Chapter 178 What is Her Name?

Chapter 178 What is Her Name?
(Kieran)
The three of us sit in a nest of blankets on the floor like oversized idiots. Scarlett sits on the bed with our mate tucked against her side. None of us dares breathe too loudly in case we ruin whatever fragile piece of safety she’s found. The tray of food still sits on the bedside table untouched, except for the piece of bread Scarlett managed to coax into the girl’s hands. She held it for a long time before taking the tiniest bite. Then she stopped and tucked herself tighter against Scarlett. Now she’s lying half curled in Scarlett’s lap, head pillowed against her thigh, one hand twisted in the blanket and the other hooked in the hem of Scarlett’s shirt. She has not looked at us for more than a second at a time, but she keeps checking Scarlett. Every few breaths, her eyes lift, green and wary and huge in that too-thin face, to make sure Scarlett is still there. Scarlett strokes her hair every time. It does something weird to my chest.
Felix shifts beside me, slow enough that the blankets barely rustle, and I feel his glance cut toward me before he throws a thought down the bond.
“This is insane.” He’s staring up at the bed like he’s afraid blinking will change what he’s seeing. Dirt still smudges one side of his jaw from the fight. His hair is a mess. There’s blood dried on his forearm that I’m pretty sure isn’t his, and in his eyes, under all of it, is the same stunned wonder I can feel in myself. Yeah. It is insane. And we are filthy. None of us dares to move, though.
Dorian sits on my other side, quieter than both of us put together. His elbows rest on his knees, hands loose, posture still. He hasn’t taken his eyes off the girl for more than a second since Scarlett got her onto the bed. I follow his gaze. Her hair falls pale gold now that the dirt has been washed out of it, soft at the ends where it curls slightly into Scarlett’s lap. The bruises stand out more on clean skin. Every time I notice a new mark, something in me hardens. I’m going to kill whoever did that to her.
Scarlett glances up, finally, catching the three of us staring.
“What?” she throws down the bond.
“Nothing. You’re just… good at this.”
Scarlett’s eyes soften in a way that makes me look away for a second. When I look back, she’s watching the girl again.
“She needs someone soft,” Scarlett sends quietly.
Dorian’s jaw shifts beside me. “She needs killing done on her behalf,” he answers. That, too.
(Felix)
I’ve never wanted to hug and murder at the same time before. At least not this much. It’s a weird feeling. My mate is on the bed comforting our other mate, who we found half-dead after tearing through a pack of wolves that absolutely should not have been in our woods. Now I’m sitting on the floor trying not to move because apparently my face is one of the things she finds terrifying right now. That one stings. I mean, fair enough. Blood, teeth, dark woods, me charging out of nowhere. I get it. But it still stings. The thing is, every time she curls harder into Scarlett, I get it a little more. Scarlett sits there with one leg folded under her, the other stretched out a little so the girl has somewhere to lean, and lets her come closer one inch at a time. She keeps talking softly, too, even when I’m pretty sure the girl has no clue what she’s saying.
It’s incredible to watch. Now and then, she rubs her face into Scarlett’s shirt or the pillow, inhaling like the scent itself is making her sleepy. I can’t stop looking at that. The way she likes Scarlett’s scent. She purrs because of it, and it makes my knees weak. I think it makes Scarlett melt, too, judging by the look on her face—a tiny little motor of contentment under all that fear. I drag a hand over my mouth and stare at the ceiling.
“What the hell are we going to do?” I ask through the bond.
No one answers me. Which means no one knows. That’s comforting. Kieran’s thinking too hard. I can feel it from here. Dorian’s somewhere darker in his mind, probably making a list of everyone he’d like to dismember. Scarlett is still the calmest out of all of us, which feels unfair because she’s the one who got woken up, dragged through the woods, and handed a second mate like it was a completely reasonable thing to happen in the middle of the night.
“What do you think her name is?” I ask because apparently that is the question my brain chooses now. Scarlett’s eyes lift from the bed to me, and something in her face breaks a little at the edges. Because yeah, that’s where we are. We don’t know her name. We don’t know where she came from. We don’t know what they called her, if they called her anything at all. Scarlett looks down at the girl and brushes her hair back from her face.
“We’ll ask when she’s ready,” Scarlett says. 
(Dorian)
Our second mate finally falls asleep, and one by one, my brothers and I leave the room very quietly to shower down the hall. It doesn’t take us long at all to get back here. No one wants to miss a second of this. Even now, with Scarlett beside her and the room quiet, she doesn’t fully let go. Her breathing stays too light. Her body too ready. Every sound catches in her shoulders before it passes. I hate it. I hate what it says about where she came from. I hate that the first thing my wolf knew when he found her was ‘mate’, and the second thing he knew was hurt. My gaze goes to Scarlett’s hand in her hair, then lower to the girl’s face, where it rests against her lap. She looks younger asleep, or maybe smaller is the word. Reduced somehow by what’s been done to her.
She shifts suddenly, a tiny movement, and all four of us tense. But she only turns her face further into Scarlett and makes that sound again, low and soft and almost questioning—such a beautiful purr. Scarlett smiles without looking up. I stare at the girl for another long second, then lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes briefly. Who kept her? How long? Why was her scent hidden? When I open my eyes again, Scarlett is watching me. She knows exactly where my head is. She always does. “We’ll figure it out,” she sends quietly through the bond. Maybe. Whatever this is, whatever the hell comes after tonight, we are already in it. Together. And for now, in the low moonlight of our room with our questions piling higher and our hearts tied up in two girls on one bed, that is the only certainty I need.