draco’s.”

  “We will fight for it.”

  “You won’t stand a chance.”

  “Send your best warrior.”

  Damon threw up his hands. “I’m here.”

  “As much as I would love to accept your offer, I don’t want the queen calling foul play. No matter if I delivered your dead dragon body to her myself, she’d say we ambushed you. No, we’ll do this the right way—fair. Tomorrow night, when the full moon is highest in the sky, we will fight for the right to the hot springs. Send your strongest dragon. We’ll send a stronger wolf. Neither party may set foot on the unclaimed ground until the time of battle or face penalty of death. Are we in agreement?”

  Damon stood nose to nose with Kenyon and took his hand, shook. “We’re in agreement. As long as I have permission to pass through so that I may get back into Draco territory.”

  Kenyon thrust the tails of his coat aside and crossed his arms. “Fine. I’ll have an escort lead you out.”

  Oh, what Sasha wouldn’t give to be that escort. Two minutes with Damon was all she’d need to know the real reason he’d come back. If he didn’t love her—if he’d forgotten about their love and moved on with someone else—at least she’d get the closure she craved. She stood next to her father, stoic and tall, praying to be chosen.

  Two minutes. Just two minutes alone with him…

  “I don’t need a floppy-eared puppy leading me out.” Damon passed by the Weres without giving them a second glance. When he reached the doorway, he looked back at Sasha. “I remember being kicked out on my ass like it was yesterday. I’ll follow the same route.” With a coy curve of a smile and yet another wink that pinched Sasha’s heart, Damon strode out the door and out of her life…again.

  Chapter Two

  Damn the queen’s business all to hell. That was harder than Damon thought it’d be.

  Being in the same room as Sasha had robbed the breath from his lungs. If the pack attacked him, how could he fight in such a state? Sure, he’d tear fur from bone and split some jaws, but all his energy, all his focus, would’ve been directed on her—the werewolf who tore out his heart and then threw it away as if it was no skin off her muzzle. She was the ultimate distraction—the one thing he didn’t need screwing with his mission.

  Anxious to get the hell off Were land and away from thoughts of Sasha, Damon ran from the jagged wall of Were Mountain through the first green curtain leading into the rainforest. He pushed past row after row of heavy leaves, stepped over shrubs and fallen limbs, until he broke through the tangled entrance of the rainforest and into the carved-out heart. Mist settled on his skin, clamming his hands, his face. He slowed his pace and looked up. Flat-crowned canopies stretched overhead, blocking out nearly every glimpse of the night sky…except one.

  Through one tiny slat of green, Damon spotted the orange face of the moon—the one constant in his life. It was a reminder that he didn’t carry his heart with him. It belonged to a girl whose family had once been a slave to the phasing gray rock that hung in the sky.

  And damn, if that truth didn’t sting like a big fucking bee.

  Seeing Sasha as beautiful as ever—poised and regal, sitting next to her father—didn’t ease the slamming of his heart against his ribcage. Damon was reminded that, once again, he was alone—sent walking home without his soul mate on his arm. Like he’d been on Sasha’s eighteenth birthday when she let her foolish pack pride muddle what they shared.

  “Fate’s a bitch,” Damon mumbled, speeding his pace, anxious for a clearing to stretch his wings. “But I guess things panned out the way they were supposed to from the start.” He shot a wayward glance at the moon peeking between the trees. “Looks like it’s you and me now.”

  He hadn’t trekked ten minutes before the sound of water lapping on rock caught him off guard. He stepped off the path, bent beneath a low-hanging branch and froze.

  Feralon’s hot springs.

  Framed by low, moss-slathered stones around three-quarters of the rim and guarded by the jagged face of Were Mountain on the last quarter, the springs bubbled wildly, steaming and spitting. One large pool trickled to a smaller one below it, which in turn trickled into a third, still smaller pool below. Each spring, though lined with stones, had long-stemmed purple flowers protruding through the rocks, drooping over the pools, as if by bending low enough, they could suck the mist from the water right down to their roots.

  Damon hadn’t realized he was following the path leading to the springs. Or maybe he had. Maybe deep inside him, he wanted to see the heated pools of water one last time before they became a tainted spoil of war.

  With a groan, Damon knelt and brushed his fingers over the bubbling water. He and Sasha had come here night after night, forgetting the differences between their races and the impossibility of a future together. Things had been simple. If they wanted to touch, they did. If they wanted to explore further—good Lord, he’d never forgotten how good she felt riding him—they did.

  “Damon?”

  His gaze snapped up as air ripped from his lungs.

  Sasha stood across the pool, illuminated by soft reflections of moonlight. She was a vision in black, standing eerily still, with flawless porcelain skin glowing beneath light folds of her gown and a soft, charcoal vine curling from her dress up to her neck. And beneath her penetrating stare, violet fire sparked in her eyes. He fought the urge to toss her over his shoulder and run through the rainforest, deep into the night and into his bed.

  Damon rose, willing himself to remain cool and detached. “You come to make sure I find my way off Were territory?”

  Shaking her head, Sasha blinked innocently. Like she didn’t have the faintest idea that there was a war raging inside him. He wanted to run until he escaped the magnetic pull that drew them together. Fulfill his mission and be welcomed back into his clan. And he wanted to stay, plant his feet and remember this stolen moment forever.

  Sasha’s hair was dark, black and silky like the coat of a raven. It’d gotten longer, brushing the round of her backside. No matter how insane the desire was, Damon wanted to storm right up to Sasha, grab a fistful of her hair and breathe in its natural, sweet fragrance—the way he used to do. He longed to reach out
and tangle his fingers in it. Let it fall like a veil over his face.

  “What’re you doing here?” Her voice was liquid sensuality, pitching and falling breathlessly. That part of her hadn’t changed a bit, thank God.

  “I should ask you the same thing.” His throat parched.

  Instead of focusing on Sasha’s violet doe eyes and the thorn piercing his side, Damon recited Queen Elixa’s orders in his head: arrange a meeting with the Were Alpha, negotiate fighting terms and keep his paws off Sasha. If he could do that, he’d be welcomed back into the clan.

  Keep his paws off Sasha.

  Should be easy enough. He’d learned to do “detached” like a pro.

  “Does Daddy Dearest know where you are?”

  Crossing one foot over the other, Sasha slowly made her way around the bubbling spring. “Well,” she said, picking up the bottom of her dress and guiding it over the rocks. “He knows I’m not getting into trouble.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  The corner of her kissable mouth quirked. “He thinks I’m in my room.”

  “If that’s the case, he’s not the brightest wolf in the pack,” Damon fought out. “There’s a lot of trouble that can be found in your room.” Despite himself, he was assailed with memories of their past and heated romps on her bed.

  “Out here, too, it seems.”

  In the silence that followed, Damon held his ground, watching Sasha close the distance between them step by slow step.

  There was no future here with Sasha, he reminded himself. Only more pain. They couldn’t be together. Not if he wanted to prove to Queen Elixa and the rest of his Draco brothers that he was no longer attached to a single Were on the isle. His loyalties belonged to the Dracos.

  But damn it, there was a nagging part of him that ached to anchor his feet in the mud and see where this reunion was headed. Something inside him, an incessant buzzing, burned to know how far she’d let this seductive dance go.

  “What do you want?” he asked, searching the rainforest behind him. Kenyon wouldn’t take chances. If Sasha fled into the night, he’d have her followed. Tonight, though, Damon didn’t sense any other shifters in the vicinity. Odd… “Who’d you bring with you?”

  “I came by myself. I always do.” She gazed up at the moon. “Every full moon I sneak out and come to the springs. My father’s never seemed to notice before. I doubt tonight’s any different.”

  When she finally brought her gaze back to center, leveling that determined stare upon Damon, he willed his lungs to fill and his heart to beat. Natural tasks that once seemed involuntary suddenly took the greatest concentration. It irritated Damon to no end that she still had this kind of influence over him.

  “Why do you come back here?” Didn’t she have better things to do? Like make litters of werewolf puppies? Isn’t that why Kenyon forbade Sasha to see him all those years ago? So she could further their race? Damon squelched the urge to ask if she’d been mated by chomping on his lower lip.

  “I don’t know, really. I guess I feel connected to this place. Have since we were teenagers.” Mist billowed around her as she stepped around the last corner of the spring, facing him. As she stilled, the night stilled with her. Birds quieted. Even the bubbling waters of the hot springs flattened to an eerie calm.

  Damon had the fleeting thought that he was being stalked by one of the most deadly predators on the planet—an exquisite woman with a hidden agenda. And everything in this place was working to her advantage: moonlight highlighted the sleekness of her hair, the quiet of the forest amplified her gentle intake of air and the gown that Damon wanted to tear thread by thread from her body ruffled softly in the midnight breeze.

  “What about you?” she asked. Another few steps and she’d be pressed against him. “Why are you here?”

  Taut silence.

  The air grew heavy with electricity, sparking across his skin and deep in his gut. One glance into the purple depths of her eyes and Damon was lost.

  “Couldn’t Queen Elixa have sent someone else to negotiate the terms of the fight for the hot springs?” she continued. “I didn’t expect you to ever come back. Not after what happened between us.”

  He couldn’t beat the words back. “You mean, what you did to us.”

  “You can’t still be angry with me for what happened.” Her eyebrows puzzled in confusion. “My father never would’ve allowed it…us. I was too young to live on my own, without my family. I did what I had to do to survive.”

  Taking lead of the pack was something Sasha could’ve never done if they’d continued their relationship. They both knew it. Damon had accepted they’d be exiled. But at least they would’ve been together…and happy. Now, from the position she’d taken next to her father, Damon assumed this was what she’d wanted all along.

  Only she didn’t look happy. Between the crinkle on her forehead and the shadows flittering across her eyes, Damon would say she looked torn. Nearly broken.

  “Is that all you ever wanted for your life? To merely survive? Guess you’re on the right track then, though I have to tell you that you’re missing a hell of a lot.”

  A gust of wind skidded over the springs and slammed into them. Sasha’s hair flew wildly around her face, but she didn’t catch the silky strands; she just let them fly, peering through them with enough intensity to light the forest on fire.

  “Damon…” Sasha reached for him and he stepped back. One touch could tear his control to shreds. She dropped her hand to her side. “I’m sorry, I thought—when I saw you in my father’s den, I suppose I thought that you…that you might’ve felt the same way and come back to fight for me—for us.”

  “That’s not happening.”

  Her smile faded. Could she really have thought they could be together? When he was full-blooded Draco, exiled from the rest of his clan, and she was full-blooded Were, set to become Alpha of the werewolf pack? What was there to fight for? A love that would be forbidden by Sasha’s Alpha? Damon couldn’t ask her to choose between love and family now, any more than he could when they were young and recklessly in love.

  “Then why’d you come?” she whispered, finally securing her hair behind her ears. “It couldn’t be simply to negotiate the claiming of the hot springs on your queen’s behalf. I can see there’s more to it in your eyes. You’re hiding something…”

  “You want the truth?” Damon’s voice came out low. Flatter than he’d planned.

  “No,” she said, stringing together a pathetic laugh. “I want you to lie to me.”

  “Fine. You want me to lie?” He took a deep breath and then pushed out the words teetering on the edge of his tongue. “I haven’t thought about you, not a single moment, since you told me goodbye. I’ve gone on with my life, living with the Draco clan who birthed me, happy as a fucking clam. I’ve claimed a faithful woman, and we fuck like Were rabbits every night. You meant nothing to me when we kept each other warm beneath that glaring moon. And you mean absolutely nothing to me now.”

  His heart boomed. Sasha stared at his mouth as if she couldn’t believe it’d spoken the words. Her eyes glossed over with disbelief. Within seconds, shock morphed to realization.

  At least now she knew the real reason he’d come…he had to see her again. To prove to himself that he could resist her. Although he loved her with more passion than his body could handle, he could restrain himself. He could resist Sasha’s allure. Fight the pull to crush her body to his.

  “I don’t understand.” Sasha closed her arms around herself and shivered, though from the sparkle in her eyes, Damon would’ve bet it wasn’t from the cold. “You said you didn’t come to see me.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t.” He’d been fooling himself all along. He did come for her. And now that he laid his eyes upon her once more, he couldn’t stop staring.

  He saw how the tightness of her dress accented her curves. The way it hugged the full mounds of her breasts. The way the front dipped low, showcasing her milky white neck and shoulders. He long
ed to run his fingers over her silky skin—would it still be as smooth as he remembered?—run his thumbs over the peak of her nipples and hold the heavy weight of her breasts in his hands.

  Damn it! No! He had a job to do. And loyalty to prove.

  Damon clenched his jaw and looked to the trees. The sky. The hot springs. Anywhere but Sasha’s eyes. All Damon had to do was stay strong—and focused—for one day. Twenty-four fucking hours.

  “I came here to prove that I could resist you,” he said at last, keeping his gaze the hell away from Sasha. “And I have to admit, it’s easier than I thought it’d be.”

  “Is that right?” she challenged. She must’ve felt the same sparks, the same magnetism, and saw right through his bullshit. “Then turn around and walk away.”

  “You think I can’t?”

  “No.” When she took a step closer and pressed against him, he nearly hissed from the shock. “I think you won’t.”

  Before Damon could argue or deny the truth to himself, Sasha’s pillow-soft breasts rubbed against his chest, hardening him to stone. Through her corseted top and the cotton of his shirt, he could feel her warmth. It spread across his skin and penetrated right to his core, where years of loneliness and rejection had built an ice sheet.

  Keep his paws—ah, shit, he was already too close. In too deep.

  Even though Damon knew no good would come of it, his hands found her shoulders and then drifted to her neck. Sasha held her breath as he tilted her face so her cheek could catch the moonlight. She was stunning. Earth-rocking. More than any shifter he’d seen in his thirty years on Feralon, Draco or not. As her lips parted for him, Damon could’ve sworn something cracked inside him and then melted through his ribcage.

  “You have to know this won’t end well for us.” Damon had the feeling that whatever was about to happen was beyond his control. He was a pistol—cocked, locked and aiming to fire. But no matter how things played out tonight, Sasha had to understand they had no future together. No solid ground to build upon. This was it. A one-night stand that would have to satiate their unresolved desires…