Epilogue
The morning air was crisp and sharp, carrying the scent of dew and pine through the forest. Hunter stretched his arms above his head, his whole body vibrating with restless energy the run he and Lennox had just completed did absolutely nothing to assuage.
Something had been humming under his skin since dawn, a low thrumming that made his teeth ache and his blood race.
“Feel that?” Lennox asked beside him, his brother’s face pale and wide-eyed.
“Yeah,” Hunter muttered. “Feels like I’m about to ... explode.”
A beat later, they did.
The shift tore through him, ripping and glorious.
His body convulsed, skin shredding into fur, bones cracking and reforming until he landed on all fours with a grunt.
A massive paw dug into the loam, claws biting deep.
Hunter blinked, the world suddenly sharper, scents flooding in like a tidal wave.
His breath came out a rumble, a sound so deep it shook the trees.
Beside him, Lennox bellowed. Hunter turned his massive head and froze. Where his brother once stood, there was now a bear. A massive, shaggy-furred bear.
Hunter snorted—a sound that came out as a wheezing roar. Lennox blinked at him, then looked down at his own hulking frame and promptly rolled onto his back in the dirt, legs kicking as he made the strangest, booming chuffing noise.
“Holy shit,” Hunter thought. “We’re bears.”
Lennox rolled back up, his shoulders shaking with ursine laughter.
Hunter lumbered over and shoved him with one paw, sending him crashing into a tree.
The impact rattled branches, but Lennox only growled and charged him.
They collided, two titans of muscle and fur, until both finally collapsed in a heap, panting, the earth beneath them churned to mud.
They shifted back in a rush of heat and bone, lying naked and gasping in the dirt. Hunter stared at the sky, then at his equally stunned brother. “We’re fucking bears.”
Lennox wheezed a laugh, his chest heaving. “That explains a lot, actually.”
Hunter barked out a laugh and covered his face with his hands. “How the hell did we not know?”
“Physics? Genetics? Bad luck? A curse?” Lennox shrugged. “Pick one of the above.”
“Yeah, I’ll go with curse.” Hunter’s laughter died, replaced with a pang. “So why now? Why today?”
The air shimmered, turning silver. They sat up as a woman appeared between the trees—glowing, robed in white, her hair streaming like moonlight. Her eyes were calm and knowing as she looked between them.
“The curse is broken,” she said, her voice like bells and thunder. “Your forms were locked away until this day. But now you are free. Free to fight, to protect, to love.”
Hunter swallowed hard. “Love?”
Her smile deepened. “You have a mate.”
Lennox glanced at Hunter. “We? As in both of us?”
“Yes,” the Goddess said simply, her voice wrapping around them like silk. “One mate, shared between you.”
Hunter’s heart stuttered. He tried to sound casual, but his voice cracked. “Who?”
“You already know,” she replied, her body beginning to fade into the morning light.
Hunter looked at Lennox. They both said it at once. “Brielle.”
The name hung heavy in the air, undeniable, inevitable. Hunter’s gut clenched with both terror and fierce relief. He had always felt it—that pull toward her bruised smile, that impossible sense of recognition.
“She’s been hurt and, unfortunately, will be again” the Goddess said, her voice growing faint. “Her strength lies locked inside her. You must help her release it. You must protect her, convince her to take a chance on you both. Only then will she be whole.”
Hunter clenched his fists, his jaw set. “We’ll do it. We’ll protect her. No matter what it takes.”
Lennox nodded fiercely. “We don’t know how, but we’ll figure it out.”
The Goddess faded completely, leaving only the shimmer of moonlight in the clearing.
The brothers sat together in silence for a moment before Hunter huffed a disbelieving laugh. “Well, fuck. We’re bears. And Brielle’s ours.”
Lennox grinned crookedly. “Hope she’s ready. Because like it or not, we’re not going anywhere.”
They stood, bruised, filthy, and naked, but certain of one thing—they had a purpose now. And neither of them would fail her.
****
The floor of Landon Walker’s tiny studio apartment was covered in wreckage—splintered furniture, shredded curtains, and what was left of his mattress leaning against the wall in tatters.
He sat naked in the middle of it all, his chest heaving, blood trickling down his arm where he’d slammed into a lamp.
His heart was still racing, and he wasn’t too manly to admit it, he was scared out of his mind.
Because he was a fucking lion.
He glanced down at his claw-marked floorboards, then at the golden hairs still scattered across the rug, proof that what had just happened was real.
His skin was clammy, his muscles trembling with the aftershock of the shift.
The beast inside him paced restlessly, already impatient with the confinement of four thin walls.
His phone rang. The familiar ringtone made him groan out a half laugh—it was the one he and his brothers had set years ago, some bass-heavy rock riff that always meant family. He grabbed the phone off the floor and tapped the video button with shaking fingers.
The screen split in two. At the top, Colt appeared, sweaty and wide-eyed in what looked like his wrecked Chicago apartment. At the bottom, Braydon stared back, bare-chested in a California hotel room that looked like a tornado had passed through.
All three of them blinked at each other in stunned silence.
Landon broke it with a shaky grin. “So ... I guess the cat’s out of the bag, huh.”
Colt snorted, then groaned. “Bro, you’re naked on camera. Again.”
Braydon dragged a hand down his face, then angled his phone so they could all see the clawed-up remains of a hotel bedframe. “I don’t even want to think about the cleaning bill. How the hell do I explain this to the Marriott?”
Colt turned his phone toward the splintered remains of his dresser. “Try explaining this to my landlord. Rent-controlled my ass.”
They all laughed then—scared, shaky, but real. Because somehow, impossibly, all three of them had shifted. Lions. Brothers of the same pride, without ever knowing it.
Braydon sobered first, his voice tight. “What in the name of the Twilight series is going on?”
The air around Landon shimmered, the same way it had in the others’ rooms. A woman appeared—glowing, dressed in white, her hair spilling like liquid moonlight. Landon jerked, angling his phone toward her so his brothers could see. “Uh ... guys?”
Colt’s voice came through low and incredulous. “She’s here, too. I see her.”
Braydon swallowed hard. “Same.”
The woman’s voice was calm and ringing, filling all three rooms at once. “The curse has broken. Your true forms could not be hidden any longer. And now, you must all return to New York.”
Landon’s gut clenched. “Why New York?”
Her gaze pierced him, then seemed to look through the screen at his brothers as well. “Because your mate is there. The three of you were always meant to find her. I have waited two hundred years for this moment.”
Colt, ever the joker, whistled low. “She’s two hundred years old? Huh. A cougar waiting two hundred years for three lions. Doesn’t sound so bad.”
Landon rolled his eyes and shot back, “Shut it, Colt. She’s needed us all this time, and we weren’t there. That changes now.”
Braydon nodded slowly, his jaw set. “We’ll do whatever it takes. Whoever she is—we will not fail her.”
The Goddess inclined her head. “Good. Because time is circular. The fight to come is one that must be had at the beginning.”
The cryptic words hung in the air, but before they could ask, the glowing figure faded, leaving only silence—and the wreckage of three very different rooms.
Colt huffed, trying for levity. “So, step one, Landon, get a bigger apartment. Step two, Braydon, figure out how to cover that hotel bill. Step three, we all haul ass to New York.”
Landon laughed despite himself, running a hand through his sweaty hair. “Yeah. And step four—we find our mate.”
The three of them looked at each other across the fractured screens, hearts pounding with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Whatever was coming, they would face it together—as brothers, as lions, as mates to a woman who had waited far too long.
The End
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