Page 5 of Forsaken By Fate

Victor

Ireadjust her naked form over my shoulder, Fenris modestly fixing the wool blanket he had located from the service station over her nude form for the third time since we started walking. The coolness of her flaxen skin permeates against my bare chest as we make our way through Oak Hollow, toward our estate.

My brothers squabble on either side of me, their voices raising with each step.

“Why are you taking her anywhere, Victor?” Fenris growls, stepping back as he sets the blanket again. “Throw her back on the highway—or just kill her—or let the highway kill her.”

I arch an eyebrow at his crassness. He’s unusually crabby tonight.

“Shame on you! She’s just a prey shifter!” Zane counters, aghast at Fenris’s suggestion.

He casts her a sidelong look, blonde strands falling over her face to obstruct the fine bone structure of her pale cheeks. I’m slightly concerned that she’s already dead, the shock doing her little doe heart in. I’d barely taken a glimpse of her before impulsively slinging her unconscious body over my now-human form, intuitively heading for home in the wake of all theexcitement. We didn’t need a crowd forming once the sun came up—not that they wouldn’t go if we ordered them away. All the same, the fewer people who knew about the intruder, the better. A security breach in Oak Hollow is not good gossip.

“We’ll bring her home for now,” I intone. “Wait for her to wake up.”

“But why?” Fenris growls. “She shouldn’t be here. How the hell did she get through the portal? She’s not even an Apex shifter!”

I have no answer for him, but I can’t bring myself to leave the girl lying unconscious at the town’s entrance, even though she had made it through the hidden portal without an explicit invitation from us. That’s more the reason to keep her under lock and key.

“Are you sure you don’t know her?” I demand, whipping my head toward Fenris first. My eyes narrow suspiciously. “You have been known to invite random women here occasionally.”

His cerulean irises darken under the gleam of the moon, his scowl deepening as he folds his arms under his chest defiantly. “I’ve never laid eyes on her in my life. Random or not, I remember the faces of the women I’ve fucked—and she’s not one of them.”

I believe him.

Clutching the deer shifter tighter, I catch a whiff of her sweet scent, the smell of honey and wild lavender catching my nostrils and stirring something primal inside me. As we loop away from the main part of town, up the private road that leads to our gated estate on the outskirts, I arch my neck away and notice the streetlamp overhead flickering wildly as we pass.

That’s odd.

“What about you?” I demand, glancing at our middle brother. “Do you know her?”

Zane raises his hands and stops in place, his golden-green eyes widening in dismay. “You think I invited her here? Didn’t you see the look on her face when she saw us? She had no idea where the hell she was. No way. She stumbled in her accidentally… somehow. Trust me, this one was lost.”

“That’s impossible,” I snap. “Our towns are magically guarded. If she wasn’t invited, she wouldn’t even see the town. You know that as well as I do.”

Our sprawling estate appears on the horizon, the mansion well-lit and waiting on our arrival. One housekeeper pads around the main entrance, and I bark out an order for her to find clothes for the girl. Without questioning me, she rushes off to obey as I trudge up the stairs toward one of the guest rooms.

“You’re going to put her in the guest suite?” Fenris groans in dismay.

I frown. “What the hell else would you like me to do with her?” I ask him.

“I don’t know. She’s not really a guest,” Fenris complains.

“This isn’t medieval times, Fen. We don’t have a dungeon to throw her in,” I remark dryly, kicking open the double doors gently.

“We do have holding cells,” he bites back.

I choose not to respond with words, rolling my eyes instead.

Laying her tenderly in the bed, I’m again overcome with her scent, the intoxicating aroma troubling me as I sit back quickly, half covering her blanketed body with a thick duvet when the housemaid enters.

“Dress her,” I order the servant, ushering my brothers out of the room to give them privacy.

We wait until the maid has finished before returning to the suite, encircling the bed to study her features more closely. She’s achingly lovely, with delicate doll-like features. It feels as though a thick gust of air might break her. A part of me wants to drapemy arms around her and hide her from the world in case she cracks.

But maybe that’s why she’s been sent? Because she looks so innocent?

I can’t bring myself to believe that. In some strange way, I feel like I know her, even though, like my brothers, I’m sure I’ve never seen her before. I’m sure I would remember her face. She’s simply too beautiful.

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