Page 10 of Unforgivable Fate

“How can you be so sure?” Griffin couldn’t help but ask, awed by this man’s ease with him.

“Because if you were, Darius never would have let you get near Leo, or this pack. He’d have disappeared you before you even knew what hit you. But he didn’t.” Barrett shrugged nonchalantly before taking another swig of his beer and then his lips quirked into an amused tilt. “Darius didn’t kill you and Leo’s willing to give you a chance but don’t think just because I’m not at full strength I couldn’t hold my own if you tried something. Leo put you with me because I’ve always had his back and he knows if I sense anything suspicious, I won’t hesitate to tell him.”

Griffin snorted into his beer, the beginnings of a smile on his own lips now. He had guessed that much. They’d invited him in. They’d welcomed him even. But they hadn’t given him a place of his own. They’d put him in a house with a man they clearly trusted and whose opinion they valued. He was here because they wanted to keep an eye on him and that was the first thing about this whole situation that made sense to Griffin.

“I just told you they basically asked me to play spy and you’re grinning? What gives?”

“Nothing.” Griffin shook his head, “It just, makes sense.”

“And that amuses you?”

“It reassures me that this pack is a good one, with solid leadership.” Griffin shrugged, “Because I never would have let someone like me into pack territory without someone to keep an eye out.” He winced. “Sorry, poor choice of phrase.”

Barrett chuckled, “No worries. I said the same thing to Leo when he asked if I’d let you stay here. Don’t think there’s a one-eyed man joke you can make that I ain’t already made myself.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t take offense easily.” Barrett swigged from his bottle again. “I reckon’ you must have tough skin too if you’ve really spent most of your life trying to clean up the mess that psychotic brother of yours made in your old pack.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged uncomfortably, wondering just how much of his story Leo had told the man.

“Can’t imagine they made life easy for you there.”

“An easy life doesn’t necessarily equate to a good life.” Griffin peeled the label on his beer bottle and dodged the true question, “I want to do better than Maddox. To right some of his wrongs if I can. That’s what brought me here.”

“Is it though?” Barrett’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“What do you mean?” Griffin frowned.

“I heard what happened this afternoon with you and Nova so I figure it was fate that brought you here. To her. To find your mate.”

He was already shaking his head before Barrett finished, “But I only came because I heard what had happened in this pack and I recognized my brother’s handiwork. I came because of him, to try and make what he did… well, not right but… better somehow.”

“Sure. Sure.” Barrett pointed his beer bottle in Griffin’s direction. “But the way I see it, and pardon me if it isn’t exactly 20/20 these days..” He smirked and Griffin groaned. “Fate’s always working in the background of our lives. You came here because of what your brother did but maybe, your brother had to do what he did in order to get you here to where you needed to be, at the right time to meet your match.”

Griffin gaped at the older man, unable to comprehend what he was saying. That was crazy. Wasn’t it? There was no way fate had guided Maddox through his murderous journey just so she could bring Griffin to Noir, at this particular time, to meet Nova DeLuca.

“You think fate made Maddox murder all those people?”

“No. That’s not what I said. Fate doesn’t force anyone to do anything. She guides. That’s all.”

“And you think she guided everything that happened to the Crescent Pack, to the DeLuca family, just so Nova and I could find our fated mate?” He scoffed, it seemed more than a little incredulous.

“A lot of people seem to think that fate has this one path for each of us but if I’ve learned anything from having a Seer around, it’s that our paths are always changing. We have free will and every choice we make alters our path. It’s only the end point that stays the same. So yeah, I think, based on everything that’s happened, Maddox was a simply tool that fate used to get her way.”

“What do you mean?”

Barrett tilted his head, “Nobody’s told you what really happened, have they?”

“About Maddox staging a coup and killing the Alpha? Yeah. I know about that.”

“No. No.” Barrett shook his head, “Not about Maddox. About Nova.”

“What about her?”

“The part she played in starting all of it.”

Griffin was gaping again, so much so he could barely pull his mouth shut to form the words, “What part did she play?”

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