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Calum mouth flattened to an unhappy line. “Breanne has refused every single male in the room. She’s not afraid. She simply has no interest.”
Zeb felt as if the Cosantir had stopped his heart. “Only bonded females act that way.”
“Indeed.”
Zeb met Shay’s gaze, seeing his concern. Even if she’d bonded to them, they couldn’t complete it. Couldn’t lifemate with her. “What will this do to her?”
“With sufficient distance, her tie to you will eventually fade. Otherwise…” Calum frowned. “I’m not sure.”
“By the God,” Shay said in a hoarse voice. “What have we done?”
“You’re not to blame for this,” Calum said. “Perhaps if I’d pulled her away from you when we learned she was a shifter, it might have been prevented. Then again, she might have died with her first trawsfur, having no one in whom she could trust.”
Shay’s voice was tight. “We should never have mated with her.”
“Maybe.” Thorson’s voice was as scarred as his arms and face. “But if you hadn’t, she’d be in here, deep in heat and panicking. She’d have no ties to anyone to keep her from going feral.”
Fuck. Zeb went rigid. Daonain with no loved ones to draw them back to human form could slide into madness, living only in their animal form, unable to return. Twisted inside, preying on their own community. Ferals had spawned most of the grisly legends that terrified the humans.
Thorson nodded. “You do the best you can. Only Herne knows all the trails in the forest.”
“What should we do?” Shay asked Calum. “We’d planned to ask her to stay with us, but I can’t lifemate her.”
“Seamus, she’s attached already. It’s not a true bond—not without the Mother’s blessing—but you can’t change it.”
Zeb bowed his head, anger and grief roiling inside him. He’d have stayed miles away from her if he’d known. Yet, as Thorson said, perhaps that would have been a worse choice. She was alive.
He and Shay wanted her with them. Even if they couldn’t lifemate her, she’d have all their love, their caring. Would it be enough?
* * *
The fire in the bedroom woodstove crackled happily, sending welcome warmth through the room. Bree snuggled closer in Zeb’s arms. Shay pressed against her back, his arm heavy over her hips. Her breasts were sore and tender, her pussy even more so, and that other spot, her anus ached. She felt her face heat. That had been amazing.
Gathers aren’t that bad after all.
After Shay and Zeb had brought her home, they’d made love to her again, this time so tenderly that she’d cried. How could she ever survive their leaving? She pushed the thought away. Live for today.
“Breanne,” Shay said. “Let’s talk a bit.” Lying on his side, Shay raised up on his elbow. On her right, Zeb slid back and mirrored his position.
Talk? That usually meant a nasty revelation or an odd shifter law. She rolled onto her back and looked at him. When no laughter lit his eyes, dread ran a cold hand up her spine. “Wait.”
She grabbed the pillow on Zeb’s side of the bed, stacked it on hers, and squirmed until she was propped up with her head even with theirs. “Okay, tell me.”
“I don’t know how to say this.” The lines beside Shay’s mouth tightened. “You know I’m oathbound. Did you realize I can’t lifemate?”
It hurt. Hurt when she thought about it; hurt worse when he said it. “Calum told me.” To keep him from abrading her heart further, she did it herself. “I realize you’ll leave when Herne calls you.” I don’t like your arrogant God. Have I mentioned that? She thought she was holding up well, until she saw Zeb’s gaze on her clenched fingers.
“I can’t see the trail we should follow, but Zeb and I decided you have a right to know everything. To decide for yourself.” Shay uncurled her fingers and wrapped his hand around hers. “We lo—” He stopped and started again. “We care for you. Both of us.”
The words made the blood dance in her veins like water down a rocky streambed. “Really?”
Zeb took her other hand. “Fuck, yes.”
A spurt of laughter caught her. “So poetic.”
“We want you to stay with us. Live with us,” Zeb said.
Stay with them. Her heart lifted, soared into the sky—yes yes yes—and then fell like a rock. “But…but you won’t stay here.” She swallowed hard. “You want me to go with you?” Leave Cold Creek? “And move every few months. You don’t have a home.”
She’d gone from foster home to foster home, school to school, never keeping friends, never knowing people with whom she had a history. To stay with the guys, she’d have to abandon her brand new friends and her budding business. Her throat tightened.
And if she did make friends elsewhere… “You go where the hellhounds are. Where shifters get killed.” Even if she found other friends, they might get slaughtered. Like Nora. Like Ashley.
“Aye.” Shay’s eyes were level. He knew what he was asking.
“You’d fight monsters.” Month after month, she’d be terrified, waiting to hear if they’d been killed. If they’d been torn apart like Ashley.
“Yes.” Zeb’s eyes filled with pain. “Little female, we want you”—his mouth tightened as if he were trying not to say more—“but it’s not a happy way of life, especially for a female.”
“And yet…” Shay kissed her fingers. “You care for us.”
“I do,” she whispered. Her heart felt swollen with pain. “But I don’t know if I can do this.” Ash had called her a homebody. Each move—during childhood and after—had ripped away pieces of her soul and left them behind. Could she survive that again?
Don’t ask this of me.
But how could she let them leave when she might be with them? Tears pooled in her eyes as she scrambled off the foot of the bed. Her chest felt as if a giant oak had fallen on her, crushing her ribs, bruising her heart.
“I don’t—” Her voice cracked, and she fled the room like the coward she was.
Chapter Thirty
Zeb leaned back against a tree, watching silvery undines swirl in the shallows. The mountain lake was turning an ominous gray as dark clouds filled the sky. A freshening wind whipped the tiny waves into white tips.
In wolf form, Shay lay on his belly, staring at the water. His thoughts looked to be as ugly as Zeb’s.
Neither of them had wanted to talk about the wretched end to the night. He swallowed. Why the fuck had he let himself hope?
And what had they been thinking? Fuck, she’d just lost her best friend to a hellhound, and they wanted her to undoubtedly see them suffer the same fate. He and Shay were the stupidest shifters ever birthed.
This morning, after Bree had retreated to the kitchen, cooking as if the world was about to end, Zeb had dragged Shay up to the lake. Somehow, they had to fix this for the little female. A few minutes ago, he’d come up with an idea.
He nudged the wolf lightly with his foot.
Shay snapped at him.
“Trawsfur, brawd. Time to talk.”
The wolf’s lip curled up as the wind ruffled his fur, but he shifted to human. Sitting up, he shivered and glanced up at the clouds. “We’re going to get wet.”
“Life’s tough. We need to talk about Bree.”
“I know.” Shay’s face tightened. “By the God, there’s nothing I want more than for her to be with us. But we shouldn’t have asked.”
Zeb nodded. He’d never seen her more miserable.
“You haven’t taken a vow, a bhràthair. You could stay—brothers don’t always live together. You deserve someone to love as much as she does.”
The blow was brutal. Shay didn’t want to remain brothers? Then Zeb saw the desolation in his eyes—stupid, self-sacrificing mongrel. “There’s so fucking much wrong with your idea that I don’t know where to start.”
“Like what?”
Zeb held up a finger. “She loves us both, not just me.” Second finger. “We’re brothers. Only death breaks that
bond.” Third finger. He hadn’t planned to mention this, hoping Shay wouldn’t notice. “I can’t lifemate her any more than you can.”
“Number three—I’m missing something.”
“Apparently.” Zeb fingered the cahir scar on his right cheekbone and the new one below. Since his dark tan rendered the mark almost invisible, he turned his head and let the thin sunlight illuminate it.
“What the…!” Shay grabbed his chin and ran his fingers over the faintly blue antlers of the oathbound.
“No matter who makes the oath, brothers share,” Zeb said. The appalled guilt in Shay’s face was exactly why he hadn’t mentioned the scar before.
“Zeb.” Shay dropped onto the grass. “By the God, Zeb, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“I didn’t foresee it, but I wouldn’t have stepped away if I’d known.”
Shay was silent for a minute. “I’ve screwed up everybody. I’d ask to be released from the oath if I thought it would do any good.”
“Never heard of Herne releasing anyone.”
“Me either.”
“I’m feeling a pull. Like something trying to drag me somewhere.” Zeb gave Shay a steady look. “Is that the call?”
“Aye. Me, too.” He studied his hands. “It’ll get stronger.”
Sorrow was a lead weight in Zeb’s gut as he cleared his throat. “I’ve heard the Mother can erase a bond if she hasn’t blessed the lifemating yet.”
It took Shay a minute. “You want us to ask the Mother to remove the bond Breanne formed for us.”
“Fuck no, but I can’t think of anything else to do. Bree can’t survive going from town to town, waiting for us to die. That’s not right, brawd. She deserves better. Lifemating. Children.”
“By the God, it hurts to think of her with someone else.”
“Yeah.” More than pain. Zeb felt as if his soul was slowly being torn into pieces.
* * *
A formal calling upon the Gods, requesting attention and action, wasn’t something a Daonain did lightly. The Cosantir had an open line to Herne; everyone else had to work to be heard. The Elders said the soul’s desire must be great enough to overcome the needs of the body: hunger, thirst, exhaustion. The trappings of civilization had to be worn away.
And so they ran.
Hour upon hour. No food, no water, no shelter. Open to the elements. Slowly as Shay’s weariness grew, his mind quieted. The spirits guided his paws. His fur was matted by the pouring rain, his ears deafened by the thunder rumbling through the passes.
Zeb kept pace, a dark shadow on his right.
Just before dawn, the clouds started to part, showing the full-bodied moon. He halted on a rain-dark ridge of rock, an island in the glaciers creeping down from the peaks. Moonlight glimmered over the white expanse. Forest covered the valley below, and the scents of pine and cedar, wet granite, and distant deer drifted upward. Zeb’s shoulder pressed against his in a small patch of warmth.
Through his paws, he felt the sweet touch of Mother Earth and a low hum like the thunder that had passed, marking the presence of Herne.
He formed his desire slowly. The thought of losing Breanne and Zeb made cuts in his heart and soul, but he steadily held his wishes up to the God and the Mother both.
Not Zeb’s wish—that the little wolf be set free to seek love elsewhere. She wouldn’t be happy. She’d be alone, and he couldn’t stand thinking of her alone. Or of seeing the grief in Zeb’s eyes when they left her. Of forcing Zeb into a life he hadn’t asked for.
No, Shay had made the vow. He should be the only one to have to walk the trail to the end.
Please. Remove the brother bond—and the oathbound one—from Zeb. Let him be free to lifemate Breanne. Let her love him alone so neither will grieve when I follow the path of the God that is mine alone.
Zeb’s wishes would contradict Shay’s. Neither request might be granted.
Herne’s presence increased, overwhelming the Mother’s soft touch, and the sense of her faded away completely. The thunder rolled through Shay’s heart, then disappeared. He’d been refused.
Despair filled him, and his mournful howl echoed back from the cliffs.
With a low whine, Zeb nudged his shoulder.
No point in remaining. Shay led the way back down the mountain. Each mile seemed longer than the last, and they had hours yet to go.
Dawn broke over the white peaks. Exhausted to his bones, Shay stumbled to a halt by a gurgling creek. The icy water soothed his raw throat.
Finished drinking, Zeb shifted and rose to his feet. “Sorry, brawd. Guess asking the Mother for help was a fucked-up notion.”
The pain in his voice pulled Shay from his dark thoughts. He looked up. The light of the morning sun shone on Zeb’s strained face.
Shay backed away and shook, as if the action could get his mind—or his eyes—to work. A trick of the light? He trawsfurred. “Zeb.”
“What?”
It had worked. The Gods had answered his request. Zeb was free. Misery squeezed his heart, and his throat tightened until his voice came out hoarse. “Your mark—the antlers are gone.”
Expression blank with shock, Zeb touched his own cheek. “Herne’s mark?”
Shay could feel the hollow place where their bond had been.
“Why the fuck…?” Zeb’s face darkened. “You asked for that. That our brother bond be dissolved. That you be left alone.”
“Aye. Breanne needs you,” Shay whispered. “I’m sorry, a bra—
“Fuck you.”
The fist cracked into his face, knocking him on his ass. He wiggled his jaw—the throbbing pain couldn’t compete with the one inside. “Dammit, I—”
“Fucking shut up.”
Shay braced himself for another punch.
As Zeb glared down, the fury in his black eyes drained away. And then he laughed. “Feel your cheek, brawd.”
Shay touched his face with chilled fingers. He traced the slightly raised cahir scar and beneath it…nothing. “Herne’s mark is gone.”
The bond that he’d lost wasn’t the brother one—that tie remained, a golden rope between him and Zeb. Instead, there was a lightness where the weight of the God of the Hunt had rested within him. Shay studied his oversized hands. “He left me a cahir.”
Zeb’s grin was a white flash in his dark face. “Guess he’ll let us fight for him. But we can form another bond. A lifemate.”
“I—” Shay’s throat closed. The future spread out in front of him, almost appallingly open, as if he’d veered from a narrow mountain valley onto a plain. He could see from horizon to horizon; his feet could take him anywhere he wanted.
“Well, now we know why the Mother refused. They had other ideas. Wonder if they fought about it.” Zeb’s eyes glinted with amusement.
Shay sank to his knees, despite the freezing ground. “I need a minute.” How many years had his vow dictated his life? How could he get his mind around this?
Zeb squeezed his shoulder. “Shift back, brawd, before you freeze. While you think, I’ll hunt us some breakfast.” He shifted and sniffed the air, before loping into the forest.
Shay stared after him. Eventually, growing aware of the chill under his bare knees, he trawsfurred to wolf. As the clouds drifted across the pale blue sky, he watched the increasing glow of the sun in the east.
Chapter Thirty-one
Since they’d found no prey on the last run, Gerhard had called for an extra pack hunt. Unabl to think of a good excuse, Bree had gone this time. For a while, she’d run beside Jody and Bonnie, then joined Angie. Although Thyra had bit her once for being “too clumsy”, she hadn’t had a bad evening, aside from missing Zeb and Shay like someone had removed a body part…maybe her heart.
Bree slowed, letting the wolves run past her.
Yesterday morning, she’d been relieved they’d left her alone to think and stew. And cry. Yeah, she’d done quite a bit of that. She’d written out reasons why she should or shouldn’t join them. The answer had been an
overwhelming no. All her life, she’d looked for a home, and here in Cold Creek, she’d found her place.
Like a flowing stream, the pack ran across a meadow, and moonlight dappled their fur as if glinting off water. But there was no huge silver-gray wolf with a dark deadly brother beside him. As despair stabbed into Bree, her legs tangled, and suddenly she was on hands and knees in human form. Tears pooled in her eyes as she pushed to her feet, shivering in the cold wind.
Zeb and Shay hadn’t returned last night. Hadn’t returned today. What if they’d been hurt in that terrible storm last night? Caught in a flood? Guilt was a knife slash to her belly as she remembered how miserable they’d looked yesterday morning. As if they already knew her answer. She’d made them so unhappy.
Like I’m a happy camper? She stared up at the moon, and the glow seemed to illuminate her heart. Honestly, even if she gave up Cold Creek and her friends, could she be unhappier than she was now? All the self-preservation in the world didn’t help when everything inside her wanted to be with her men.
But they’d probably die—horribly. Her throat tightened. Every month, she’d risk them, knowing she’d end up mourning them, as she mourned Ashley now.
But… The wind whipped through her hair as she gave a rueful laugh. Would I really want to give up a moment of the time I had with Ash? Even if she’d known how Ash would die, would she have backed away?
No. Everyone died. Her men might suffer an ugly death sooner than others, but they were doing something important. Saving lives.
But this is my home. Here. But was it? If Angie and Vicki and Calum and her other friends weren’t here, would Cold Creek feel like home? No. When Shay and Zeb left, would she really have a home here? Was this what Ashley had tried to make her see? Home isn’t a place; it’s people.
And she darn well knew who her people were. She scrubbed her hands over her face, wiping away her tears. Guess she’d be dragging her suitcase back out of her closet. And she’d need to tell Calum to hold off on arranging for people to pack up her apartment. No need to move everything twice.