Page 17 of Unforgivable Fate

“I know that.” She bit out. “Because he’s dead.”

“I’m nothing like him.”

“You say that but…” She shook her head, trailing off as she gracefully maneuvered around a fallen tree.

“But… I look like him.” He finished for her. “And you can’t imagine spending the rest of your life looking at his face, even if it belongs to your mate.”

“It’s not that it’s a bad face.” She shot him another look and he could have almost sworn that there was a smirking tilt to her lips before she looked away again, “At least, it wouldn’t be, if it didn’t still show up in my nightmares.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.” She didn’t sound apologetic but he shrugged it off anyway.

“I could grow a beard, maybe? Would that help?” He was certain she stifled a laugh so he kept going. “I could grow my hair out, or cut it shorter. Maybe get an eyebrow piercing? You tell me what would help and I’ll do it. I swear.”

Nova’s eyes had lost a little of their wariness when she glanced over at him again, “The resemblance really isn’t that uncanny. Not once my eyes really have a chance to look at you.”

“No?” He quirked an eyebrow, wondering if she realized she’d admitted to looking at him.

“His eyes were greener than yours are, for starters. Yours are more hazel and they’re warm where his were always like looking into glass, beautiful green sea glass but still hard, rough glass that would rip you to shreds in a second.” Nova tugged on her backpack straps again, clearly uncomfortable but he couldn’t tell if it was because she’d admitted to noticing his eyes and his warmth or because of that strange hint of something he didn’t understand when she talked about his brother.

Exactly how close had she been to Maddox before his coup?

“What else?” He insisted when she fell quiet.

“Your face is softer than his was. Rounder. And he never wore stubble. He was very particular about that.” Nova blew out a rough breath, “The differences are there when I look for them but at first glance, my brain doesn’t see them. I just see him and everything inside of me panics.”

“Maybe if we spent more time together you’d be able to differentiate us more easily and you wouldn’t see him anymore, just me.”

Nova looked at him as she passed on the other side of a tree from him. She was still looking at him when she came back into his line of sight. She bit her lip and finally looked away.

“That part’s like him too.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not just that you’re handsome like he was. You’re charming too. Charming enough that some part of me hopes you’re right, that I can get past your resemblance to him, just because you want me to. He had that kind of charm too, the kind that made people want to do things for him.”

“He was charming?” He scoffed. “To hear everyone else tell it, he was the devil incarnate and I’m not about to argue that point. But charming?”

“That was the thing about him. He was charming… until he wasn’t.” Nova looked out through the trees, “Before he… well, before everything happened, I thought he hung the moon. I thought he was perfect. Handsome and strong and funny and sweet. I was sucked in by his charm, by the face he wanted me to see, but in the end it was only a mask he’d used to hide his monstrous intentions and I didn’t see it in time. He fooled me and my family nearly lost everything because of that.”

Griffin had to physically force himself to keep walking when his wolf balked. His animal side did not like hearing their mate talk about someone else like that, particularly not the brother they despised. The human side of him was no happier to learn that Nova had apparently held a childhood crush on Maddox but it did help explain a lot of the questions he had about why she didn’t even want to give him a chance.

She had trusted Maddox. She had liked him, maybe even loved him in the innocent way that children love. She’d probably held little girl fantasies about him being her white knight and then he’d turned into the monster in her nightmares. All she’d known for most of her life was that she had let a handsome, charming man into her life and he’d murdered her parents, tortured her sisters and held her captive.

Of course she wasn’t willing to take that chance again, certainly not with a man who not only looked like Maddox but shared his last name too.

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right? What he did, you couldn’t have known.”

“I’m the Seer.” Nova’s eyes cut to him, hard and defiant once again.

“You were a kid.”

“I was young but I was still the Seer and I didn’t see what he was planning. I was too focused on my vision of Luna and her perfect Pack Alpha mate. The only thing I cared about back then, the only thing worth looking into the future for, was the mating bonds. I wanted to see and predict everyone’s happily ever after.” Her bottom lip trembled slightly but she bit it again and once she’d steadied herself she sighed, “I failed my family. I failed fate. Maybe that’s why she sent me you as a fated mate. Payback.”

Griffin winced at that low blow and his wolf whined. His wolf was only an animal. He didn’t understand why they weren’t just shifting and sinking their teeth into their mate already. She was theirs. That was all he cared about. Griffin would never force the bond onto Nova though and she was making it abundantly clear that he was the last thing on earth she wanted, fated mate or not.

He had lain awake last night in bed thinking about what Barrett had said. He’d tried looking at the situation from every angle. Hindsight was 20/20 but only if you chose to look through the right lenses. He wanted to believe that maybe Barrett had it right after all.

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