Page 69 of Broken

He was a weapon in the hands of people he hated, and he couldn’t stop. If he stopped, they would frame him for the murder of his father—and then take his brother and do to him what they’d done to Cole.

And she saw Riker, fighting beside him, not comrades in arms but slaves chained together by circumstances, hating themselves and hating each other. Forcing themselves not to care, not to feel.

She watched as Riker gave in to despair, acting out his rage and hatred in acts of unnecessary violence and cruelty.

And then the day that ended it all. An innocent family with information they needed. Riker threatening children to force their parents to speak. Two young girls, dead on the floor—and the information that would send them to another village of innocents.

Cole confronting Riker. Telling him this was where it ended. Riker shoving him away, snarling that it was the mission, that it would end in the greater good. Telling him he wasn’t the only one who had a hostage he cared about, people under threat.

That it wasn’t going to stop, it would never stop, and if Cole and Riker didn’t do it, someone else would.

Ireland felt it all as if she were inside Cole: the moment he snapped, flinging himself on Riker in a red haze, not even knowing what he was doing as his body went through the motions they’d trained into him. Just knowing it had to stop.

And then Riker on the floor, his throat cut, still barely alive. And Cole walking away.

He’d deserted, found his brother, and eventually brought him to safety at Outlaw Ridge. Put the people they’d been behind them.

Made himself disappear. Even his name. For years he’d been known only as ‘Boomer’s brother.’

She held him through all of it, feeling the pain of his broken soul. Cole howled his anger and rage up to the heavens, and Ireland Changed and howled with him, his pain and hers, merging through the power of their bond.

She pressed herself against him, wanting to let him know that she understood. She was with him. And that there was still good in his soul.

I can’t, he said through their bond. How can I deserve love after that?

Maybe none of us deserves love, she said. But you have it. Turning your back on us doesn’t make us stop loving you. It only stops you from feeling it.

Feel it, she said. Let it in.

And without knowing what she was doing or why, she sank her teeth into his wolf’s neck, just where it met the shoulder joint. Hard, deep, until she tasted his blood in her mouth.

Their connection opened all the way, and she fed into it every ounce of love she had inside her. More and more and more, until the night air glowed blue around them, and something snapped into place.

Something that had always been meant to be, like two pieces of a puzzle suddenly fitting together.

I claim you. You are my mate.