Fated

by R. L. Mathewson

  felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment, she decided just to keep her mouth shut and quietly shift off Drew’s lap so that she was sitting next to him instead. Thankfully, Drew didn’t argue with her, but he did sigh heavily, letting her know that the move displeased him even as he threw his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  To be honest, she wanted to get back on his lap and let him hold her, knowing that she was going to need him. Actually, no, what she really wanted to do was to get off the couch, run for the door, get her ass downstairs as fast as possible and flee before her grandfather could open his mouth and tell her something that she wasn’t ready to hear.

  Then again, something told her that it was probably something that she was never going to be ready to hear.

  “Your mother was the joy of my life,” her grandfather said with a small smile that was filled with so much pain that she felt her heart ache for him. She wanted to go to him and put her arms around him, but she didn’t know him. So, she stayed where she was, placed her hand on Drew’s knee and held on, suddenly not so sure that she wanted to hear this.

  “Times were different back then. Your grandmother and I had been lucky enough to find each other as children so when we reached sixteen we were allowed to marry. Our families supported our decision to get married and to move to Boston, where we were assigned. Back then Boston was under siege with shifters and Masters trying to make the city their own so they needed as many Sentinels as they could get to cover the city. We were young, but we thought we were ready for it all,” John said with a pained chuckle.

  “We didn’t mean to start a family so soon, but when little Mary was born, I fell head over heels in love with her. Your grandmother fell in love with her as well. She was our little angel and probably the only thing that kept us going most days. Things were so damn different in this city back then. It was more violent and filled with so much hate that most days we questioned whether we were making a difference or not, but Mary made it all worth it. Seeing her beautiful little face after a long night of patrol made our jobs tolerable. As long as we knew that we would see her at the end of the day made the difference for us,” he admitted softly as he glanced away for a moment.

  “By the time that I found out that they’d raided the compound, it was too late. In one night they destroyed my entire world. They’d killed your grandmother and taken Mary,” he explained tightly as every muscle in his body clenched up with unresolved anger. “I looked for her. I never stopped looking for her, but every lead just led me to another Pack, and then to another until I finally came to the last Pack that had purchased her and lost her when they were attacked. They had no idea where my little Mary had gone,” he said, making her stomach twist in dread, because if he had any idea where her mother had ended up he probably would have completely lost it by now.

  She couldn’t even think about her old Pack life without breaking out in a sweat and struggling not to scream just from the memories alone. The things they’d done to her mother while they’d made her watch had been both torture and a warning, letting her know what would happen to her one day. She’d lived in fear of the day that she reached her immortality, mostly because it meant that she would live through the hell they put her through.

  Listening to her mother beg them to kill her had been…

  No, she wasn’t going to think about that right now or she’d never survive this. Not that she really thought that she was going to be the same after she finally heard how her mother had come to be the way that she was, so full of hate and anger, especially towards her.

  She couldn’t imagine her mother smiling or being the reason why anyone smiled. Whenever she saw her mother she’d end up crying, curling up into a ball and placing her hands over her ears to block out the screams. Her mother had hated her life, hated what they’d made her, and hated that whenever she saw Kara, she was reminded of all the babies that were taken away from her.

  She’d hated Kara and Kara had adored her, prayed that her mother would one day she would wrap her arms around her and tell her that everything would be okay, that she would make sure that nobody hurt Kara ever again, but it didn’t work out that way.

  Whenever they came for Kara, her mother just laid there, quietly, looking relieved as they dragged Kara away kicking and screaming. Kara had wanted to escape for so long, had tried to escape twice. The first time that she tried to escape, they’d caught her, dragged her back and made her watch as her grandmother had whipped her mother and beaten her. She’d kept beating her mother long after she’d passed out.

  Then when she was bored and only then, did her father promise to have her mother killed the next time that Kara tried to escape. Since she’d been forced to kill her father to make her escape, she knew that he hadn’t followed through with his threat, but she knew for a fact that her grandmother had.

  She knew, because for five days she was stuck hiding amongst the rocks and fallen trees where her mother’s body had been thrown after they’d killed her. So, it was understandable that she couldn’t quite look at her grandfather, knowing that she was the reason why he was never going to see his precious little Mary again.

  *-*-*-*

  Something was wrong, really fucking wrong.

  He could feel Kara’s pain coming off her in waves, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. All he could do was sit there, holding her and praying that whatever else John had to tell her wasn’t going to destroy her.

  “I’ve never stopped looking for her,” John said, looking lost.

  “How did you find out about me?” Kara cut in, and for some reason he got the feeling that she didn’t want to talk about her mother.

  John shook his head. “I didn’t find out about you until a month ago when word got out that there was a female shifter descended from Sentinel blood. I had no idea that it was you until your grandmother’s Pack came to town searching for you. She couldn’t find you without enlisting help and that meant giving away information. She’d enlisted the help of other Packs, demons, and Masters.”

  “She probably wouldn’t have gotten very far considering the reputation of her Pack’s brutality and old ways, but the amount of money that she offered for you was staggering. It had everyone going crazy to find you and that of course alerted us that something wasn’t right,” her grandfather explained as Drew kept looking at Kara, noting that she kept getting paler with every passing second.

  “We quickly figured out why they were after you and so did some others. As large as the reward for you was, they weren’t willing to risk what your grandmother had in mind for you so there were several hits put out on you,” John said. “There are some Packs that want to make sure that you never get a chance to make your grandmother’s plans come true and there are other Packs who want you for themselves.”

  Kara nodded, but he really didn’t think that she was listening. She looked lost and a little sick. He gave her shoulder a little squeeze of reassurance, letting her know that he was never going to let anything happen to her or their children.

  “You’re not safe, Kara, which is why you can’t stay in Boston,” John announced as he rubbed his hands down his face, suddenly looking exhausted.

  “I wasn’t planning on staying,” she said hollowly.

  “You need to go back into hiding, Kara, and this time, you can’t come out,” John said, not sounding very happy about the future that his granddaughter was sentenced to and neither was he.

  “She’s not going to live like this anymore,” he found himself saying.

  “There’s no choice,” John said sternly, looking up and meeting his gaze with a tormented expression that no doubt matched his own.

  “There’s always a fucking choice,” Drew said, deciding that enough was enough.

  He wasn’t going to make her hide any longer, wasn’t going to make their children live that way, because he was going to do whatever the fuck it took to keep her safe and give her back her life.

  The life that she deserved.


  Chapter 47

  “This isn’t going to work, Drew,” she said, trying to pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking so that she could do what she needed to do to save him.

  “Of course it is,” he said, tightening his hold on her hand and pulling her back into the club that was now being watched by every Pack, Alpha and Demon that either wanted the reward or wanted to see her dead.

  “Drew,” she said, trying to pull her hand free, “this seriously is not going to work.”

  “Why wouldn’t it work?” he asked, as he pulled her through the front door into the empty club.

  “Besides everyone surrounding the place, ready to slaughter me?” she asked dryly, because seriously she never thought that Drew was this naïve.

  She’d be dead before morning and if he didn’t get away from her, he would be joining her. The other Packs that weren’t as screwed up as her grandmother’s would never let her live. It was the same for the Masters. They would never allow a Pack to become so powerful that they would have to live in constant fear. They liked knowing that they only had to worry about the shifters coming after them three days out of every month. They had servants that could kill the Alpha, but a whole Pack of shifters that could change at will would completely change everything.

  It was the same for the demons and Sentinels. Nobody wanted a Pack full of shifters that powerful and they would do anything to stop it from happening. So, she really wasn’t sure how Drew thought he was going to stop everyone from busting in here and trying to kill them.

  “Is it done?” he asked as Ryan stepped into the darkened room.

  Sighing heavily and looking putout, Ryan nodded. “You are now officially a mutt and everyone outside knows it.”

  “Good,” Drew said while she stood there, wondering what the hell they were talking about.

  “How about that other bit of news?” Drew asked as he released her hand and put his arm around her.

  “Everyone knows,” Ryan said, once again sounding upset. “And by the way, I expect a raise,” he said as he walked out of the room, shaking his head in disgust and adding another one of those annoying little sighs that was going to get him kicked in the balls.

  “Everyone knows what?” she demanded, pulling away from him.

  Drew simply shrugged as he took her by the hand and led her towards his private table in the corner. Before he sat down, he picked her up and placed her on the table. Once he sat down, he made sure that he was sitting between her legs as he settled back in his booth.

  “That I am now a Sentinel’s bitch,” he admitted with a shrug as he placed his hands on her jean-clad legs and gently rubbed them.

  Although the rubbing was a bit distracting and felt really good, she forced herself to focus on what he’d just said. “I’m sorry, what’s this now?”

  “I’m on the Sentinel payroll,” he said with a heavy sigh as he continued to entertain himself with her legs, allowing his hands to slip to the side so that the next time his hands slid forward, they gently cupped her ass before returning to her legs.

  “And why is that exactly?” she asked with a bit of a frown as he reached down and pulled her sneakers off, tossing them aside before he pulled her socks off and threw them aside as well.

  “You’re done running, sweetheart,” he said as he reached up and helped himself to the button fly of her jeans.

  When he had them all undone, he simply raised her by her jeans and pulled them off, which she had to admit was a pretty impressive move since he’d barely had to move her in order to get it done.

  “How exactly would that save me from having to go on the run?” she managed to ask as she watched with amazement as he tore her panties off without her feeling anything.

  “Shhh, not while I’m eating,” he said and before she could ask him what the hell he was talking about, he had her ass pulled to the edge of the table, her knees over his shoulders and his mouth on her slit.

  “Oh…oh, God,” she said as her head dropped back and her eyes closed in pleasure.

  They shouldn’t be doing this here, especially since his employees could show up at any moment, but she decided to just go with it when she felt his tongue slip inside her.

  Yeah, they could talk later, she decided as she lay back on the table and allowed him better access.

  Much later.

  *-*-*-*

  It was probably wrong to use sex to distract her, but as he slipped his tongue inside her, he decided that he really didn’t