Wrathborn #3
“I sought you out to kill you. You were my enemy, nothing more.”
“No, I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t give a damn what you believe.”
“This is design, Eri. God’s, and he’s not playing around.
There’s a reason Orán found you, and that I was led here.
That we were gifted with power not of this world.
For whatever reason, you, woman, are somehow my destiny, and I didn’t have a hand in that.
He did. I don’t know why or how, and I don’t wish to fight it. In fact, it’s the opposite.”
His thumb presses against my pulse. Not crushing anymore but with feeling, as if learning me and how my heart races under his touch.
“Truly,” he adds, and this time there’s no mockery in it, “I didn’t mean to cause you further harm. If you could only see—”
“God,” I breathe coldly, “would not deliver me such a fate unless it is his way of making me pay for losing faith. So might I then view this as a curse instead of a blessing.”
“Believe what you want, little one,” he murmurs, something possessive flashing again. “Either way, you are meant to be mine.”
A slow smile curves my lips. “But why would God saddle me with you when your brother is much better suited? Or hasn’t he told you…that he’s already taken your place in my bed? Maybe he’s my mate.”
Pollock stills.
The grip around my neck tightens once again as a rumble begins in his chest and builds. The change is instant; his features morph into those of his wolf. He spins me around. I’m on the ground before I can blink, and his large body weight is pinning me down.
His hand remains, not crushing. Enough to assert dominance. To anchor me in place by my neck alone. The wolf stares back at me, eyes molten, teeth elongated, his breath hot against my face.
“Is that so?” The way he says it has gooseflesh breaking out across my skin. His neck turns eerily as he looks up at his brother.
Orán’s expression is wary, and he doesn’t move a muscle. His gaze is locked with Pollock’s, and for a moment, the air simmers with tension. Something unspoken passes between them. The three of us sit on a volatile edge until Pollock’s ice-blue eyes return to mine.
He leans closer, lowers his mouth to my ear. The curve of his lips kisses the skin there.
“You think,” he murmurs, voice velvet and dangerous, “Orán would take what rightfully belongs to me? That he could so easily dismiss what is obviously divine intervention?”
I swallow thickly as my gaze drifts up and over to Orán, searching his face for some fracture in this alliance, some help.
“You what… suspect that dividing us will save you?”
Trepidation begins to flood me when Orán shows no sign of stopping his brother.
“You think,” Pollock continues, “that we have not shared everything—blood, womb, kin, power, war... every bloody thing for centuries?”
His thumb presses deeper against my pulse, and he forces me to look at him.
His gaze slowly travels over my face. “You tempt me with jealousy,” he says softly. “But you misunderstand the nature of our bond. The nature of my beast. It does not see Orán as a threat. The bond between my brother and me is as unbreakable as whatever this is between us.”
Pollock’s head snaps up. “Isn’t that right, Brother?”
Orán stares down at us both for a suspended moment. He slowly leaves the wall and steps forward, then some unnamed emotion passes over his features as he nears.
“Who am I to fight the will of God?”
Pollock's expression shifts as well, not rage now, but mirth. He chuckles darkly. “Who indeed?”
A faint grin touches the corner of Orán’s mouth, not mocking, an acknowledgment that Pollock speaks the truth.
Pollock’s eyes fall back to my face. “What if I do not break at the thought of him touching you?” he says. “What if it intrigues me? What if I simply wish to be the one who decides how and when he is allowed to do so… and where?”
The words strike like a blade drawn slowly across skin. But also heat blooms where it should not, and that warmth spreads throughout my body.
“And what if…” Pollock continues, his gaze leisurely exploring down my naked curves. “You are not something to be fought over at all… but something far more significant?”
“And what might that be?” I ask, though my pulse betrays me. My body is fucking betraying me, my beast stirring to life in a way that does not bode well for me.
“Ours,” he answers. “The tie that binds us. The missing link that strengthens us. The female we’ve been waiting centuries for to fill the space between us.”
The tattoo at the back of my neck ignites.
It has been silent for days—dormant, nearly forgotten, yet at his proclamation, it stirs once again, tingling against my skin. A shiver rakes through me before I can stop it.
Pollock feels it.
His smirk further curves his mouth as if he has cataloged every reaction—every flicker of heat, every involuntary hitched breath.
And at that moment, pinned beneath him naked as the day I was born, red moonlight bleeding across the floor, I am no longer certain I can wield this situation to my advantage.