Page 2 of Consumed By the Brothers

She moved to get out of the stream of people and rotated her arm to see if it was injured or just bruised. A sound to the right had her turning, only to have a hand cover her mouth and an arm with an unbreakable grip wrap around her waist and start pulling her into the alley. She frantically fought and prayed that someone—anyone—would see and come to her aid. But the people just walked past.

Jenna could see the black dots in her vision and knew she was seconds away from passing out. Her lungs contracted when she was suddenly dropped onto the ground. She thought she would have a chance now to escape, but the scene before her was unlike anything she’d seen before.

A big cat that looked amazingly like a cougar and … God, was that a wolf? … were tearing into each other. This couldn’t be happening. This was New York City. They didn’t have wild animals roaming the streets.

Something slammed against the back of her head. Bright spurts of light and pain that radiated through her body made her breath catch, and then nothing.

Her last thought was thatshe wondered which would be better—a wild animal or a man to deal with. She passed out before she got her answer.

Chapter Two

Rowan had been following a scent for days, but he’d been so busyhe hadn’t had the time to investigate as much as he wanted. But the allure of the scent grew stronger, and it was getting more difficult to leave alone.

Rowan loved the city because it was easy to hide with a million people around. But at the moment, all the individuals made it hard for himto find what he was looking for. It had either been good luck or the universe helping, when he found the scent and now knew it was a female at the same time she was being mugged. He instantly shifted into his wolf when he realized the mugger was, in fact, another shifter.

The woman had fallen to the dirty, slimy pavement, and he could do nothing about it until he took care of her attacker. He wanted to grin when the man shifted to a cougar because it would not take him long to put the thing down, and wolf shifters fought better thancats in the city.

It didn’t take long for the cat to run away. It was either escape with wounds that would eventually heal, or die in the same muck he’d dropped the woman.

He waited until the cat disappeared before pulling on the clothing, which he had mostly ripped apart by shifting, but it was better than nothing.

Rowan picked the woman off the ground and started back toward one of the apartments his pack had in case one of them needed it. At the back of what looked like a dilapidated building, he pressed his finger to the hidden lock and heard it disengage. He took her up a flight of stairs, into one of the bedrooms, and gently laid her on the mattress. He took a step back to see the thing that had been driving him crazy the last few days.

The scent he chased was one he’d heard about from mated pack members. It was a clean fruity smell with the hintof feminine arousal that had permeated every pore in his body and made his cock harder than it had ever been. He could have fucked anyone, it didn’t need to be their mate. In all the years he’d been on earth when he thought he’d never find her, he used the females in the pack but knew it wouldn’t be the same as fucking his mate.

He’d found his mate, or rather, his and his brother’s mate, and he never thought it would happen. They both had given up on finding her, especially in a big cityor in another state.

Rowan took a deep breath and shed the clothes on his body before wrapping a towel around his waist and undressing her. Because he wanted her to be comfortable, and he’d be able to see any injuries she might have. He quickly stripped her. Fuck, she was beautiful in clothing, but her body was a work of art. Everything about her turned him on. It took an amazing amount of strength not to stare down at her for hours, and he covered her with the blanket.

One thought kept intruding in his head. What if his mate was not his brother’s? They had always assumed they would share a mate because of the family history, but there was always a chance they wouldn’t be the same.

God, it would kill him not to be able to share, and his brother Ben would have to keep looking for himself. But his days were usually filled with whatever the pack needed. He was the alpha of the pack, so he had very little downtime. As his beta, it was his responsibility to protect the pack, so he’d always been able to roam.

The two had talked about their mate a few times, more when they were younger. Now, five decades later, theyboth figured it would never happen. He knew many pack members who never found their mates. They could have full lives but didn’t have the happiness and contentment mated shifters had.

The fact that his brother would never have children who would fall into his place of being the pack’s alphawhen he was ready bothered them. His brother Ben had been taught from an early age by their father what it took to be the alpha of their pack, and his whole life was spent learning everything he could to be the best leader.

As beta, he’d had to learn a lot too, because there was always a chance, a slim one, that if something happened to Ben, Rowan would have to take over as the alpha. It was something he had no desire to do.

He glanced at her face when he heard a small moan. Her hand came up and touched her head, but her eyes stayed closed. Rowan sat on the mattress by her hip and faced her. He rested his hand on the other side of her torso.

“Hey, Sweetheart,” he said.

The woman froze and then blinked her eyes several times before she concentrated on him. Her eyes widened as they scanned his upper body. When her eyes clashed with his, she made a small, panicked sound. He could also feel the fear grow inside of her.

“Easy, Sweetheart. No one here will ever hurt you. I saved you from the mugger that accosted you in the alley. Do you remember that?”

“Yes. I’m not sure it was a mugger, though.”

What the hell?“What do you mean?” he asked.

“When I got a good look at the guy, I recognized him from the bar I work at. He’s one of Payne’s men.”

Rowan’s brows snapped together. “Payne? As in Westen Payne?”

“Yes. I work at The Gin Room bar, he has taken an interest in me and he won’t leave me alone.”

That explains the cougar shifter. Payne’s whole group was cat shifters. Fuck, the guy was pure evil and not someone he’dwant around his mate.

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