“Come on, Willow, you need to get the hell out of bed!”Ursula yelled from the other side of the door.“We have a situation.”
Willow took a couple of deep breaths, still caught in the wisps of her dream.Her body felt heavy, and heat pooled deep within her.She looked around frantically.Had there been two of them?That felt right to her—she had been in this bed with two men.The thought should have been shocking, but instead, it felt right.
Shaking it off, she slid from the bed and walked into the bathroom.She pulled off the t-shirt she had on and stood admiring the tattoo Ursula had given her.It was amazing.Beautiful and so lifelike it felt as if the wolves would leap from her body at any moment.As she traced the outline of the snarling muzzles, a faint throb pulsed beneath her skin and with it came a flicker of heat—like embers smoldering just below the surface.It startled her, but she told herself it was nothing more than fresh ink.Still, the pulse seemed to echo her heartbeat, as though the wolves themselves were alive and restless.
Willow was jolted from her admiration of the tattoo when Ursula screamed, “I mean it, Willow!Now!”and banged on the door once more for emphasis.
After making use of the bathroom and sliding back into her shirt, she padded out to the main room.Ursula was pacing in the living room.
“What’s happened?”
“That asshole has stepped up his fucking game,” Ursula growled, pointing at the TV screen behind her.Willow stepped around so she could see the footage.It was a breaking news piece about a fire that had engulfed an apartment building in town.
The images were disturbing—flames leaping from the top of the building, firemen struggling to tame them and people standing there watching the carnage unfold, some with pale, shocked faces.What had Willow gasping and pressing her fist to her mouth was that she recognized the building and the people.She should—it was where she lived.
“M-Marcus did this?”Willow whispered.
Ursula stepped up beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.“I believe so.According to the reports, the fire sprung from all four corners of the building and spread with what was described as an unnatural speed.”
Willow’s breath came in erratic gasps.“Oh my god.Was anyone killed?”
Ursula remained silent and that was answer enough.Willow dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.Faces swam before her eyes—Mrs.Kellerman from the second floor who always brought Hugo scraps of chicken, the noisy kids upstairs who played basketball in the hall, the shy young man who held doors open for her when she carried boxes of oils.All gone.Every neighbor she’d ever known, every laugh and kindness, incinerated in minutes.
They were dead because of her.For whatever reason, Marcus was fixated on her and the crazy homicidal fuck had killed because of it.And every single person in that building had lost everything.Her chest tightened as she thought of her tiny apartment, her shelves of oils and the photograph of her parents on the mantle—all reduced to ash.
“Hugo!”Willow sobbed.“That bastard killed my cat, too.”Willow fell forward onto her knees, taking Ursula with her.
She was so lost in her grief that it wasn’t until the pain was almost all-consuming that she realized there was any pain at all.Crying out, she threw herself away from Ursula, unsure of where the pain had come from.She ripped at the shirt that now felt too tight, too painful against her skin, until she was able to throw it from her body.
The tattoo glowed faintly in the dim light, the wolves’ eyes shimmering like living fire.The heat spread outward from them, filling her chest and belly with molten agony.
“It’s okay, it’s okay!Willow, let them out!”
Willow heard Ursula’s words, but nothing made sense.Her skin was on fire, and it felt as if something alive was trying to break free from within her.Her muscles spasmed, bones creaked under unbearable pressure, every nerve blazing as though lightning had struck her from the inside out.She clawed at the floor, her nails scraping wood as her spine arched against her will.
“Help me, God, please help me!”Her voice was more of a rasp, her breathing erratic.The heat and pain inside her rose to a crescendo—her ribs felt as if they were splitting apart, her blood burning in her veins.With a scream that tore her throat raw, her body bowed violently and whatever it was inside her burst forth, filling the room with a bright white light.
****
“Are we free then?”
Liam heard his brother ask from beside him, but he had no idea how he was actually going to answer.Were they free?Maybe.Where the hell had they been?He had no fecking clue.One minute he and Jacob had been standing on the battlefield, facing the man who had dared to think to take their mate from them and the next they were somewhere else.
“Not sure, brother,” Liam said in a voice that sounded strange to his ears.
“Well, there’s something you just don’t see every day,” a female said in a shaky voice from behind him and he and Jacob spun around.“Two insanely hot naked men standing in a room they hadn’t been in moments before.Where the hell did you two come from?”
On the floor before them was a woman, leaning up on her elbows, clad in her undergarments, with straight black hair that fell to just below her shoulders, light grey eyes wide as if she were in shock and a body made for pleasuring her men in a thousand different ways.Liam knew it was not exactly the right thing to take his fill of the scantily clad woman, but hell, when perfection was laid out before you, it was hard not to take a look.He knew his mate would understand.She—
In that moment, the mating bond within him flared to life.For a second time.
From the way his brother growled low in his chest, Liam figured he’d felt the same thing.Somehow, someway, this dark-haired beauty before them was their mate—but not
Convinced that this was some kind of warlock bullshit, he dropped low, calling his wolf closer to the surface in case he needed to shift completely.“Who the hell are you?”
“And why,” Jacob added from beside him, “do you feel like our mate?”
The woman frowned and moved to sit up.As Liam watched, she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead as if she weren’t feeling the best and he had to fight the urge to go to her.
