Chapter Nine
The air inside Fated Ink was thick with tension.
Hunter and Lennox stood toe-to-toe with Landon, their voices low but sharp, while Nolan and Isaac hovered between them, trying and failing to keep the peace.
The faint scent of ozone from Ursula’s wards lingered, a warning waiting to be triggered if anyone pushed too far.
“Enough,” Nolan said, hands outstretched. “This isn’t the station house. You three want to throw down, do it outside.”
Hunter’s jaw clenched. “He’s crossing a line, Nolan.”
Landon’s lip curled. “You’re the one acting like you own her.”
Brielle stood back, heart pounding, caught between them all.
The air buzzed with male aggression, but what drew her attention wasn’t the shouting—it was Ursula.
The older witch sat in her usual chair near the window, her tea long cold, her eyes distant and shadowed.
The faint shimmer of pain rippled through her aura, something old and deep.
Brielle stepped away from the argument and crossed the room. “Hey,” she said softly, crouching beside her. “You okay?”
Ursula smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “My dear, I’ve lived too long to be surprised by fate anymore. But sometimes I think she’s got a cruel sense of humor.”
“What do you mean?”
Ursula looked down at her trembling hands. “Perhaps the Fates were jesters, and I was their favorite trick. Maybe the Moon Goddess simply didn’t like me enough to grant me peace.”
Brielle’s chest tightened. “Don’t say that.”
Ursula met her gaze, the pain there sharp and raw. “I gave everything once—heart, power, soul. The Goddess gave me back survival, nothing more. When I look at these men, at all this ... posturing, and I wonder if she’s laughing again.”
Brielle wanted to argue, to remind her that Ursula’s strength had saved them all more than once, but the sound of raised voices pulled her attention back.
“Landon,” Hunter barked, “enough. You’ve said your piece.”
Landon turned toward her, eyes gleaming with a strange mix of anger and longing. “No, I haven’t.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “You don’t get it, Brielle. It can’t just be me. My brothers will feel it, too. There’s this pull—this ... heat that won’t stop until we find you.”
Brielle froze. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling them,” Landon said, fingers flying across the screen. “They’re outside waiting on me. They need to come in here. They need to meet you, scent you.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice low but firm. “You don’t understand what you’re playing with.”
He ignored her. “They’ve been restless since the shift. They didn’t know why, but I do now. It’s you. You’re the reason we can’t settle. You’re our mate.”
Lennox’s growl rolled through the air. “You’re out of your damn mind.”
“Am I?” Landon shot back, eyes flashing gold. “Because whatever bond you two think you’ve got with her, I can’t scent it. There’s no mark. No claim. Just instinct screaming that she belongs to me—and to them and it is getting stronger.”
Hunter’s control snapped. He moved forward, but Nolan and Isaac caught him, holding him back. “Hey! Easy! Not in the damn tattoo shop!” Isaac grunted, straining to keep him in check.
“Let me go,” Hunter growled, but Brielle’s voice cut through the chaos like a blade.
“Stop!” she shouted, her power surging out in a shimmer of heat that made the glass counters rattle. Everyone froze. Even the faint hum of the city outside seemed to quiet.
Brielle glared at Landon. “You need to breathe. You’re confusing instinct with obsession. Whatever this is, it’s not fate—it’s fear. You’ve changed, and your body’s looking for something to ground you. That’s not me.”
Landon’s breathing came fast, the gold still flickering in his eyes. “You can say that all you want. It doesn’t make it less real.”
Ursula rose then, her presence suddenly vast and ancient. “Boy,” she said softly, but the weight of her voice made the lights flicker, “you’re playing at forces older than you can imagine. Sit down before you break something you can’t mend.”
Landon hesitated, trembling with restraint. His phone buzzed in his hand, and Brielle saw the screen light up with two names—Braydon and Colt.
He raised it to his ear. “Come in,” he said hoarsely. “I found her.”
Brielle’s stomach dropped. “Landon—”
But it was too late. He ended the call and looked at her, eyes burning gold. “They’re coming. And when they get here, you’ll understand.”
Hunter and Lennox stepped closer, flanking her instinctively, while Nolan muttered a curse under his breath.
Brielle stood tall, her voice steady even as her pulse raced. “Then I guess we’ll see what the Goddess has to say about that.”
“Back off,” Hunter snapped. “You don’t get to walk in here and claim her.”
Landon’s jaw flexed. “I’m not claiming anything. I’m stating a truth. There’s a pull between us, I know it.”
Lennox’s frustration boiled over. “You’re delusional! Brielle is ours—bond or not, she’s ours. She belongs to us.”
Brielle froze, the word hitting her like a slap. “Excuse me?” Her voice was low, dangerous. “Yours? Belongs to you?”
Lennox’s eyes widened, realization dawning too late. “Bri—”
“How dare you?” she cut in, fury burning through her calm. “I am not your property. Not yours, not Hunter’s, and sure as hell not his.” She pointed at Landon, her power shimmered around her, her hair lifting in the faint static of magic. “You sound just like Caleb.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Hunter swore under his breath, Lennox’s shoulders slumped, and Landon looked stricken.
Then Landon stepped forward again, voice rough. “You can hate me for saying it, but I know what I felt the second I walked in here. No woman’s ever come close to you. It’s like gravity—I can’t fight it. And my brothers will feel it, too.”
Before anyone could stop him, the door burst open. Two men—tall, broad, familiar in the way siblings always are—stepped inside. Braydon and Colt. Their presence filled the space instantly, the air thick with dominance and curiosity. The moment they scented the room, everything changed.
They inhaled, and confusion crossed their faces, then as one they turned toward Ursula, eyes flaring gold.
Braydon murmured. “It’s ... her.”
All eyes swung to Ursula.
Landon dropped to his knees. “Fuck, Ursula, baby, I’m so sorry.”
Her spine straightened, fury lighting her expression. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Colt’s grin was slow, reverent. “The Goddess doesn’t make mistakes.”
Ursula glared at him. “Then she’s got a cruel sense of humor.” She turned to laser a glare at Landon. “You think I’d want a mate who thought someone else was his five minutes ago? Fuck off, all of you.”
Brielle’s magic pulsed again, sharp and wounded. She turned on Hunter and Lennox, her voice shaking with anger. “Get out. All of you. I am no one’s anything. If this is what mating looks like, I’d rather stay single forever.”
Hunter’s expression crumpled. “Brielle—”
“Out,” she snapped. The windows trembled, the sound of her fury rolling through the shop.
Hunter and Lennox exchanged a look, guilt etched in every line of their faces. They turned and left. Outside, the night swallowed them up.
The lions lingered for a heartbeat, Braydon’s hand reaching toward Ursula before she lifted one brow and sent a spark of magic zipping past his head. The three brothers walked out in silence.
****
When the door finally shut behind them, the street outside was filled with five shifters, all pacing the sidewalk in different directions—two bears, three lions—all furious, frustrated, and broken. The tension clung to them like static.
Hunter raked a hand through his hair. “We messed that up.”
Lennox nodded grimly. “Yeah. Big time.”
Braydon folded his arms, glaring at Landon. “You dick. You call us inside because you ‘found our mate,’ and it turns out you didn’t even have the right woman!”
Colt snorted. “Hell of a family reunion.”
Landon winced, his voice low. “I didn’t know, all right? I just—when I saw her, something in me reacted. I thought...” He trailed off, frustration edging into shame. “I thought it was her.”
Hunter crossed his arms, his bear still restless under his skin. “You nearly got us all killed in there.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Lennox muttered. “She compared us to Caleb, man. Caleb. That’s a new low.”
The mention of the name silenced them. Even the lions shifted uneasily.
Colt leaned against a lamppost, shaking his head. “So, what now? Because we’ve got one furious witch, one pissed off coven, and five idiots standing in the street.”
Hunter exhaled, steadying himself. “Now, we stop being idiots. We get our heads outta our asses.” He looked at Landon. “You said you and your brothers shifted at the same time just recently?”
Landon nodded. “Yeah. Out of nowhere. One minute we’re normal, next minute—fur, claws, chaos. Then some glowing woman shows up and tells my brothers to come to New York. Said our mate was here.”
“The Goddess,” Lennox murmured. “She’s been weaving threads between all of us from two hundred years ago.”
Colt jolted, “Two hundred years?”
Hunter sighed, putting his hands on his hips and rolling his shoulders. “Yep, since the very beginning. I feel like we are simply pieces on a chess board, and she is moving us around to where she needs us to be.”
Braydon gave a rough laugh. “Well, she’s got a twisted sense of humor, pairing us with witches who can set us on fire with a thought.”
Hunter shot him a look but smirked despite himself. “Yeah, well, they’re worth it.”
Landon’s voice softened. “Ursula. She’s ... she’s something else. I sense that now.”
Colt clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Then we fix this. Starting with you apologizing for dragging us into your mess.”
“Already planning on it,” Landon said quietly. “Didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”
Lennox sighed. “None of us did. But Brielle’s right—we treated her like she didn’t have a say. That’s on us.”