Page 31 of Stealthy as a Wolf

As I continued to stare up at her, the pain faded to the background and my tiger pushed his way toward the surface. I waited for him to attack, my beast treating anyone who wasn’t an approved member of his ambush like a mortal enemy.

As the collar weakened, my senses gradually returned, and I finally saw beneath the shell Maggie used as a shield. She was radiant enough to outshine the stars. While I wished I could blame the collar for leaving me so blind, I suspected that she’d been on the run so long that she managed to hide it from herself as well.

She had so much power that it went beyond a regular alpha, and I recognized the signs.

She was feral.

My heart felt sick, knowing that she’d been pushed so hard that it was killing her. I wasn’t sure how she was still holding on to her sanity. My beast roared in my head in denial, staking his claim on this fragile girl.

Mate.

I was so shocked to learn she was mine that I didn’t react when the latch on the collar clicked open. The pain vanished, leaving behind a residual ache that made my body throb in memory. I ripped off the collar, my fingers tingling painfully from the red electrical burns that twisted along my hands.

I dropped it to the floor, but before I could do anything else, Maggie’s eyes rolled up in her head, and I barely caught her before she collapsed.

Vicious swearing from the others filled the interior of the truck, and the vehicle swerved violently off the road before jolting to a stop. When they reached to take Maggie from me, my beast surged to the surface and full-on snarled at them.

Even Boone.

My tiger was in complete control, and there was no way in hell that we would let anything else bad happen to our mate.

Not while we were here to keep her safe from this point forward.

Chapter Ten

BOONE

Iregained consciousness slowly, feeling like I’d been dropped off a five-story building…and then the building collapsed on top of me. Even blinking hurt. I turned my head, then froze when I saw Maggie seated in Burke’s lap, lifting his collar away from his neck.

Then my heart nearly shattered when I saw her collapse.

I’d expected the ass to shove her off, his aversion to touching females bordering on psychotic. When I reached out to catch her, I was shocked to see him cradle her almost reverently against his chest.

He shook his head, as if trying to clear away the cobwebs, and I could tell the instant Burke finally recognized Maggie as our mate. Though the collar might have muffled his senses, I suspected it was sheer stubbornness on his part that he refused to acknowledge the bond earlier.

A rumble vibrated in his chest, his arms tightening around Maggie. When he glanced down at the girl curled up against him, completely at his mercy, his face hardened. I tensed, ready to pit myself against my brother for the first time in my life.

He was a fool if he thought I’d allow him to harm her.

I braced myself to wrestle the girl away from him when I saw light refracting in his eyes, saw the fangs peeking between his lips, and noted the claws tipping his fingertips—his cat was in complete control.

Uncertain of how his tiger would react, afraid that he would kill her to remove any chance of him being forced to mate, I leaned over to take her before he could make a mistake that would haunt both of us for the rest of our lives.

While I knew he had good reason to hate females, I didn’t think I could forgive him if he harmed Maggie, even if it were done out of pure instinct.

She was too precious, and I wasn’t sure my beast would ever heal from the wound. While mates weren’t necessarily rare, it usually took years or even decades to find one, and even then, there was no guarantee you wouldn’t be rejected.

While most twins were able to find their own mates, we were different. We were Gemini twins—two people born with one soul. It was what allowed us to communicate without words. Being Gemini twins gave us the ability to share our powers, making us nearly as strong as an alpha if we worked together. The opposite was true as well—being apart weakened us. What few people knew was that in order for the bond to form, both our beasts must agree to mate the same girl. I knew Burke expected me to claim a woman on my own and settle down, but I refused to do it.

I was waiting for our perfect mate.

We’d never gotten even close to finding our one…until now.

Burke saw girls as a nuisance, romance as a myth, and sex as just a basic function, like eating.

I had no idea how he might react to being wrong.

I couldn’t risk Maggie getting caught in the crossfire. I inched closer to my brother, reaching for our mate. Just when my hand was an inch away from snatching her to safety, Burke gave such a vicious snarl that my own beast reared back. Though we might have fought in the past, we’d never seriously harmed each other.

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