Page 19 of Shifter Situations

“For Devil’s sake, Lo,” Jack whisper-shouted from behind me.

“Just once. Just fucking once, can you not picture that shit when I’m around? They’re hot; I get it. But you do it so often that I think it’s starting to condition my mind to see them the way you see them, and I’m not okay with that.”

Grim coughed out a laugh. “Are you saying that she’s brain-washing you into wanting dick that you can’t have?”

“Yes,” Jack agreed quickly before acknowledging my mates.

“No offense or anything. It’s just weird. The more her filthy thoughts trickle into mine, the more I try to think of things that don’t turn me on. And that’s few and fucking far between. I’ve realized in the past few weeks that almost everything turns me on.”

Poor Jack.

“Uhm, no offense taken, I think?” Briggs replied, his brows furrowed as he rubbed a tattooed hand across his beard.

“I don’t know that I understand what’s happening right now,” Vaughn commented. His voice rose at the end, making it sound like a question.

I grinned at Jack, but Dad walked around the corner with Blaire before I could say anything. His eyes bounced between Jack and me, and then he sighed dramatically.

“The universe did not bless me with enough patience to deal with you two as adults.”

“Does that mean we can stay in two of the cabins so that we’re not under your roof?” Jack sassed.

I covered my mouth with my hand, nodding my head enthusiastically. There was no way we were staying in the lodge.

Zero.

I could not be in the same room with any of my mates if my dad was within earshot, and he could hear every corner of the lodge.

“Yes,” Dad acquiesced. “I’d love to have you here to spend some time with, but not until you two settle down. Just do your mind-speak thing, because there are some things a parent doesn’t need to hear.”

I kissed Dad’s cheek before dragging my mates out the door and down the steps of the wrap-around porch on the lodge. The cool morning breeze danced around me as I strolled to the back of the mock-log cabin.

To outsiders, the property would look like a mountain-side retreat. Cabins were spaced out around the lodge. Some were in the open, and some were in the tree line surrounding the enormous yard.

They ranged in sizes and functionality, but with the faction alphas coming in this week, they’d fill up fast.

Jack knew precisely which cabins I was heading toward.

Tucked in the trees behind the lodge was a row of seven cabins. They hadn’t been updated since the ‘60s, but they were in excellent condition if you could overlook the retro interior.

I didn’t think any of the alphas remembered them being back here.

No one should bother us.

The cabin in the middle was the biggest, so I went straight to that one. I returned my hounds to their English Mastiff forms and opened the door to let them sniff around.

Cronus broke off to search the cabin that Jack stopped at. I was momentarily shocked to see Blaire standing between him and Grim. She rolled her eyes at them both as she ran her hand down Cronus’s back affectionately.

After we had the all-clear to go inside, I transformed Pete from a black butterfly to a large tortoise. It was the only animal I could think of that would fit in the house and still stick to his vegetarian diet.

I didn’t immediately go in, though. I couldn’t take my eyes off Grim and Blaire. His hand was on the small of her back, and she gave Jack a coy smile, which he returned with heated eyes.

Jack had closed our connection, but I was thinking about prying it open. Grim and Blaire both had blank minds even though I could see them communicating.

I needed to know what was going on between the three of them. I had no doubts that those two picked women up all the time. I also wasn’t going to let Blaire be some conquest for them to conquer.

Palmer pressed his chest into my back as Blaire and the guys disappeared inside. That one move brought my mind spiraling back into the gutter as memories rushed me.

His mouth brushed the shell of my ear as he spoke, and I shivered against him. “Love? Any particular reason yer staring at Blaire like that? Something ya want to share with the class? ”