“Hell, yes,” Isaac said.“They’re good men.”
“You playing matchmaker, mate o’ mine?”Saffie asked as she stretched in the chair, the movement doing interesting things to his body.
“What can I say?”Isaac said as he carried Saffie her coffee, having handed Nolan his.“I’m a hopeless romantic.”He dropped a kiss on her mouth, and Nolan smiled at the dreamy sigh that move brought from their mate.
Brielle ducked her gaze, embarrassed.“Yeah, well, good men still shouldn’t have had to haul me off a boutique floor just because I was the victim of an assault.”
Hunter’s voice softened.“What we saw was a fighter.Definitely not a victim.”
Silence stretched for a beat.Nolan cleared his throat, unsettled by something he couldn’t quite name.It wasn’t just attraction.There was a weight in the room, a kind of dominance radiating from the Garrison brothers that hadn’t been obvious before.
When the Garrisons stepped even closer to Brielle, Nolan leaned into Isaac speaking sub-vocally so as not to be heard by the Garrisons.“You feel that?”
Isaac’s eyes narrowed.“Yeah.Dominance.Not human either.”
Nolan’s wolf bristled.“Let’s test it.”
They let their wolves surface, just enough to edge their eyes with glow, to push dominance into the room.Hunter and Lennox stiffened instantly, their easy smiles faltering.Agitation rippled off them, low and instinctive, though they also seemed confused.Hunter’s hands flexed, Lennox’s jaw clenched, but nothing more came.Then they blinked, shaking their heads as if to clear them.
Then, when a nurse came in and adjusted Brielle’s bandages too roughly, she let out a strangled cry.Hunter—still lingering at the doorway—snapped.His growl was low, feral, shocking in the sterile room.“Be fucking careful,” he bit out, his eyes flashing with sudden gold before dimming again.The nurse paled, mumbled an apology, and fled.
The two men followed her out, and the dominance level dropped.The room went silent.
Isaac exhaled slowly.“Well, hell.”
They gathered that night with Saffron and Ursula, voices low, tossing questions back and forth.Nolan laid it out first—the dominance he’d felt, the growl, the flash of gold.Isaac added that Hunter and Lennox had stiffened like wolves being challenged.
Ursula frowned.“Could they be half-breeds?Some other kind of mage?”
Isaac shook his head.“No, that reaction sounded primal.It felt like one of us.”
Nolan rubbed his jaw.“Then why don’t they know what they are?”
Saffron’s eyes sharpened as the pieces clicked.“Because the curse doesn’t just bind the willing.It locks some shifters in human form, keeps them from knowing what they are.Or who they belong to.Because we couldn’t end it completely with Marcus, there are some that are still stuck in the in between.”
Hunter and Lennox.Shifters who didn’t even know they were shifters, and potentially they had a mate who couldn’t recognize their bond.
Ursula went still, her hands curling into fists.Her voice was quiet, but the pain in it sliced Nolan open.“If my mates are out there ...they may not even know me.”
Saffron reached for her sister, but Ursula turned away, hiding her face.Nolan rose, crossed the room, and set a hand gently on her shoulder.“If they’re out there, Ursula, we’ll find them.And curse or not, nothing will keep them from you forever.And bond or not, they will recognize you as theirs, how could they not?”
She blinked fast, swallowing hard.“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Nolan said simply.“Because no fate is stronger than a mate bond, visible or not.Not forever.”
Ursula gave a watery laugh, shaking her head.“You sound like an optimist.”
“Don’t spread it around,” Nolan replied, and she huffed a small laugh despite herself.
Saffron watched them, her smile soft, eyes bright with pride.Nolan caught her gaze and shrugged.“What?I’ve got a soft side.”
Her smile widened, and his wolf preened under it.Even in the sterile halls of a hospital, with pain hanging heavy in the air, the coven felt a little stronger.A little more certain of the battles still to come.
****
Adrian Veynar had alwaysloved the taste of power.It was wine on his tongue, fire in his blood, and today he savored it as he stood before the half-circle of the Council’s remaining elders.Their chamber was an ancient space—stone walls carved with sigils, banners from fallen covens, and a table of black oak that had seen centuries of betrayal.The scent of burning sage and iron hung thick, disguising the rot at the heart of the Council.
He wore his finest suit, immaculate and dark, a statement that he was both a modern empire-builder and a creature older than any empire.The glow from the sconces cast long shadows across his face, sharpening the cruel smile he offered his rivals.
