# MINE IN EVERY LIFETIME
## Chapter Twenty Four — *The Gate*
Ten minutes.
Mara walked through the compound with that number sitting in her chest like something with weight.
Ten minutes.
Fourteen wolves at the gate.
And a bond that was almost there but not quite and the worst possible timing in the history of terrible timing.
Caius walked beside her.
Zane on her other side.
Neither of them spoke.
They did not need to.
She could feel both of them through the bond. Not just warmth now. Something more specific than warmth. Caius's controlled fury sitting just underneath his surface like water that had been brought to heat and was waiting for a reason to boil. Zane's steadiness which was not the absence of anger but the management of it. The specific steadiness of a man who was furio
