Page 78 of Forever Mine

Liam and I had been together a full month already. Oscar had begged to go to school with his new friends at the start of the new semester. I was skeptical at first, and by far it had been a harder transition on me than on him, but he seemed happy, and was fitting in famously. Overall life was good.

I had done a lot of soul searching and growing since coming to San Marco. I came to the realization that the boys who raped me had stolen my control. No matter how much I loved Liam, feeling him press down above me, pinning down my arms, any movement that made me feel trapped, was a trigger back to that night. It wasn't that I didn't trust him. I knew he would never hurt me, but the irrational fear from the memories always seemed to surface. Sometimes I was better at hiding it than others and I'd gotten good at changing positions when I started to feel the panic.

The thing was, I wanted my mate. I wanted a normal relationship without the fears from my past. I didn't know how to fully explain all of that to him, so I began exploring opportunities to take control myself. When I was in control, I felt invincible and free to explore myself and my mate. It had worked, and I couldn't keep the stupid grin off my face, which probably wasn't a good thing since I was having a late lunch with Lily.

Lily was meeting me out at the new house. The foundation was done and the framing was complete. When I arrived a little early, I was excited to see we even had floors now. Troy kept reassuring me it would all be complete before the wedding in just four weeks. I could not wait to start our life together.

Lily's car pulled up and she eyeballed me suspiciously the moment she got out of the car. She hugged me and took a deep breath, inhaling my scent. She pulled back, frowning.

"Really? I thought the grin on your face meant you finally bonded with my stupid brother. What is taking you guys so long?"

"It's complicated," I told her for the millionth time.

"That's all either of you ever say, 'it's complicated,' but there's nothing complicated about it. He bites you, you bite him, done."

I was grateful we were interrupted by a new vehicle arriving. I had expected to see Troy, since he spent a lot of time at the house overseeing his guys, but it wasn't, it was Patrick O'Connell, Elise's mate.

"Hey, Patrick, what are you doing out here?" Lily asked.

"Liam asked me to come pick up Maddie," he said, sounding casual, but something in his stance didn't make me feel very comfortable.

"Well, we have plans, that dork can wait," Lily said, pouting. I didn't want to miss out on some girl time, either. I saw Lily a lot. We even lived in the same house, but we rarely got any time for just the two of us.

"Sorry, it's important. Something's come up," he said.

"Fine, I'll come along, too," Lily said stubbornly.

"That's not possible, I'm afraid. Maddie and I have some mutual friends we need to speak with." He was being cryptic, but I could only imagine that mutual friends would be of the human variety. I hadn't heard anything from Annie since she had hung up on me weeks ago. If there was news about her or Jacob or from them, I needed to hear it.

"It's okay, Lily, we can reschedule."

Her jaw opened and then closed. "We will not. I've been looking forward to this for days. We have plans to make, things to do. You"—she turned on Patrick, poking her finger into his chest—"do not get to disrupt that.”

"I'm sorry, Lil. It's important, and it’s Kyle's orders. Take it up with him if you have a problem. Come on, Maddie," he told me.

"Madelyn Amanda Collier!" Lily started and I knew she was furious. I wasn't too pleased with how this, whatever this was, was being handled either, but I gave an apologetic shrug.

"I should go and see what he needs," I told her. Lily didn't know about the humans or our connections to them, and I couldn't just tell her now. "I'm sure it's important if Liam and Kyle sent him to get me. We'll talk soon, okay?"

I could see the hurt in her eyes and I hated it. I turned quickly and followed Patrick. "This better be important," I warned him, upset that Lily had been hurt by his actions.

We drove, mostly in silence, heading out of town and down the mountain. We didn't go to the city at the base of our mountain, though; instead, about halfway down Patrick stopped and carefully watched for cars in both directions before turning right onto a dirt path I could barely make out. He drove to the tree line where we met a bunch of fallen trees blocking the path.

Great, just great,I thought. He got out of the car and moved enough trees out of the way to drive through. He stopped on the other side and replaced the mess behind us. It gave me a momentary panic of being trapped.

"You're fine," he told me, getting back into the car. "Liam warned me you might start to panic, but everything's fine. It's just a precaution."

At the end of the little road, if you could even call it that, was a small cabin. I immediately recognized Kyle's car and as we exited the vehicle I could smell my mate. He was close by. So was another all too familiar smell.

I ran towards the house and opened the door. Annie and Jacob were standing next to a table talking to Liam and Kyle and two other men I didn't recognize.

"Annie! Jacob!" I cried, running into their open arms. I hugged Annie close and Jacob wrapped his big arms around us both. "I've been so worried about you both, but you're okay, right?"

"We're fine," Jacob said.

"And we miss you and Oscar so much," Annie added.

They both had tears in their eyes when I pulled back to look at them. Liam rose and came to stand by my side.

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