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“Certainly a variable,” Braxton says, thinking in terms of the mission.
“If anyone has a shot of resonating with their uncorrupted selves, it’s you,” Orson tells me, a wan smile on his face echoing the loss of his mother. I can see the parallels. Years of his father’s tyranny sunk her deep inside herself, to a place Orson failed to reach. He probably looks at this mission as his redemption.
“Probably helpful if we review the possible outcomes and plan for them now,” says Max, hunching forward over the table so as to keep our discussion private. We all mirror his posture, the four of us leaning into a conspiratorial huddle. “There’re a lot of ways to die, and I’d prefer none of us did.”
I look around the circle, see the resolve in each face. They’re determined to see this through, willing to give their lives for my cause. But this isn’t their fight, ultimately. They’re only in it on my behalf. I can’t let more people die on my account.
The realization hits me like a ton of bricks. I need to face Simon. I need to save my pack. I’m heading toward a suicide mission. They don’t have to be.
They can be saved. I can save someone.
Why this hadn’t hit me before, I’ll never know. Maybe because at one point they were simply tools to help me find my pack. But now they’ve become so much more.
“I need to say something,” I tell them, taking a breath. “My pack is my problem, not yours. And while I appreciate everything you’ve all done for me, I think I should continue on by myself.”
Braxton looks bewildered. “Asha, what are you saying?”
You know what I’m saying.
I sigh. “I’m saying that your sense of duty shouldn’t get you all killed.”
“It isn’t duty that compels us,” says Orson, his lips slanted in a grin. “No males would abandon their mate in her darkest moment.”
Mate? Shock registers on my face. I can feel its wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression taking shape in my features. The boys read it plainly. I see it in each gaze.
“Well, that’s what it means to bond,” Orson explains. “Individual struggles become shared ones; your battles become ours.” As he goes on, I realize it’s not the M-word he thinks has surprised me, but that they’ve chosen to follow me into Satan’s maw. “Our fates now entwine, such that your doom shall be ours, if the universe so chooses. Of course, I believe that between the four of us, each contributing their expertise, we become something greater than the sum of our?—”
I lay my hand on his wrist, pausing his ramble. “Orson, roll it back a sec. What’s the first thing you said?”
“That duty’s not what compels us.”
“No, right after.”
One blue and one honey-brown eye roll toward the ceiling in thought as he recollects. “That no male would abandon their mate in her darkest moment?”
“You think I’m your mate?”
I’m not. Right? I can’t be. I’m not fully a shifter.
He looks across at Max, then to his left at Braxton. Both brothers seem equally perplexed. Wait, why are you confused? “Well, yeah,” says Braxton. Max concurs with a stoic nod.
“Did you not believe the connection you’ve developed with the three of us meant that we were mated to you?” says Orson, matter-of-factly.
I can feel my cheeks flush. “I, uh, guess I didn’t think…” I trail off timidly, dropping my eyes to my neglected bagel.
A hand reaches out, fingers gingerly lifting my chin. My eyes meet Max’s, behind which a fire burns, my name written in the tongues of its flame. “Asha,” he says, voice awash in unrelenting sincerity, “what we’ve experienced—and I’m not talking about the mission and the fighting and the violence, I’m talking about every moment in between—it’s revealed our bond. Of course we’re mates. Our wolves have made that clear.”
Within, I feel her aglow with affection, which radiates to encompass me in its giddy aura. Of course, I think. My wolf’s known all along, that intuitive center of my being. A shifter’s wolf often knows how they feel before they’ve pieced it together. It’s the dense layers of rationality, logic, and analysis that too often cloud our emotional instinct. Yes, she’s telling me his words are true.
Yet something still darkens the moment, a voice that’s unable to ignore dissent and self-effacement. It spills from my lips, “I guess I never even considered the possibility on account of me being a half-breed. That, and, well, the experiments.”
Six hands reach out for me, landing on my shoulder, wrist, face, and back, each a rebuke of that assumption. “You’re a shifter,” says Braxton, then grins. “With a little extra.”
Orson gives my arm a squeeze. “My wolf’s never felt more at peace than in your presence. The thought now of parting fills me with horrible dread. This mission, it’s nothing compared to the fear of losing you. I share your fight, Asha.”
“Me too,” Braxton echoes.
“And me,” says Max.
