All three of us lay on our bellies as our mate approached us. She walked around our forms. Touched our fur. Tested how our ears and noses felt. I smelled not one ounce of fear on her. Finally, Isabella sat on the ground and we inched closer.
“You guys are magnificent. I’m so lucky.”
We were the ones who were lucky. Lucky bastards who had accidentally found their fated in a place of suffering.
I nuzzled her hand with my nose, begging for more attention.
“I have to admit, Lyon, you are the biggest and the scariest. I can’t imagine being on the other side of your anger.” She shuddered but grinned. “Good thing you’re protecting me. All three of you. Now enough of this lazing around. I want to see my big, bad bears run.”
Chapter Fifteen
Isabella
They really were bears. Furry, fierce bears with paws as big as my face. If I’d ever seen a bear this close, even the little ones that lived by my childhood home, I’d have freaked out, sure I was about to take my last breath. But with these three? I wanted to hug them and pet them and snuggle up to them, which was confusing and messed up. You shouldn’t want to pet your partners. They weren’t dogs or cats.
I wondered how much the bear part of them knew about me. At least, that’s how I thought it worked based on everything Millie said. Shifters were two entities kind of cohabitating in the same being. So my mates were actually bears, but also my alphas.
Thinking too hard on it was going to make me miss out on the experience, so instead, I told them I wanted to see them run. They were adorable when they did, not that I’d tell them. I was pretty sure them hearing me refer to their bad-ass bears as adorable wasn’t the warm, fuzzy compliment I’d have meant it to be.
They were, though. Nobody was going to be able to prove to me they weren’t running a race and trying to show who was the fastest of the bears. In truth, I didn’t care which of them could run the mile in the shortest time. This wasn’t high school gym class.
One of the things I liked most about them was how different they were, even in their fur. They touched me in a way that stood out from each other, just like with their human forms. I ran toward them, laughing as we played and played.
I’d have loved a picture of this, to be able to look back and see the joy I felt, being here, free from Mark, safe. Frolickingwith people who wanted nothing more than for me to live the life I deserved. Not the one I’d prepared for my entire life but one with a true happy ending.
It had been a long time since I had this kind of physical exertion. Mark was afraid I would get too bulked up if I went to the gym. At least, that was his excuse. He was probably more afraid I would fight back, and, not for the first time, I wished I had. If I had pushed back in any real way, I probably wouldn’t be here to enjoy my mates.
“I’m calling uncle!” I collapsed on the ground, out of breath and blissfully happy.
They joined me less than a minute later, and, when I turned my head and opened my eyes, I suffered some disappointment that they had thrown on clothes. It had never been this way with Mark after we got married. He didn’t care about me or how our physical intimacy made me feel. Not the first time, not any time. It was all about him and often left me with more bruises than his beatings. Why would I ever have fantasized about that?
But I was already interested in tracing their abs with my fingertips, pressing sweet kisses to their chests, touching lower… I shook off the thought. There was time for all of that. I shouldn’t be rushing there, especially when they hadn’t expressed interest in going that far.
It was for the best. I didn’t know how any of this was going to work. There were three of them. Was it me and all of them? Me and one of them? A combination of both?
“Whatever you’re thinking,” Cashel spoke, his voice very restrained, “maybe…maybe don’t.”
“What? What do you mean?” I was so confused.
“He means, we can sense where your mind is wandering, and we don’t want to rush.” York sat up.
I wanted to die right there. I longed for the ground to open up so I could climb inside and bury myself. “I-I think I need to go.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. We feel the same way. We have our entire lives and don’t need to rush everything now.” To my surprise, Lyon gave me the words I needed to hear, Lyon who’d spoken very few sentences this entire day.
“Are you upset that I’m married?” What I’d meant was that I was obviously not untouched, but what they heard was about my divorce not happening yet.
“We wish you were broken legally from the human, yes,” Cashel said, sounding so formal.
“Mating bonds are stronger than marriage.” Again, it was Lyon. He spoke few words, but he made them count.
“Yeah, about that… I don’t really understand how that works. Not about the marking but about the other stuff you do when marking happens.” How did I go from frolicking with bears in the sun to the most embarrassing conversation of my life?
“Depends on what you want.” York’s ears were bright red. At least, he had the decency to be embarrassed too, or maybe he was feeding off my embarrassment. Whatever, a win was a win. “We can all mark you at once, or it can be a one-at-a-time thing.”
“And if it’s one at a time, you won’t be mad at who goes first or who goes last.”
All three of them said at the same time, “Absolutely not,” as if they’d rehearsed it. But from the way they side-glanced each other afterward, they hadn’t. It was how they truly felt and had me feeling much more secure in all of this.
