ChapterOne
Then
Donnel
“Did anyone follow you?”he asked when she materialized from out of the thick darkness.The new moon and the soupy mist tonight would help obscure them, muffling sounds, reducing sight even for shifters.
She slipped into his arms, kissing him.“No.Everyone was asleep.”
His heart raced every time she was in his arms.
It always did, even when just setting eyes upon her.
His mate.
He’d never felt about anyone the way he felt about her.She eclipsed all others in his heart and soul—and always would.
“Will you run away with me, then, love?”he whispered.
A soft sigh escaped her.“But what about…him?”
“Sod him,” he said.“We don’tneedhim.We can go wherever we want and start over.”
“But my parents?My family?If we all leave…” She looked into his eyes.“They will not leave.If I tell them I’m leaving, they’ll stop me.They’ll tellhim.Then what will he do to all of us?”
“We don’t tell anyone,” Donnel insisted.“We leave, and we can make it look like something happened.A fishing accident, perhaps.They won’t even know we’re still alive!”
“But what will you do?”she asked.“We won’t have money.”
“I have enough to tide us over for a long time, and I can work with my hands,” he said.“I can provide for us.We could even travel to America.Please, come with me.We’ll finally be free of him!Claim me, and we can leave tonight.”
He’d been trying to convince her to leave with him for eight days, ever since they’d met and recognized their mate bond.Agony ate at his soul every time he had to say goodbye to her, and he knew she felt the same way.
But her fear of Faegan was even stronger than his own.Despite his father being the previous Pack Alpha, she was a shifter and he wasn’t.Donnel hadn’t approached his older brother about her because Donnel already knew Faegan’s answer—he’d want to mate her off to someone else, to another shifter.
Because all Faegan cared about was money.That, and that their pack matings be between shifters.He didn’t care who non-shifters mated with as long as they weren’t humans.
Or other shifters.
And Donnel didn’t know how much longer he could keep this a secret from his brother.
She cupped his face in her hands.“Donnel, I’m scared,” she whispered.“Yes, I feel a mate bond with you.But I don’t know if I can walk away from my family.”
He wished Hamish were here.If he was, Donnel knew he could convince him to help them run.Hamish hated their older brother as much as Donnel and their sister, Bryn, did.Bryn was in London with another cousin.
If both of his siblings were there, both of them Alpha shifters, he knew he could talk them into helping him finish Faegan off for good.
“At leastclaimme, love,” he begged, and not for the first time.
She pressed her forehead to his.“And it would destroy me to lose you.Even more than it already will.”
His heart sank.“Come with me to London.We can lose ourselves in the city, yet still be close enough that we can sneak back to visit your family.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze.“They’ll still tell him, if he asks if I left.Then all it will take is one visit for them to alert him.And I couldn’t bear it if he harmed you.”She met his gaze again, the tears in her eyes destroying him.
“I can defend myself against him.”
“And then his loyalists will kill you and take revenge on my family.”She shook her head.“No.I cannot have that stain upon my soul.”
