Chapter 197: A Crucified Referee Between Two Electrical Storms

The lights were the first casualty. The doorframe was up next. The only thing preventing the relationship between two Thunderfang brothers from becoming the third was about to run through the door.

Nova was passed out, which was, all things considered, for the best, given that she was butt-ass naked in a bathtub full of gold water.

Derek’s fangs were still buried in her neck, and tearing her away from him mid-bite would kill her. So Landon stood frozen at the edge of the tub, chest heaving, his whole body vibrating with something that had no outlet.

The doorframe toothpicked under Landon’s grip, centuries of construction reduced to splinters by a man whose hands needed to destroy something that wasn’t his brother.

Tavian appeared in the broken doorway behind him, took one look at the scene, and did the only sane thing in the room.

He wedged himself bodily between the two brothers, each an electrical storm, in a flooded chamber. His eyebrows might be a casualty.

"Landon. Back up." He had both hands flat against Landon’s chest, pushing, and it was like pushing a wall. "You’re crowding him. His wolf is clamping harder the closer you get. Back. Up."

Landon didn’t move.

His wolf was shredding his insides because another wolf’s fangs were in his mate’s neck and the other wolf was his brother and his brother was standing there holding her like he had every right to.

Derek retracted his fangs. He rose out of the water with Nova gathered against him, snatched a towel off the rack, and wrapped it around her, covering her, tucking it closed with a care that did not match the look on his face.

Then he turned that look on his brother.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Landon." His voice came out layered, half wolf, scraped raw, with the conviction of a man whose brother had just burst into a bathroom where he was mid-orgasm inside his mate, performing the most sacred act a wolf can do in his life.

Every protective instinct he had was firing. His mate was naked. "Get the fuck out. Both of you."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Landon’s voice came out too controlled, too level, and Tavian recognized the register immediately because it was the one that came right before the storm. "What’s wrong with me? You knew about the mark, Derek. I told you at the door. I told you she had my mark on her neck and you bit her anyway."

Derek’s nostrils flared, Nova still bundled against his chest. "She’s my mate, Landon."

"SHE IS MY MATE." The roar tore out of Landon and bounced off the stone. "You put your fangs in MY mate, Derek. You had no right." His voice cracked from the weight it was carrying.

Every night he had carried her. Every morning he had iced her shoulder. Every time his wolf had purred against her back while she slept. Every forehead pressed to hers in the dark. Every blue bath drawn. Every closet filled. Every moment he had spent pretending what he felt was duty and not devotion.

"She was MY mate first. The elders gave her to me," Derek threw back, wolf braided through every word.

Tavian’s hand clamped onto Derek’s arm. "Let’s put her down before we do this."

"Get your hand off me, Tavian."

"No." Tavian didn’t let go. "Because the second I let go of you, one of you is going to swing, and she is going to hit the floor, and then I get to be the one who explains to Astra how two Alphas dropped an unconscious woman on stone. So the hand stays."

"I would never drop my mate." Derek said it low and the wolf was in every syllable and his arms were around her and the towel was around her and his body was between her and every other person in the room including the brother he loved. Including the brother who had marked her. Including the brother whose venom was still in her blood.

He would never drop her. The floor could open. The keep could fall. The continent could burn. His arms were staying and the woman inside them was staying and anyone who wanted her was going to have to come through him.

"You don’t get to take her from me, Landon. She is mine."

The guards were lined up outside the bathing chamber, facing resolutely out into the corridor, every one of them having found something fascinating to look at that was not the room behind them.

Footsteps approached down the hall.

The High Luna arrived in the destroyed doorway. She took in the blown-out lights, the cracked doorframe, the gold water flooding the floor, the two glowing brothers squared off like a thunderstorm choosing a target, the unconscious woman wrapped in a towel between them, and the Beta standing with his arms spread wide like a crucified referee.

"Nancy is in a towel, for the Goddess’s sake."

Derek and Landon both turned to her and said, in perfect unison, "Nova."

"Oh, lovely. Now they’re teaming up on me." The High Luna sighed. "Derek, dear. That is coma water. You remember. Oh, no, you wouldn’t, would you, because you went into a coma right after she turned you gold the first time."

"Wrong," Derek said.

"That’s not what happened," Landon said at the exact same moment.

The High Luna clapped her hands twice, brisk and delighted. "There. Two of them agreeing. See? We get along splendidly in this family. You two needn’t rip each other’s heads off. And Derek, dear, if you drop Nancy, you and I are going to have a serious problem."

"Nova," both brothers said together, neither one looking at her.

"Wonderful. I’m sure she is."

Tavian looked at the High Luna the way you look at someone who is either an evil genius or the cover model for hell’s seasonal brochure, and genuinely could not determine which.

No one moved.

"For the Goddess’s sake." The High Luna pinched the bridge of her nose. "Tavian, hand Derek a towel. I have no desire to see his ding dong. Landon, go wash your hands. They’re bleeding."