“Number one, she’s right upstairs, and number two, she already had a mate,” I say, as if that little fact would convincethem we weren’t a thing, when it hasn’t even convinced me to stop pursuing her.
“Yet you’re together?” Dylan asks.
“I’m not answering that.”
“When did bears get so secretive?” Ryder asks, joining the conversation and folding his newspaper. Who the hell reads newspapers anymore?
“And when did Eddie get shy?” River asks, a stupid smile covering his face.
“Eddie!” a voice that was too close and too soft to be any of the guys shouts. I turn my head to see Remi. Remi is of South Asian descent, with long, thick, jet-black hair and wide, bright brown eyes. She has dark milky skin and a smile dimmed by experiencing the world’s cruelty too early in her life. We adopted her as a Pack member after finding her locked in a basement by the same people who kidnapped Flora a few months back. As a Pack, we are trying to give her a normal high school senior year and give her as normal of a life as she can have living with shifters.
Vampires outlive shifters. Remi will outlive all of us. The chances of her parents still being alive is a high possibility, but trauma locked her memories away, and she can’t remember much from before she was kidnapped. So, the Enchanted Pack will take care of her until we find her parents.
“Yes?” I respond to her sudden shout, furrowing my brows, wondering what she could possibly tease me with.
“Willow likes you. She likes you a lot. You should go for it,” she whispers with wide eyes. As if her little comment changes everything. As if the fact that Willow likes me too changes everything. When it changes nothing. She’s not willing to commit to me, and with Willow, I’ll commit everything I have.
“And how do you know?”
“I can sense it, remember?” she says with a hopeful smile on her face. I guess she likes Willow as much as she likes Flora and Luxe and would probably kill to get the whole trio of girls in the Pack house with her. Still, I’d forgotten she could read emotions as a vampire and around seven grown men that is dangerous. There were no secrets with this one around.
“It’s not that easy. She loves another person more.”
“Not as much as she loves you.” Way to get my hopes up, vamp. Doesn’t she know she is setting me up for the worst heartbreak of my life?
“Don’t you think this is something I should hear from her?” I say, trying to get the little vamp to stop spilling Willow’s secrets. Remi brings her hands up to her blushing cheeks and dashes off faster than my eyes can see.
“Eddie!” another soft feminine voice calls. This time, I jump to my feet to meet Willow at the archway of the back door.
“Let’s go before the guys continue their interrogation,” I say, guiding her through the sliding door with my hand on her back.
“Time for a shift?” she asks, removing her shirt. Shifters aren’t scared of nudity, if only because their clothes would shred in the shifting process anyway. Even so, I catch a glimpse of her downcast eyes as her shirt reveals her face again.
“Past time, Buttercup,” I say. “But should shift one at a time at first. No need for your diva to rip apart my bear or anything.”
“Eddie, I was joking earlier. My bear won’t attack unless provoked. What about your bear though? Should I be scared?”
“Let’s find out,” I say as I lead her to the tree-filled forest that makes up the Enchanted Pack land. We have acres of land for our growing Pack and plenty of room to shift into our animals freely. “You want me to go first?” I wasn’t sure how her bear would react to mine. She liked the human side of me last Saturday, but she might not like bear me.
“Yes, please. Keep him in control at first, then set him free,” Willow says, standing in her lace bra and skirt. Shifters have two bodies and two minds. One human, one animal. While the animal typically lies dormant while in human form, it is always there. Since the animal lets the human side control the human body, the human consciousness backs off when in animal form. It’s only respectful, and sharing a body isn’t an easy task.
But expectations exist. If an emotion is too strong or if the other consciousness thought it is important enough, the opposite conscious could take over.
I shift into my black bear. My claws shoot out of my fingertips and my skin sprouts more and more fur till my entire body is covered. My bear falls to walk on all fours towards Willow. Even on all fours, he is taller than her. My bear has control, despite Willow’s wishes, but I keep a watchful eye on him instead of fading into the darkness.
I let my bear circle around her as she stands completely still. He sniffs her scent, getting closer to the enticing scent of warm pancakes—that’s what she truly smells like—and he leans into her hand as she welcomes him with a few head rubs.
My bear likes Willow.
Sometimes affection from the human side can bleed into the animal’s emotions, but it most commonly happened with mates. It’s another clue to finding your mate, so my bear’s likeness towards Willow should be expected, but my human mind knows better. The fact that my bear is so comfortable with Willow would tell me she is a possible mate in a normal circumstance, but this isn’t a normal circumstance, is it?
I know I need to let go of the notion that Willow could be my mate. It’ll only end in heartbreak. I know, but I can’t quite let go, and it seems my bear can’t either. He takes a deep breath, inhaling her scent before stepping away from Willow. He sits in front of her and waits. He knows it’s her turn to shift.
She’s almost shy now, taking off the rest of her clothes. She immediately shifts into her brown bear, who is slightly shorter than my bear. She falls to stand on four paws and does the sniff and circle routine to my bear form. Her bear struts with a sassy walk, her hips swaying similar to human Willow’s hips do, only her bear is more intentional about it. She wears a smirk on her bear lips as she sniffs us. It is sudden, and it is sexy, when her bear pushes us to the ground by leaning her body against ours. She’s establishing dominance, and, boy, does my bear love that game.
Rolling over, my bear gets back up, this time on two legs, and pushes Willow down on her back before climbing over her. I have to jump in to push my bear to climb fully over her—this is a game, not a mating attempt. My bear sniffs at her, signaling to her this is play, and she sniffs back. With a push, she gets back up, drifting off into the trees, knocking into bushes and snapping tree branches I will have to clean later. Watching them, I realize this is their time, and so I give my bear full control and fade into the darkness.
13
