Page 28 of Bound By Destiny

“That’s true,” she remarks quietly. “But Dane, it was so awful… I did my best, but the second I grazed one with my foot, it ran over the cliff, and then…

“Sheep being sheep,” I help her finish the painful tale, “the whole flock followed.”

She sucks in a ragged breath and nods almost imperceptibly. “It didn’t take my parents long to resent me even more than they used to.” She shoots me a sad grimace. “Those sheep were their livelihood after all, along with our neighbor’s. The damage amounted to over 25,000 dollars.”

“What mattered more than the money was that you were safe.”

“Of course,” she breathes, “but relief can only last so long, whereas debts have a nasty tendency to stick around too long. At the time I managed to pay back a fraction thanks to my savings for Colombia and a slew of part-time jobs during my last year of high school, but it took me nearly a decade to cover the full cost.”

My heart breaks for her. I can only imagine the guilt her parents most likely inflicted on her at home, as it sounds like they were quick to lay the blame on their daughter.

“You must’ve had a tough senior year.”

Destiny flounders a little. Her head grazes my shoulder. I don’t have it in me to resist her, so I pull her back so she can lean on me.

“Everyone I knew hated me for what I’d done, because they were all involved in sheep farming in one way or another. With my paragliding dreams long behind me, I accepted the first University that offered me a full scholarship and hightailed out of town.”

“Where was that?”

She shoots me a small smile. “Arizona State University, of course. In Phoenix.”

I still, as sudden realization dawns upon me, as I remember that moment my finger landed so close to Phoenix, just one dot on the map among thousands of others.

The accident. Destiny’s decision to give up on her paragliding aspirations and tour the world. Instead, she fled to the very city I pointed to the first chance she got.

Bitterness surges within me, especially when I feel how much the woman in my arms suffered. Though at first Destiny’s story sounds like a simple, albeit unfortunate, chain of causes and effects, the coincidences are too glaring for it to be purely fortuitous.

No, there’s a reason why Destiny pushed eighty-seven sheep down the cliff, why she was driven out of her own hometown and forced to escape to whichever University was quickest to answer her.

It was so she could eventually end up exactly here, the only place where I could possibly find her.

Gazing at Destiny’s sorrowful air, my fists clench and bile rises in my throat. As ever, Fate was callous in its stratagems, tossing away a young girl’s dreams – and the lives of nearly a hundred sheep – to attain one single goal: reuniting two mates.

“Dane?” She asks in a small voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I sigh, and I decide a small kiss on her forehead may be worth the remorse I’ll feel after, if it chases away some of the gloom from her eyes. “I was just thinking about the unfairness of it all.”

She peers at me quizzically. “Unfair? Believe me, all this happened because of my own choices – my stupid choices.”

You have no idea how little your choices matter in the grand scheme of things.But there’s only so much I want to tell Destiny. It’s better that she remains in the dark about matehood, because otherwise it’s only natural she’d want me to stay by her side. And with one pleading look from those gorgeous lavender eyes, there’s no saying how long my resolve will last.

“Unfair, because you suffered the consequences of instincts you couldn’t even begin to understand at the time,” I tell her, carefully choosing my words. “Believe me, Destiny, it was your phoenix nature that pushed you to fly in a storm when regular humans would’ve been terrified.”

“You think?” She whispers, and my heart leaps when I see a glimmer of hope in her gaze.

“I’m sure,” I grunt. “There was no way you could resist the impulse, especially if you had no idea where it stemmed from.” Forcing myself to smile despite feeling slightly paranoid that Fate controls my every step, I go on: “If it makes you feel any better, I actually jumped off a cliff when I was nineteen. I hadn’t shifted into a phoenix yet, and unlike you, I didn’t even have any special gear to keep me in the air. I went diving to the ground. It wasn’t pretty.”

Destiny’s jaw drops. “How did you survive that?!”

My grin grows tight. “That’s a long story. But look at me now.” I step back and let my wings out, not without lifting a cocky brow. “Finest feathers you’ve ever seen, right?”

A goofy grin spreads across her lips. “Oh yes, by far.”

“You’re a mythical creature now. Your instincts are always spot on.” Bending down to her height, I look deep into her periwinkle irises, peppered with silver. “You’ll be more comfortable in the air than on your two own feet. And by the time the sun goes down, I’ll have to drag you back to the ground.” I pause, feeling like I may drown in her beautiful gaze. “Got it?”

She nods with gusto. “Got it.”

Destiny

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