Twisting Her Fate
Chapter 68

Gabriel throws Maggie unceremoniously in the backseat of the limousine. Maggie bounces off the seat and slumps to the floor. Gabriel doesn't bother to fix her up, just stepping over her as the driver shuts the door behind him. Gabriel makes his way deep inside the vehicle, as far as possible as he can get from Maggie and the closest to the bar as he can get. He was planning on staying at a hotel near the venue but he doesn't want to run into any of the same people in the morning as most of them are doing the same thing. If he is staying in the hotel he is also stuck having to be in the same room as the woman he cannot stand the sight of. At the pack house she can be tied to the punishment pole until he decides what to do with her.

At the moment, the last thing that he wants to do is think about all the ways he can make Maggie suffer, as he is planning on venting all his hatred that is bubbling to the surface, no longer able to be contained, on her. He needs an outlet and she is the perfect collateral damage.

Right now he just wants to drink. Gabriel skips the glass, going straight for the bottle, drinking heavily as he stares blankly at the seat opposite him, the scene of the whole night playing out in front of him, his jumbled mind trying to put them all together. As much as he doesn't want to believe it, the facts of the matter are that Leilani is alive. Seven years later she materialized, she didn't only not bother to come back to the pack begging to get in after she somehow survived, she has somehow made a life for herself and become a different person.

What Gabriel doesn't realize is that she hasn't become a different person at all. She was always that person. She just needed someone, anyone, to back her up, to give her that time, that chance, that little bit of care that she was craving for.

The seed that laid dormant for so long only needed a bit of care to make it flourish, then when it bloomed it became the most beautiful of them all.

Maggie finally stirs and Gabriel only glances sideways at her before bringing the bottle to his lips once more.

Maggie's eyes flicker open and she looks at the gray carpet covered in a blue glow of lights, her head hurts something fierce as she tries to put together the sequence of events and tries to work out where she is, moving her arms and pushing off the ground. She can even taste the carpet on her tongue. She frowns in disgust as she looks around. She sees the silent Gabriel just staring at the seat blankly holding the almost empty bottle of bourbon.

Maggie tries to boost herself up and sit on the seat, arranging her dress in the process. Her back is hurting. She was twisted all wrong when she woke up. She wants to glare at Gabriel for the lack of care he showed her, but it is not much different from the usual, Gabriel is a lot of things but a caring, loving man is not one of them.

She doesn't dare glare at him, because as the memories filter back in, she knows that she was in the wrong. She did exactly what he told her not to do.

He gave her the warning. He threatened her. The fact that she is not already dead surprises her, but she has no idea what is going to happen to her.

She casts a furtive look at Gabriel and sits on her seat trying to reduce her presence. Maggie does the only thing she can think of and tries to link with her father. Her father might be the best person to diffuse the situation, the link with the Amber pack is what can keep her safe at the moment. If her father can play on that, maybe it is enough to keep her safe.

But no matter how hard she tries she cannot get through, she is not sure whether it is the distance or Simon's block is up. Maggie just sits silently watching Gabriel raise the new bottle to his lips over and over again.

Gabriel looks at Maggie from the corner of his eyes, trying to decide what attracted him to her in the first place, trying to remember how they even got together. She came at him rather aggressively and knew how to please a man and before he knew it, they were together and somehow she just stayed. She never did anything wrong by him and she never stopped him from being with anyone else, so she just stayed around.

Maggie's perfect makeup is ruined. Gabriel squints slightly as he looks at the cut on her head that is still slightly oozing blood. He frowns tightly as he watches the trickle of thick red liquid run down toward her eyebrow.

Maggie shrinks under his gaze, gasping and lifting her hand to wipe off the blood.

"What? Are you not healed yet?"

Maggie's eyes go wide as she tries to hide her face.

In the Amber pack, Oscar's car pulls up beside the pack house. He looks toward the alpha house, frowning slightly as he checks the time. He links Astrid.

'Mum are you awake?'

Astrid has just been staring at the empty space beside her with tears rolling down her cheeks. Her heart skips when she hears her precious sons link. The tears come faster as her heart shudders. It has been many years since her son has been close enough to link her.

'I am awake Oscar'

Oscar purses his lips.

'Is dad there?'

'No he isn't'

'Can you come out and meet me?'

Astrid looks at the empty side once again.

'Yes I will be right there'

Simon didn't even let her go to the ball with her son, didn't allow them to spend that time together and then didn't even have the decency to stay home and keep her company. Astrid gets out of bed and gets dressed quickly. She cannot go too far as she needs to be in bed when Simon returns, but Oscar is not allowed in the alpha house.

A large grin spreads over her face as she opens the window and jumps down. She rarely gets to do things like this anymore. When she was young she rarely used a door. It used to drive her parents crazy. Simon monitors the entry and exit of the doors of the house and he doesn't know that she can still do such things.

Astrid meets Oscar in Maggie's old lavish playhouse in the backyard. Pulling him into her embrace as the tears flow heavily, she only got a chance to look at him earlier before he had to leave for the ball. Astrid grabs his cheeks looking him over in the low light.

"Look at you my baby boy, all grown up, more handsome than before"

Oscar laughs.

"Mum, I think people might laugh at you for calling a twenty-four-year-old man your baby boy"

"You will always be my baby"

Oscar smiles sadly. He has not seen his mother in person in four years, yet they have to meet in a kids toy in secret.

"Mum, I met someone today"

"Your mate?"

Astrid's eyes light up. If Oscar found his mate close by, then he wouldn't be able to be sent away again and he would be able to settle in the Amber pack, the future alpha and Luna getting set up in the pack that they will one day take over. Oscar knocks on his mother's forehead.

"You and your obsession with such things, all your romantic notions, isn't working out particularly well is it?"

If mates were so great, Maggie wouldn't have done what she did and his mother wouldn't have to put up with that mad man. Even though Simon is his father, Oscar doesn't have much good to say about him. He is old enough and strong enough to overthrow Simon now, but the only reason he doesn't is because, for some reason, his mother loves the man.

Astrid swats his hand from her forehead.

"You don't understand, fated mates are everything"

Oscar nods giving up.

"Sure they are mum"

"You will understand one day"

"Anyway, we are way off topic. This girl I met had exactly the same color hair as you"

Astrid's hand falls and her whole body shudders. In the darkness Oscar can't see her expression. Astrid has to dig her claws into her palm as her heart breaks once again. Schooling her tone to cover her anguish.

"Is that so unusual?"

Oscar raises his eyebrows, it is hardly like he has lived a sheltered existence, he has seen much of the world. If he isn't allowed in the pack he wasn't ever going to sit there and cry about it and he made the best of the bad situation he was dealt. In all his travels he has never met anyone with the exact same color.

"Isn't it?"