AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m tired of fighting this…whatever this is. I wanted to do this properly, spend enough time with each of you and really get to know you all, but it seems whatever paranormal forces are at play won’t allow that. So instead, I put this to you, as the remaining members of my pack. I won’t bite either of you, not in play or to form a mate bond, not until you ask me for it. I know it's traditional for the woman to make the move, but in this case, I think the rules can be bent. I care a lot for all of you. Like, startlingly so. It feels so rushed and intense, but I can’t bring myself to regret it. Do I want to chomp on the both of you, bring you into the fold, have all of you included in this bond that pretty much sings in my chest? Of course, I do. I…” Pick the right word, I told myself. Be careful. “I care about the two of you so much. Obviously, I want to expand what I have to include you, but I’m not going to, not until you want it. If you want to spend some time just being mated and enjoying each other’s company, I’m not going to care about you less. That doesn’t take the offer off the table. Same goes with sex. You’re all insanely hot, and I love being with all of you, but if you want some time to just be together, that’s cool too.”
I looked up at Brandon, and those cool grey eyes met mine before he nodded.
“A great man told me that loving someone doesn’t mean owning them. Sometimes, it’s holding the person you love in a secret space just for the two of you, and that’s OK. For others, you hold them lightly, let them be who they are, prioritise their happiness, safety, and protection over all else and let everything else sort itself out. I’m holding you lightly, up until the point you don’t want that anymore.”
I could have punched Jack in the face and he would have looked less stunned than he did now. He rocked back on his heels and just stared blankly, and my heart hurt for him that he would be so shocked to hear those words.
“You shut Jack up, that’s one for the books,” Slade said, shuffling over to kiss my cheek. “Congrats, mate,” he said to Aaron, offering him a bloody fist bump. “Glad to have you with us.” Aaron chuckled, reached up, and matched Slade’s emotionally repressed gesture.
“Great man, huh?” Brandon said as he swooped in and thrust his head between Aaron and I, draping his arms around both of us and swooping in to kiss me first, slow and heartfelt. He started to move in to do the same to Aaron, but stopped himself. His eyes glanced from me to the other man. “Is this OK?”
“Is it?” I asked in answer.
Aaron reached over and pulled Brandon to him, and I had a very nice view of the two of them kissing. But I didn’t get to watch for long as Hawk drew close and kissed me before pressing his forehead to mine. “Thanks,” he said, a world contained within that one word, but I knew what he meant. Everything was under the surface with Hawk, something we’d all have to learn to manage.
“We’re gonna have a group hug, aren’t we?” Jack said over Aaron’s shoulder. “God’s hairy balls.” But for all his curses, he moved in quick enough, never able to stay on the outskirts without an effort. Slade cursed too, but his arms went around us all the same.
I agreed with Jack’s sentiment, really. If you’d said I’d be hugging a bunch of guys, naked, under a tree, in another world, and just short of breaking out into the chorus of “Kumbaya,” I’d have said you were on crack. Yet, here I was. The steady hum of one guy’s feelings that I got when touching one of them became something else altogether when we were all interlinked like this. In some ways, it was a dizzying array of different feelings, but I forced myself to relax into it, taking one deep breath and then another.
It’s just feelings, I told myself. They can’t hurt me, not unless I let them. I admit, the next few breaths were shuddering ones. There was so much going on, but as I kept breathing, feeling the fear inside me rise and breathing through it, the anxiety spiral finally crested before tapering off, and then all that remained was me and the current of emotions from them.
Largely, it was love. There was some irritation and fear, confusion and doubt, all hovering on the surface like there was in every moment, but underneath that superficial turmoil, there it was. I felt the warmth pulse through me, through all of us.
I knew when Finn touched my shoulder, it was a light thing, there and gone again. When I looked up, he was walking away, back to the cars. People are going to come and go within the pack, I told myself, feeling the ache as I watched him go. I laid my head on whoever’s body was the closest and just felt the hum of my pack’s energy around me.
“This is well done, but you may need to break things up.” Our heads jerked up to see Sylvan standing over us, some of Aaron’s men hovering in the background. “Another step towards unity is a good thing, but that will be all for naught if the rock crusher’s call for males is answered.”
The idea of more of those bastards stampeding had me on my feet, the gu
ys falling away. Sylvan’s eyes dropped down to my breasts and widened for a moment before forcing a polite smile on his face. Aaron’s men were not so decorous and I quirked an eyebrow as they quite openly checked me out. It took Aaron standing in front of me like a modesty screen of muscle to nip that in a bud.
“Boss, we think in honour of your new relationship, you should get a change in call sign,” I heard one of the men say to Aaron.
“Whaddya mean? I’ve been Tiny since I joined up.”
I dropped down and hastily pulled Aaron’s shirt on.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna fit now.”
I paused, looking at the other guys with a quizzical eyebrow.
“Yeah, we’re thinking Moon,” another said.
“What the fuck?” Aaron replied.
“You know, bluuuue mooooon…” The guys crooned the line to the song as their hands went to waistbands before turning around and shaking their arses at us.
“You fucking… Everyone better be at the cars, ready to go in five.”
7
“Here,” I said, sitting down beside Aaron and placing a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. We’d gotten in the cars and driven to the next cache site, then decided to camp here tonight. He took a deep breath, breathing in the steam that curled on its surface before taking an experimental sip.
“Black with two sugars?” He smiled, his look at me almost coy. “You remembered.”
“I have to, Aaron. We haven’t had time to share much else, have we?”
He shook his head and then placed the cup down beside his boot, tugging me over and kissing my head. “Always worrying.”
