was ever getting over her.
Because he was sure she was something to him, something special. Something once in a lifetime.
His fated female.
A fated female who didn’t want him.
He wouldn’t be the first male whose true mate had rejected him, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. It went no way towards dampening the pain that was ripping his heart to shreds.
Lowe tended to his wound, muttering things, holding a one-sided conversation that Saint tuned out as he stared through the open door, across the field of churned and bloodstained snow, to the woods that separated him from Holly.
The urge to go to her was strong, had him restless with a need to stand. He shut it down. She didn’t want him. Going to her would only end in him being hurt worse. Yet he couldn’t convince that need to die, found himself biding his time, slowly pulling himself together, thanks to that ridiculous tiny seed of hope. He tried to stand and Lowe shoved him back down.
“Now you get feisty?” Lowe huffed and went back to tending to his wounds. “Just lay there and accept your fate.”
Saint wasn’t sure he could. The larger part of him wanted to do just that, was resolved that his life was over now that Holly had left him, but that tiny seed of hope was already growing, spreading tendrils through him, whispering words about fighting and winning her back.
Winning her heart.
Would she give it to him if he did things right this time?
His bear side grew restless too, his instincts growing stronger as his body warmed, as he stopped losing blood. They filled him with a dark need to go to the female, to make her come with him, and to fight anyone who tried to stop him.
Because she was his.
He growled when someone dressed in black obscured his view, jogging up the steps to his deck to draw to an abrupt halt in the doorway.
“Christ! What happened to him?” Knox stepped into the room and sank to his knees beside Lowe on the wooden floorboards.
Lowe flinched in time with Saint as he dabbed at the wound on Saint’s right shoulder, cleaning it. “I came back and found him out in the snow like this. Don’t know how long he was out there, but I do know it was the cougars. The female is gone. Place reeks of them.”
“I’ll murder them.” Knox’s voice lost its sharp edge as he looked back over his shoulder, into the clearing. “Gods, look at all that blood. You think it’s all his?”
Lowe nodded, his expression grim and blue eyes saying the opposite to his mouth. “He’ll be fine.”
The bear didn’t believe that, and the look on Knox’s face said he didn’t either.
“I was about to kick your ass for running off like that, but now… I’ll save it for later.” Knox ran a shaky hand over his dark blond hair, mussing it. “I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t come back here. Someone needs to put those cougars down.”
Lowe slid a look at his brother. “No one is going off to start a war. Saint needs us here.”
“Why didn’t he just shift back and come inside?” Knox eyed the wound and then his twin. “Wound like that is painful, sure, but no reason to lay out in the snow waiting for help.”
This time, Lowe’s silent look conveyed the answer to that question—Saint hadn’t been waiting for help.
He had been waiting for Holly to come back.
Or death to take him.
Saint didn’t make a fuss as Knox stood and moved to his rear and worked to warm him up, massaging his stiff legs and drying his fur with a towel. He didn’t make a fuss whenever Lowe hurt him.
He just kept staring at the door, at those woods, thinking about Holly and how she had cuddled up to him, had scent marked him and growled when he had tried to stop her, and had looked at him as if she had wanted to kiss him.
He thought about how she had looked at him out there in the cold and what she had said. The two seemed to contradict each other. Her words had been harsh, meant to wound, to hurt him. Her eyes had shown fear for him, worry and a fire that had told him she had wanted to fight.
And it hadn’t been him she had wanted to attack.
It grew darker outside as he replayed everything on repeat, as his bones finally