Page 39 of The Reckoning (Oakmount Elite #7)

TWENTY-TWO

ARIES

T he forest breathes around me, alive with shadows and secrets.

Blood still dries on my knuckles, mine and my brother’s intermingled—violent proof of everything spoken and unspoken.

The pain in my ribs is a dull, steady throb, anchoring me to this strange moment of clarity.

Arson walks beside me, our steps finally in sync after five years of silence and betrayal.

“She went this way,” I say, tracking the faint disturbance in the underbrush. The rain has washed most of it away, but I don’t need much. I’ve always been able to find her. Like something inside me is tethered to her—magnetic, primal, unwilling to let go.

“Remember, she’s pissed off and probably scared,” Arson says. “She also doesn’t know we’ve worked things out.”

I nod once, jaw tight, that same pull dragging me forward like a leash around my throat.

“Nope, she thinks we’re still trying to kill each other.”

“There’s nothing to say we won’t try to kill each other again in the future.” Arson grins.

He’s right. Even if we’ve dealt with some of our issues, nothing says we won’t collide again.

If anything, it’s likely. We both know there’s no undoing the past. No erasing the years I spent believing my brother was dead.

Years of suffocating guilt. Of rage so hollow it nearly consumed me.

There’s still a lot of bad blood and anger that we have to sort through, but there is one thing we can stand together on, and that’s Lilian.

I crouch low, fingers brushing a broken twig, sap still bleeding from the split. My voice drops. “This is fresh.”

Arson kneels beside me, eyes narrowing as he scans the ground. “Look.” He points at a partial footprint pressed into the mud. The small, unmistakable outline of a shoe.

My heart kicks inside my chest. Hard. She’s out here.

Alone. Vulnerable. My mind spirals out of control with all the possible what-ifs.

What if she’s hurt? What if she ran into an animal?

What if someone else found her before we did?

The panic builds into something jagged and hungry. It twists with urgency and obsession.

Once I have her in my arms, it’ll stop.

I inhale sharply, and beneath the petrichor and damp earth, I catch the lingering scent of her shampoo. It’s faint. “She’s close by,” I say, voice dropping to a growl that scrapes my throat raw. Deep inside my chest, something dark unfurls.

It’s possessive and brutal, this need to protect. It’s not just desire I feel for Lilian but an instinct to claim her. To take and never let her fucking go.

“I don’t know if you feel the same, but I want you to know that I love her,” I say aloud, the words hanging in the damp air between us.

Arson’s eyes meet mine, understanding passing between us. “So do I.”

I wait for the jealousy to sink in, but it never comes. There’s nothing but truth hanging between us. We both love her—differently yet the same.

“She’s all that matters,” I whisper, and he gives me a nod.

“You can come out of your hiding spot, Lilian,” I call out, my voice echoing through the trees.

“We’ve stopped fighting,” Arson adds from a short distance away. “And we’ll always find you.”

It’s not a threat, but a promise.

We both spot her at the same time. She’s sitting on a fallen log, her face in her hands. So she wasn’t running. She was waiting. We step into the clearing, and I approach first. But when I reach out, she flinches away.

“Don’t touch me right now.” Then her eyes snap up to mine, then catalog the cuts, bruises, all the harm we did to each other. “What the fuck?”

I shrug. “We’re brothers. We’re going to fight.”

“You both could have killed each other. What the hell are you thinking?” Then she shakes her head hard.

“No, what the hell am I thinking that you two could get over your issues for me? That somehow I could be more important than your hate? Hubris, I think they call it?” She stands and adjusts her pants.

“I’m not doing this anymore. I warned you both if you couldn’t at least be civil to each other that I would walk away, so that’s what I’m doing. ”

I slip in front of her, and almost as if he can read my mind, Arson boxes in her backward retreat. “You’re not going anywhere. Please listen.”

Anger sparks in her blue eyes, and she shoves at my chest. I wince from the bruises already forming from Arson. “You do not get to tell me what to do after the shit you just pulled. I warned you...” A tear slips free as her voice breaks. “I warned both of you.”

I cup her cheek and pull her in tight. “Sweetheart. I’m sorry. We both are. We had to get that out of our systems, or we’d never be able to move forward. I promise we’re going to do better, for you, for us.”

She scoffs and swipes hard at her cheeks, leaving smears of dirt. “Right. Until the next time you get into a disagreement. Then I’ll be stuck in the middle all over again.”

Arson tugs her against his front, dropping a kiss to the side of her neck.

“No. We won’t. We will fight, that’s a given.

We have a lot of shit to sort through, and we’re brothers.

I can’t promise you that we won’t have problems, but I can tell you that we’re done fighting against this, against what we both want.

I love you. He loves you. On that we can agree. ”

She lets out a long exhale, searching my face. “I want to believe you.”

I step into her, our bodies creating a cage we never want her to escape. “Let us prove it to you. Believe in us. Give us one more chance.”

She gulps hard, then lets her long lashes rest against her cheeks for a moment. When she finally opens her eyes again, her blue eyes shine, meeting mine. “Fine, but I’m not lying. I won’t be a doormat for either of you.”

I meet Arson’s eyes over her shoulder. “We don’t want you to be a doormat. In fact, we prefer you fierce and sassy.”

A soft snort leaves her pert lips. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do, and I have an idea. Arson probably knows this, but you don’t.”

“What’s that?”

“The Mill holds a traditional hunt every year. It’s like a glorified game of hide-and-seek. You get a small head start and get to use the woods to whatever advantage you can. Most of the time, a monetary value can be won, but you won’t be winning anything but an orgasm.”

“Or five,” Arson interjects.

Her eyes go wide, her pupils dilating until the blue is almost all gone. “So if you catch me then…”

I lean into her face and finish the sentence she can’t seem to speak out loud. “We get to do whatever we want with you…”

“Are you asking to chase me? Both of you? Together.”

“We sure are,” Arson replies, nipping at her earlobe.

I can’t help the feral grin that spreads across my face. “The way I see it, right now, Arson has had you more than me, and he took what I wanted for myself. I’m still a bit salty over it, so I’m going to claim the only virgin hole left, your ass.”

“That is, unless I catch you first,” Arson chimes in.

“Which isn’t going to happen,” I growl, my gaze cutting to him before skirting back to Lilian. “So…you run…and we’ll chase. Whoever captures you first gets the privilege.”

Her eyes narrow, and she licks her lips, her pulse fluttering hard in her neck. “And if neither of you catches me?”

I shrug. “Then you can have anything you want. You can have us any way you want.”

Another gulp, and I can visibly see the arousal growing, her fingers flexing. “When should I run?”

“How about now? We’ll give you a five-minute start,” I announce with a gentleness that doesn’t match the tension and need coursing through my veins.

She squeaks, throws Arson a grin, then rushes past me into the trees.

Arson crosses his arms over his chest. “Is this a good idea? Is it safe?”

“She’ll be fine. The only people out here are us. It won’t take long to find her, and I doubt she’ll put up a fight. She wants this just as bad as we do.”

“Naughty little minx.” Arson purses his lips, and I nod in agreement.

We both want her, and this time, when we have her, it’ll be together.

After five minutes, we wander into the trees to hunt our little rabbit.

Soon enough, I find myself breaking out into a run, the forest blurring around me as I search the area in front of me.

My boots sink into the soft earth with each stride, my muscles burning as I push harder.

There’s a primalness to the pursuit that strips away civilization, leaving raw instinct in its place.

Hunter and hunted. The ancient dance that’s been encoded in our DNA for millions of years.

“Split up,” Arson calls, veering left. “Circle around.”

I nod, cutting right through a dense thicket of brush, thorns tearing at my sleeves.

Blood wells from a dozen tiny cuts, but the pain only sharpens my focus.

I vault over a fallen log, landing hard, the impact sending shock waves up my legs.

I remain upright through the sheer determination and will to find my girl.

A flash of color ahead catches my eye—a scrap of fabric snagged on a bramble. I snatch it up, recognizing the pattern from her shirt. She was meant for us, meant to be hunted and taken . I bring the cotton to my face, inhaling deeply, letting her essence fill my lungs.

A sound—the snap of a twig, followed by a muffled curse, interrupts my thoughts. I smile and change direction, stalking toward the noise with predatory focus. The rain picks up again, fat drops hammering down through the canopy and onto us.

“Why are you running?” I call out, enjoying the game now despite the urgency. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Both of us. Together.”

There’s a rustle to my left—she’s changing direction, trying to throw me off.

Smart, but futile. I’m too attuned to her now, too connected. I adjust my course accordingly, cutting diagonally through a stand of young pines.