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“Not yet,” I assured him. “But you will be.”
With that, I bounded off toward the house, shifting into my lupine form, my paws kicking up dirt in his eyes as I moved.
The old-timer proved to be a good prophet. I caught Bianca’s scent almost as soon as the house came into view. I raised my snout upward, inhaling her pheromones for signs of distress and pain.
I had seen her father shoot her. Hadn’t I?
It was unclear where the bullet had landed, but Bianca had hit the ground, and Eugene had undoubtedly gained the upper hand on her.
I growled, busting through the back door of the house. A timid-looking woman inhaled, drawing back, and she stared at me.
I asked her telepathically where to find Bianca.
She made several gestures, which I recognized as Shifter Sign Language, and ultimately pointed toward the second floor. Her waxen complexion told me that she was as much a prisoner of the house as Bianca, and I silently vowed to return for her.
I ran in the direction that she indicated.
I encountered a guard as I took the stairs, but this one did not have the same good sense as some of his counterparts. He took aim at me, and that was the last he saw of his arms.
Screaming and bloodied, the shifter toppled down the servant stairs, yelling for his lost limbs. The guard’s flesh wedged between my teeth, and I spit it out, racing the rest of the way up the steps until Bianca’s overpowering scent carried me the rest of the way.
“Atlas?”
She must have sensed me, too.
I heard her confused, muffled call through a door and crashed through it as if it were made of cloth. She stood in a dark bedroom, draped in a bedsheet. I stared at the odd outfit, noting the damp towel on the ground. There would be time enough for questions later.
“What are you doing here, Atlas?” she whispered, blinking as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Are you here to kill me?”
Baffled, I morphed back into my human form, watching as her dark eyes trailed toward my raging stiffness. Her nearness brought out the primal in me, even in this situation. I wanted nothing more than to bend her over in that dark, dusty room and show her just how much she meant to me.
“Kill you?” I echoed, stunned that she would ever think that. “You’re my mate, Bianca. I could never kill you.”
She gasped, her wide, innocent eyes popping.
“Y-you… I…” She inhaled shakily. “We’re mates?”
But even though she asked it like a question, it wasn’t one. She had to have felt it just as I had from the moment the bond snapped into place. We had been brought together in unusual circumstances and kept together by instinct and desire. There had never been a bigger certainty in my mind.
“Yes,” I said, coming upon her to take her in my arms. “You were always meant to be mine.”
“But… I won’t live eternally like you will. How can we—”
“Other originals have found their mates—their true mates. Once the bond is solidified, our DNA changes. Neither one of us will die until the other one perishes. We are bonded in life and death, and we will live out the rest of our years together—for eternity.”
I brushed my thumb along the skin above her left breast, and I showed her the golden arch that now glowed over her heart. I took her hand and placed it on my heart, showing her where a twin arch glowed above my own heart.
She fingered the golden arch above my heart. “How have I never noticed these?” she asked.
“They only show up when we are together. This is what happens when Originals find their mates,” I explained. “There’s no denying that you belong with me.”
She nodded and shook her head, making dizzy circles as she met my eyes. The roar of my heart overtook my words, but I managed to get them out, fueling every fiber of myself into the sentiment as I spoke them. I needed her to see what I saw in her, what I felt.
“And the curse?” she asked.
“I will burn this entire country down before I let you run off and leave me,” I went on, my breath hot in her face. “How could you do that?”
“I wanted to keep you safe,” she whispered. “I thought I could go far away and start a new life. I would have come back for Dahlia—”
