Page 279 of Secret Shifters Next Door

“Yeah, it all happened after you’d left town. I never mentioned it to you, though. You were always busy, and I never wanted to get into silly boyfriend drama.”

“That’s not important,” she said, sliding her plate away, appetite obviously gone as she studied me. “Steff told me a little about it all. If you were Liam’s girlfriend, that means you’re the one who was fated to Blayne?”

I nodded. “We were. He told me about the curse. Told me he didn’t want anything to do with me and demanded that I reject him. I did.”

April put a hand to her mouth. “No wonder he has looked awful lately. The other girls and I kept asking, but the guys said it was personal. Something he was dealing with. Oh my God.” She shook her head in wonder. “None of us could reject them.”

“Was it easy for all of you? Becoming their mates, I mean?”

“Easy?” April chuckled. “Uh, no. I wouldn’t call it easy.”

She proceeded to tell me an abbreviated version of everything that had happened with Harley, Celina, and herself. All the drama, the danger. I gasped when she told me about the hunters’ bloody and brutal attack on Miles, and the difficulty with her forgiving Steff and their mating.

“It all worked out for the best, though. Fate is what it is.” April said.

“Well,” I said bitterly, “sometimes Fate doesn’t know what she’s doing. Blayne and I were never meant to be soulmates. Never.”

April chewed at her lower lip for a second before speaking. “You know? I probably would have said the same thing about me and Steff a year ago. I would have been wrong. So very, very wrong. I’ve never been happier. I think…” She paused. “If the two of you really think about it, you might discover what Steff and I did.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Some things are inevitable.”

Since that didn’t exactly ease my mind, we changed the subject for the rest of our conversation, and when we left, we promised to get together again in the next couple of days. I put on a good facade the rest of dinner, but April’s words had wriggled into the recesses of my mind. Her words bounced around in there, making it hard to think.

When I pulled into my driveway, I noticed Blayne sitting out on his porch. Even in the early evening, I could see how pale he was. It worried me. It had been over a week, and he still lookedawful. Again, deciding to be the bigger person, I walked to my mailbox and called across the street to him. “Blayne, are you sure you’re okay? Can I…get you anything, I guess?”

Blayne glanced up and shook his head. “Why do you care?”

I heaved out a sigh. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but you’re the one who hates me. It’s not mutual. I actually care about my fellow human beings, even when they don’t care about me.”

“Well, your concern is unnecessary.”

A little flash of annoyance curdled my mood. “You know what, Blayne? I did this for you.Youaskedmeto reject you. This whole pity party, this woe-is-me thing, is getting old. I only wanted to help. If you’re really that miserable, you only have yourself to blame.”

He bowed his head as if he was struggling with something, but then he looked me straight in the eye and shook his head. “I’d rather deal with the temporary misery than a lifetime of being mated to the woman who took my brother from me.”

He turned, opened the door, and walked inside. I stood there, shocked by the depth of his hatred for me. I’d held out some hope that one day, he’d bury the hatchet. If not with me, then just with himself. My shoulders sagged as I turned back toward my own house. I didn’t need anything else to show me that April was wrong. Fate did not always know right. Some thingsweren’tinevitable.

NINE

BLAYNE

After talking to Ava, I couldn’t do anything but sit on my sofa. My panther had come out while I’d spoken to her. Knowing he was still there was a comfort to me, but it irked me that it still yearned for Ava even after she’d rejected the bond. Nothing I said could get my beast to understand that she wasn’t the one for us—would never be the one for us. I even tried to remind him of what she had done to Liam, that she was the reason the part we were missing was gone. It did little to change its mind.

In the end, I took a melatonin pill and headed upstairs to bed. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I was hopeful. I’d been sleeping like shit for days.

The first few minutes in bed were fitful, restless. The mewling and inconsolable cries from my panther deep in my mind made it difficult to even attempt to sleep. Thankfully, the pill started working, and I drifted off to sleep. Dreams of Liam and Ava plagued me, making my sleep less restful than it should have been.

My phone rang, ripping me out of a deep sleep, out of a replay of the night Liam had died. My mind was hazy as I fumbled around the nightstand for the ringing phone. Throughbleary vision, I saw Tate was calling. It was also three in the morning. Something was wrong.

“Hello?” I mumbled groggily.

“Sorry I woke you,” Tate said.

“No, no, it’s fine. What’s wrong?”

“Get to the office. I need to show you something. I already called the guys.”

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