“Imagine all the people living in the condos, all those eyes.” Huston shook his head. “We might have to sellthe house if our privacy is eroded and move further out of town.”
“Even if we live an hour outside the city limits, we wouldn’t be able to buy a place big enough for the four of us and—” Oberon’s voice trailed away.
The word “and” hung in the air. My mind went to other bear shifters joining us, especially when none of my mates would catch my eye. But as I plucked a grass stem and chewed it, my mind processing what Oberon was referring to, Tanner cleared his throat and I glanced at him.
“That might not happen for ages, or at all.”
Oh shit. Why did it take me so long to catch on to Oberon’s meaning? He was talking about kids. Our kids. My mates and mine. Now it was my turn to study the ground and a trail of ants carrying a bit of berry I’d discarded.
Thinking about a large house and plenty of land had my mind going to my childhood home. Once again, I seethed inwardly at Charles living there under false pretenses. It would be the perfect place to raise a family. And while my mates could shift there, they really neededa huge expanse of woodland.
If I’d been my father, I would have purchased the company building the condos adjacent to my mates’ land and put a stop to any construction. Sadly, I didn’t have the money or power.
“We’ll have to do what most other shifters do,” Tanner noted. “Shift in the woods and forest by a highway, or in a national or state park outside of town and hope we don’t encounter any humans.
He got up and pulled on his shirt. A lovely evening at been spoiled. I stood and we wandered back home. I was lost in my own thoughts, wondering how we could solve the problem. I was so used to my father swooping in and throwing money at things and that wasn’t going to happen ever.
“Penny for your thoughts, Candrin.” Oberon slung an arm around my shoulder as if we’d been together for years.
It was interesting that before mating, my bear shifter mates and I had wondered how this relationship would work. Would there be jealous arguments because one brother had spent too much time with me? But the mating process seemed to put those issues to rest. Yes, we argued about whose turn it was to empty thegarbage and when someone dropped their towel on the bathroom floor, but not about intimacy.
That was pretty amazing and we should have been enjoying a honeymoon of sorts. But the development of that land had put a damper on our lives. If only there was a way to stop the construction.
30
HUSTON
Time for action
I absolutely hated that our mate had been so screwed over. He shouldn’t be living a life that had him wondering if he was going to be able to pay the bills or not. I’d love to say that my brothers and I could guarantee that he wouldn’t need to worry about it, but the truth was that we took in a housemate because we needed the money.
The four of us were and would continue to manage the way we were, but for my brothers and I that was no different than any other time in our life. We got by and that was it. The same wasn’t true for our mate. He’dhad a good life, or at least a very fancy one. Going from that to this had to be hard on him.
But it was more than that, at least for Candrin it was. He lost all of his connections, the people closest to him—poof gone. And some of that I called bullshit. If you didn’t want to be around someone anymore because they were no longer rich—fuck that. But some of them, it was because their livelihoods depended on it. And that was sad all the way around.
Candrin was at work still, dealing with some sort of computer snafu and that left both my brothers and I alone. It was as good a time as any to figure out what came next. But first we needed to run. Our beasts were itching to take our fur together and when they got like that it was best to just give in.
“Run then talk,” Oberon said what I’d been thinking after we got the group text that our mate would be pretty late and we all went out back and called our fur.
I ran ahead of my brothers, not wanting to wait for them. They soon caught up to me and the three of us went full speed until we got to the river. One by one we jumped into the cool water, our beasts splashing around. It wasn’t long until our bears were content,happy for their time to run and play, but also ready to give us our control back.
We lumbered along to where our clothes were, shifted, then pulled them on.
“I needed that,” I said as I buttoned my jeans.
Aside from the times we shifted for our mate, we’d been shifting sort of haphazardly. It was fine, usually. It wasn’t as if my brothers and I always shifted together. We rarely did anymore. But now that we were connected by our mate, our bears were kind of weird about wanting that together time. I assumed it was to keep our bond as brothers strong, but they never did say. At least mine didn’t.
“Yeah, it felt good to run.” Tanner grabbed his shirt.
“Agreed.” Oberon picked up his shoes, not bothering to put them on. “We should go and talk now, before Candrin comes home. I have a feeling we all want to discuss the same thing.”
Five minutes later when we were sitting around the kitchen with a cup of coffee in our hands, we discoveredthat was exactly the case.
“Charles,” all three of us said at once, followed by a chorus of, “Jinx.”
“One at a time,” I told them. “We don’t have a ton of time.”
“I’ll go first.” Oberon set his coffee mug down. “My beast wants to maul him. And if I thought for a second that would solve our mate’s problems, I’d let him and not think twice about it.”
