Page 117 of Protect Me

Sway

Family.

I nearly choke on the word as I make my way back up to the apartment. Truth is I never thought I’d have it again after my parents were killed. Robert was my attempt at creating my own, and, well, that turned out fucking terrible.

I wasn’t looking for connections when I ran here.

Protection.

Salvation even.

But family? It was an impossibility.

I pause outside my door for a moment before pushing it open and stepping inside. All three men look up at me. Duncan still sits on the couch, but Bracken and Killian stop pacing to stare at me.

The bag I dropped near the door is nowhere to be found.

“If you refuse me, you’ll cost me an entire security team.”

“Were you planning to follow me if I left?” I blurt, my gaze raking over all three of the men. Each of them wears his own expression that betrays the truth. “You were, weren’t you?”

“We won’t lose you,” Bracken tells me.

“But this is your home.”

Killian crosses over and brushes his finger over my cheek.“Youare our home, Sway.”

I start to ask them how they’d even know where to find me, but then my power stirs, and I realize with a jolt that the answer has been sitting inside me all along. The awareness, the attachment I’ve felt to these men wasn’t the magic inside me gaining control. It’s been a mate bond all along. A tether tying me to the three lion shifters I know now I can never walk away from again.

“Do you... Am I...” I shake my head at how scary it feels to say the word out loud, but I have to know. “Am I your mate?”

Killian’s expression softens. “Yes, love.”

“You didn’t say anything,” I whisper.

“We didn’t want to scare you off.”

Tears spring to my eyes as I look past him to the others. “When did you know?”

“We’ve always known,” Bracken says.

Killian nods, and Duncan pins me with a look that sends a shiver through me. Always. I don’t know what to say to that. “I feel it,” I whisper. “The bond. The connection. It wasn’t my magic. It was this.”

All three of them nod, grinning.

“Finally,” Killian mutters, but I can only laugh, happiness bubbling up to replace all my fears.

“D—”

“What did he want from you?” Duncan questions.

“To show me that my power is not the weight I’ve considered it to be all these years.”

“And do you believe it?”

“I don’t know what to believe.” I close my eyes briefly and take a deep breath before opening them again. “I know that Robert used me. That I believed for so long it was my fault he turned out the way he was, and now I’m not sure what to think.”

“That bastard was evil long before he met you,” Bracken growls.