Changing Fates: A Sons of Satrina Novel (The Sons of Satrina Book 3)

by Kristan Belle

  Changing Fates

  A Sons of Satrina Novel

  Kristan Belle

  Copyright © Kristan Belle

  First Published 2015 Createspace

  Cover Photo © Dreamstime.com

  The moral rights of the author has been asserted.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents and places are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or deceased, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this digital publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, nor circulated in physical form without prior consent of the author.

  Also by Kristan Belle…

  Burn for Him (standalone paranormal novel)

  The Sons of Satrina Series:

  The Sons of Satrina (bk1)

  Dawn of a New Age (bk2)

  Acknowledgements

  There have been so many people contacting me to know where things were going to go with the Sons of Satrina that I want to thank you all for spurring me on! I have loved this series from the first moment I got the idea for it and have been surprised many times by the turn of events – I may have a set idea where I want things to go, but it doesn’t always turn out that way…

  As always, a massive thank you to Heidi. Without you, everything would be a complete mess! I work in an organised chaos and you’re always the one to help me get it back into order.

  Thank you to Jill K for her endless work to help get things right – sending much love to my friend over the pond!

  Thank you to each and every one of you that have read and loved the Sons along with me. The story is nearly at an end and as sad as I am to see them go, it’s going to be explosive! I hope you all enjoy this one as much as the others, and as much as I loved writing it. Get ready for the last in the series coming to you Summer 2015.

  Thank you, K

  Chapter One

  She couldn’t be around him. The betrayal cut too deep. He had let her down at the time when she had been the most vulnerable. The pain of what he had done was like a physical ache in her chest.

  Alone.

  That was the only way she could process what had happened and move on. There was no way that she’d be able to get past this if she stayed at the academy. It would be too hard to be there, seeing him looking back at her through the eyes of his daughters. That would be too much to bear.

  His daughters.

  After the miracle of her pregnancy, Kayleigh had thought that they would be able to look forward to a future that they’d be able to share with their child. Their first child. But, this wasn’t Kelton’s first child. That was what cut her to the bone.

  Granted, it was double standards, but Kayleigh wasn’t in control of her irrational feelings and emotions. She had children. She was a mother in her previous life. But, that life had been ripped from her. She had to be content with watching them grow up from afar, watching like an outsider as they grew into people she was proud to have produced, watching as their family grew as grandchildren were born. Kayleigh was content that her husband had remarried and was living a full and happy life, but it cut her to the quick to know that she could never be a part of it.

  The life that she had now, the one that she had built with Kelton, had taken a lot of courage and determination. He’d been there for her every single step of the way, holding her hand through the hard times and loving her with a fierce passion through the good times.

  Now that was all gone.

  She was alone.

  That was how it was going to be. It was how it had to be.

  She was alone in the world.

  Kayleigh felt sick. It was nothing to do with the pregnancy. That was progressing as well as could be expected, considering the stress she was putting herself under. This sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was because she was feeling melancholy. She missed her old life. She missed her home. She missed Kelton.

  There were times like this, when she was feeling down and alone, when she thought she had acted too hastily in running out on him like she had. If only she had stayed and talked to him, talked things through and found out the truth. She wouldn’t be sat in floods of tears all by herself and facing the life of a single mother to a child she still wasn’t sure the origin of. Not that it mattered to her. She would love the child unconditionally whatever happened, but she was still concerned for the child’s future. Would it be Lamia Matris? Mortuorum? Something else altogether? That was one of the things that haunted her most.

  She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that Kelton had cheated on her and betrayed her trust like that. If those two girls hadn’t landed on their doorstep in that quirk of fate, she would have never have found out the truth. She would have been none the wiser, living her so-called happy life, oblivious to the fact that Kelton had cheated with another woman. They would have still been living the lie they had built together.

  Was it all a lie? She knew that what they had together was real, but that single betrayal had tainted their entire relationship. Kelton had managed to take all their good times and bring it crashing down around them in a mess of lies.

  Kelton wasn’t the kind of man to do something like that, or so she had believed. Evidently, she had been wrong. She had always thought of him as her soul mate, her other half, but if that was true, then how could he have cut her so deeply? It hurt to think of what he had done.

  And it hurt to think who he had done it with, too. That woman was a vision of perfection. She was the polar opposite to Kayleigh in every conceivable way. Was that the kind of woman that Kelton had desired before he had been stuck with her? Was that his woman of choice?

  Not that she could blame him. Cassandra was elegant, sophisticated and a total knock-out. Who could resist that? Just thinking about it made Kayleigh feel inferior. How was she supposed to compete with someone like that? Especially now that she was putting on weight with the pregnancy, she was feeling bloated and unattractive which didn’t help her present mood.

  It killed her to think that Kelton could be back at the academy at that moment, playing happy families with Cassandra and their daughters. Was she there, living Kayleigh’s life at Kelton’s side, playing the role better than she had? It tore her chest apart to think that. What would he think if he knew that she was out there carrying his unborn child? Would that change things? She refused to think about that. It hurt too much.

  Guilt was one of the things that was eating her up. She’d run off without letting him explain what had happened and without telling them that she was pregnant with his child. If she could turn back time, she would have done things differently. It crossed her mind several times in the last couple of months that she should call him and inform him that he was going to be a father again. That was the least she could do. But, she couldn’t bring herself to speak to him just yet. Hearing his voice would send her over the edge.

  She wanted to go home. She wanted to make things right with Kelton, but she couldn’t do that until she had come to terms with what he had done. Time. That was what she needed. Once she had got her mind in the right place, she would be able to speak to him or see him and tell him. Until then she had to be alone with her thoughts.

  Now all she could do was carry on with the path she had set for herself.

  The night that changed it all…

  Kayleigh would never forget the moment she was confronted with the truth. Seeing those girls standing in front of her, as large as life, she knew that there was no way that Kelton could deny what had happene
d.

  She felt her heart drop out of her chest, dropping to the floor and being stamped on by the scene unfolding in front of her.

  “What? What did she just say?” Her eyes locked with Kelton’s, pleading for him to deny what she’d heard. There was no way these teenage girls could be his daughters. It was too much for Kayleigh to process.

  “I’m sorry, but we are trying to have a private conversation here. We would appreciate it if you left.” The woman said in her most haughty tone.

  Kayleigh gathered that this was the twins’ mother. Who the hell did this woman think she was? Kayleigh could feel her blood boiling and it took all her personal strength to restrain herself from flying across the room and launching herself, ruining the woman’s perfectly put together appearance.

  “Well, it’s not private anymore.” Kayleigh growled at her in such a menacing manner that the woman took a step back. “Kelton, what is she talking about?”

  Kelton couldn’t even look at me. His eyes were firmly planted on the floor and that was when she knew. She knew that this woman was telling the truth about the situation.

  It made no sense to her at all. How could this have happened? When? What had been the circumstances around it? There was no way she would ever be willing to believe that Kelton was the kind of mind who would have a mindless affair, not after all they had built together. But, the presence of the girls in front of her had Kayleigh questioning their entire relationship.

  “So, she’s saying that the twins are yours? How on earth is that possible?” Kayleigh demanded. There was no point in denying this any further. Now, all she wanted to do was get to the truth.

  Cassandra laughed. “If you need to ask that than maybe I was wrong and the two of you aren’t together. If my memory serves me correctly, Kelton definitely knows what he’s doing.”

  Kayleigh could feel her hands bunching up into fists at her side. She’d never felt anger like it.

  Through the years, she had done her best to restrain the beast within her, but this woman was bringing the beast to the forefront. Kayleigh had a little information given to her with regards to the girls that had received the warrior mark, but the main thing she knew was that they were not Lamia. This woman wouldn’t know what had hit her if Kayleigh let her true nature forth.

  However, she couldn’t do that. Even though she was seeing red, she knew she had to keep a hold on herself. She’d worked too hard and for too long to let this woman ruin everything she’d gained in this life.

  But, this woman was here to take a part of that life from her. The part that trusted Kelton implicitly. He was her rock, the one person who was constant in her life. The one person she thought would never hurt her.

  “How old are they?” Kayleigh hissed, being able to guess the answer.

  “Kayleigh, please, listen to me.” Kelton turned his eyes to her, pleading for her to listen and understand. But, Kayleigh didn’t care. She wouldn’t be sucked in by those imploring eyes.

  “I said, how old are they?”

  “Please, Leigh.” He pleaded.

  “How fucking old are they?” she screamed, losing her fine control over the situation.

  “They are eighteen.” Cassandra said with a decided sneer to her tone. It was obvious that she would never lower her standards to scream like a banshee in public like that. Kayleigh couldn’t give a crap what this woman thought of her. She was coming here, to her home and ruining the good thing she had in her life. There was no way she was going to be able to keep her emotions in check when her entire life was unravelling before her.

  Kayleigh didn’t need to linger over the mathematics. The girls were eighteen. They were conceived nineteen years ago. That was the time when things had seemed to smooth out between her and Kelton, getting on the right track and their relationship had blossomed. She now knew why. Guilt had spurred him on. What they had built had been based on lies.

  “How could you? How could you do this to me?” she whispered to him, feeling the hurt and the pain of his betrayal to her very core. She didn’t even have the strength to scream and rail at him now. All she felt was a crushing pain in her chest, one that she knew she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life.

  Kelton couldn’t even speak to her. Through her pain, she could see that he was crumbling, but there was no way she had it in her to comfort him. He had done this. He had been the one to betray her trust. He’d been the one to break them.

  “How could you do this to me?” Something in her eyes cracked before she could look at him no more. She fled from the room, feeling like her heart was physically breaking in her chest. Everything in her life had been destroyed in that one sentence.

  She didn’t even think about sticking around and hearing what Kelton had to say about the situation. Kayleigh just wanted to run and hide. And that was exactly what she did.

  How she actually managed to get away from Kelton, pack up a few of her things and get the hell out of the mansion, she’d never know. For once, luck had been on her side.

  After throwing a few essentials into a bag, Kayleigh had run without looking back. Maybe there had been that small niggling part in the back of her mind that told her that she would be returning one day and that was why she had left the majority of her things behind, but at the time, her only thought had been to get as far away from the hell that had landed on their doorstep as quickly as possible.

  It broke her to think that Kelton could do that to her. How could he cheat? He wasn’t that kind of man. With all that they had? And all that they’d been through?

  The relationship they had built was based on mutual trust and their bond had grown considerably over the years. When she’d first laid eyes on him all those years ago, she would never have believed that he would come to mean so much to her.

  The night that they’d met was the night that changed the course of her life forever. On that fateful night, she died and was re-born. It was the moment that she was ripped from her old human life in an accident that was caused by one of her supposed best friends. The bitch had wanted to get her claws into Kayleigh’s husband and had arranged for a little ‘accident’. Unfortunately, the accident wasn’t the only major piece of bad luck to befall her that night. As she lay dying in the car, a member of the Lamia Mortourum had been drawn to her, feasting on her blood and changing her into one of their own.

  That was one of the main differences being the Lamia races. The Lamia Matris were born that way and were, on the whole, a civilised race that lived side by side with the humans in the world. The Lamia Mortourum were the deadly creatures of the night, the monsters that preyed on humans and Matris alike, causing havoc and mayhem. That was where the Sons of Satrina came into it.

  They were the warriors of the Lamia Matris. They were the protectors, doing all that they could to rid the world of the monsters that lurked in the shadows. It was fortunate for Kayleigh that Kelton had been on street duty that night and that he had been the one to find her. If it had been any of the others, they would have eliminated her on sight.

  She was Lamia Mortuorum.

  She was the enemy.

  But, Kelton had seen something else in her. He’d seen the fight to keep hold of her humanity. She didn’t want to let that go and become the monster that her body and mind were trying to make her.

  Kayleigh had taken time to come to terms with what she had become, but from the very first moment of the change, she didn’t want to succumb to the evil that called within her. He had been the one to walk her through the stages of the change, staying by her side and encouraging her every step of the way.

  Being confronted by the woman and her revelations, it was the first time in a long while that Kayleigh felt like she was losing control and that scared her nearly as much as the thought of losing Kelton. She couldn’t be that person. She’d worked so hard to be the person she wanted to be and to build the kind of life that was perfect for her, there was no way she was going to succumb to being the monster that lurked withi
n her.

  He hadn’t been overly pleased when she had enough control over her urges to go back to check on her human family and it wasn’t something he had ever agreed with. In his mind, she had needed to cut herself off from them, let them get on with their lives as she got on with hers. It wasn’t that easy for Kayleigh, though. The humanity within her was stronger than the evil of the Mortourum.

  Tonight, the Lamia Mortuorum had threatened to take all that away from her.

  For a moment there, her vision had clouded and all she could see was blood. Blood raining down on them all as she destroyed the woman that tried to break everything she’d believed in. It had taken all of her concentration and energy to keep it locked up inside.

  Obviously, the main reason she’d run was because she couldn’t bear to look at Kelton a moment longer, not while the evidence of his infidelity was standing in front of her. The other reason was that she was slipping and losing control for the first time. Her emotions were heightened and her control had slipped. She had to leave and take the time to breathe, to compose herself so she wouldn’t fail in all that she’d worked for.

  Over the years, she had seen her human family grow and mature into people that she was proud to bring into the world. They did wonderful things with their lives and although the pain of leaving them was as strong as ever, Kayleigh was pleased that she was able to live in the shadows of their lives. Kelton could never understand why she would put herself through the pain of seeing them, but the joy she felt at their achievements heavily outweighed the heartache she felt.

  Even through the pain, Kelton was always there for her. Their love had grown beyond anything she had ever expected out of life. Who would have thought that the big, badass warrior that had scared the living hell out of her on first sight would be the one man that she would want to spend the rest of her life with?