Page 197 of Fractured Fate

Tonight, she had a new predator to fear, and she was their prey.

The longer she ran, the more she worried she wouldn’t find her way back. She no longer heard the pursuing rogues or the sounds of the fight she ran from.

Stopping to catch her breath, she placed her hand on the bark of a pine tree and bent at the waist, coughing.

The forest wasn’t as dark as usual with the full moon overhead. It illuminated a clearing a few feet away from where she stood. A small group of fallen trees at the center blocked her view from the other side, casting eerie shadows.

Entering the clearing would put her on display and make her easy pickings.

“Charlotte!”

She staggered when Aiden bellowed her name. Before she could call back to him, she heard the sounds of crunching foliage drawing closer. She didn’t know if it was Aiden or not.

Staying still would end in disaster; she had to take her chances by crossing the clearing.

As soon as she broke the tree line and progressed several feet into the open space, a man stepped out from behind the fallen trees. She screamed, and Aiden called her name again. He heard her. The man grinned at her with his teeth showing as several others joined him.

She called Aiden’s name. The others called for her, too. They would find her. She knew it.

Her heart rate increased when Aiden yelled, “Keep making noise! I’ll find you!”

The man tsked several times like scolding a child as she continued to call their names, telling them she was in the clearing. He moved closer, away from the shadows, and the moonlight caught the shock of red hair on his head.

Several feet to her left, her friends burst through the trees into the clearing. Noah and Dominic were with them. They rushed over, and Aiden enveloped her in his arms. Blood stained his arms and shirt. His lip looked busted, and drying blood crusted around his nostrils.

“I’m okay,” he whispered when she touched his face. “Dom was showing Noah to their dorm since they’ll be sharing so Dom can keep an eye on him. They showed up mid-fight. Security is handling it now.”

That explained why the other rogues hadn’t gotten to her and she didn’t hear them anymore.

“Such a touching sight. So, you’re my daughter’s Korrena?”

She spun, and Aiden kept his arms locked around her from behind.

“I’m sorry,” Riley said. “I think I just had a stroke. Did you say daughter?”

The man’s gaze slid to Riley. “I did.”

Lukas swiped the blood from his cheek.

“Charlotte doesn’t have a dad,” she said, crossing her arms. Riley didn’t intimidate anyone standing there in a skirt with hot pink tulle underneath and a little T-shirt with a pink pixel heart on the front. She looked like a goth Care Bear. “Sperm-donor, sure. But you expect us to believe that’s you?”

“I think I know my own child.” He turned his attention to Charlotte.

She tried to step back but couldn’t because of the wall of man behind her. He tightened his hold in reassurance.

Her father was Vasirian? How was that possible? The Oracle would have said if she wasn’t human, so she knew he wouldn’t have been a Vasirian at her birth. He would have needed to be reborn Vasirian. The only thing she knew for certain was turning humans went against Vasirian law and only Korrena pairs could do it. Did this man have a Korrena? Did that mean Blaire and Charlotte weren’t the only humans with Korrenas?

“What do you want?” Aiden called out.

“My daughter, of course.”

Seth stepped forward next to Charlotte and Aiden. “We’re supposed to believe you’re her father? What the hell are you doing with rogues?”

Lukas stood at her other side. “He’s not a Vasirian,” he said, glancing at Charlotte. “He shouldn’t know about us. Shouldn’t be with rogues.”

Her eyes widened, and her gaze snapped to the man claiming to be her father. He smirked. There went the rebirth and Korrena theory.

“Well, when you run the biggest rogue cell in the Southeast, what do you expect? I know all about this world, and I have for over twenty years.”