Chapter 19 Nineteen
Kieran's POV
I raced through the mansion, tracking Orin’s trail by smell as if I was in a daze.
My brother. My twin. The only person I had let myself care for since Elara was killed.
If I lost him as well, if something happened to him, I didn’t know what I would be.
The trail began in the eastern wing, where a section of the ceiling had collapsed. The corridor was filled with rubble, stone and wood blocking the path.
"Orin!"
Other wolves appeared. Marcus and his warriors. Theron, blood that was not his own everywhere. Even Cassian, that reformed alpha.
We dug furiously for a while, hurling stone from us with the fury of despair.
"There," Marcus said, pointing.
I saw it. A hand, wedged under the debris. Orin's hand, and with the scar over its knuckles from a childhood mishap.
We were moving faster, more cautiously by now. Uncovering them bit by bit.
Orin was out, sprawled on the floor, his bigger body arched defensively over something. Someone.
Rhea.
She blinked, was resting pinned beneath Orin, caked with dirt and small cuts. But alive. Breathing.
When I looked into her eyes, I knew.
The pull Orin must have felt. The mate bond, coming alive like a spell I couldn’t break.
No. Not now. Not after building walls for twenty years, repressing every bond, every connection.
After Elara died, I’d vowed that I would never hurt like that again. Never to let anyone in close enough to hurt me.
But the bond didn’t give a crap about my vows. But it had flared to life despite us, insistent and intractable.
“Get him into the house with me,” I said, my voice sounding rougher than I had meant.
We picked up Orin together; he was so limp. Theron bent down, removed Rhea and quickly assessed the little racer for any injuries in record time.
I wished I was the one checking her. Wanted to be sure she wasn’t hurt.
The foreign feeling disturbed me.
"Is he alive?" Rhea said, glancing at Orin with an inscrutable face that I knew better.
“He’s breathing,” I said, dropping to my knees next to my brother. "Orin. Can you hear me?"
No response.
“We’re going to have to move them both,” Theron said. "The battle's still going."
In the mansion courtyard we pitched a healer's tent. It was the place most easily defended, with thick walls and armed guards.
The fight out there continued, but we’d fended off the shifters for now. They had come crashing in, with monstrous fury; yet the united forces of ours had somehow succeeded in holding them.
The witch Miriam looked Orin over with brisk, practiced motions. I glanced at her, looking for a trace of worry on her face.
"Broken ribs," she announced. "Internal bleeding, but not severe. Concussion. He'll only live, but he's going to hurt like bloody hell when he wakes up."
Relief crashed over me, sharp and painful. I had grown addicted to not feeling.
Rhea was at Orin's side, his eyes closed. She could not stop staring at him, and she reached out to touch his hand every now and then as if just to make sure he was real.
“He saved my life,” she murmured, not making eye contact with me. “He hardly knows me and he almost died for me.
I studied her. Applies the real eye to her for the first time.
At the wedding, she’d been frail. Trapped. Being sold off by her father, a pretty thing in a white dress.
Now, however, she was splattered with blood and dust, her hair snarled and clumps of silver flame still lingering delicately around her fingers. She looked powerful. Dangerous.
Beautiful.
The thought was unbidden, and I pushed it down.
"Orin goes with his gut, not his head," I replied evenly. “He doesn’t always do his due diligence.
"It wasn't instinct." Rhea finally looked at me. "It was the mate bond. He felt it and dared not to take several pictures.
She was right, of course. The tie enjoined protection, especially when danger threatened.
"And you?" I asked. "Do you feel it with him? With me?"
Rhea's jaw tightened. "Does it matter? I didn’t sign up for any of this.”
"None of us did.”
We lapsed into silence. I stood with arms folded as Rhea kept her bedside watch alongside my brother.
After what seemed like hours, Orin groaned. His eyes fluttered open.
"Did we win?" he croaked.
“The fight is still up,” I said to him. "But you're an idiot. You could have died."
Orin managed a weak smile. "You'd miss me."
I didn't deny it. Orin was the only person to whom I had permitted myself to lower my walls. My double, my teammate, my brother.
Everyone else was expendable.
“Except there was this girl now, I guess.” This silver flame eyed woman who was supposed to be my mate.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Orin said, reading me as he always had. "The mate bond with her."
My jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter how I feel.”
"Of course it matters." Orin struggled to sit up. I ended up helping him even though I wanted to push him back down for being an idiot. "She's our mate, Kieran. Both of ours. And Theron's. And that Cassian bastard's. This whole thing is insane."
"Then we go," I replied coldly. “We take our army, we get out of avenger delivery pack home. Let Theron figure out this whatever-this-is mess.”
"And abandon our mate?" Orin shook his head. "You know we can't do that. The bond won't let us."
He was right. I felt it already, that need to stay near Rhea. To protect her. To claim her.
It made me furious.
I hadn't replied before an alarm bell went off outside the room. Bright, urgent blasts that signified something had shifted.
Myself and Orin tensed up, ancient battle reflexes clicking in.
Marcus came pounding into the tent, gasping. "The shifter king has requested a parley. He's calling for a ceasefire."
Orin and I exchanged glances. The only feedback King Thanos did was when he had already emerged victorious or needed something in particular.
"Help me up," Orin said.
"You shouldn't be moving."
"I don't care. I am not about to stay here while something happens."
I lifted him to his feet and driven by an effort on my part, we ran towards the ramparts. Rhea came behind, Marcus and a few of the guards.
Theron was already there, pacing back and forth alongside Cassian. Both men appeared as if they had emerged from hell, caked in blood and ash.
Down below, the shifter army had retreated. In rows, silent and still.
A solitary individual stepped out from their ranks.
King Thanos.
I could sense his weight even at this remove. It was old, raw; nothing like werewolf energy. He radiated malice and calculation.
He was a tall man, with golden hair and flaming eyes. He had on armor that looked ceremonial but was likely battle prepared.
And he was smiling.
"I've come for what is mine," shouted Thanos, his voice easily reaching the crowd. "The hybrid girl. Rhea Morwen. Beatrix’s my sister’s child.”
The world seemed to stop.
I looked at Rhea. She was white, holding the stone wall for support.
"My mother," she whispered.
Thanos’s smile stretched wider, cruel and triumphant. "Alaric never explained it to you, did he, child? You're not just any hybrid. You're shifter royalty. Beatrice was my dear sister, killed by that werewolf she idiotically wed.”
Rhea swayed. Theron caught her, his face was dark as death.
“You lie,” said Rhea, her voice thin.
"Am I? Ask yourself, little niece. Why would Alaric want to kill your mother? Why has he held your magic back all these years? If he was afraid of what you are. What you represented." Thanos spread his arms wide. “You’re the link between our species. And you belong with your real family. With me."
“She’s with her mates,” Cassian spat.
Thanos laughed. "Four werewolf mates. How delightful. But werewolf bonds have nothing on blood. She’s shifter elite, and I’m here to take her back.”
I felt it then. Through the incomplete bond. Rhea’s fear, her confusion, her deep wish that this not be true.
And somewhere, way down under everything: My brother. From Theron. From Cassian.
I felt one collective feeling, coursing through us all four.
Over our dead bodies.
“You’ll have to take us all,” Theron said, his voice icy.
Orin cast himself upright beside me, despite his wounds. "He's right. You want her? You’re going to have to shoot us first.”
I nodded in agreement as my hand went to the hilt of my sword. "All four of us."
Cassian stepped closer, alpha dominance a hot thing in his veins. “And every wolf in this domain.
Thanos's smile never wavered. "So be it. I will give you until tomorrow morning to reconsider. Hand over the girl without a fight, or I will burn this land and everybody living on it." He spun around and started to walk back toward his army. "Choose wisely, little niece. Your own family, your true relation, the wolves what did nothing to you but use you.”
Then he was gone, melting away into his forces.
We all were silent, taking in what we had just seen.
Finally, Rhea spoke. Her voice was small, broken. "Is it true? Was my mother actually his sister?”
"I don't know," Theron admitted. "But we'll find out."
Rhea glanced around at us all ago. Me, Orin, Theron, Cassian. Four men who were supposed to be her mates. Four men who barely knew her.
"Why?" she asked simply. "Why would you fight for me? Die for me? You don't even know me."
I started to open my mouth to cough out a cold, rational reply. But Orin beat me to it.
“Because you belong to us,” my brother simply replied. "Mate bonds aren't logical. They just are."
Just for once, I couldn’t disagree with him.