The twins were used to Eila's warmth. They knew her touch, her scent, the rhythm of her breathing when she yielded to them. They could chart the quickening of her pulse as if it were their own, and when she excused herself to bathe, both Lukas and Zois had settled back with the lazy satisfaction of men who thought they knew their mate completely.
So when she returned, they welcomed her as always—yet something stirred in them almost at once.
Her kiss was different.
Hungrier.
Lukas felt it first, a sharp thrill curling low in his stomach as her mouth pressed harder, deeper, as though she was not simply kissing but claiming. Zois noticed it in the way her hands slid across his chest, lingering longer than usual, fingers curling possessively rather than gently. Eila had always been tender, almost hesitant. This was something else. Something bolder, wilder, as though she had been starved and was now intent on devouring them both.
And the strangest thing—his wolf did not recoil.
There was no rejection, no alarm blaring through the bond. Only a faint shiver of unease, a whisper half-buried beneath the rising tide of desire: different.
But her scent was theirs. Her touch carried the spark of their mate-bond. When Zois brushed her hair back and looked into her eyes, he saw Eila staring back at him, flushed and wanting. Whatever strangeness clung to her movements, it was drowned in the pulse of need that threaded between them.
"More," she whispered, and their restraint snapped like dry kindling.
The night blurred. They surrendered to her intensity, matching it, driven higher by the rawness in her touch, the insistence in her body. For hours they moved together, the twins discovering edges of her they had never felt before—fierce, insatiable, a hunger that seemed to grow instead of ease. It should have alarmed them, yet it exhilarated them. Every time Lukas thought her spent, she surged back with new fire, pulling them deeper. Every time Zois felt her trembling with release, she tightened her hold as if demanding more.
It was intoxicating. And it left them both shaken.
By dawn, when at last she collapsed between them, her skin glistened, her breathing ragged but triumphant, almost… satisfied. Lukas lay with his arm draped over her waist, staring at the ceiling, his wolf pacing uneasily inside him. Zois traced the curve of her shoulder with his fingers, caught between awe and something darker—an edge he couldn't name.
"This was…" Lukas began, then trailed off.
Zois met his brother's eyes across her body. Both were thinking the same thing: she was theirs, she felt like theirs, and yet… something was different.
Their bond pulsed steady, strong. But beneath it, an echo lingered—an instinct neither of them could shake.
As if Eila had returned from that bathing chamber with more than just water clinging to her skin.
As if something inside her had changed.