16. Chapter 16 #4
“If my sister lives through this, we’re going to have a much longer conversation about what being her mate means.”
“I know.”
“And if she dies—”
His voice did not rise. It did not need to. The threat inside it was old as blood.
“She will not,” I said.
It was the first promise I had made all morning that did not feel sentimental. It felt like law. Even if I had to burn Sage Lynch’s entire polished little kingdom to the roots, she would not die for his delusion.
Bronc was quiet for one final second. “See that she doesn’t.”
The line clicked dead.
I set the secure phone down more carefully than it deserved and discovered my hand was shaking only when I let go of it.
Father was already reaching for a second line.
He pressed a sequence I did not recognize, then spoke in Russian so clipped it might have cut metal.
Maksym. Taras. Home immediately. No elaboration.
None needed. When he ended that call, he made two more in rapid succession, setting wheels in motion across distances I did not have the luxury to track.
The study door opened before any servant could announce another arrival.
Lucia swept in like judgment, Doc on her heels.
Her black curls had been dragged into a severe braid, and fury lit her espresso eyes. She took one look at my face, then at the pages spread over the desk, and all softness vanished from her entirely.
“Tell me.”
Amelia answered before I could. She was already moving papers to make room, sliding one page toward Lucia and another toward Doc.
“Ritual severance,” she said. “Forced mate replacement. Black Harvest Moon in less than 24 hours.”
Doc’s expression hardened line by line as she briefed them in clipped terms. Lucia did not sit. Neither did I. There was too much predatory energy in the room now for anyone to pretend this was a discussion among civilized immortals.
“Just let me peel the fur from his body,” she said in an accent thickened by rage and old summers in Russia. Flat. Certain. “Easy. There is nothing left.”
Doc hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her firmly to his side before she could start selecting knives in earnest.
“She has such a delicate way with words.” He kissed her forehead.
Under different conditions, I might have laughed. Instead, I only inclined my head to them both, because I knew exactly what Lucia’s violence meant. Love. Family. The particular Kozlov blessing of being willing to commit atrocities on one another’s behalf.
The door opened again.
Bohdan paused on the threshold, impeccably dressed despite the hour. His amber gaze took in the assembled family: Devon by Father’s side, Amelia’s folio, Lucia poised for murder, Doc already bracing for impact, and finally me.
He sighed. “Don’t tell me. We’ve entered yet another war?”
“Not yet,” Father shook his head. “Give it five minutes.”
Bohdan crossed the room and, because he had inherited our family’s talent for choosing precisely the wrong moment to be honest, clapped one hand to my back.
“To think,” he said, voice full of that elegant cruelty he reserved for people he loved most, “you finally find a mate, and the one time you’re altruistic, you tell her to go on a wolf run with a madman. Not your finest hour.”
I turned before thought caught up.
He moved, to his credit. Doc moved faster.
The hybrid caught my arm before my fist connected with Bohdan’s jaw, his grip like iron around my forearm. I had forgotten, in my present condition, precisely how strong Lucia’s blood had made him.
“Could we perhaps keep the killing reserved for our enemies?” Doc drawled. His eyes cut to Bohdan with open irritation. “And Bohdan—keep your smart-ass comments in your mouth for once.”
Bohdan lifted both hands in surrender, though his expression retained that infuriating amusement. “A fair correction.”
“It was not correction,” Lucia said. “It was calling out your stupidity.”
“Also fair.”
I tore my arm free and planted both hands on the desk instead. Better wood than bone. Better splinters than family blood. Across from me, Bohdan’s expression sobered by degrees. He knew me well enough to understand when he had gone one cut too far.
Amelia, practical soul that she was, ignored the near assault entirely and kept organizing the materials on the desk with the efficiency of someone used to men ruining things with testosterone.
Father looked at her then, and his voice, when he spoke, carried that measured gravity he reserved for truths that ought to be honored.
“As always,” he said, “your intel is what keeps the Kozlovs in the game.”
A flush rose faintly under Amelia’s freckles, but she only gave a short nod and reached for the rolled map tube one of the staff must have brought in while my attention had been elsewhere.
She spread a detailed map of Ironwood’s territory across the desk over a cleared section of parchment, flattening the corners with crystal paperweights and one old silver letter opener.
Beside it, she placed a lunar calendar already marked in several inks.
We had hours. Less than 24 hours to wrench my mate from the grips of a madman.