Deciding Her Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 2) (16 page)

“I think I loved you from the moment I sensed you sniffing my back,” Jason said with a chuckle. He pressed his lips against her cheek and held them there for a moment.

“I can’t even tell you when it was I first knew,” Donovan began. “There was so much chaos and turmoil going on before I ever even got to meet you, that when I finally held you in my arms between those bars in your cell, I already knew that I loved you.”

Donovan placed a soft sweet kiss on her lips, and her eyes welled up with tears from their declarations. As she lay there safely in their arms, she had so many things to be thankful for. For starters, her mother and father for sacrificing themselves to protect her, her mother’s foresight that not only saved her again, but saved her mates as well, and for her own intuition, that pull she’d felt to pick up and move to Vancouver where Jason and Donovan filled the gaping void inside of her and stole her heart.

Her fate had been decided long before she had ever even met them.

Epilogue

Unfortunately, April didn’t get the week’s rest and time she so desperately craved with Donovan and Jason right after the battle. In fact, that first week had been a grueling one. After Donovan and Jason had whisked her away, Gabe had gone back to the cliff with some of the pack in an effort to rescue the remaining abducted humans. Ishaya had accompanied him in order to open the gate to the Veil after Gabe insisted that Corrine remain at the pack house to get some rest.

Kheelan, or Frederych rather, had added some kind of block to that particular portion of the Veil, preventing entry. By the next day, after several more failed attempts to enter made by Ishaya and some of his kind, Gabe had no choice but to let Corrine, and then Erica assist, as well as some of the most powerful Fae magic practitioners that had been in residence at the palace. It took three days for them to finally break through, and in the meantime, April, who insisted on being present, couldn’t help but feel helpless due to her lack of knowledge of the Fae world. She was also sick with worry at what they would find when they managed to get inside. She knew for a fact that not all of the humans survived and sent up daily prayers to the Goddess that Dee was all right.

What they found inside was horrific, to say the least. Thirty-six humans in total had been kidnapped over the course of six months, both men and women, even though Kheelan had known that the child of Reysken and Ilyra had been a female. Frederych had needed both sexes to experiment on, for whatever purpose still remained unclear, but over half of them were found dead, discarded like trash in a pile in one of the cells. Beakers filled with different colored liquids were haphazardly placed all around the room, some of them nearly empty. The bloodied bodies had been mutilated, distorted, in ways April could not have ever imagined, traces of the liquids staining their skin. One particular male had his insides turned out, exactly like what she felt Frederych had tried to do to her. She fled the room, thankful that at least Dee wasn’t among the pile, and vomited in the hallway.

“Let’s take you home, baby. You shouldn’t have to see this,” Jason had said while Donovan rubbed her back.”

“No,” she had croaked when she finally stopped throwing up. “I need to be here. I need to find Dee. It was my fault she was taken in the first place, and besides, they’ll need my help with the healing.”

“No, it wasn’t your fault, angel. I will not allow you to take the blame for this.” Donovan was adamant.

The remaining humans were located shortly after. Some were a little worse for wear, malnourished and dehydrated like April’s coworker Dee, and some were in fairly bad shape. April rushed over to her as soon as she found her, but the glazed look in Dee’s eyes tormented her with guilt.

What she must have seen.
April may have grown up in the human world, but something deep inside of her had always screamed that she wasn’t like the rest of them. Perhaps that’s why it had been so easy for her to accept the existence of wolf shifters when she first stumbled upon one and the rest of the supernatural world when she had learned about it later. For Dee and the other abducted humans who had survived, however, the experience must have seemed like the stuff of fairytales and horror movies. The human brain isn’t always capable of processing that which logic deems impossible—sometimes it simply breaks.

The Fae magic practitioners administered a serum to the humans once April had healed what she could, one that was coupled with a hypnotic suggestion. They altered their memories to coincide with the cover that had been created—the victims had fallen prey to a serial killer.

Gabe had shifter friends in the police department and in the coroner’s office, therefore, the actual details were easy to cover up and all of the mutilated bodies were burned, otherwise there would have been no logical explanation for what had actually been done to them. Frederych, since he still had a body, was made to be the culprit. An elaborate human back story had been created to show means and motive, a falsified location, and a grainy photo of him was released to the press. The final touch was his demise, creating a scenario of how a few heroic humans managed their escape and took down their captor.

April had also been added to the count of missing humans to explain her prolonged absence, though technically, she had been in fact been kidnapped by Frederych. She decided against returning to work now that her true purpose for relocating had been revealed to her, and instead, she was offered a position at the medical clinic located right off of Gabe’s property, one which treated shifter kind.

Two weeks after the battle, when the news stories about a crazed serial killer had started to die down, April felt as if she could finally relax into her new life. Dee was doing well. April had called to check on her almost daily after the rescue, but eventually, Dee had stopped taking her calls. Not that they had ever been close, given the short time they had known each other and the fact that April had kept her and everyone else she worked with a distance, but April had thought that perhaps even though Dee’s memory was altered, something in her gut still made her steer clear of all things supernatural.

April had finally managed to spend some quality time with her mates after that first week. They continued to take her mind, body, and soul to new sexual heights, especially when Donovan and Jason learned to tap into the phantom energy she had first discovered in the bathtub with Jason. Donovan had even managed to turn the tables on her one night, binding her arms and legs with her own blue energy, immobilizing her as she did him, and she loved every minute of it. She loved the two of them even more with each passing day.

She also got to bond more with Erica and Corrine. She knew her aunt wanted to get closer to her, but April also knew that she was another excuse for her to avoid Gabe. She and Erica didn’t press her to talk about it, though. They knew Corrine was in love with Gabe, but knowing that she had two mates explained why she never got together with Gabe. April’s heart ached for her. She wanted Corrine to have exactly what she had with Jason and Donovan, her Fated Ones.

April and Erica were sitting with Corrine in the den, reminiscing about her parents and Erica’s childhood when Gabe appeared in the doorway. He obstinately stayed there unmoving, preventing not only Corrine from escaping a conversation with him again, but trapping her and Erica in a very awkward situation.

“I think it’s time we finally had a talk, Corrine.”

“There’s that rotten word again,” Corrine said matter-of-factly while turning to face the window instead of Gabe. “Time! There’s not enough of it. I need more of it.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” he snapped. “I have loved you for so many years.” His voice cracked on a pained note.

April looked at Erica, wishing that somehow they could escape in order to give Corrine and Gabe their private moment, but Gabe kept talking, his voice strangled. He probably felt like he had no choice but to say what he needed to right here and now since Corrine kept avoiding him. April had never seen the Alpha look so vulnerable.

“I don’t regret a single moment of loving you, even knowing you are meant for someone else. I couldn’t have helped it even if I
did know
when we first met. You had plenty of
time
to tell me.”

Corrine’s voice was thick with emotion when she whispered, “It’s complicat—”

“Complicated?” Gabe cut her off, raising his voice enough to make Corrine turn to finally look at him. April saw that her expression mirrored Gabe’s pained look. “You owed me the truth no matter how complicated it was.” His voice finally softened. There was no way he could miss the pain written on Corrine’s face.

“You’re right,” she said in a defeated tone after a moment’s pause.

Corrine looked as if she was about to say more, but a commotion at the front door diverted all of their attention.

“Where is she?” April heard a masculine voice yell from the hallway.

Seconds later, what April could only describe as a chiseled blond sun-god with golden eyes, came barging into the den, pushing right past Gabe.

“Braxas? What the hell are you doing here?” Gabe asked.

Corrine’s face paled as the sun-god called Braxas centered his gaze on her.

“We’ve been friends for a very long time, Gabe,” Braxas said, still looking only at Corrine. “We’ve had each other’s backs more times than I can count, which is why I left after the battle in the Fae realm.” Braxas then finally turned to look at Gabe. “Out of respect for you both, I stepped away, despite how much it made my heart break to know my mate was in love with another man.”

“
Your
mate?” Gabe’s expression was a mixture of sadness and fury.

They both turned to look at Corrine as Braxas continued. “I saw her, and I knew. Almost immediately after, we were fighting a battle. I felt the stab Kheelan delivered to her as if he had stabbed me, but then I also heard you cry out in pain, Gabe. She was then healed and the two of you were locked in an embrace, the love you had for each other evident. It would have been better if I had actually been stabbed in that moment and less painful, I can assure you.”

“Is this true, Corrine?” Gabe asked. “Is he your mate?”

Corrine said nothing, but her lack of response must have said everything to Gabe. He shut his eyes and curled his hands into tight fists at his sides. April could see his knuckles whiten.

“You should leave … now,” Gabe whispered through gritted teeth, his eyes still shut. April wasn’t sure if he was talking to Braxas or Corrine, or even if he meant for them both to leave until he finally opened his eyes and looked directly at Braxas, his wolf very close to the surface. “Out of respect for our friendship, don’t make me ask you again, Braxas.”

Corrine stood up from the couch looking horrified at the scene playing out before her. “Stop it.” Her words came out as a whisper. “Stop it,” she repeated several times, each time her tone growing firmer, but her plea fell on deaf ears, especially since the two men were now growling loudly at one another, locked in a staring contest.

Braxas sounded more animal than human when he stated, “I am not leaving without her. Never again! She is my mate. We. Are. Bound.”

Just when April thought that things would finally quiet down around here, more chaos ensued as their beasts erupted from the skin of both men. The sound of fabric ripping, snarls and gnashing teeth, echoed in her ears.

The End

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