Kael's POV
The night air was clean and cold as Kael walked the eastern border with Dante. They did this three times a week, just the two of them. No guards. No witnesses. It was the one time they could be brothers instead of Alphas.
"Dad used to say the best decisions come in the dark," Dante said, kicking at a loose rock on the path. "That the moonlight clears your head better than daylight ever could."
Kael didn't answer right away. Their father had been dead for five years now, killed in a challenge match that Kael still had nightmares about. Dante brought him up when he was thinking about something heavy.
"What's on your mind?" Kael asked.
Dante opened his mouth to answer.
Then Kael smelled it.
His entire body went rigid.
Honeysuckle. Sweet and thick like summer heat. Mixed with something wild, something like rain after a storm, something that made every nerve in his body stand up and scream.
Mate.
His wolf surged forward so hard he nearly shifted right there. The animal was clawing at his skin, desperate to break free, desperate to find the source of that smell.
"You smell that?" Dante's voice came out rough. Strained. His eyes were already flickering between human and wolf, fighting the change.
"Yeah." That was all Kael could manage. His control, the thing he'd built his entire leadership on, was cracking like thin ice.
They ran.
Not in human form. Kael let his wolf explode out of him as he moved, his clothes shredding as his body transformed. Beside him, Dante did the same. They bolted through the forest in perfect sync, their paws eating up ground, their senses locked on that impossible scent.
It was getting stronger. Closer.
Kael's wolf was going crazy inside his skull, clawing and screaming. Mate mate mate. The word was all his animal could think about.
They burst into the clearing and stopped.
She was there.
The girl lay crumpled on the ground in a heap of torn pajamas and bleeding skin. Her hair was spread out under her like dark water. Her body was shaking, either from cold or fear or both.
Kael shifted back to human form before his wolf could think about what came next. Dante did the same, standing beside him, both of them breathing hard.
She was beautiful.
That was the first clear thought Kael had. Not mate. Not instinct. Just the simple human observation that this girl was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. Soft features. Strong bones. Hair the color of dark honey. Skin pale under the moonlight.
And bleeding. She was bleeding from a dozen places where the forest had torn at her.
"You hurt?" Kael kept his voice steady, controlled, even though inside he was barely holding it together. The need to touch her, to claim her, to mark her as his was almost unbearable.
The girl's eyes opened and found his.
Hazel. Warm. Terrified.
The bond hit him like a truck.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't slow. It was violent and immediate and total. The connection snapped into place in his chest and pulled tight, connecting him to her in a way he didn't know was possible. He could feel her fear like it was his own. Could feel her confusion. Could feel the echo of her heartbeat like a second pulse in his own body.
Every cell in his body screamed the same thing. Mate. Mine. Claim her.
Kael staggered back a step.
He looked at Dante.
His brother's face was the mirror of his own. Wide eyes. Flushed skin. That look of absolute shock mixed with desperate hunger. The look of a wolf who'd just found his mate and was struggling not to lose his mind.
But here was the problem.
There was only one girl.
And there were two of them.
"No," Dante whispered, like he was reading Kael's thoughts. In a way, he was. They were twins. They felt each other's emotions sometimes. Right now, Kael could feel his brother's panic and desire crashing around inside his own chest like they were one person.
"Who's chasing you?"
Dante was asking her something. Trying to focus on practicalities while Kael's mind was spinning through impossible scenarios. This wasn't supposed to happen. Fated mates were rare. A fated mate for both of them, for identical twins, was forbidden under pack law. It had been forbidden for three hundred years.
Since the last time two Alphas shared a mate and nearly tore the pack apart.
The girl was saying something but Kael couldn't hear it over the roaring in his ears. His wolf was pressing against his skin, trying to claw its way back out. It wanted to scent mark her. Wanted to tear her clothes off and claim her in front of the whole world. Wanted to make sure every single wolf within ten miles knew she belonged to him.
To them.
That was the problem, wasn't it? She didn't belong to just him. She belonged to both of them and that was impossible.
"Marcus!" A man's voice crashed through the moment like a hammer through glass. "I see you, you stupid girl. You can't hide from me. You can't ever hide from me."
The human male stumbled into the clearing, wild and furious and carrying death in his hand.
A gun.
Kael moved without thinking. His body had learned long ago how to react faster than his mind could process. One second the gun was in the human's hand and the next it was flying across the clearing like it weighed nothing.
The human went flying after it, slammed so hard against the tree that the impact knocked the air from his lungs.
Dante was a coiled spring of violence beside him, ready to finish what Kael had started.
"You don't want to do this," Kael said. His voice came out cold. Final. The voice of an Alpha who'd already killed for less.
The human gasped for air, his body bent wrong against the tree. But his eyes were still focused. Still crazy. Still dangerous in the way that humans could be when they had nothing left to lose.
He looked at the girl. The way he looked at her made something in Kael's chest go dark and violent.
"Stay out of this," the human snarled. "She's mine. I'll shoot if I have to."
Mine.
The word hung in the air and Kael felt Dante tense beside him. Felt his brother's wolf pressing against his skin just as hard as his own was pressing against Kael's.
She wasn't his. She was theirs.
Except she couldn't be. Pack law made it clear. Twin Alphas could share power. Twin Alphas could share territory. But a Twin Alpha pair could never share a mate. Not without tearing the entire pack apart.
The human was moving toward his gun.
Dante growled. The sound wasn't human. It was pure wolf, pure predator, pure rage.
"Touch her and you're dead."
Kael watched the human calculate his odds. Watched him realize he didn't have any. Watched him anyway reach for the gun because he was crazy or desperate or both.
"Last warning," Kael said.
The human's hand closed around the weapon.
He turned and pointed it, not at Kael, not at Dante.
Straight at the girl on the ground.
At Serena.
"If I can't have her, nobody will," the human said. His finger was tightening on the trigger.
The clearing froze.
Kael could feel every heartbeat. Could feel Dante's shock and fury flooding through the bond they shared. Could feel the girl's terror like it was his own.
And could feel the moment the human's finger moved to finish it.