Chapter Four
“...Do you believe in fate...”
Willow smiled at the whisper in her ear, so close she could feel his breath against her skin.
She inhaled the scent of the forest and snuggled back into the warmth of his body, turning to look over her shoulder just to revel in the bright blue beauty of his eyes before settling back against him once more.
“How could I not?” she murmured, placing the palm of her left hand on his thigh where it pressed against the back of her leg.
She giggled when she felt him bite her gently on the side of the neck, right where her shoulder swept up into her neck.
He suckled there for a moment, and Willow wriggled, mostly in pleasure but slightly in protest. “Don’t you dare leave a mark. My father will not be happy.”
Willow frowned. Where the heck had that thought come from? Her parents had been killed in a car accident when she was seventeen.
“...we are fated, the three of us...”
Her heart melted at his words, and she reached up in front of her to place her hand against the warm steel of his chest, loving the way his beautiful green eyes darkened at her touch.
Another presence stirred at the edge of her awareness—a second warmth, a second heartbeat pressing close from behind, steady and protective.
The sense of belonging deepened, both men folding around her like guardians of her soul.
She leaned up with the intention of pressing a kiss to his lips, but a rush of anticipation made her tremble.
Her heart beat faster within her chest as the certainty of two destinies twined with her own exploded within her, anticipation flooding her veins, her body yearning for a taste she had never known but somehow remembered. The—
Bang, bang, bang!
Willow gasped, jerking straight up into a sitting position.
“Come on, Willow, you need to get the hell out of bed!” Ursula yelled from the other side of the door. “We have a situation.”
Willow took a couple of deep breaths, still caught in the wisps of her dream.
Her body felt heavy, and heat pooled deep within her.
She looked around frantically. Had there been two of them?
That felt right to her—she had been in this bed with two men.
The thought should have been shocking, but instead, it felt right.
Shaking it off, she slid from the bed and walked into the bathroom.
She pulled off the t-shirt she had on and stood admiring the tattoo Ursula had given her.
It was amazing. Beautiful and so lifelike it felt as if the wolves would leap from her body at any moment.
As she traced the outline of the snarling muzzles, a faint throb pulsed beneath her skin and with it came a flicker of heat—like embers smoldering just below the surface.
It startled her, but she told herself it was nothing more than fresh ink.
Still, the pulse seemed to echo her heartbeat, as though the wolves themselves were alive and restless.
Willow was jolted from her admiration of the tattoo when Ursula screamed, “I mean it, Willow! Now!” and banged on the door once more for emphasis.
After making use of the bathroom and sliding back into her shirt, she padded out to the main room. Ursula was pacing in the living room.
“What’s happened?”
“That asshole has stepped up his fucking game,” Ursula growled, pointing at the TV screen behind her. Willow stepped around so she could see the footage. It was a breaking news piece about a fire that had engulfed an apartment building in town.
The images were disturbing—flames leaping from the top of the building, firemen struggling to tame them and people standing there watching the carnage unfold, some with pale, shocked faces.
What had Willow gasping and pressing her fist to her mouth was that she recognized the building and the people. She should—it was where she lived.
“M-Marcus did this?” Willow whispered.
Ursula stepped up beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I believe so. According to the reports, the fire sprung from all four corners of the building and spread with what was described as an unnatural speed.”
Willow’s breath came in erratic gasps. “Oh my god. Was anyone killed?”
Ursula remained silent and that was answer enough.
Willow dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.
Faces swam before her eyes—Mrs. Kellerman from the second floor who always brought Hugo scraps of chicken, the noisy kids upstairs who played basketball in the hall, the shy young man who held doors open for her when she carried boxes of oils.
All gone. Every neighbor she’d ever known, every laugh and kindness, incinerated in minutes.
They were dead because of her. For whatever reason, Marcus was fixated on her and the crazy homicidal fuck had killed because of it.
And every single person in that building had lost everything.
Her chest tightened as she thought of her tiny apartment, her shelves of oils and the photograph of her parents on the mantle—all reduced to ash.
“Hugo!” Willow sobbed. “That bastard killed my cat, too.” Willow fell forward onto her knees, taking Ursula with her.
She was so lost in her grief that it wasn’t until the pain was almost all-consuming that she realized there was any pain at all.
Crying out, she threw herself away from Ursula, unsure of where the pain had come from.
She ripped at the shirt that now felt too tight, too painful against her skin, until she was able to throw it from her body.
The tattoo glowed faintly in the dim light, the wolves’ eyes shimmering like living fire. The heat spread outward from them, filling her chest and belly with molten agony.
“It’s okay, it’s okay! Willow, let them out!”
Willow heard Ursula’s words, but nothing made sense.
Her skin was on fire, and it felt as if something alive was trying to break free from within her.
Her muscles spasmed, bones creaked under unbearable pressure, every nerve blazing as though lightning had struck her from the inside out.
She clawed at the floor, her nails scraping wood as her spine arched against her will.
“Help me, God, please help me!” Her voice was more of a rasp, her breathing erratic.
The heat and pain inside her rose to a crescendo—her ribs felt as if they were splitting apart, her blood burning in her veins.
With a scream that tore her throat raw, her body bowed violently and whatever it was inside her burst forth, filling the room with a bright white light.
****
“Are we free then?”
Liam heard his brother ask from beside him, but he had no idea how he was actually going to answer.
Were they free? Maybe. Where the hell had they been?
He had no fecking clue. One minute he and Jacob had been standing on the battlefield, facing the man who had dared to think to take their mate from them and the next they were somewhere else.
“Not sure, brother,” Liam said in a voice that sounded strange to his ears.
“Well, there’s something you just don’t see every day,” a female said in a shaky voice from behind him and he and Jacob spun around. “Two insanely hot naked men standing in a room they hadn’t been in moments before. Where the hell did you two come from?”
On the floor before them was a woman, leaning up on her elbows, clad in her undergarments, with straight black hair that fell to just below her shoulders, light grey eyes wide as if she were in shock and a body made for pleasuring her men in a thousand different ways.
Liam knew it was not exactly the right thing to take his fill of the scantily clad woman, but hell, when perfection was laid out before you, it was hard not to take a look. He knew his mate would understand. She—
In that moment, the mating bond within him flared to life. For a second time.
From the way his brother growled low in his chest, Liam figured he’d felt the same thing. Somehow, someway, this dark-haired beauty before them was their mate—but not
Convinced that this was some kind of warlock bullshit, he dropped low, calling his wolf closer to the surface in case he needed to shift completely. “Who the hell are you?”
“And why,” Jacob added from beside him, “do you feel like our mate?”
The woman frowned and moved to sit up. As Liam watched, she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead as if she weren’t feeling the best and he had to fight the urge to go to her.
“Sorry, it’s been a shocking couple of days to say the least.” The woman took a deep breath, and Liam had to force his eyes up so as not to follow the enticing movement of her breasts.
“My name is Willow Anderson. And as far as I know, we have never met before, so we are most definitely not friends.”
Liam stared at the woman as she rose to her feet. She was tall, but at least half a foot shorter than him.
“No, pretty,” Jacob said slowly, as if he too were desperately trying to work out what the hell was going on.
“We are definitely not friends, but you feel like you belong to us. But we are mated already, and this should not be happening. Unless—” Jacob inhaled sharply and his pained gaze fell upon Liam, just as he came to the same conclusion.
“Unless,” Liam said in a voice that rang with pain, loss and grief and everything a man would feel if he lost the woman he was meant to love and cherish for life, “we failed to protect her.”
Liam pressed his palm to the middle of his chest in a vain attempt to stop the pain that erupted within him. He heard Jacob cry out and drop to the ground and the dark-haired beauty before him whimpered as if she too felt the agony that coursed through him and his brother.