Mikalo's Fate (The Mikalo Chronicles)

• Title Page
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Chapter Thirty-One
  
• Chapter Thirty-Two
  
• Chapter Thirty-Three
  
• Chapter Thirty-Four
  
• Chapter Thirty-Five
  
• Chapter Thirty-Six
  
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
  
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
  
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
  
• Chapter Forty
  

Copyright 2013 Syndra K. Shaw

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover photograph by OLJ Studio

via shutterstock

Cover design by Renae Porter

Social Butterfly Creative

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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To everyone who so generously supported me,

walked with me,

and shared the journey with me,

Thank you.

I'm in love.

Even here in the dark, his body close to mine, the heaviness of his arm a comfort as it wrapped around my chest and held me tight, the back of my neck warm from his quiet breath, I couldn't help but smile.

Ronan Grace Delis.

In a week's time, I'd be Ronan Grace Delis.

I'd be his wife. My Mikalo finally officially mine.

Yes, I'm in love.

In his sleep, he sighed, pressing against me as he dreamed.

It had been weeks since he had kneeled before me in the kitchen. Weeks since he had slipped the ring on my finger and, his eyes wet with tears, asked me to be his. To love him and spend the rest of my days with him. Weeks since, my heart full and happy, I had been unable to speak. Unable to utter that simple syllable. Unable to find that "yes" in my throat, my voice.

And so I had nodded. And that nod had become my answer.

With that my Mikalo, my Greek god in grey wool, had become mine.

In a few days we'd fly to Greece, the advanced age of his beloved Nona preventing her from coming to New York. It just made sense, the few friends I had easily able to travel. And, let's face it, the sprawling mess of Mikalo's family was much easier to corral in Greece than in the States.

As for my family ...

I sighed, exhaling the thought of them away.

He and I had talked about this yesterday. And the day before that.

"And so she is not one you'd want to come?" he had asked, repeating himself, the absence of my mother obsessing him.

"No," I had insisted.

"Why?"

"Because," I had said, snapping like a petulant child.

And he had knitted his brow, struggling to understand something he knew so little about.

But how could I explain the complicated relationship I had with that woman people knew as my Mother? How could I explain how she had left my father, destroying him in the process, trading a man who loved her and a child who idolized her for a wealthy Texan whose only interest in her was that she was still young and still pretty and always eager?

And how to explain how, after that, she had forgotten us, choosing to recreate herself as someone new. Someone without a daughter. Without a family, a past. Without responsibility. How my last sight of her was her pulling out of the driveway, driving down the street, and turning left.

How could I explain any of that without feeling the familiar rage and crippling sense of abandonment?

I couldn't.

And Mikalo wouldn't understand. Or maybe he would. I don't know.

All I did know was I wanted to leave her behind. Leave her in the past, fully aware that, with my marrying Mikalo, she would be more than happy to reclaim me as her own, my achievements ignored, but my marriage to a man of generous means embraced, celebrated, and, no doubt, bragged about to anyone and everyone who'd listen.

It was best to just move on without her. I had no need for her and, as I'd seen over the last who knew how many years, she had no need for me.

"And your father?" he had asked, my silence about my mother deafening.

With this, the tears had fallen.

"He died," I had finally said.

And Mikalo, my Mikalo, had gathered me in his arms, tucking my head under his chin as he squeezed, holding me close.

This I did share, telling him how my dad's heart was broken, but omitting the specifics of my mother's cruelty. How he had lost it all. A promising career, his pride, his sense of self, all of it extinguished by my mother's, his wife's, absence, how she had so cruelly abandoned him, the pain soon drowned in drink, his body eventually surrendering.

What I didn't share, what I couldn't revisit, was how this was how I spent my teenage years. That was a memory I needed to leave behind, I thought as I stared at the shadows on the ceiling, scooting back into the warmth that was Mikalo. When other girls were dancing and flirting and ... well, whatever in the hell teenage girls did, I was eating cereal for dinner, being careful to measure the amount of milk so there'd be enough for the morning, and then wandering from bar to bar to find my dad, walking him home, my arm around his waist, clutching him close so he wouldn't stumble into traffic.

I had lost one parent. I wasn't losing another.

No, my mother was not welcome at my wedding.

"You are not dreaming," Mikalo now said, his voice almost a whisper, the words caressing the back of my neck.

"I'm awake," I said.

He shifted, pulling me into him, and then sighed.

"I am still in sleep," he mumbled.

"It's early."

"Mmmm ..."

His arm slowly moved from my chest, the palm briefly grazing my breasts, the hand sliding down my stomach, his fingers slipping lower to rest on my naked warmth.

He kissed the back of my neck as his hands pushed their way past my legs, opening me to him, his fingertips gently, oh so gently, rubbing me into wetness.

I sighed, closing my mind to the thoughts of my family as I opened myself to him.

He responded, pushing deep, one finger becoming two, his lips moving from my neck to my shoulder, his hardness pressing against me.

My head turned, my tongue seeking his.

We found each other, my legs now spread wide as I laid on my back.

He moaned as I reached out, my fist discovered him, my fingers wrapping around his width. I gently pulled him near, silently imploring him inside.

But he ignored me, his lips on mine, his fingers diving deep, retreating and rubbing gently only to dive deep once again.

I took my mouth from his, burying my nose in his hair as he dipped low to suck my neck. My fist still stroked him, he still rubbed and teased, my hips now pushing myself into him, willing his fingers deeper.

He took his lips from my neck.

"Marry me, my Grace," he whispered.

"Yes," I said, my breath against his lips.

His fingers withdrew, rubbing, teasing, torturing.

"Be my wife."

"Yes," I repeated.

His lips were on me again, his tongue pushing past my teeth as I lifted my hips, desperate for him inside me. My fist still stroked, my palm growing wet from his excitement.

"Be mine forever," he then said, his breath growing ragged as his excitement grew, the realization that we had this, this intimacy, this togetherness, this heat, for the rest of our lives.

"Oh yes," I said quickly, my lips reaching for his.

"Yes?"

"Yes," I repeated, my hips now with a mind of their own as his fingers plunged deep.

"My love?" he asked.

"Always."

"My heart."

"Forever."

"My Grace ... " he began.

My fist grew wet as he throbbed, his heat running down my arm and onto my leg as his excitement hit its peak, Mikalo burying his face in my throat, his gasps and groans and whimpers and sighs spilling onto my neck.

His fingers continued their delicious assault, my own blessed chaos drawing near.

"Mikalo ... " I whimpered.

He lifted his face, pressing himself close, his eyes watching mine.

"My love," he said.

I gasped as the first wave hit, my hips off the bed as his fingers cruelly stopped, holding me at bay.

"Yes," he whispered, the word hot against my lips as he moved closer, encouraging me, urging me on, relishing my orgasm as much as I was.

His fingers moved again.

The second wave arrived, stealing my breath.

The fingers retreated to rub and tease, gently, lovingly.

My hips returned to the bed.

"Yes," he said again, his lips kissing me before his head returned to the pillow, the smell of our sex lingering in my nose as I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep.

Deni loved diners.

We had met for breakfast, of course. My best friend looking as blonde and splendid as always, the small diamonds twinkling at her ears quietly hinting at her wealth.

But, still, here we sat in a diner not far from my hotel on an Upper East Side block filled with gorgeous places to eat.

"I just love 'em," she was saying before sipping her orange juice.

"They're democratic, diners," she continued. "No reservations or door men or, I don't know, VIP sections or anything. Anyone with a couple bucks and an appetite can walk in, slide into a booth, and be treated like a person.

"A diner is a lot like me, really: you can gussy me up in god knows what, but, at the end of the day, I'm pretty basic. Linoleum floors, Formica counters, and always a full pot of coffee on the back burner. That's me."