1. Blayne

ONE

BLAYNE

Present Day

"Hey, brother. How's things?"

I stood in the cemetery, looking down at the tombstone engraved with my brother's name. Squatting, I gently set the flowers on Liam's grave. Every year, on the day I lost him, I came out here. Today was the tenth anniversary of his death. Sure, I visited his grave at other times, but I always made sure to come on this particular date.

In some ways, it seemed unfathomable that ten years had already passed, but in others, it seemed like a lifetime since I'd talked to my brother.

I cleared a few stray leaves off the stone and brushed off the moss that was encroaching on the base. I settled down on the grass, crossing my legs.

"You'll never believe the shit I've gotten into, bro. You remember all the horror stories we heard about hunters when we were kids? Turns out they're even worse than the stories. We're going to war, man. Shifters are going to war with a billionaire madman." I grinned. "You'd have fucking loved this shit. I know it. You'd have been the first damn one in line."

Tears welled in my eyes, and I wiped them away. "I miss you, Liam. So damned much, but I promise to do my best not to join you too soon. Okay? You'll just have to chill out with your wings and harp and whatever until I get up there. Hopefully, I'll be about ninety-five and have a shitload of stories to tell you."

I sat, letting the chill weather dry my eyes. It was strange when a twin died. I'd done a lot of reading on it after I lost Liam. It was the same for almost anyone who lost a twin sibling. It really did feel like a piece of you was missing—an integral part that couldn't be replaced. It never really got any easier, much like losing an arm or leg.

I sat in silence, enjoying the quiet, until it was time to go. I patted the tombstone. "All right, brother. I gotta go. I'll see you soon."

Standing, I brushed off my pants, then turned to leave. As I did, I froze in my tracks, my hands immediately curling into fists. I was staring into a face I hadn't seen in years. A face I'd hoped to never see again as long as I lived. My breath hissed out in cloudy puffs in the winter air.

Right there, in front of me, stood Ava, holding a bouquet of flowers. She seemed just as surprised to see me.

The most horrifying thing of all—the thing that sent my mind reeling and filled me with a rage I did not even know I had—was the feeling in my chest. The pull, the ache, the desire. In the back of my mind, my panther purred low and insistently.

Mate.

I reeled at that. It was more than shock. It was horror. No. Not her. Anyone but her. I'd rather die.

Blinking the thoughts away, I let the dread and anger fill me. It was all I could do to keep my lip from curling in disgust as I stared her down. At least she looked embarrassed to be there. Of all the people, she had the least right to come to Liam's grave.

Eyes wide with shock, she brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Uh… Blayne…I…I didn't think I'd see you here," she said, stumbling over her words.

"Me?" The words burst out of my mouth with enough venom to make her take an involuntary step back. "You didn't think I would be here? You're the one who has no business being here. After what you did, Ava? Christ." I said the last word with a sneer, hoping it hurt her.

She lowered her eyes and stared at the flowers in her hands. "I only wanted to pay my respects. That's all."

"Pay your respects?" I hissed. "Ava, you're the reason Liam is in the ground. If not for you, I'd still have my brother. I seem to remember telling you and your damned uncle I didn't want you anywhere near this grave. I think it would be best if you left. Or do I need to go get security?"

My panther squalled at me in fury, raging at me in a way it never had before. It didn't want me to treat her like this. Luckily, I was in control. I'd treat her however I damn well pleased, curse be damned. I lifted a lip and let a feline growl erupt from my throat.

"You can put the cat away, Blayne. I'll leave. No need to shift and try to scare me." Ava walked around me quickly and laid her bouquet on Liam's grave, then turned and strode away. She didn't look back at me. As I watched her go, I was overwhelmed with the urge to scream. I wanted to rip trees out of the ground, to crack boulders with my fists—anything to release the rage inside me.

"Emily, I hope you're rotting in hell for this," I whispered under my breath.

That witch had cast the spell on us and made our lives a living hell. She'd forced these mates on us, and while my friends had all been paired with women they could live the rest of their lives with, I was stuck in this hell. Emily was gone. Dead. But her legacy lived on.

How could this be possible? The odds had to be astronomical. How could my fated mate be this woman? Ava. My brother's ex-girlfriend. The woman who got him killed. The person I hated more than anyone else in the world.

After I was certain Ava was gone, I hissed out a breath and kicked at the grass, ripping up a chunk of turf. The soil flew several feet, but the display felt childish and impotent. Huffing, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and stomped across the cemetery toward the parking lot.

My panther was losing its shit. I could barely focus on walking. All it wanted was to chase after Ava. It had never wanted anything more. There was no question. The panther's reaction confirmed she was my fated mate. There was no denying it.

I needed to let the guys know about the this. We'd all known I would succumb to the curse next. Of the four of us, I was the only one who had yet to find my fated mate. Finding my mate was not what had surprised me and pissed me off. No, what pissed me off was who my mate was. If I dug deep into the recesses of my mind, I could feel my panther having inappropriate thoughts about Ava. Thoughts that were already verging on desire and need. It nearly made me gag. I was literally, physically ill thinking of her in that way. This would be the fight of a lifetime with my panther, and I dreaded it.

As I drove over to the office, my anger only seemed to increase. How could my life turn out like this? Things had been hard enough the last year without having this thrown in.

I stopped at a red light close to the office, impatiently waiting for it to turn green. My thoughts drifted back to the scene at the cemetery. Back to Ava. Ten years had passed. She'd changed a lot. When she and Liam were together, she'd always been a mousy little thing. Since then, though, she seemed to have blossomed. She was even prettier than she'd been ten years ago.

I blinked, then growled and slammed a palm into my steering wheel. Already? It was already happening? My own body and mind was betraying me. Simply knowing that some part of me was attracted to her made my rage boil up all over again.

The honk of a horn behind me ripped me from my internal struggle. The light had changed without me realizing it. I slammed my foot on the gas, my tires squealing as I sped toward the office. Not even bothering to turn into the entrance of the lot, I drove straight over the curb and pulled up to the front door.

Miles was out front, talking on his phone. His head snapped around when he heard my truck bumping over the curb that surrounded the parking lot. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me.

I jumped out of the truck and slammed the door with both hands.

"Hey, bud, I'm gonna need to call you back," Miles said, seeing the state I was in.

Not ready to talk, I stood beside my truck, hands resting on the hood, head hanging down. Miles walked up behind me as I tried to calm my hammering heart and ragged breathing.

"So." Miles cleared his throat. "Looks like your day hasn't gone well."

Unable to stop myself, I laughed. The sound surprised me. It was nice to laugh.

I took a breath and straightened to look at him. "Yeah, you could say that."

Miles frowned and shook his head. "Why are you here, man? You always take this day off." He shrugged awkwardly. "It's an important day. We get that. You didn't have to come in."

I sighed. "I need to talk to you guys. Come on. I don't want to go through it more than once."

Without waiting, I yanked the front door open and stepped inside. Our receptionist Kennedy sat up and smiled at me. "Hey, Blayne. How are you?"

"Been better. Hope you're having a good day," I mumbled as I walked past.

She shrugged. "Eh, I'm fine I suppose. Got ghosted by a guy I was talking to. Otherwise I'm good."

Doing my best to maintain my composure, I gave her a smile and walked further down the hall. Usually, I liked Kennedy, but I had zero interest in discussing whatever bullshit was going on in her dating life. Not with what had happened this morning. Miles trailed behind me as I went down the hall to the conference room where I found Tate and Steff with two of our security techs, discussing a job.

Barging in, I looked at the two guys. One was a younger man we'd hired eight or so months before to do analysis. In my current state, I couldn't even remember his name. The other guy was older. A field guy who took bodyguard cases Tate wasn't able to. His name was Doug. At least I could remember something.

"Out," I snapped.

The young guy and Doug glanced at each other in perplexed confusion. Tate and Steff looked even more surprised by my arrival than Miles had.

Tate sat forward, putting down a file. "Doug, Jamie, give us a minute, okay?"

The two men stood and walked out, shooting wary glances my way. That made me chastise myself. There was no need to take my frustrations out on everyone in my vicinity. One thing I didn't need was to alienate the people close to me. My frustrations were justified, but that didn't give me free rein to be a dick.

Miles closed the door behind us and looked at me. "All right, I think I speak for all of us when I say this. What the fuck is going on with you?"

"Right?" Steff added. "You look like someone just pissed in your Cheerios, and then took a shit in the bowl for good measure."

I clamped my lips shut, trying to get my thoughts in order. These guys knew the story of how my brother had died, knew how much it had hurt me. Hell, it had taken Miles a full week to talk me into agreeing to start our business in Lilly Valley. The mere idea of coming back here had almost made me decline going into partnership with them. Even knowing that, the story would probably hit them as hard as it had me.

"Well," I finally said, swallowing hard. "I've found my mate."

They looked at me, waiting for the rest of the story. Tate raised an eyebrow. "I'm guessing this is not a good thing?"

After a deep sigh, I said, "You guys remember when I told you about my twin dying? My brother Liam?"

They nodded collectively, but no one said a word. I went on. "He was constantly doing stuff for the Francis family. Stuff that wasn't completely legal, and the whole reason he was doing it was to impress and try to win over Gio Francis's daughter, Ava. She was the reason he was involved in that shit. Ava led him along by the nose, shaking her ass and tits in his face. By the end, Liam was only thinking with his dick instead of his head. She'd gotten his mind all screwed up to the point that he was going to do a big job that would pay him enough to buy her some ring and a McMansion out on the lake." I stopped, blinking away the tears threatening to form.

"Holy crap. You have got to be kidding?" Steff said, putting his hands to his head. He'd worked it out. Tate and Miles nodded, having connected the dots as well.

"Yeah. So, today…well, just a while ago, I was out at Liam's grave, and when I left, I ran into her. She was there to put flowers on his grave. The instant I saw Ava, I wanted to claw her eyes out, but my panther"—I pointed to my head—"fell all over itself, cooing and purring and getting all hot and bothered. I'm one-hundred percent certain. That bitch Ava is my fated mate."

I flopped into a chair by the door, exhausted. My body felt consumed and depleted. It had suffered through too much emotion for one day. There was nothing to do but sit there and see if they had any ideas.

"Maybe this will work out," Steff said. "Take me and April. I never would have thought we would get back together. Now look."

That wasn't the same and he knew it, though I appreciated his attempt to ease my mind. I shook my head. "This isn't the same as an old high-school romance, Steff. This is the girl who got my brother killed—the last member of my family, of my pack. The person I was closest to in my whole life. Besides…" I added, "Even if I wanted to be with her, she'd reject me as soon as I told her."

"Why do you say that?" Tate asked.

"Because of who she is. She knows how much I hate her. Despise her. Why would she agree to that? To mate with the guy who wants to vomit at the sight of her face?" I let out a bitter laugh. "This is stupid. It would have been the simplest explanation yet. She already knows about shifters. If she'd been anyone else, I would have had the easiest time out of all of us."

Miles blew out a long, slow breath, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, man. Out of all of us, you were probably the only one looking forward to finding your mate."

My chest ached as the truth of his words hit me. I'd barely mentioned it, but they all knew. Of every shifter, panthers were the rarest, even more so than dragons—and Tate was one of the last remaining dragon alphas. It was difficult for panther shifters to find a mate. The other family Mom and Dad had formed a pack with had only come together with the hope that they'd pair their kids up. Unfortunately, both my parents and the other couple had only had sons. With no chance of furthering the line, they'd moved on after my parents were killed.

So, yeah, I had been looking forward to finding a mate. It would have been nice to have a family.

"The good news…" I said, "is this curse shit can finally be finished. I'll put an end to it, and then we can go on planning what to do about Antonio and the hunters."

"How do you plan on that?" Miles asked.

"About the curse? I'm gonna tell Ava what's going on, then she'll reject me outright. Boom, curse over. Bonus points for not going through the shit you guys did, and also not dying?—"

Steff held up a hand up. "Here's the thing. I'll be a devil's advocate for a second here. What if—and I know it's a long shot—she doesn't reject you?"

The idea nauseated me. I gave him a look that was half-disgust and half-incredulity. "Are you serious? I've been over this. Why would she want to mate with her dead boyfriend's brother? I mean, I'd laugh if I saw her obituary in the paper."

Steff gave a little shrug. "All I'm saying is that stranger things have happened."

I waved his comment away and pushed up from my seat. "No way. She'd never go for it, and even if she did, she'd be the absolute last person on Earth I'd ever want to tie my life to. I'm going to go home, slam a shot or two, and go to bed."

Tate laughed. "Dude, it's like eleven in the morning."

"Fine," I said as I walked out the door. "I'll slam some shots and play video games until bedtime. Happy?"

The drive back home was less angst-ridden. Most of my rage had petered out and devolved into a sort of numb depression. I drove around town, not quite ready to head home yet, and took the street that led me to my old house—the home I'd shared with my brother. That house had been paid for with dirty money from Liam's jobs for the Francis family.

As I crept by and looked up at it at, I couldn't help but think it looked good—better than I remember it being. There was a little girl out front playing in the yard, and that made me happy. It meant the house still held happiness.

After Liam's death, I couldn't stand to live in that place. I'd put it up for sale two days after he'd died. By the day of the funeral, it was already under contract. I'd used the money from that sale and the cash I'd found in the hidden wall safe to start a new life away from Lilly Valley.

Soon, the memories started to get too much to bear. I pulled around the cul-de-sac, leaving the old house and the girl playing in the yard. The rest of the trip only took a few minutes.

When I'd left this morning, the house across mine had still had a For Lease sign out front. Somehow, in the short time I'd been gone, that sign had been removed and now a car sat in the driveway.

Something tickled at the back of my mind as I leaned over to look at the license plate of my new neighbor's car. Virginia plates. Who the hell had moved all the way from Virginia to Colorado? I frowned, then remembered that Harley and her kids had come all the way from New York. Quickly memorizing the plate number, I parked my truck and went into my house, the nagging feeling itching at the back of my mind.

I flipped open my laptop and pulled up the software we used at work. After some internal debate, I punched in the license number and state of issue. The results popped up less than a second later.

I flopped back onto my couch, staring at the screen. It really would have been funny if it didn't piss me off so much. I slammed my computer shut and headed straight for the front door.

As I crossed the street and the yard of the house opposite mine, I noticed that the garage was open and several empty boxes were already sitting inside it. That hadn't taken long. My teeth grinded against each other as I stepped up onto the porch and banged on the door. It took everything in me to only knock on the wood and not punch it until it broke apart.

A few seconds later, the door opened, and Ava stepped out, her eyes wide with shock.