In his silence, Lance questioned everything. Why hadn't the Moon Goddess given him even a sliver of a chance? Why bless Addison with not one, but three fated mates and none of them was him? Bitterness twisted in his chest, mixing with pain and the hollow ache of rejection. For years, he had offered the same prayer: for Addison to be his. But his prayers had gone unanswered.
What he didn't know, what he refused to accept in that moment, was that fate had long since written its story. Before Addison or any of her mates had taken their first breath, their souls were already bound by invisible threads. That was the essence of being fated mates; it can't be decided by choice, not prayer, but destiny.
