Where Fate Leads: Fighting Fate, page 1
WHERE FATE LEADS
REINA TORRES
Copyright © 2023 by REINA TORRES
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of this author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or deceased is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Where Fate Leads
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
GLOSSARY
About the Author
Contemporary Romance
Military Romance
First Responders
Paranormal Romance
Historial Romance
Sweet Contemporary Romance
Thank You & Mahalo
WHERE FATE LEADS
We’re taught fate knows all. That it leads you down a certain path because that’s where you’re meant to be. But what if whoever is waiting for you at the end of it chooses not to accept your combined destiny and instead fights it? The authors in this series have decided to find out.
Where Fate Leads
Brought to an exclusive Brazilian Resort for her wedding, Rosalicia finds her fiancé in bed with another woman. Heartbroken and rejected, she finds herself on a walk through the wild gardens surrounding the resort. Blinded by tears, she walks straight into the arms of an aroused shapeshifter.
His soul is split in two. Half man, half jaguar, he has lived his entire life searching for the one who can merge his soul into one.
Drawn to a resort carved into the jungle of his people, he hears the soul rending tears of a woman moving through the exotic gardens and when he finds her she stumbles into his arms.
He knows, deep in his soul that she is the one for him. Rosalicia is his mate. His future lover. Mother of his heirs. He vows that if she lets him love her… worship her… she’ll never have a reason to cry again.
He’ll do whatever it takes to make her blissfully happy for the rest of their lives.
CHAPTER ONE
ROSALICIA
In two days, Rosalicia Estrada would be married.
Married.
Looking out of the limousine window at the passing scenery, she found herself dreaming.
What would her life be like after the wedding?
She hoped that she would find out what it would be like to be in love.
Tony said he loved her.
He proclaimed it every day. Several times a day. Loud and proud, he called it.
It just made her a little wary and weary at the same time.
Her mother just said she was getting cold feet, but her feet were fine. She just didn't like flowery speeches. She didn't like grand gestures.
She just wanted to be loved.
And she felt that.
It was just a bit... overwhelming at times and her warm feet? They were thinking of running.
"Can you believe it?"
Rosalicia turned to look at her mother, who sat in the rear-facing bench seat of the classic limousine.
"This is all so grand!" She turned and looked out of each window in turn, her elegantly coiffed hair holding together admirably. "The lush green of nature and the elegance of an exclusive resort crafted from marble and sandstone. I've seen the pictures," she gushed. "It looks like a castle!"
A castle.
Even more of a reason for Rosalicia to hesitate.
She'd hoped for a wedding in a garden. Or on a beach.
Something simple and beautiful.
Surrounded by nature.
"The florist is costing your father a fortune."
Seated at the far side of the seat from Rosalicia, her father grumbled and turned the page in his newspaper, flicking it once he had his hands on both sides. "Don't remind me."
He was lost in the news a moment later and Rosalicia wondered if he kept reading the newspaper instead of viewing it on his phone because it gave him a convenient physical barrier to hide behind.
She wouldn't blame him. Her mother was quite adept at carrying on a whole conversation in a room full of silent people.
She loved talking.
"And your dress, Rose. It's magnificent. I know you didn't care about the style or the embellishments, so I had them fit me instead. We are almost the same size after all.
Rosalicia stiffened a little at her mother's words.
Yes, they were close in size but so was her sister.
A shudder rolled through her body at the thought. No, it was better that her mother had stood in for the fittings instead of Jessenia.
As long as Rosalicia could remember, her elder sister Jessenia had hated her.
If she'd done the fittings for Rosalicia's dress, she would have done something to ruin it.
"When," Rosalicia swallowed at the sudden tightness in her throat, "when is Jessenia coming to the resort for the wedding?"
Her mother froze for a moment, looking as if she was caught in the sudden flare of headlights.
When she began to speak it sounded like a mix of odd syllables strung together punctuated with laughs and the fluttering of her hands.
"Mother?"
"Now, don't you worry about that, Rose. It's neither here nor there, you see?"
Her father lowered the newspaper with a huff of sound that curled the top edge of the paper. "Answer her!"
Her mother's instantaneous reaction was to press her lips together in a line that ate all of her carefully applied color.
Then, when she turned to look at Rosalicia, she managed a pleasant smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Rosalicia's stomach clenched and threatened to turn over.
"She's already here. She arrived a few days ago to see to the final preparations for the wedding. It will be fine." Her mother turned her head to look out of the window. She kept her gaze fixed at the lush greenery passing by. "It will be fine." She said the words as if she needed to reassure herself. "You'll see, Rose. It will all be fine."
Beside her on the bench seat, Rosalicia's father grumbled under his breath and went back to reading his paper. "Too much bother, if you ask me."
Rosalicia bit into her bottom lip to keep it from shaking.
A moment later, she lowered her chin and stared at her hands in her lap.
It was impossible to imagine how everything was going to be okay when her sister was probably doing everything she could to ruin the wedding plans.
How her mother continued to ignore the bad blood between her two daughters, Rosalicia would never know.
There had been a time, so very long ago, when she remembered loving her sister.
Well, she still loved her sister.
She just didn't like how she was treated.
Growing up people had encouraged her to not give up trying to bridge the distance with her older sister, but every effort was flung back at her.
Sometimes with physical force.
"Rose?"
It was a few moments before she realized that someone was saying her name.
"Rose, dear."
Rosalicia turned on the leather seat and looked at her mother.
"Hmm?"
Her mother shook her head and sighed. "Really, dear? Don't slouch."
Instead of straightening on the seat, she sighed. What could her mother do to her now?
"Don't make this difficult."
EDUARDO
Eduardo glared down at the resort from his perch in a sumaumeira tree overlooking the Fausto Resort. For days he'd watched delivery trucks come and go and the first round of luxury cars had arrived a few hours before.
He hadn't paid much attention to them after he saw the men who exited the cars.
They were men of wealth. Their clothes and baggage said as much. They were also ostentatious. He'd seen their ilk before.
Seen them and dismissed them.
He didn't waste time on men who were beneath him.
They could not fight him with any technique or strength. They may have made something of themselves in the world of humans, but Eduardo didn't have those constraints on his life.
He was master of all that he surveyed and he held onto his kingdom with fists and claws.
Fancy clothes like the men were wearing cost a pretty penny, but he had little need for garments like the ones they clothed themselves in.
He was happier in his own skin than they ever would be no matter how wealthy they became, because if you based your worth on your clothes or on your possessions, you had
They were the last of the jaguar shifters in the country.
The last of their noble breed.
There were a little less than a hundred of his kind left in the world. Most of them still lived here, in the heavily canopied world of the jungle.
"What are you doing, El Rey?"
Eduardo's lip curled up to show his fangs to Cruz, his oldest friend, as he settled himself on a nearby branch a good seventy feet from the ground. Normally, his teeth were just that, but when he was riled… when any of the shifters in his prowl were riled or close to a shift, their fangs were present.
"Do not mock me." Eduardo knew that his snarl was worse than his true feelings, but it wouldn't do for his friends to mock him one way or the other.
"Calmate, calmate, both of you." Irenio sat himself on the same branch as Cruz, but between the two shifters. "Drawing blood this high from the ground would be disastrous."
Eduardo knew that his friend's words were a little ridiculous, but they had the desired effect. The prickly anger he'd felt moments before eased away.
"The only blood that would have been drawn," Eduardo explained to his friends, "would have been from Cruz' veins. I would be just fine."
He heard Cruz open his mouth to speak, but Irenio spoke first.
"What's going on down there?"
Eduardo knew he was talking about the resort. Since it was built, there had been few guests that had come to stay.
The servants in the hotel were all members of his prowl. It was a deal that he'd made with the man who had built the resort.
It kept the numbers of outsiders to a minimum in the area. He knew that the world continued to advance whether he liked it or not, but the man who'd built the resort had some of the jaguar in him.
He understood what it meant to keep their presence as much of a secret as possible. And their identities?
Hidden.
He watched as a limousine moved toward the resort, crawling forward to lay on his taut belly to enjoy the sight.
"This must be the bride."
"Bride?"
Both of his friends had uttered the word at the same time, but in different ways.
Cruz sounded like he was laughing.
Irenio's tone was more thoughtful in nature.
When Cruz continued to laugh, Eduardo let out a sharp snarl and his nails bit into the bark of the tree, sending shards of bark flying.
Cruz quieted down and moved further away from Eduardo on the branch.
Irenio didn't move away. Instead, he sat quietly and watched along with Eduardo as the limousine pulled up under the portico of the grand resort.
Inching forward on his belly, Eduardo finally found a vantage point where he could see under the edge of the portico.
He could already feel his blood pumping through his veins at a faster speed. The air that he pulled into his lungs was scented as if his head was pressed into the petals of a rare flower.
Glorious.
Delicious.
Arousing.
He heard Irenio's cautionary snarl, but it did little to reach him.
Gone was the solid line between man and animal.
No, Eduardo rode the line of transformation It would only take the barest of thought or emotion to push him over the edge.
And he didn't seem to care.
His animal had been hunting for this scent for years.
They'd both longed to find the one who could flood their senses with joy and hunger in equal measure.
There.
He saw her.
He saw his mate.
One half-indrawn breath sent him over the edge and his body went through the change.
Bones broke and reformed.
Skin burst with fur and his back arched as his tail swished through the air.
He was close. So damn close.
All he had to do was get to the ground and-
A streak of color rammed into his side and together they tumbled through the air.
Snarling and clawing at the other jaguar, they broke through another canopy of trees, vines catching on their claws, legs tangling with each other and the leaves as they dropped like stones.
The ground rushed up to meet them and the sudden impact jarred his bones and his head.
As they both shifted back to their human forms in the mess of broken vines and snapped leaves, Eduardo found his head clearing.
He turned to look at the other jaguar who had tackled him from the branch, he expected to see Cruz' pained mien looking back at him.
Instead, he saw Irenio's face half-hidden from him in shadow, lines creased through the skin on his forehead.
He lifted himself from the ground with one hand and then the other, struggling as he went.
Eduardo sat there, concerned.
"Are you injured?"
Irenio almost stifled a groan, almost. "No more than I can handle."
"You knocked me down. You?"
Cruz reached the ground with a light jump. "That was crazy!"
He moved over to Irenio and cuffed him on the shoulder with a laugh.
The move sent Irenio down to his elbows on the ground.
"Enough!"
Getting up to his feet, Eduardo held out a hand to his friend. "Here, let me help you."
Irenio's reticent glare was immediately tempered before his king and he took hold of Eduardo's hand and got to his feet.
He lowered his head and began to apologize.
"I am sorry for what I did-"
"I can't accept your apology."
Irenio blanched, paling like the moon.
"You did the right thing." Eduardo's jaguar grudgingly agreed. "I wasn't thinking. I let my animal override my sense."
His friend kept his gaze on the floor.
"I'll keep a tighter rein on myself, my friend."
"You don't have to assure me of that." Irenio's voice was lighter than it had been a moment before.
"You're right. I don't. But I thought I owed it to you for the pain that you've gone through."
He turned then, his gaze inexorably turning toward the resort.
"Now, leave me."
Eduardo heard them move, leaves and broken bits of green under their feet. They were gone a moment later, and he took his first step toward his destiny.
CHAPTER TWO
ROSALICIA
Once she was shown to the Bridal Suite in the resort, Rosalicia didn't bother unpacking. She felt... unsettled.
She walked around the front room and then into the bedroom, stopping to open the curtains and look outside.
The gardens were astounding.
Lush and green with bright blooms bursting from the green like brilliant stars in the night sky.
She pressed her hands against the cool glass and touched her forehead to the window.
She wanted to get closer, but for the moment, it was enough.
Like a bird desperate to fly over that expanse of beauty and stuck behind an invisible cage, she sighed.
"Miss?"
Startled, Rosalicia turned from the glass and straightened her posture so her mother wouldn't hear about her lapse.
"Yes?"
The maid was impeccably dressed, if not a little too stiff. It was likely because her uniform was starched to the hilt. Her chin-high mandarin collar edged with prickly lace. The same at her wrists.
At the back of her head, Rosalicia wondered if she would have learned better posture if she'd had that kind of lace added to all of her collars.
It certainly would have irritated her under her chin, keeping her head as high as her mother's was known to be.
"I've been assigned to you for the duration of your stay. There will be another maid coming later in the day to be at your service through the night."
"Two?" Rosalicia couldn't hide her shock. "I have two maids assigned to me?"
She didn't even have one at home and she knew that her father certainly made a good deal of money at his job.
She'd always been responsible for cleaning her own space.
