Marked by Destiny

by C.M. Owens

  Hurrying, he made his way to his room and got himself ready for bed. Unlike Angelica, he was excited to see what the next day brought and if the pull between himself and Angelica would be just as strong as it had been today. If it was, he would definitely give Alex’s suggestion of talking to her, even though it was against the rules, serious consideration.

  Closing his eyes, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Angelica pulled herself out of bed with a feeling of dread. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t justify skipping school just to avoid Thomas. Besides, she wasn’t a coward who ran and hid from her problems, she faced them head on.

  Squaring her shoulders, she pulled herself together and prepared for school. She fought the instinct that rose in her to spend extra time on her makeup and picking out the perfect outfit, so Thomas would see her at her absolute best. She threw on the first matching outfit she came upon and let her hair hang loose in a natural style.

  The only part of her makeup she spent a few extra minutes on was the concealer under her eyes to hide the dark circles from lack of sleep. She’d tossed and turned for most of the night, thoughts of what had happened the day before preventing her from sleeping much at all.

  Glancing at the clock, she gasped at how late she was running again, grabbed her backpack and raced out of the house toward the bus stop. She’d never hear the end of it from her mother if she missed the bus to school.

  She got to the stop just before the driver closed the door, and climbed on board. She slid into her normal seat next to Amy and leaned back against the seat to catch her breath. Lucky for her, Amy seemed to sense Angelica’s mood and didn’t say a word during the trip to school.

  They got off the bus and Angelica did her very best to not scan the crowd for Thomas, even though she could feel his presence vibrating through her body. That strange pull toward him started again and made her want to turn around and run all the way home. Instead, she straightened her shoulders, walked over to Tracy’s usual spot on the wall and sat down next to her friend. She leaned back with her hands in the garden dirt, closed her eyes and tipped her head back so the sunshine could warm her face.

  Amy and Tracy maintained their usual conversational banter about the different boys around them and how irritated Amy was when she didn’t get a chance to ask Craig out the day before. Angelica smiled at their sarcastic comments and playful arguments. They were like sisters and Angelica wished she could be human like them so she didn’t have to worry about controlling her powers at all times, or finding a mate. She also wouldn’t have to hear about their wronged ancestor, every time she turned around.

  It was all too much for her and being overtired, as she was this morning, she wished harder than she ever had before to be human and not have those worries to deal with. Unfortunately, she was not lucky enough to have her wish granted.

  The bell rang and her day began. It was another long and tortuous day. Each class seemed to drag on forever, until lunch finally rolled around. She met Amy and Tracy at their usual table. Not being hungry, she didn’t bother going through the line to get food, but sat without saying a word as Tracy and Amy chatted on. She loved how her friends seemed to sense her mood and not push her about what was wrong. Angelica was sure they knew it had something to do with either Thomas, her mother, or both, and of course, they were right.

  When they were finished eating there were only a few minutes left before the bell rang and they had to head to their different classes. They left their table, threw their trash away and headed out of the cafeteria. They were a few feet outside of the cafeteria when Thomas and a group of his friends walked past in the opposite direction. On accident, Angelica’s hand brushed against Thomas’ and she felt an electric shock run like a live current through her entire being, body and soul.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at him. When her eyes met his, she saw the exact same shock and horror she was feeling, reflected back at her in his eyes.

  “No.” Angelica whispered her horror.

  Thomas just stared back at her with a stunned look on his face. She watched as his friend Alex leaned over and whispered something in his ear and nodded in her direction. Shaking her head, she turned and rushed off down the hall, trying to put as much distance between them as she possibly could, but not even the Earth was big enough for that to happen.

  “Angelica, wait!” Thomas called out after her, but she didn’t stop. Her mother would kill her for this even though it was something out of her control. Fate decided who your mate was.

  Reaching her locker, she opened it, grabbed her backpack and books out of it and headed to the office. She didn’t need to fake being sick at this point, the thought of what her mother would do to her when she found out her mate was the son of her enemies, was enough to make her physically ill.

  Entering the office, the secretary greeted her with a warm smile. She explained that she was feeling sick and needed to go home as quickly as she could. Nodding, the secretary picked up the phone, dialed the number Angelica rattled off and placed the call to notify her parents of her need to go home.

  She sank down into one of the chairs lining the wall to wait, praying that it had been her father the secretary had spoken to and not Camilla.

  When her father’s assistant came walking into the office about twenty minutes later, Angelica let out a small sigh of relief. That meant Marcus had been the one the secretary had spoken to. He signed her out without a problem and they left the building without speaking a single word to each other.

  He opened the car door for her and closed it behind her after she’d slid into the seat. She buckled her safety belt as he slid into the driver’s seat, buckled himself in and started the luxury sedan. Pulling away from the curb, the ride home was silent. She’d always liked her father’s assistant because he was a man of such few words, but when he spoke, his words were profound.

  When they pulled up in front of the house, Angelica unbuckled and was about to exit the car when Jerome turned to face her and spoke to her for the first time.

  “Do not let finding your mate do this to you young one. Destiny decides who we are meant to be with for a reason. The two of you will be perfect together, you’ll see. Give the bond a chance to grow between you and everything will work out as it is meant to.” He said, his silver grey eyes boring into hers with an intensity that made her shiver.

  “How…” Angelica began to ask but he cut her off.

  “I have known you your entire life. Besides, I have the ability to read people’s emotions.” He said with a shrug, as if that detail was trivial. “Think about what I’ve said. Have a good day Miss Angelica.”

  When he turned back around to face the windshield, she knew he wouldn’t say anything else to her on the subject. She slid from the car and headed into the house as he pulled away to park the vehicle in their massive garage, where it belonged.

  As she entered the mansion, Marcus came striding toward her from the direction of his study with concern etched all over his face.

  “Are you alright my dear?” He asked as he pulled her into a tight hug.

  “I’ll be okay. I just need to rest. I didn’t sleep well last night and I think it got to me. I have a headache that’s making my stomach upset.” Angelica said as much of the truth as she dared. As much as she wanted to confide in her father everything that was going on in her life, she knew her mother could be nearby, listening as they spoke, since she never left the house.

  “Go lie down and rest. I will have tea and a snack brought up to you in a while.” Marcus said, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head and pulling back from their hug.

  “Thank you Dad.” Angelica said, not bothering to hide the exhaustion in her voice as she turned and headed up the stairs to her room. She closed the door, locked it and threw her backpack onto the floor next to her desk with a thud.

  She then grabbed her favorite pair of pajamas and headed into th
e bathroom for a long hot shower to help her relax and, hopefully, ease the headache that she hadn’t lied to her father about.

  Throughout the entire shower, she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that Thomas was her mate. It felt so wrong and so right all at the same time, which confused her even more.

  “What am I going to do?” She groaned to herself, standing under the hot spray of water. “How can this possibly be right?”

  No answer came to her so she shut off the water, toweled dry, dressed in the pajamas she’d pulled out and climbed into bed, praying she’d be able to get at least a little bit of sleep to help her figure all of this madness out.

  Chapter Five

  The following morning, after thinking about what had happened the rest of the day before all night, he decided it was past time for him to talk to Angelica. Somehow, they had to figure out this madness between them, and he knew that he could not do it alone.

  He waited, with impatience, a few feet from where her friend Tracy sat in her usual spot. She glanced over at him with a confused look on her face every thirty seconds or so because he was standing so close, obviously waiting, instead of hanging out with his friends like he did on a normal morning.

  When the bus pulled up, he watched all of the other kids get off and stepped forward as he saw Amy get off of the bus right in front of Angelica. He saw her eyes widen in surprise as he walked right up to her.

  “Hey, any chance we can talk?” He asked her before his nerves could get the better of him and make him walk away without saying a word to her.

  “We can’t do this. You know that.” Angelica said, fear in her voice and her eyes trying to look everywhere at once, for anyone who might be watching them.

  “I don’t think we have much of a choice at this point. Please, can we just talk for a few minutes?” Thomas asked her again.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Angelica asked, thankful that Amy stayed close and Tracy had moved over to where they were standing.

  “I’d rather talk to you alone if that’s alright with you.” He told her with a quick glance at her friends. He had nothing against them, but he knew they were human and couldn’t know anything about Angelica’s and his race or what it meant to find their mate.

  “Do you know what my mother would do to me if she even found out we’d talked at all, let alone if I talked to you alone?” Angelica asked with a very real fear in her eyes. He knew Camilla could be a very cruel woman but it was obviously much worse than he’d ever imagined if her daughter was this afraid of her.

  “Angelica, we’re going to have to talk about this at some point. This isn’t something we can avoid.” Thomas said, gazing into her eyes with an understanding look.

  Angelica looked at the confusion on the faces of her two closest friends in the world and decided that since Thomas was not going to drop this, it was less risky to have a private conversation with him than to have Amy and Tracy find out about their race through their discussion of being mates.

  She nodded her head in agreement and he placed his hand on her sleeve-covered elbow to steer her away from her friends, to somewhere much more private. As she walked away with him, she smiled a reassuring smile at her friends, who smiled brilliant smiles in return before turning and whispering excitedly back and forth between each other.

  Knowing there would be nowhere private enough for them to talk outside, Thomas led her into the building and found a quiet nook for them to slide into. Once they were settled, they stared at each other for a few moments before Thomas cleared his throat.

  “Do you remember when we first met when we were little kids?” Thomas asked her, his eyes meeting hers.

  “Yeah.” Angelica said with a small smile. “You made me so mad stomping on all of those pretty flowers.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember you telling me off about that.” Thomas said with a laugh.

  Angelica laughed with him. “At least you looked sorry for doing it by the time I was done.”

  “How could I not? You were yelling and screaming at me that I was a murderer.” Thomas said and laughed a little harder.

  “You were murdering those poor flowers that did nothing to you but look pretty.” Angelica said and pretended to look offended.

  “I fell for you way back then. I didn’t know how it would work, but I knew there wouldn’t be any other girl for me.” Thomas said, his laughter dying down and an almost scared look replacing his previous amusement.

  “How is it even possible for us to be mates? We’re both Lunarians.” Angelica asked him, trying not to acknowledge that she’d felt the same way in that clearing all those years ago.

  “It happens from time to time, where two people of the same power-base are mated to each other. It’s fairly rare and they can’t have children together, but it has happened before.” Thomas said with an added sadness at the part about not having children. As she looked at him, it occurred to her that he’d make a great father someday, but it would never happen if the two of them were destined to be mates.

  “Our parents will be furious.” Angelica worried diverting the conversation away from having children.

  “They will just have to get over it. It’s not like we had any part in this decision. Fate, destiny or whatever you want to call it, decided it for us. The worst thing we could do is try to fight it.” Thomas told her and reached out for her hand. “To be honest, I don’t want to fight it.”

  “I don’t either but my mother…” Angelica admitted, but let her voice trail off, pulling her hand back before he could grasp it in his own.

  “How about we take this one day at a time? We can meet here at school and talk, have lunch together and stuff like that. Just take the time to get to know each other before we try to figure out how to tell our parents about this.” Thomas suggested, which sounded an awful lot like what Jerome had said to her the day before outside of her family’s mansion. Rolling Jerome’s words around in her head, she nodded her agreement with a bit of apprehension.

  “Yeah, that would probably be the best thing to do. We just have to be very careful because if it gets back to my mother then I’m in deep trouble. She’s forbidden me from even looking in your direction, let alone talking to you like we’re doing now.” Angelica said, worry lining her face at the thought of Camilla finding out she was sneaking around behind her back and breaking her rules.

  “We’ll be very careful. I promise.” Thomas told her, reaching out and making sure he took her hand in his own, before she could pull it back again. That electricity between them leapt to life and coursed through them both. For the first time, in a very long time, both of them felt truly alive. Knowing that they’d reached an agreement, they smiled a secret smile at each other just as the bell rang out signaling school was about to start, with or without them.

  Chapter Six

  Angelica was a mix of fear and giddiness all morning. Before heading off to their separate homerooms, they’d agreed to meet for lunch. It was hard for her to concentrate on any of her classes, as her thoughts kept wandering back to the insane events that had occurred over the past few days.

  When lunchtime rolled around, Thomas met her at the door to her class and walked her to her locker, before they proceeded to the cafeteria. They waited together in the long lunch line and then walked past her normal table, where Amy and Tracy were already seated, staring at the pair with jaws dropped in amazement. Angelica smiled at her friends and waved before walking away with Thomas to a quiet, secluded corner.

  They talked all through the lunch period before he walked her back to her locker and to her next class. Angelica could not be happier than she was at that time. At first, she worried about what would happen when her mother found out about their relationship, but the longer they were together the less it seemed to matter to her.

  When she went home that evening, instead of getting her homework done, she found herself drawing hearts through her notebook, while daydreaming about the time she’d spent with Thomas. When dinne
r time rolled around and her homework wasn’t finished, she freaked out.

  There was the usual knock on the door and she called out to let the maid know she’d be late coming down. Instead of the normal response, her door cracked open.

  She swore to herself about forgetting to lock the door and slammed her notebook shut in case it was her mother entering her room. Looking up, she breathed a sigh of relief when her father entered.

  “Everything alright my dear?” Marcus asked her with a worried look on his face.

  “Yeah, I just haven’t gotten all of my homework done yet so I’ll be late to dinner.” Angelica said, looking down at the floor because she didn’t want to see the disappointed look on her father’s face.

  “Why haven’t you gotten it done yet?” He asked her as he walked over to where she was seated at her desk.

  “I’m having trouble focusing.” Angelica answered with as much honesty as she could manage. She knew her father probably wouldn’t care about Thomas being her mate, but she was still unwilling to tell him what was going on because if she told him, Camilla would find out well before she was ready to handle the backlash.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Marcus asked her, placing his hand on her shoulder.

  “Not really. I just need to pull myself together and get it done.” Angelica said as her stomach rumbled.

  “Why don’t you join us for dinner and then finish your homework. It seems that your stomach might be a part of the problem in the focusing department.” Marcus said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Yeah, all of that noise is very distracting.” She said with a grin and an answering rumble from her stomach again.

  “I trust you to get the work finished after dinner.” Marcus said, reaching for his daughter’s hand and helping her to her feet.

  “Of course I will Dad.” Angelica reassured him and then gave him a kiss on the cheek. Marcus smiled down at his youngest daughter with pride on his face that warmed her heart.

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything else that you’d like to tell me?” Marcus asked with a knowing grin on his face.