A massive wolf caught in a rusted trap. Silver-lined teeth biting into its front leg. Fur matted with blood, muscles trembling. Its eyes found mine. Storm gray with flecks of gold.
I dropped to my knees and worked the mechanism. The metal sliced my palms. Blood and rust. My hands shook, but I didn’t stop.
“I’ve got you. Just hold still.”
The trap sprang open. Lightning flooded the clearing, and I watched fur recede into skin. Bones cracked and reformed. Paws became fingers.
Where the wolf had been, a man knelt. Naked, bleeding.
“Lucian?”
“...Mira.”
He collapsed.
I dragged him back to my apartment. Solid muscle, dead weight, the trail dark and my hands bleeding. I cleaned his wounds and watched them heal on their own within the hour. Found the biggest shirt I had. Sat on the floor beside the couch and waited.
He woke after midnight. His gaze dropped to the bandages, then to my hands holding his, then to my face.
“You stayed.”
Lightning flashed outside. “Where else would I go?”
A knock and yelling followed. Percy’s voice cut through the rain. “Mira! We can sense him. We know he’s hurt. Please.”
I opened the door. Percy and Solomon, drenched, wild-eyed. Percy saw Lucian and the relief on his face was raw. Solomon crouched beside the couch, fingers finding Lucian’s pulse.
“An old poacher’s trap,” I said. “He shifted in front of me.”
Percy stared at me. “You saw. And you dragged him home.”
“Was I supposed to leave him in the mud?”
They told me everything. Lycans. Veyndral. Fated mates. All three of them. The words came between thunder cracks, Percy filling silence with warmth, Solomon with facts, Lucian adding fragments from the couch in a voice rough with pain.
I ended up in the corner of my kitchen. Knees to chest, back against the cabinet. Percy found me there. Didn’t ask why. Just sat on the floor beside me.
“Your heartbeat was a hundred and forty when I sat down,” he said. “It’s at a hundred and twelve now.”
“You can hear my heartbeat?”
“It’s my favorite sound in this room.”
He leaned toward me, slow, giving me every chance to pull away. I didn’t. His kiss was warm. Gentle. The kind that cracked you open on a kitchen floor during a storm.
Hours later, the candles were burning low. Solomon sat on the couch, still and steady, and I’d ended up beside him with my head against his shoulder. I poked his cheek. His hand caught mine, lifted my knuckles to his mouth, and pressed his lips against them. Soft, deliberate. A gesture from another century.
Near dawn, I found Lucian in the kitchen. Upright, healing, drinking water from my chipped mug.
“You should be dead,” I said.
“I’m difficult to kill.”
My hand found his chest. Palm flat over the bandage, his heartbeat hammering through the cotton. “Your pulse is elevated.”
“Is it?”
“Lucian.”
