Chapter 11 Mira #2
Percy rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry. I, uh, slipped. Last night.”
Lucian closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. Solomon huffed, which was the closest he ever got to exasperation.
“Yes,” Lucian said. Eyes on mine. No evasion or deflection.
I looked between them. The question fell out before my brain could approve it.
“Can I see?”
A glance passed between the three of them. Some silent negotiation I wasn’t part of, conducted entirely in raised eyebrows and micro-shifts. Then, one by one, the color changed.
Three pairs of golden eyes. Glowing. In a dim room with the curtains drawn and no trick of light to explain it.
My hand shot up. “Okay. Okay, please stop before I hyperventilate.”
The gold receded. Their normal eyes returned, and they were all watching me with varying degrees of concern, which would have been sweet if I wasn’t busy having a mild existential crisis.
I bit my thumbnail. Then my index finger before I closed my eyes, pressing my fists against my eyelids, and counted to three.
Just say it. Rip the band-aid.
“So you really are not ordinary humans.”
Lucian held my gaze. “No.”
“Are you scared?” Solomon asked. Soft. Not leading, not prompting.
I gnawed my thumbnail. “No. Which I think is worse.” I searched their faces for the lie, the trap, the moment this crumbled. “Is this a prank? A scam? Or do I need to get checked into an asylum?”
“We’re telling you the truth,” Solomon said.
I grabbed a fistful of my own hair, dropped the toast on the plate, and the words came out faster than I could organize them because my brain was a highway pileup and my mouth was the only exit.
“I mean, it’s one thing to say you want to share a relationship. That’s unusual, but people out there are probably doing that. I can force myself to believe that.” My hands were flying between sentences now. “But this? This is not just unusual. You’re telling me that you’re not quite human?”
They stared at me. Solomon nodded.
Sure, they were otherworldly handsome and attractive since the moment I met them, but I didn’t expect it to be literal.
My brain rewound through every moment since the fire. Solomon materializing behind me without a sound. Percy’s body burning too warm against mine in bed. Lucian’s grip bending the porch railing. Wolves carved into every surface of this cabin.
The way they walked through fire as if it couldn’t touch them.
Shit. The signs have been there all along.
Every single piece clicked into place.
“Are you sure you’re not putting me under a hypnosis or a curse?”
“We’re not witches,” Percy said.
“Do I need to grab garlic?”
“Not vampires either.”
My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs and forced the next sentence through my teeth. “Please tell me you’re not werewolves, or I’m going to hit my head with a hammer for reading too many romance books in my shop.”
Silence. The kind that filled the room until the walls felt closer.
“We’re not werewolves,” Lucian said.
My lungs loosened a fraction. Just enough to let in one thin breath of...
“We’re lycans. It’s different.”
My jaw dropped.
Suddenly, my brain powered down. The little hourglass cursor spinning in the void while every neuron I owned went on strike simultaneously.
I laughed. “Okay, joke’s over, boys. Let’s be serious.”
I looked between them, waiting for the punchline. Percy’s face held no trace of humor. His jaw set in a hard line. No dimples or grin. Lucian clenched his teeth so tight a muscle jumped beneath the skin.
“It’s not a joke, Mira,” Solomon said.
The laughter died in my throat.
I breathed. Three counts in, three out. Let the word carve itself into my understanding.
Lycans.
“Okay.” I stood. My legs wobbled but they held. “That’s it. I need to process this.” My hand pressed against my forehead, fingers digging into my scalp. “I need space. Maybe I should go stay somewhere else for a while. I have to wrap my mind around...”
Lucian rose in one motion. “You can’t leave.”
I turned on him with a glare. “I don’t think I want you deciding for me.”
“You’re not safe.”
Before I could fire back, he reached into his back pocket, pulled out a photograph, and set it on the coffee table between us.
My photograph. Taken through the firehouse window while I held a casserole dish and laughed, completely oblivious. I picked it up with numb fingers and turned it over.
Two words in red ink that made my blood run cold.
“I’m watching.”
The photograph trembled in my fingers.
Solomon moved toward me. Close but not crowding. “Hudson is waiting for you. He still hasn’t given up.”
The cabin fell away. The lycans, the golden eyes, all of it dissolved. For one terrible second I stood in that inn room again, hearing his footsteps outside the door, hearing him call my name in the voice that promised pain.
I was reminded why my shop burned. Why I am standing in this cabin and why these three men existed in my life at all.
Percy stood. The towel dropped from his neck, and his face held none of the warmth from this morning. This was the version of him I’d seen at the inn.
“Mira.” His voice dropped low. “I know it’s hard to believe us. All of this. But you know that we’ll never hurt you.” A beat of quiet. “Follow what your heart tells you. To trust us.”
My grip tightened on the photograph until the edges crumpled. The fear and the disbelief and the overwhelming absurdity of my entire life pressed down on my shoulders.
“I don’t know what to do.” My voice cracked. “This is too much.”
“We understand.” Solomon’s warmth reached my arm from where he stood beside me. “But we want to keep you safe.”
I looked at the photograph one more time. My own face laughing, oblivious. The red promise on the back.
Then I looked at the three men in front of me.
Percy, with his battered heart on his sleeve and a loyalty that turned lethal when it mattered. Solomon, who guarded my door while I cried and brought my journal back. Lucian, who treated me as an equal and offered honesty.
My chest pulled. That tug.
The one I’d been fighting since the night of the fire. The one that reached for all three of them even when every survival instinct I owned screamed to run.
“All of this has a reason.” My voice came out rough, stripped raw.
“Let’s say I believe you.” I swallowed, and the sound was audible in the quiet room. “Why me? What do you want from me?” My heart hammered so hard I heard it in my ears. “Why do I feel this way toward all three of you? What are we to each other?”
Lucian answered after one long second.
“Mates.”
I blinked. “What?”
He held my gaze. “You’re our fated mate.”
My heart tripped over itself and forgot to restart. I looked at Percy. At Solomon. At Lucian.
“All three of you?”
“Yes.” They said in unison.
My lungs emptied. The photograph slipped from my fingers and landed face-up on the table, my smiling face staring at the ceiling.
Fated mates. Oh, great.
My life went from a psychotic ex-boyfriend to a psychotic fairy tale, and I had absolutely no idea which one was harder to survive.