How can we justify taking a human for a mate when we couldn’t even keep our sister safe? It’s not uncommon with as rare as female wolves are becoming, most men giving up the hope of being able to shift one day and making their peace with it, but it’s a risky as fuck move when we’re already barely hanging on to add another weak point that our enemies can exploit.
“I see those wheels turning in your head,” Slade announces, grabbing the decanter of scotch off of the end table beside his favorite recliner as he drops into his seat. Pouring himself a glass, he states, “Stop the guilt spiral. We got too complacent, but Emmy knew that being that far away from home when the sun was due to come up soon was a bad idea.”
As Cin immediately snaps to her defense, Slade raises a hand to silence him. “I am not in any way, shape, or form blaming her for what happened. I’m saying that she was careless in regard to not thinking beyond the moment. Say Carter wasn’t even a factor and no one tried to hurt her. She was only thinking about stretching her legs and pushing past her limits, not about the fact that when the sun came up, she had no plan on how to get home. No phone, completely naked, and about a two hour walk between her and the house. It’d be one thing if there was a reason, like she was running away from a threat and ended up in a rough spot with no great solutions, but that wasn’t the case. She put herself at risk of someone seeing her shift back because she wasn’t thinking beyond the heat of the moment, and with it, threw herself at the mercy of human decency that someone would solve the problem for her, whether by letting her borrow a phone or hitch a ride with a stranger.”
I sigh, knowing he’s right. It isn’t like someone came onto our land and hurt part of our family. We didn’t fail to protect her, weoverprotectedher, and she felt so safe that she stopped thinking about potential dangers, acting like she was untouchable.
“I think this was a real wake up call for her, though. She hasn’t even shown an interest in wanting to leave the grounds unless it has something to do with Sabrina.”
Slade hums, taking a drink. “And with the way she insisted you pick her up instead of tagging along for the ride, she obviously wanted the two of you alone together.”
“I’m not even mad that she’s clearly trying to fix us up; she has good taste,” Reid states, never once looking up from his screen.
“Better,” Cin teases, “she couldn’t be less impressed by how important Slade thinks he is.” The jab earns him a warning growl from our eldest brother, the four of us already growing possessive simply over theideaof claiming Sabrina.
“We might want to... tread lightly then,” I tentatively bring up, my weak reservations crumbling in the face of their easy acceptance to the idea, breathing a bit easier now that I know there’s no resistance. “If we’re actually considering giving this a shot.”
At Slade and Cinjin’s confusion, Reid takes over to elaborate what I’m struggling to put into words. “She’s human. No matter how well she takes the news of what we are, ultimately, seeing is believing and she’ll very likely come to terms with that quickly, even if it’s rocky for a little while as she wraps her head around it.”
Cin nods, catching on, “But if we all start hitting on her, she might very well shut down and refuse to date any of us. If she wants to keep coming to the house so that she can spend time with Ems, she wouldn’t want to turn it into a hostile situation if she chose one of us over the others and made everything awkward.”
Slade sighs. “So how do we fix that? Draw straws and the others back off for now? If she doesn’t know we’re interested, how is anything going to move forward?”
Cin rounds the table, grabbing one of Reid’s wrists and lifts his arm. “We humbly volunteer. I swear, it’s like we were born for this moment.” He gestures between him and his unfazed twin that’s using his free hand to continue his mission without bothering to spare us a glance. “A stunt double, back up boyfriend. You fall in love with one, it’s almost impossible not to secretly imagine if the other is identical in bed too, or if it’d be a brand new experience. Fantasies of twin sandwiches. And seriously, once you go threesome, you don’t go back. All bets are off after reaching that point, so fuck it, may as well turn it into a party.”
Cocking my head, I stare at the deranged, grinning psycho.You know, thinking about it, he might actually be onto something. And that’s how I know it’s definitely a terrible idea;Cinjinis making sense.
“That has the potential to epically blow up in our faces,” Slade decrees with finality. “If she thinks we were manipulating her into liking us, she’s not going to want to have anything to do withanyof us after that.”
“To be fair, we technically are scheming behind her back on how to make her fall in love with us.”
Reid sets his phone down, rolling over to grab the small novel waiting for him at the printer. “This is research, it’s different.”
“How so?”
When he returns to the table, he passes part of the stack into Cinjin’s waiting hand. “It’d be skeevy if it was someone that was only trying to figure out the fastest way to get into her pants and planned to ditch her afterward.That’smanipulative and gross; when you only memorize enough to trick someone into thinking you care about them so that you can use them. We, on the other hand, want to know everything about her so we can make herhappy.”
Cin flips a page upside down and moves onto the next, not looking up as he picks up the conversation with flawless precision in the eerie way they share a brain. “Say something awful happened to her at some point. If we can reasonably assume she’d be sensitive to, say, small spaces, we make a point to take the stairs instead of an elevator when going out without ever turning it into a thing that might make her have a panic attack or feel like she has to explain because she’s embarrassed.”
Reid’s eyes fly across his page, multitasking with ease. “Or if she was raised in a toxic home environment where people were yelling all of the time, we can make a point to have any pack discussions that have a potential to get heated only in the study so we don’t unintentionally upset her if tempers get away from us in the heat of the moment.”
Nodding to myself, I say to hell with it, reaching forward to grab the few pages Cin’s set aside, since it looks like he got the beginning half of her unofficial autobiography. “Instead of correcting behavior after discovering an issue when we’re all getting to know each other, skip ahead to make sure we don’t make her upset in the first place. So we can bypass all of the growing pains of a new relationship and she’ll see that we’re perfect for her without it taking over a year of dating.”
“Bingo,” they reply in tandem, focused on the papers in their hands.
As the minutes tick by, Slade curses, finally caving into his curiosity and coming over to take a seat beside me. I pass him the ones I’ve already finished that cover the basics; birthdate, list of schools she attended, job history.
Immersed in our study session, I startle when a loud thump suddenly sounds nearby. Sharing a quick look with the others, we jump to our feet and hurry out of the room, straining our hearing. We let out a collective breath of relief as Emmy's muffled curse and Sabrina's breathy chuckle echo down the hallway, but don’t slow our steps. By the time we round the bend into the next hallway, Emmy's hauling Sabrina to her feet, the latter currently glaring at the few steps that lead to the recessed living room.
“I was about to give up trying to find you and just start walking,” she announces, wavering a bit as Emmy snickers beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her upright. “Can you give me a ride home?”
Glancing at my phone, I’m shocked to find it’s nearly midnight already. Time flies when you’re obsessing over your future mate.
“Why don't you crash here and I can take you back in the morning?”
She waves me off, nearly toppling over. “Oh yes, a lovely first impression that would make. First time I’m invited over and I spend the night? I don't even know you guys' last name.”
Cin snorts when Emmy stumbles a step and nearly sends them both sprawling onto the floor, jogging forward to catch and steady them. “You're right, it's much better to climb into a stranger's car drunk off your ass.”
