“She can tell we’re talking about her, and she doesn’t like it,” Cody announced to Ash. “We should probably have this conversation out loud.”
He threw me an apologetic glance. “Sorry about that, cocoa bean.”
“No need to apologize.” His sorry made me feel churlish for feeling annoyed. “You guys have been mates for how long?”
“A maul,” Ash corrected. “We’ve been in a maul for three years. I’m Cody’s and Mak’s Second Maul, and Mak is our First Maul, while Cody is our Third. Some mauls have mates who love each other romantically, along with their wife. Others forego a wife entirely and center on a male bear. We call those adoptive mauls, as they’re often the first to take in cubs who lose their parents. But Cody, Mak, and I are a simple Four-Direction Spirit maul.”
I fretted my lip. This was a lot to keep straight. In my formerly all-human world, a Four-Direction Spirit maul sounded anything but simple.
“He’s trying to say we only want to have sex with our female mate, not with each other,” Cody translated with a sympathetic dip of his chin. “So we’re always called mauls when referring to each other—not mates. That way, everyone’s on the same page, and there’s no confusion about what we’re looking for in a mate.”
I blinked at him, trying to absorb this. “Okay. That’s… practical.” I shook off the thought and reset to my original point. “Well, you guys have been mauling for three years, and you knew me for less than three minutes before I went into estrus. You don’t have to apologize for talking to each other over your bond, and it shouldn’t irritate me. I don’t want you to change for someone who’s going to be gone in a few days.”
Silence. Another exchanged look that felt like talking.
“Cody and I were trying to figure out how to address your insecurity around what happened with Mak,” Ash eventuallysaid, his tone careful. “You think Mak’s departure is about you—that he’s not attracted to you the way we obviously are. We were debating how to tell you that wasn’t the case without admitting Cody had violated your request not to read your thoughts.”
“Sorry,” Cody mumbled. “I’m trying to be respectful. But your head’s loud, cocoa bean, and like I said, my bear doesn’t like when you’re upset.”
My face heated. I was twenty-seven years old, but... “I feel like a silly kid,” I said, pressing my hands into my burning cheeks. “Like, so unable to deal. See, this is another good reason to only keep this going until this estrus business is done. I’m way too insecure to handle this dynamic for longer than that.”
“If you stayed through Christmas, I bet you’d get used to it by then.” Cody reached out, taking my free hand and rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.
I instantly felt a little more at ease under his touch. But I had to point out, “I doubt Mak would be happy about me staying any longer than necessary.”
“No, cocoa bean. That’s not true at all.” Cody leaned closer, his voice soft but insistent. “He’d be over the shifter moon if you stayed. He and Ash were beginning to lose hope that we’d find someone our noses all agreed on before they walked into the den to find you lying there.”
I shook my head. “Mak didn’t look all that happy about the prospect of having sex with me. Even before he slammed out of here.”
Ash winced. “That’s because he knows he’s not strong enough to get through a mating without biting you. Mak’s a polar bear. Almost ten feet to my seven and Cody’s eight in standing form.If he tried to bite you, there wouldn’t be anything I could do to hold him back. And he doesn’t want to hurt you again like your ex did.”
Horror clawed through me like ice down my spine.
“How?” I choked. I yanked my hand out of Cody’s grasp and barely managed to ask Ash, “How do you know what happened with my ex?”
I began to suspect the answer when Cody looked away, guilt written all over his face.
And Ash confirmed it when he said, “Bear biology is extremely efficient. You’re bonded to Cody. And he’s bonded to us.”
“Translation: What I know, they know. In an instant,” Cody added, his voice low, his eyes downcast. “That’s why Mak left—ran away, really. He had to put distance between us, or else he would have felt every incredible thing we felt when I was with you.”
That explained a lot, actually, but not everything. I shook my head. “But I didn’t tell you about that part of my relationship. I didn’t even think it.”
“Actually, you kind of did,” Cody said, his expression miserable. “Just now, you were thinking about how your ex said he couldn’t get it up because you’d stopped taking care of yourself and gained weight when, in actuality, he was cheating on you. And earlier you were thinking about how he never went down on you. And when you said you’d just gotten out of a bad relationship, the whole thing flashed through your mind like a montage. Him yelling at you, insulting you, and hitting you when you tried to leave after finding out about the cheating—no, Noelle, don’t! C’mon, cocoa bean!”
I sprang to my feet and sprinted away before Cody or Ash could grab me.
Oh, god, They knew!They all knew about my deepest shame—the story I hadn’t even been strong enough to tell my sister.
“Stay here and talk to us! We told you…”
Yes, they’d told me. I wasn’t allowed to leave the nest. But it was already too late.
I blindly ran toward the closest escape, a set of double doors, swiping at my tears of anger and humiliation.
cody
. . .
