Prim and Proper Fate (Twisted Fate Series Book 2) (6 page)

Brandon had cut his gaze to the other Fate, Killian, who had been sitting as far away from the rest of them as he could on the small airplane, holding the newspaper he’d picked up in the airport up in front of his face, effectively cutting off any attempt at conversation.

“Killian must suck at the job,” he had commented.

William had pursed his lips and studied the newspaper blocking his view of the Fate. “I’ve heard that Chala used to complain about him, and sometimes even went to the First and asked for a replacement Fate. He hadn’t had an assignment in centuries, even before the Chala population began to shrink.”

“How does someone like him get to be a Fate, anyway?” Brandon had asked.

“You must be human first, in order to become a Fate. It’s your destiny from birth, just like a Chala’s destiny is set from birth. Probably something in our genes. Who knows? Generally speaking, most Fates are truly worthy of the task. My guess is, something happened in Killian’s life, when he was human, that molded the personality he has now. Whatever it was, he hasn’t been able to let it go, even though he’s been a Fate for almost as long as I have.”

Brandon was distracted from his musings by Prim’s quiet exit.
She’s hiding something.
He knew it as certainly as he now knew she had been his own mother’s Fate. She slipped through a doorway that had been cleverly shielded by a bevy of potted ferns. Whatever it was, it had something to do with her reluctance to go with them to find Gavin and curse him again, so he and Sydney could be together and their pack could reassemble and continue the good fight, as Brandon liked to think of it.

The good fight
. Sydney’s idea, to track down Rakshasa and destroy them, one by one, if necessary. If they destroyed all the Rakshasa in the world, then theoretically, the Light One population would never become extinct. They were immortal, and the Rakshasa were their only true enemies. This would solve the issue of Gavin and Sydney being unable to procreate, and everybody could live happily ever after. Theoretically.

Brandon pushed away from the table, excused himself, and then skirted around the perimeter of the room, slipping through the same concealed door Prim had used a few moments prior. Whatever she was hiding, it was in this area. They’d all been given strict orders to stay away from this wing of the house. Considering they had every possible type of pampering in the other wing, there hadn’t been any reason to disobey the command. Until now.

Now, Brandon was determined to find out what Prim was hiding back here. Once he knew, maybe he could figure out why she was so adamant about not helping them find Gavin.

He’d only walked five paces when Prim suddenly materialized in the hallway before him. He was so surprised by her sudden appearance that he stopped short, and guilt raced through his mind as he realized he’d been caught sniffing around the wing he was strictly forbidden to go into.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. Her color was high, her eyes were spitting fire, and she was as agitated as William had been when the motion sickness hit him for the first time.

“Looking for you,” he smoothly lied.

“Well, you found me. What do you want?”

“To talk to you,” he said quickly, working furiously to come up with a solid reason why he would be where he wasn’t supposed to be.

Prim thinned her lips and rolled her eyes. “Can’t you give it a rest? Just for tonight? I’m sure everything will seem different by the light of day.”

She assumed he wanted to wheedle her about tracking Gavin again. Fine. He could go with that. “It will seem even more pressing. Because by tomorrow morning, if it isn’t already, the curse will be completely reversed. And Gavin will immediately set his sights on tracking Sydney. And since they can actually sense each other, it won’t take him long to figure out where she is.”

He watched the color drain from her face.

“He can’t come here,” she whispered.

She really is scared
. Desperately so.

“Then help us,” he said, infusing his voice with urgency. “Help us turn Gavin back into the shifter he was, when he was our pack leader, and Sydney’s mate.”

“He isn’t her mate, not really.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Brandon snapped. “I get that you Fates see everything as black and white. But whatever the hell they have between them is anything but black and white. Whether the Fates believe it or not, they’re meant to be together. It works. For them. For all of us. And besides, you know you’re the reason they’re together in the first place, right?”

Prim’s chocolate-brown eyes widened in mock innocence. He didn’t buy it for a minute.

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s your fault. You cursed him two hundred years ago. He fell for Sydney because he was cursed. And somehow along the way, they formed this pack of Light Ones who have made it their life’s mission to destroy the Rakshasa population. And isn’t that a Fate’s biggest fantasy? You never have to worry about your Chala being in danger again.”

“If there were any more Chala to protect,” Prim snapped back.

Brandon shrugged. “Sydney wasn’t born by conventional means. Maybe another will come along in the same way, someday. If you help us get Gavin back, we at least have a fighting chance of that happening. But if we leave Gavin without his curse, I can guarantee our population will die out, sooner than later. He’ll kill Sydney first, and then he’ll execute the rest of us in turn. Bye-bye, Light Ones.” He lifted one hand and made a small waving motion in Prim’s face. She batted his hand away.

“You don’t have a lot of confidence in your own abilities, do you?”

He shrugged again. “I have plenty of confidence in my abilities. I’ll probably live the longest. But in the end, I’ll be killed, too. The Rakshasa population continues to grow, because they don’t have the infertility issues we do. And as they decimate our population and grow their own, eventually, the numbers will be too overwhelming. They’ll catch me at some point, and I’ll take down as many as I can, but they’ll get me on sheer numbers. It’s just the way it works, babe. Unless you step up.”

She was wavering. He could see it in her eyes. She was too damn tied into her belief in her responsibilities, in the necessity of saving the Light One population for the sake of all humanity. He had no problem using that to his advantage. Nor did he have any problem using her obvious attraction for him to his advantage, either. He stepped closer, crowding her.

“Come with us, Prim,” he said, his voice pitched low. His bedroom voice. The same one he used when he was trying to coax a woman into taking him home for the night. Prim’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared. He could see the outline of her stiffening nipples pressed against the front of her dress. He could smell her arousal, musky and yet sweet, drifting on the tropical breeze. It stirred his own senses, turned him on, made him wish they really could act on this strange, mutual attraction. Instead, he ignored his own reaction and focused on seducing her, at least to the point of her acquiescing to help them find and curse Gavin.

“Think of it as an adventure,” he murmured, his voice soft and soothing. “You can’t possibly be happy, holed up here on this island, all alone.”

“I–I’m not alone.” Her voice cracked. She wanted him. Or the mission. Whatever. He didn’t care, just as long as she came with them.

“A handful of servants who obey your orders without question, all the time? That’s your idea of not being alone? When’s the last time you had fun, Prim? When’s the last time you went on a date or cut loose and went home with a man? When’s the last time you let yourself
feel
?”

He lifted his hand. Let his fingers trail along her arm.
Seducing her for the mission
, he told himself. He did it again, because he liked the way her skin felt. Smooth as silk. Her nipples contracted even more. Even through the material of her dress, they looked like they could cut glass.

She lifted her face, and he stared at her rosebud lips. His mind dimly registered the fact that those lips were drawing closer and closer . . . And then she lifted up onto tiptoes and kissed him.

At first, the kiss was clumsy, as if she were either inexperienced or hadn’t done it in a very long time. But it only took her a few heartbeats to find her rhythm, so he decided it was simply a lack of recent practice. When her tongue slipped out and touched his bottom lip, Brandon felt a surprising rush of lust sizzle straight down to his groin.

What the hell was he doing, kissing a Fate? He didn’t like Fates. He had no respect for Fates, as a species. And all he really wanted from this woman was for her to commit to coming with them, so she could put her curse on Gavin and their lives could go back to normal.

“Does this mean yes?” Brandon mumbled against her lips.

Prim reacted as if she’d just woken from a trance. She blinked rapidly and then abruptly pulled away, looking as if she’d never intended to kiss him in the first place.

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know,” she finally managed.

During the kiss, Brandon’s hand had somehow settled on the back of her neck. He massaged lightly, coaxingly. “What have you got to lose?”

“Everything,” she whispered, but it wasn’t very convincing.

Gotcha
.

Chapter 5

They left the next day. Prim was still a little hazy on how in the world she’d managed to get rooked into going with them. Unfortunately, she knew it was the right thing to do, and her own sense of consciousness wouldn’t allow her to turn back now.

Before they left, there was a period of tense arguing, when Sydney realized Brandon’s intent was to leave her on the island while he and Prim went off to track down Gavin. Sydney flatly refused to stay.

“I’m going with you,” she insisted. “I’ll be able to help you track him. And you’ll be able to use me as bait, to lure him to us.”

“We are not using you for bait,” Brandon said equally as flatly. “My job is to keep you safe, not dangle you like a fucking piece of meat in front of a lion. You’ll be safe here.”

“He’ll find me here. It doesn’t matter where I am. He’ll find me. You’re better off keeping me with you, so you can protect me, if need be.”

Prim had immediately jumped to Sydney’s defense when she made that comment. Prim didn’t want Gavin anywhere near her secret little island, especially now that he was no longer cursed.

Brandon finally relented, and agreed to let Sydney go with them. Which of course meant William joined them as well, since he wasn’t about to let such a precious commodity out of his sight.

Left with no other option, Prim grudgingly made arrangements for Killian to stay on the island in her absence. She wasn’t happy with the decision as she was still furious with him for releasing the curse in the first place, but she had little choice. Someone had to stay behind to watch over her island paradise. And frankly, this was better than him tagging along, complaining every step of the way.

He wasn’t particularly pleased either, despite the fact that he now had everything he claimed he wanted: beautiful sandy beaches, endless turquoise water, no shifters to speak of, and the overly willing Gaya sharing his bed each night.

But Gaya was a substitute for her. He wanted Prim instead, and he was none too pleased that she was rushing off with the handsome shifter she was so blatantly attracted to. If he knew about the kiss from the night before, he might very well have refused to stay, and she wasn’t sure what she would have done in that case. She could not leave her island home without the attention of a Fate for any length of time.

Brandon didn’t appear to care one way or the other about Killian, but he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of taking William with them.

“He stands out like a bikini-clad waitress holding a steak in a roomful of hungry shifters,” he protested. “Gavin’s going to know we’re coming the second we leave this fucking island.”

He swears a lot
, Prim thought as they pushed away from the dock, with Brokk at the helm. She supposed it wasn’t all that surprising, given Brandon likely spent the majority of his time surrounded by other males.
He needs a good woman to balance him
.

She gasped at her own bizarre thought pattern.

Brandon regarded her from behind his black sunglasses. “What?”

“Nothing,” she lied. “I thought I forgot something. But I didn’t, after all.”

Brandon snorted. “Not bloody likely. You brought enough luggage to last a month. Hopefully, we can get this taken care of in just a couple of days. Which I told you when you rolled out the first bag earlier.”

Prim didn’t dignify that with a response. Yes, he had mocked her this morning when she began wheeling her luggage out of her private suite. But she’d stoically ignored him. Prim was a high-maintenance woman, and she made no pretenses otherwise. If he didn’t like it, well . . . tough.

William’s almost constant retching made it impossible to formulate a plan for when they reached the States. The general consensus was that Gavin was in the United States, but beyond that, they hadn’t been able to discuss their thoughts.

Once they reached the neighboring island where the nearest airstrip was located, the process to secure a charter flight and then load the luggage onto the plane took about two hours. Brandon complained of being hungry, and then became irritated when he wandered into the small café in the minuscule airport and discovered they didn’t serve red meat.

“How the fuck do you people live without a steady supply of good old-fashioned cow meat?” he wanted to know, looking at Prim as if she actually had an answer for him.

“Significantly healthier than you, I’m sure,” she said tartly.

“I’m a shifter,” he pointed out. “My metabolism actually requires red meat. Rakshasa eat people. Light Ones eat cows.” And then he slouched in his seat and refused to speak again until it was time to board the plane.

On the plane, Prim sat across the aisle from him and shot him covert looks when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. She thought about the encounter in the hallway yesterday evening. She’d gone into panic mode when she sensed another presence in that off-limits wing of her house, and she’d rushed out into the hall to see who it was.

She blamed her blatantly sexual reaction to the shifter standing there on the fact that she’d been so panicked. What else could it be? The last time she’d allowed herself to act on an attraction to a shifter, he’d left her desperately wanting–and killed her Chala, too. After she finally got her revenge and cursed Gavin, she’d kept her distance from all other shifters. Clearly, she and shifters were not a good mix.

But oh, that kiss . . . She’d been embarrassingly inept, at first, but she hadn’t properly kissed a man in, well, over 170 years. She’d caught on quickly enough, though, which only proved that kissing was like riding a horse, and you never really truly forgot how to do it. Or maybe it was just that Brandon was so damn good at it. And he hadn’t even really seemed overly into it at the time. She wondered what it would be like if he gave it his full, unadulterated attention.

She’d probably melt into a puddle of lust at his feet.

She was disappointed that the kiss hadn’t progressed into anything more, even as she knew it had been wise to stop it when she had. Still, it would have been nice if Brandon had at least acted like he wanted it to continue. But as soon as he had her assent, he released her, turned away, and walked back into the courtyard. By the time she managed to convince her feet to move, he was gone, and Killian had informed her that he’d continued on through the door leading to the other wing.

Prim hadn’t seen him again until this morning, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t bothered her all night long. In fact, she’d hardly gotten any sleep last night, because every time she closed her eyes, her imagination immediately kicked in and started creating a very X-rated movie of what might have happened had she and Brandon continued. The bags under her eyes had been so huge this morning, she’d lain in bed for an extra forty minutes with fresh, cool cucumbers over her eyes, trying to soak up the puffiness. And she’d still had to load on the cover-up makeup afterward.

She shifted in her seat, uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs again, and her dark blue sundress rode high on her thigh for a moment. Brandon’s eyes suddenly popped open as he stared hungrily at the exposed length of leg. Her cheeks heated as she belatedly gathered her wits enough to tug her skirt into a more modest position.

“Excuse me,” Prim muttered as she pushed out of her seat and walked down the aisle toward the restroom. She didn’t really have to go, but she did need to get away from Brandon and his alternating aloofness and hungry looks. Her panties were so wet right now it was uncomfortable. And all he was doing was sitting two feet away from her.

She opened the door and an arm suddenly shot out and grabbed the edge of the door out of her hand. “What in the name of Fates?”

She lifted her gaze and found Brandon looming over her, standing much too close and glaring down at her as if she’d just done something very, very wrong.

“Listen up, Fate,” he said, practically growling at her. “You have one purpose here and one purpose only. Your job is to put that goddamned curse back onto Gavin, so that he can go back to leading our pack and being Sydney’s mate.”

“Okay,” she said uncertainly, unsure of why he felt the need to reiterate this point. She was well aware of her purpose,
thankyouverymuch
.

“So quit eye-fucking me, because it isn’t going to work. I don’t like Fates. I’ve never liked Fates. I think the whole lot of you are a worthless waste of space. You are not going to change my opinion, no matter how many times you flash those fucking mile-long legs of yours. So knock it off.” He let the door close, and it smacked her on the behind. He smirked before stalking off down the aisle.

Shaking with fury, Prim stepped into the tiny restroom and clumsily locked the door. And then she put down the toilet seat cover and sat, taking deep, hopefully cleansing breaths. Except the stale, recirculated air wasn’t exactly cleansing.

Eye-fucking?

He thought she was trying to seduce him? Really?
Her?
Okay, maybe she’d had a few fantasies in the last twelve hours, but seduce him? Who was he kidding? She knew damn well how inappropriate an affair would be between a Fate and a shifter. Hell, Brandon was the perfect candidate to mate to a Chala. His personality was obviously lacking, but he had the right mindset: protect the Chala at all costs. And he was strong enough to stand a fighting chance. Not to mention all that virility. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t be attracted to all that testosterone?

But still, her indignation swelled along with her anger. She hadn’t remotely been trying to seduce him. In fact, she’d been fighting her attraction, because she knew the folly of it. Not to mention her not-so-positive track record when it came to sleeping with shifters.

By the time William came knocking on the door, complaining he was about to yarf, Prim was angry enough to give Brandon a piece of her mind. Except when she walked back to her seat, he wasn’t there. Sydney looked up from the magazine she was reading and casually commented that he’d gone into the cockpit to talk to the pilot, and Prim dropped into her seat, feeling oddly deflated.

They landed in New Orleans, and when Prim exited the plane, she gave Brandon the cold shoulder. She even refused his help when he tried to tug the handle of her luggage out of her hands. She needed nothing from him. Nothing at all. In fact, he was lucky she was still willing to help their plight. She considered telling him so, but was frankly too damn tired to work up the energy to argue with him.

It was dusk by the time Brandon hailed a cab and they all piled into it. He instructed the driver to take them to the nearest steakhouse. Forty minutes later, they stood on the curb in front of a restaurant with a sign proclaiming they served the ‘largest steak in the state of Louisiana.’

“Perfect,” Brandon said as he rubbed his hands together and sniffed the air. His eyes were even glowing faintly, Prim noticed. If he got that damn happy over a steak, what would he be like in bed? And then her cheeks flushed and she pushed the thought away.

Not going there. Obviously, since he’d made it perfectly clear on the plane that he wanted nothing at all to do with her save for her ability to put her curse on Gavin again.

Brandon produced a wad of cash, their luggage was stored in a coat closet, and they were led to a fairly private booth in the back of the restaurant.

“Why would you tell that driver to take us here, instead of to a hotel first?” Prim wanted to know, speaking directly to him for the first time since their encounter on the airplane.

“Because I’m starved, and I’m having withdrawal symptoms from red meat.”

“You were on my island for a total of twenty-two hours,” Prim protested.

“And now that we’re back on the mainland, I’m worried about being followed,” Brandon continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “This restaurant’s plenty crowded enough that if we are being followed, they won’t try anything in public. And I’m going to talk to the manager about letting us exit through the backdoor when we leave.”

Prim had nothing to say to that. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of being followed. She shot a furtive glance around the room full of humans. At least, she’d assumed they were human when they first walked into the restaurant. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a Rakshasa or two lurking amongst the crowd. Maybe even Gavin, stalking them, waiting for just the right moment, preparing to take yet another Chala away from her . . .

Fingers snapped in front of her face, and Prim blinked the room back into focus. When they’d sat in the booth, Sydney had immediately slid in next to William, leaving Prim no other option but to slide into the booth across from them. Brandon had dropped down next to her, taking up way more room on the bench than he had a right to. Now he had one hand on the back of her neck and the other snapping his fingers in front of her face.

“Hey there, Prim. You coming back to us now? You gonna make it?”

She gave him a confused look, and noticed that both William and Sydney were looking at her with concern in their eyes.

“You zoned out there for a minute,” Sydney explained. “Like you were in another world or something. You tried to climb across the table toward me,” she added.

“I-I did?” Prim shook her head. She hadn’t had an episode in . . . nearly two centuries. Since she moved to her tiny desert island, 170 years ago.

She had known it was a bad idea to join them on this adventure. Maybe when they found a hotel, she would hole up in her room and really, truly write down the curse. Then she would slip over to William’s room and teach it to him.

Then she could get back on a plane and rush back to the sanctuary of her isolated island, where no Rakshasa could ever get to her.

She cleared her throat several times before speaking again. “My apologies,” she said. “I, um, I guess I did zone out.”

“What was going on? In your head, I mean?” Sydney asked curiously.

Brandon watched her with an intensity that made her uncomfortable, and William stared over her left shoulder, clearly determined not to look directly at her. He was the only one of the group who truly understood what just happened. She wasn’t the first Fate to have episodes after she’d lost a Chala to the Rakshasa. But she might be the first to ensure it hadn’t come to the attention of the First Fate. Otherwise, she never would have been assigned another Chala again.