Fate Fixed (12 page)

She felt no hesitation, only joy as she
rounded the curve
past the big rock to where he stood waiting
for her...

always. For the first time, he stepped from the
shadows.

His powerful blue eyes illuminated as they met hers
and
she knew his smile instantly - Torin. Complete surrender
drifted through her as he pulled her into his arms. Just
when she
thought it would end differently this time, a cold
pain slapped
against the back of her calves, dragging her
from his embrace.

It slithered up her back, biting at her spine and digging
under

her ribs. Torin reached for her, but his hands slipped
through
hers until he disappeared. She dropped to her
knees. A ripping
sensation spread through her chest
cavity. She couldn’t hear
anything as her blood poured
out of the opening where her heart
once was...

With a shudder, Lexie sat straight up in bed, checking herself for a gaping hole. The adrenaline from the

nightmare had her heart racing with panic. Unable to bear the darkness, she reached her bedside stand and fumbled to turn on the smal lamp.

It was a little past midnight and she had only been sleeping for a couple of hours. As she curled onto her side, she questioned how her dream’s surroundings were now so

apparently familiar. Al along, she had been dreaming of the
trail right behind her new home. Torin – he was in her dream.

Impossible – but his presence is so familiar.

Every easy moment they shared together was leading up to this. There was a striking resemblance in the eyes, height, hair color – everything. She wanted to be dreaming of him.

Maybe her desire for him was influencing the dream’s

course and detail…
Maybe it is something more than that
or maybe I’m
losing my mind.

Lexie stil hated the terrifying endings. They always began with her running until she found him – it was her sudden

death that varied in intensity. Sometimes she would start screaming just by feeling the cold hand of death behind her.

Other times she was swal owed by the earth. But by far, the worst was having her heart torn from her chest. Something otherworldly was always taking her away as soon as she found him. They couldn’t be together.

Once she even looked up the meaning of dreams and none of the explanations made sense. Lexie was hardly afraid of intimacy or repressing a painful childhood memory. She couldn’t explain what these dreams were – she just knew there was something happening between her and Torin and
the dream was only a part of it.

Why would Alik say those things about him? If Torin was trouble, Theo and Brooke would have warned her away

from him. It was true that Torin was Cian’s friend and some loyalty would be between them, but her new friends had been pretty vocal about everyone else she should stay clear of.

Including Courtney – the one person Alik seemed to be

around at school the most. She heard Courtney was real y into Torin but that he didn’t return her interest. Perhaps she was the one fil ing Alik’s head with stories.

She stretched out with a languid sigh. How could she

discern the motives of someone like Courtney if she didn’t even know her? The blond hadn’t shown any redeeming

qualities in

their first two meetings, so it was hard to have faith in anything she might say.

It was possible Alik did hear something about Torin from someone else. Alik would want the best for her. They were developing a working relationship as brother and sister although he was stil a little clingy.

Just the night before, she helped him with his math

homework and when they finished, he made popcorn and the two of them watched television with Nick and El a.

Maxim kept poking his head in and out of the room but

wouldn’t relax enough to just join them. She didn’t think Alik was trying to interfere for any reason other than concern.

She wished she had the answers.

Lexie closed her eyes so she could dream of Torin again.

Perhaps, knowing who he was would steer the dream in a different direction for a change.

She wasn’t sure how long she had dozed off before a soft cry in the stil ness of the night awoke her. It took a moment for her to locate the sound. Lexie stepped out into the darkened hal way. There were no lights shining from under the other doors. She pressed her ear against the cold paint of her mother’s bedroom door. She could hear the faint sound of Ruby’s sobs.

Should she knock? Ruby’s patience with Lexie had been

limited earlier. Al she wanted to do was make sure her mom

was feeling okay, but Ruby seemed to be offended with any interference.

The anxiousness for her mother’s wel being won over.

She knocked on the door and Ruby’s muffled cry paused.

“Mom, are you okay?” She waited for a reply.

After a long moment, Lexie could hear Ruby’s soft voice, “I’m fine, just feeling under the weather.”

“Can I get you anything…a glass of water or some Tylenol?”

The house was humid and she could feel a light coating of perspiration blanket her skin. Maybe the heat was making her sick.

“No, just go back to bed.”

Lexie stood outside the door a moment longer, unsure of what to say. Where was Dragos? The only time she had

seen him al day was at dinner time. He and Maxim plowed through the spareribs and coleslaw like they hadn’t seen food in a month.

Alik and Nicolai were big eaters too, but not like that. Lexie remembered the quiet meals she used to share with just her mom and El a. The three of them would enjoy a garden salad topped with blue cheese crumbles and bacon bits.

The meal would only pass as an appetizer for the guys.

Lexie padded down the unlit hal way towards the stairs.

It was time to have a talk with her new stepfather. Dragos
needed to know that while he was off gal ivanting in his Hugo

Boss suits, Ruby was home working her tail off scrubbing an oversized house and trying to feed his overgrown boys.

The repercussions were taking their tol and her once

relaxed mother had evolved into a grumpy stranger.

Perhaps, Ruby just needed her new husband to spend

more quality time with her. Moving and caring for five teenagers was a stressful change and Ruby wasn’t looking too wel for the experience. Lexie was wil ing take on some of the cooking and cleaning if Ruby would al ow it.
Maybe
Dragos could arrange
for a date night?

The downstairs of the large house flickered with the light from the family room television. As she peaked in, she realized Dragos wasn’t even there. Despite the heat, El a was under a wel -loved fleece throw, curled up on the couch sleeping. Lexie flipped the television screen off. When she was little, El a always loved fal ing asleep on the couch at night so their Dad could carry her to bed and tuck her in.

Lexie glanced around the large room with its overstuffed furniture and motley assortment of knickknacks. Never

could she have imagined how much life would change for them.

Giving El a’s shoulder a gentle shake, Lexie admired how beautiful her sister had become. She no longer looked like a child; her facial features were of a young woman. “Hey, why don’t you come up to bed?”

Rubbing her eyes, El a pul ed herself up into a sitting position. She looked around the room. “They aren’t back from running patrol yet?”

“Patrol –” Lexie’s forehead creased. “What do you mean?”

El a gave her a straight look. “Patrol, they go out every night after dark. Nick said when I’m older, I’l be going with him and Maxim wil take you.” El a folded her blanket and

straightened the couch cushions. “You could be out there now if you would try a little harder to fit into this family...Mom too if she felt better.”

Lexie felt goose bumps spread across her arms. She had no clue what they were doing out there, but she wanted no part of it. She certainly didn’t want El a or her mother out there either. What kind of thing could running patrol be?

Were they playing war games in the woods? Maybe

Dragos was the leader of some kind of militia or cult. Her mind raced as waves of panic spread through her.
Do they
have real weapons? Someone can
get hurt.

Lexie fol owed her sister up to bed. At the top of the stairs, she paused to listen for sounds coming from her mother’s room, but Ruby was silent. If the guys were out in the woods at this time of night, she didn’t think they were trying to earn any Eagle Scout badges. She stepped into her room and closed the

door behind her. She needed space away from them and

the insanity they brought to her life.

Her stomach turned as her fingers ran along the smooth door frame. The sliding lock she had instal ed on her door was gone, leaving behind little holes in the molding where the screws once were. As tears pooled in her eyes, she crept across the floor and slid under her covers to weep in silence.

In the pitch black darkness, Torin scaled the side of the house with ease and perched on Lexie’s balcony. From the moment he had awaken minutes before, he was fueled by a
compulsion to see her and make sure she was okay. The dream was as lucid and vicious as always. He stil felt the influence it had over him – pul ing him to her.

With a hurried scan of the house, Torin was able to hear her steady heartbeat with his sensitive hearing. As he looked through the window at her stil form, he longed to join her as she slept on the top of her covers. While he remained cool and comfortable, the heat must have been intolerable with her delicate skin. He touched the pane with his fingertips and pressed his forehead against the glass. Just her

proximity soothed him.

He could hear a cacophony of activity in the downstairs of the house. Pressing himself into the corner where the roof overhung, he remained stationary as the backdoor

slammed open and Lexie’s two brothers emerged with a

beefy older man leading the way. The three were shirtless as they ran at breakneck speeds up the trail into the woods.

Torin’s nostrils flared, struck with the unusual odor they emitted. It wasn’t at al like most humans, but wasn’t like the larger animal smel s that blanketed the woods. It left a distasteful coating swirling over his tongue. His incisors burned in his gums at the thought of giving chase and

hunting them down so he could tear into their thick hot flesh.

He turned his head back to where Lexie slept unaware of his presence. Shame rippled through him as he looked at her.

Despite what he thought of her stepfamily, he would never hurt them because he could never hurt her. He hated

himself for even considering feeding in the first place. He knew it was an instinctive response. They weren’t animals, they were humans.

He would lose Lexie if he did and she was his everything.

He must always keep a tight hold on himself.

He was thankful they were stil dreaming of each other.

After her arrival in Erris and their subsequent meeting, he was uncertain if they would stil connect like that. Although the

horrific endings stil troubled him, he was thankful for their moments of magic together.

How else could it be described other than that? The ancient curse that afflicted his ancestors wasn’t based on science and biology, and neither was the connection his coven had with their partners. Indeed he had a physiological response
to her, but there was much more to it than that.

Before Lexie, he had planned on leaving. He didn’t want to be around his family when he went through the change. He wanted to spare them from the heartache and

disappointment he would give them if he was cursed to

darkness from feeding on a human. Now that he found

Lexie, the thought of leaving was farthest from his mind. He wanted to be with her as much as he wanted to live in the light.

When he was young and learned how he would dream of

his fate-partner, he thought he had no say in his destiny and neither would his partner, but now he knew better. He could choose a life outside of hers, but never would.

Why the dream’s ending? In the past, she would scream

and he would awake, but this time, she was dying at his feet and he was powerless to help her. He couldn’t see what it was that was attacking Lexie – only feel paralyzed to help her. Could he be the one that was hurting her? Was the danger his presence in

her life? As much as the possibility existed he couldn’t believe that he could harm her. It would be too painful.

Could the others in his family? Could Braden give in to the temptation to feed on her blood even after withstanding the
temptation he experienced when his own second heart began beating and the lust for blood was at its strongest?

Torin shook his head. It wasn’t possible. His thoughts grasped elsewhere.

What about Teagan or Cian, his cousins? Were they going to change soon and take her from him? He clenched his

jaw just considering the scenario. If he had to hurt one of them to protect her he would. Maybe the endings meant

she didn’t want him or what he was in her life. It would torture him inside if she demanded that he leave. But if she didn’t want him to be a part of her life, he would try to find a way to exist without interfering and making her unhappy.

Torin’s hearing picked up the sound of a woman’s sobbing coming from behind the wal s of Lexie’s room just moments before she did. He sat stil as he watched her tiptoe across her room and slip through her door into the unlit hal way.

He leaned against the side of the house and closed his eyes, imagining her gentle expression while she asked her mother if she was feeling okay. Although the woman