“Took you fucking long enough to call me,” Keiran practically growled down the phone, his tone sharp as claws.“I have had no less than 8 members of the pride call and tell me that a mysterious woman has arrived at the house.Badly beaten, asking for me, and that she is someone that has taken your eye.”
Rune huffed, though his voice stayed grim.“She’s here.”
Silence.Then, “Who?”
“Our mate, the mysterious woman.”Rune glanced at her on the couch, pale, lips parted in exhaustion.His tiger paced savagely beneath his skin.“She made it as far as the driveway before she collapsed.Told us she needed to get a message to you, that death was coming and she was its creator then she went down.Kamon and I are watching her now, waiting on the healer.”
“Well, fuck,” Keiran muttered.“And here I thought tonight might be quiet.”
Rune’s mouth twisted despite the churn of fear in his gut.“This place?Quiet?Don’t make me laugh, Alpha Kitty.The day you’re quiet is the day Mason willingly lets Jacob win a fight.”
Keiran’s growl rolled down the line, half threat, half reluctant amusement.“Keep her safe, Rune.Both of you.Whatever’s coming, it just landed on our doorstep.”
Rune’s gaze dropped back to the fragile woman nestled against the cushions, her presence already etched into his soul.Death may be coming, he thought, but we’ll meet it claw for claw before we ever let it touch her.
Rune ended the call and stood in the center of the infirmary, his body taut, his tiger prowling beneath his skin.He and Kamon stood over Klarissa while the healer examined her.Every time she whimpered at his touch, both brothers growled low and lethal, their need to inflict bodily harm on whoever had done this to her nearly overwhelming.
The healer methodically revealed each bruise and laceration, and Rune’s fury built until it burned in his veins.When the man finally looked up, his expression grim, he spelled out his findings—three cracked ribs, extensive bruising across her back and hips, a battered right leg that had clearly taken repeated blows, a split lip, and a deep laceration along her thigh that had been poorly stitched, likely by her own hand.There was also a knife wound to her back, hastily patched with a pressure bandage but still bleeding and in need of proper stitches.He listed the older scars too, marks of repeated violence that had Rune’s tiger pacing savagely within.Each word tightened Rune’s fists until his claws threatened to burst free.Rune wanted to kill.
“I’ll end the bastard who hurt her,” he snarled.
“Get in line,” Kamon said darkly, his gaze locked on their mate.
Then Kamon sat at her side, one of her small hands engulfed in his much larger one.His brother’s expression was a mirror of Rune’s own—fury, fear, determination.
They’d both felt it, that instant recognition.Klarissa wasn’t just a woman who had staggered to their door with death on her lips.She was theirs.Theirs to protect, to fight for, to love.And God help anyone who thought to take her from them.
Rune crouched on the other side of her, brushing his thumb across the back of her other hand.“Rest,suuway,” he whispered again, the vow steadying something wild inside him.“We’ll keep you safe.Always.”
The Pride was gathering.Rune could hear footsteps in the hall, low murmurs as news spread.But in this moment, nothing mattered except the fragile heartbeat beneath his fingertips and the fire of the bond anchoring him to her.
They had found her.
Or maybe, Rune thought grimly, death had brought her to them.
Either way, fate had just changed everything.
****
Kamon stared at thewoman lying on the bed in front of him, willing her to wake up.His tiger paced within him, and he could tell by the fact his twin brother Rune was uncharacteristically still and quiet beside him, that they shared the same concern.
The woman, Klarissa, was their mate.
The one the fates had deemed them worthy of, and she was currently unconscious.From what the Black Ridge Pride’s healer had told them, she had taken one hell of a beating, and it wasn’t her first.The need for revenge, for vengeance and to take the blood of the bastards who had done this to her rode him hard.
“What do you think she meant when she said she created death?”
Kamon exhaled slowly, shaking his head.“I have no idea, brother.But whatever she meant, she believes it completely.”
Kamon knew that he would never forget the look on his mate’s face before she passed out in his arms.The pain and fear were clear to see, but it warred with determination and an emotion that if he had to give a name, he would call it resignation.Almost as if she had resigned herself to a fate and believed that she was worthy of nothing less.
“Do you think we should tell our parents that we have found our mate?”Rune turned his face in Kamon’s direction, but he could tell his eyes never left Klarissa’s slight form beneath the stark white blankets on the bed.
Kamon shook his head once again.“No, not yet.Besides the fact we have yet to tell her we are her mates and convince her that we are meant for her and her alone.And, we have to fulfill our vow to our father.I would like to be able to tell him we have done that at the same time.”
A vow made to a loved one, especially one born from blood spilled, came with a heavy dose of duty for men like him and Rune.There would be no happily ever after for them until they did what their father had asked of them, no matter how long it took.
“But,” Kamon said with a small smile, “that doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to pursue our mate in the meantime.”
