"Bad night?" a voice asked from the shadows. He did not startle.
Kade had known he was there before he spoke. His scent was as familiar as his own. "Aren't they all?" he replied.
Knox stepped forward, the moonlight catching the angles of his face. His eyes reflected the same haunted exhaustion that plagued Kade. In his hand was a golden flask, which he offered without a word.
Kade took it, and their fingers brushed in a momentary connection that sent echoes of Knox's own nightmares through their link. The whiskey burned a path down Kade's throat, washing away the taste of fear.
"Three days of border disputes," Knox said, taking back the flask. "And all I could think about was her."
There was no need to ask who he meant. "The bond?"
"Like a fûcking leash around my throat." He took a long pull from the flask. "Every minute away from the castle, I could feel it pulling me back. To her."
"I know," replied Kade. And he did. He had felt it too, that insistent tug, that unwanted awareness of her existence. Even now, he could sense her somewhere below them, in the bowels of the castle where purgatory was. His wolf whined, wanting to go to her, and he forced it down with a snarl.
A shadow detached itself from the far corner of the terrace, moving with silent grace to join them. Kalem, the third piece of their trinity, completed the circle.
"You two are loud enough to wake the dead," he said softly. Unlike Knox and Kade, he appeared almost composed, but the tension in the set of his shoulders and the tightness around his eyes betrayed him.
Knox snorted, offering him the flask. "The dead have it easy."
Kalem accepted the whiskey but did not drink immediately. Instead, he studied the golden container as if it held answers. "Three days," he murmured. "And nothing has changed."
"Everything has changed," Kade corrected him. "The other Alphas are circling like vultures. They want blood. They want her blood."
"Let them have it," Knox snarled, slamming his fist against the balustrade. The stone cracked under the impact, and a spiderweb of fractures spread from where his knuckles connected. "Fûck the goddess and her mate bond. That girl is Elias Thorne's sister. Her blood is tainted with betrayal."
"Perhaps," Kalem said, in that infuriatingly calm way of his. "Or perhaps there is more to this than we understand."
"What is to understand?" Knox demanded. "The goddess made a mistake."
"The goddess does not make mistakes," Kalem replied. "That is what we have always been taught."
Kade ran a hand through his hair, frustration building in his chest. "Then what would you suggest, brother? That we accept her? Take the sister of the wolf who handed us to Kronos as our mate?"
Kalem finally took a sip of whiskey and his expression became thoughtful. "I suggest we examine all options before acting. This bond is unprecedented. A triple mate bond has never been recorded in our history."
"There is a reason for that," Knox muttered. "It is an abomination."
"Or it is a sign," Kalem countered. "One we are too angry to interpret correctly."
"I do not care what sign it is," Kade said flatly. "That girl spent the last five years cleaning our floors while her brother lives free somewhere, probably laughing at us all. She is not worthy to be the mate of one Alpha, let alone three."
The three of them stood in silence for a moment, united in their sleeplessness and shared trauma. The whiskey passed between them again, burning less with each swallow. The night wrapped around them, cold and indifferent to their struggles.
"I saw her again," Kade finally said, his voice barely audible over the night wind. "Tana. In my dreams." He stared into the darkness beyond the balcony, seeing not the moonlit grounds but the face of a little girl with his eyes.
Knox stilled with the flask halfway to his lips. Even Kalem's careful composure faltered for a moment.
"I should have protected her," Kade continued, his voice thick with regret. "She looked at me with those eyes, goddess, they were so like mine, and she believed I could save her. That little girl placed so much faith in me." His knuckles whitened as he gripped the balustrade as the memory of Tana's small face twisted like a knife in his chest. "I watched them drain her. They made me watch as they fed from her, night after night, until there was nothing left but skin and bones."
A muscle twitched in Knox's jaw as he stared into the darkness. "We were all helpless, Kade. Silver-chained and bled dry. What could any of us have done?"
"Nothing," Kalem said softly, his eyes distant as he recalled his own memories of that dark time. "They made sure of that. They wanted us to watch and feel our failure with every scream."
"They really made sure of that," Knox said, his voice rougher than usual. "Kronos knew exactly how to break wolves."
The three brothers stood together, each carrying his own ghosts from those three years in captivity, but Tana's specter haunted them all. She had been the youngest Blackwood, barely a pup when the vampires came. The war had left none of them whole. They had returned with missing pieces—not just flesh and blood, but something deeper, something that might never heal.
"This is why we cannot accept the Thorne girl," Knox growled, his voice hardening as he circled back to their current dilemma. He pushed away from the balustrade to pace the length of the terrace. "Her brother is the reason Tana died, the reason half the packs were slaughtered, and the reason we all suffer from these demons. We owe her nothing but pain."
Kalem watched his brother's agitated movements with calm eyes. "If we are not certain Elias is dead, would not keeping his sister alive serve our purposes?"
Kade turned to face him, brow furrowed. "What are you suggesting?"
"If we keep her alive and visible, he might return for her. The bond between siblings can be... compelling."
Knox stopped pacing and shot Kalem a look. "You mean use her as bait to lure the traitor back?"
"It has been five years," Kade said and leaned on the balustrade. "Elias would have come for her if he escaped our men and is still alive. I know he loves his sister very well. He would have come."
"Or he would not give a damn," countered Knox. "We all thought we knew the bastard."
Kade laughed without humor. "Even if we keep her, we can do that without claiming her as our mate." He turned to face his brothers fully. "The bond might be divine, but it changes nothing about who she is or what her brother did."
"The pack expects justice," Knox said, his voice dropping to a dangerous pitch. "They lost kin, brothers, sisters, children, and parents. They want to see the Thorne blood pay."
"And they will," Kade promised.
Kalem nodded, conceding their point. "True. But a mate bond would ensure she could not escape or betray us as her brother did."
"Or she could be a spy," Knox snapped, his eyes flashing with anger. "Planted here all these years, waiting for her moment. Did you ever consider that? The goddess does not make mistakes, but people do. People lie, people scheme, people betray. I will not have it. I will not have her."
A heavy silence fell between them as each considered this possibility. The bond between them thrummed with shared anxiety, shared rage and shared grief.
"So, we have decided?" Knox asked finally, never letting the matter go.
He was the most volatile of the brothers, the angriest, and one would wonder if his obsession to see Lyra Thorne suffer had an underlying reason. But Knox had not always been like this. Perhaps, growing up, he had always sought the pleasure of a fight, but something had changed him in those Kronos' cold dark cells. It was almost as if he became something else.
"Yes," Kade said, his voice like steel in the night air. "We reject the bond. We present her for the Hollowing."
Kalem's eyes met his, and for a moment, Kade thought his brother might argue. But then Kalem nodded, once, the motion barely perceptible. "As you say, brother."
"Tomorrow," Knox added, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "No point in prolonging the inevitable."
Kade turned back to the forest, to the territory that depended on them to be strong, and to be ruthless when necessary. His decision was made. They would not show weakness, neither would they accept a traitor's blood as their mate, no matter what the goddess had decreed. If the goddess cared so much, she would not have turned her back on them in Kronos' den.
But when the wind shifted, it brought with it a scent that made his wolf howl—a mix of moonflowers and night rain that could only be Lyra. Even from there, even through stone and silver and distance, he could smell her. His mate. His enemy.
Tomorrow, they will end this.