“No, no, no, you were supposed to help me, not make things worse. Dammit.” The growly guy’s words repeat in my head on a loop, along with the memory of the way his face fell and the look of disappointment and regret in his eyes when the mate bond snapped into place.
My mate.
Another one, hand-picked for me by my old buddy, fate. Although this one seemed a lot less enthusiastic than I’m used to, if the way he stormed off without another word is anything to go by.
I don’t even know his name.
I do know that he smelled like leather and wood smoke, and that I stood staring at the empty space he left behind for a good five minutes before coming to my senses and heading back into the cabin. The one I share with my other mates.
My mates who actually want me.
Not that I’m bothered by his outright dismissal and rejection. Nope, I’m peachy keen.
…but did he have to look so disgusted and gutted about the situation?
I shake myself off and walk into the kitchen to find Killan searching the fridge for something for our dinner. It’s not even lunchtime and he’s already planning ahead. Such a sweetheart.
“I’m thinking breakfast for dinner. Bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, pancakes, the whole shebang. What do you think, Gorgeous?”
I blink up at his perfect face and run a hand over the stubble growing on his cheek and jaw. My bear shifter, my protector. The person who has been nothing but kind and caring toward me, looking after all of us without a second thought ever since we first met. Killan’s the one that makes sure we all have full bellies and clean clothes. He’s a feeder, a knitter, an old lady in the guise of the sexiest oversized lumberjack I’ve ever seen.
To think that I just about shit myself and ran away when I first realized we were mates, that there was a fated mate bond connecting my soul to his. I was a little coward, running and hiding without even having a conversation about it.
Just like the grouchy, intense stranger that turned up at my door. His long black hair and sea-green eyes combined with his all black outfit gave off a biker or a tortured artist vibe. And the whole ‘don’t fuck with me’ expression on his face was like looking in a mirror, considering it’s my go-to expression.
“Gorgeous? Wren? You okay?” Killan asks, stepping closer to me and cupping my jaw with his massive hand.
“I’m—” I swallow hard.
Shit, what’s going on with me? My mind is all over the place. Maybe I’m in shock or something and it’s causing my synapses to misfire. It’s not like it’s an everyday thing to have another mate rock up at your door, reject you, and then turn tail within a five-minute period.
Although shock would suggest that I care, which I do not. Fate can go fuck itself and so can men with piercing eyes that cut you down to your soul with a single look. Pah, who cares about any of that? Not me.
I wind up blurting out a summary of the whole encounter to Killan, whose scowl deepens the longer I talk. He even takes a fierce step toward the door, his fists clenched, like he’s going to hunt the guy down and punch his face in for rejecting me. Although, once he sees my pleading expression to leave it alone, he visibly forces himself to relax and pulls me into a tight hug.
“That asshole doesn’t know what he’s doing or missing,” he growls. I’m plastered against his chest and can feel the rumble of his words in my chest, which is a strangely comforting sensation.
Orion echoes Killan's protective behavior when he returns a little later with Etienne. My snow leopard mate goes as far as to growl his displeasure at the thought of someone insulting me.
Which is cute and all and it makes me snort a laugh, but it’s unnecessary. I don’t want another mate. Don’t want it, don’t need it.
Etienne’s the only one to not fall into growly protector mode. Which makes sense considering he’s the only one that doesn’t have an animal riding him and fucking with his emotions. Instead, his magic brushes up against me like a cool hand caressing my skin, ruffling my hair and making the exposed skin on my neck tingle.
“And the bond snapped into place just by looking at this guy?” he asks. “Has that ever happened before? I thought it was a whole slow, drawn-out process that only got sealed when we got naked and connected our parts.” His eyes twinkle as he grabs my hand and twines our fingers together. I’m also still connected to Orion, where he’s hugging me to his chest and his leopard lets out a soft little chuff, like he’s trying to comfort me.
“This was different,” I explain. “I guess the closest thing I have to compare it to is the bond with Killan and he sensed the bond before we sealed it. This time, it was like we didn’t even have that first step of recognizing there was the potential for the bond to form. It was just there.”
“You mean you’re actually mated to this random fuck? In the same way that you’re mated to the rest of us?” Orion snarls. His chest redoubles its vibrations, and he growls so violently I can feel it right the way through to my spine.
I haven’t exactly taken the time to inspect the fresh bond inside me, but I do just that now. My stomach flips over at the confirmation of its existence. It doesn’t feel quite the same as the other thick threads linking my soul with my guys. I can sense all of their presences all the time, like a low hum of contentment in the background. Sometimes, if one of us experiences a particularly strong surge of emotion, we get an echo of it through the bond. Which, until now, has led to the bedroom door being flung open on more than one occasion when I’ve been waylaid by one or two of them.
When I concentrate on the bonds sitting inside my chest now though I see the thread connecting me to the stranger is a deep blue, whereas the other three are silver. It also doesn’t look quite the same. It’s not so thick and lustrous. I can vaguely sense that he’s not too far away, but that’s all I’m getting out of the bond.
“Well, either you’ll never see him again and the bond’ll disintegrate over time,” Killan says. “Or he’ll come crawling back and grovel when he realizes what he’s missing by rejecting such a strong, perfect mate.”
My stomach clenches again, my insides unhappy with the idea of my bond fading away. Man, I need to get a grip and pull myself together. I don’t even know this guy. He seemed like a rude asshole in the bare minutes we were face to face, but he could be worse than that. He could be mean or cruel or violent.
“Or we find a way to break it,” Orion says. “Whatever you decide, Sweetness, we can fix it.”
I let out a slow breath. He’s right, whatever happens, I’m done with being fate’s little plaything. Ever since things went down with Andrew and he wound up in a hole in the ground, my fate weaver powers have been growing stronger. I’m no longer tethered by weaver rules since I’m not technically a weaver anymore. I can use them however I want.
People have heard about what happened over in Arkanvale and how we stopped Andrew from taking over. It’s brought a fair bit of attention my way and people have been asking for my help when they’re stuck in a situation they can’t seem to get out of. So far, it’s mostly been small things. I’ve been giving a little advice about how things might go if someone decides to take a chance on a new boyfriend, or whether a different job is likely to help get them out of a sticky situation. Nothing world-changing, but stuff that might ultimately help people out.
There was also that sick kid I helped a couple of months back. The poor little guy had something the mages call ‘wasting sickness’ where his magic was consuming him from the inside out. And while nothing is ever set in stone, his fate strands seemed to be leading him toward almost certain death. It took a couple of weeks, but I worked out a way of altering the fate strands that seemed to lead to the illness getting worse. I fiddled things around a little, rerouted the avenues for his future and that, somehow, miraculously, helped his symptoms fade. The last I heard, he’s doing a lot better and his mom couldn’t stop thanking me for helping him out. She’s been telling anyone and everyone about how I saved her little boy’s life. Who knows if it’ll ultimately stop them from coming back in the future, but I did what I could to help him right now.
My powers resurfacing is not the only change over the past few months. Etienne’s no longer the only mage in the village. After the mage council sent their representatives all over Oonos, some of them decided to stay in the packs they’d been sent to and they brought their families with them. That led to an influx of other mages deciding to see if life outside the city was for them. The mage population in the Misty Ridge and neighboring Boulderbrook packs is now a whopping six households. The thing about mages, though, is that they’re a pretty useless bunch when they don’t have everything done for them. Etienne’s been running himself ragged, helping all the new families to settle into the pack and setting them up with whatever weird magic-infused equipment they have as standard in the mage cities. That, of course, led to a bunch of shifters from our pack wanting the same thing, because who wants to waste time doing dishes or laundry when you can just magic stuff clean, right?
“How did today go?” I ask my sunshiny mage. He’s been out all day with Orion, dealing with some shifters from a nearby pack.
“Good.” He beams at me and plants a kiss on my cheek. “They wanted some help with a tracking spell. Their kid apparently went off to ‘find themselves’ in the wilderness and then never checked in to tell them he was fine and dandy and had shacked up with a girl from the mountains.”
“It’s pretty normal for shifter kids to be sent off into the wild for a bit to connect with their animal,” Killan says.
“Yeah, well, they were a family of rabbit shifters and were worried that he’d become someone’s dinner.” Etienne’s smile doesn’t dim as he shrugs. “Anyway, they weren’t too happy once I found him and discovered he was absolutely fine. They realized he must have been too busy over the past few weeks—”
“Fucking like bunnies,” Orion chips in with a smirk.
“Since the son wasn’t around, they got pretty shirty with me,” Etienne says.
“Did they try anything?” Killan asks, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.
“Not with me there, they didn’t,” Orion growls.
The way he’s extended his protective moodiness to all of us warms my cold little heart. We’re our own little unit of four and it’s nice knowing that the guys look out for each other just the same as they look out for me.
“Those bunnies can glare at you all they like, but they don’t exactly pack a punch.” Orion smirks.
Etienne nods in agreement. “Yeah, I gave them my best mean face and then Orion growled at them, and that seemed to shut them up.”
“Thought they were gonna shit their pants,” Orion says, completely unrepentant. “You did exactly what they asked of you, and they needed a little reminder to be polite.”
Etienne just shrugs it off, but I’m secretly glad that he had one of the others with him. He’s too damn sweet and I don’t want anyone taking advantage or trying to dim his shine.
“Before I forget, the alpha wants to see us tomorrow morning, first thing,” Etienne says, stroking his thumb over my cheek and pressing kisses along my neck.
His eyes lock on mine, and I know he’s trying to distract me from the events of the morning. Killan and Orion step closer and I feel their warmth and the hardness of their bodies press close up against me, cocooning me between the three of them, and I don’t mind this particular distraction technique at all.
“Now fellas,” Orion murmurs into my skin. “I think it’s about time we showed our mate quite how perfect we think she is, don’t you think?”
Their mixed scents combine and I take a deep inhale and sigh, letting the tension dissolve from my shoulders. Etienne runs his thumb over my lower lip and grins.
“What do you say, Babycakes? Are you ready to take all three of us at once again?”
I clench my thighs together. We’ve been busy in the bedroom over the past few months, experimenting in all combinations—me and each of my guys alone, with two of them and the third watching, or two of them waiting in the wings while the other screws me senseless. But I’m about ready to have three pairs of hands on me at once, no one getting sidelined or left out to watch and wait their turn. A delicious shiver goes through me at the thought.
“Would you like that, Sweetness?” Orion’s voice rumbles through my chest. I can feel his thick erection pressing against my side as he kisses along my jaw.
“Yes,” I rasp. “I want that. Bedroom. Now.”
My thoughts are barely more coherent than the garbled words that come out of my mouth. All I know is that I need these three men naked right now.
Orion scoops me up in his arms and carries me into the bedroom, dropping me onto the oversized bed so that I bounce with the mattress. He strips my pants off, shimmying them down my legs and throwing them over his shoulder with a savage grin. Killan shucks his own clothes in record time and Etienne does the same with a wave of his hand. Next, Orion removes my t-shirt and cups my bare breasts and sucks one of my nipples into his mouth.
I squirm, but he doesn’t allow me to retreat too far, one big hand holding me in place as he lavishes attention on my nipples before moving down to my clit where he buries his face between my legs and moans loudly.
“You just taste better and better every time, Sweetness,” he mumbles against my flesh. Etienne comes over to my left side, pressing kisses down my neck and shoulder as he massages one of my breasts, while Killan takes the other side. They all mutter sweet words, telling me how gorgeous I am, how lucky they are to get to worship me like this.
…and I feel like a damn queen.
All thoughts of anything beyond these four walls, beyond the four of us, disappear as we lose ourselves in each other. Who needs a fourth mate that doesn’t want me? Not this girl.
