Chapter Seventy-One
Graham sat heavily in his office chair. On the other side of his desk, Lucas and Theo did the same. Graham smirked at Lucas who was adjusting his jaw, checking to see if Graham had succeeded in breaking it.
“Did you have to go for the face?” Lucas asked, glaring at his friend. “I have a date tonight. A sure thing and now my jaw will be
bruised.”
Graham shrugged. “Don’t touch my mate during the full moon.”
“It seemed to work out for you,” Lucas joked. “Hell, if it wasn’t for me, maybe you’d still be an unmarked welp pining after his girl.”
“You had nothing to do with it, asshole.”
“Well, when I tell the story, I will,” Lucas said, sanding his hands together. Graham rolled his eyes.
“So,” Graham said, letting out a long breath. He still didn’t feel fully recovered from whatever Catherine’s mark did to him. “How are things looking after last night’s… debacle.”
Theo chuckled. “About as you can expect. There is a split between people pissed at losing their friends and others celebrating the change in leadership.”
“Which is the bigger camp?” Graham asked.
“Don’t worry, Baby, you’re still in the lead for bestest future Alpha,” Theo said in a condescending tone of comfort.
Lucas smacked Theo on the back of the head. He threw a folder down in front of Graham. “We have seven positions to fill.”
“Lucas will take Lead Warrior while, Theo, you’ll take over the frontline,” Graham said, trying to re-engage his mind for work. “That leaves us to fill your position, Theo. We need a new subordinate under Giles, two new members to the patrol team, a new gate keeper and, oh, Arabella’s position.”
“I’ll take care of that, Sir,” Lucas offered with a devilish smirk.
Graham glanced down the list of women bidding for Arabella’s role. “Don’t think so, Bud, you’ve had them all already,” Graham informed him. Lucas clicked his tongue and crossed his arms. “It will be better for me or Theo to handle it so they don’t try to use what’s between your legs to influence your decision.”
“Hey now, I’d be fair…” His grin grew. “I’d let them all take a ride.”
It was Theo’s turn to smack Lucas. “The list of bids for all positions is pretty long. They all flooded in this morning. Seems there’s no love lost in getting rid of Stuart. More people are willing to sign up if you’re taking the lead.”
Graham nodded. “That’s good news, I’ll need it.”
Lucas and Theo exchanged looks. Lucas spoke first. “What’s going on, Man?”
Graham sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He looked between his two closest confidants. “Catherine is blood bound.”
Theo’s jaw hit his chest and Lucas’ face turned deathly pale.
“DeAngelo?” Lucas guessed. Graham nodded. “Fuck. I mean, I knew I scented something on her… I just assumed it was… I don’t
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Chapter Seventy-One
know. I just didn’t think…”
“How is that possible? She hasn’t seen Dominic since leaving MoonStone,” Theo asked. “Unless he marked her and drip fed her blood over the last five years.” Theo chuckled at the absurd line of his thoughts.
Graham exchanged a look with Lucas. “Theo…” Graham began. “DeAngelo marked Catherine on her thigh before releasing her.”
Theo’s eyes widened. “What?!”
Graham nodded. “I removed the mark but upon questioning her about it, I believe she knocked his tooth out right before. He probably said something, some kind of vow, unknowingly or knowingly before biting her.”
“Mixing their blood,” Theo said, shaking his head in disbelief. “But she didn’t say anything back. I’ve only known the girl for a month but I think we can all guess she would rather die.”
Lucas chuckled. “Oh yeah she would.” He shook his head. “I’ve thought a lot.about it and, yeah, if she didn’t mouth a mumbo jumbo agreement for the blood binding, he must have continued to feed her his blood. That’s the only way to keep up a one-sided binding. Wait… she was poisoned in Sterling, right?”
Graham nodded his head. He glanced down at his phone and opened the message detailing how he wanted the culprit caught and the thumbs up that served as a reply. “I’m working on it now. I’ll have that issue resolved by weeks end.”
“When will your beta coronation be?” Theo asked.
Graham shrugged. “Jensen mentioned the next full moon. I’m in no rush and neither is Catherine.”
“How is she doing with all of this?” Theo asked.
Graham leaned his head back in his chair and thought of how she’d reacted this morning to hearing she still carried a piece of Dominic with her. She had remained outwardly calm, but he could feel her fear and restlessness through the bond. She demanded Jensen leave the house so she could get to work. It was the first shift for her new workers and she refused to miss it. Not Jensen or even Graham’s insistence that they took a few days to figure things out would stop her.
“I just want to be normal! For one day I want to be a woman in love who can now show it off to the world! I don’t want this! Not today, dammit!” she’d shrieked.
“Not great,” Graham finally admitted. “I think she thought once we marked each other, all our other problems would drop away. Fuck, maybe I thought that too.”
“What do you need from us?” Lucas asked, his face that of a soldier waiting for his orders.
“I need you to do your jobs. I also need your help planning something,” Graham began.
It had been a long day. Graham watched his mate from outside the large floor to ceiling windows of the kitchen. Catherine looked lost in thought as she kneaded some bread for the next day. The rest of the staff had long since gone home, leaving her alone in the golden lights of the kitchen. His heart squeezed as she placed both hands on either side of her and dropped her head. Her shoulders shook slightly and that was his cue to get to her. Graham opened the door at her back. Her shoulders stiffened and her head shot up. She quickly went back to kneading.
“Catherine?”
“Hey! I just need to finish this last loaf and I’ll be ready!”
Graham hated the way she tried to hide her emotions. “Baby.”
214
She sighed and her head dropped down again. “Your mom tattled, didn’t she?”
Graham stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. He kissed her shoulder before propping his chin there. “No, but now I’m curious.”
“Just had a few slip ups.”
“And what are ‘slip ups,’ Baby?” he asked.
Her shoulders dropped further and he saw a tear hit the table in front of her. Her knuckles tightened on the table. “Just a meltdown
or two.”
“Hmm… tell me.”
“I just… I just don’t get why he’s doing this to me, Graham,” she finally confessed.
Graham slowly turned her to face him. He cupped her cheeks and stroked them with his thumbs. “You are strong, unique, powerful, beautiful, intelligent, caring, courageous, daring…”
“Graham,” she whined, closing her eyes and releasing several more tears down her cheeks.
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I don’t know.”
“Why aren’t you more upset?” she cried.
He sighed and pulled her closer to his body. She wrapped herself around him and buried her face in his chest. “This doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change how I feel for you. It doesn’t change our future. It doesn’t change that DeAngelo will die and you will be
free from him forever.”
“Can I ask you something?” she asked after a few moments of silence.
“Of course.”
Catherine sat back and looked up at him. Her eyes were no longer glassy, instead a fire sat behind them, making her look fiercer than he’d ever seen her. She gripped his shirt in her fists, coating his black shirt in flour.
“You said I could come with you when you killed him.”
Graham raised an eyebrow. Curious as to where she was going. “Yes…”
“I want to do it myself.”
“Do it?”
Catherine looked down and nodded once before her eyes rose again, one black and one blinding blue. “I want to kill him myself and you’re going to let me.”
3/4
Surrendering to Destiny
