I peeked behind Novak to see if Briggs was asleep. He had his head leaned against the window and hellhound feet in his lap. He liked the monsters, even if he tried not to, just like Sloane. His tension free face spoke volumes about his state of mind. If I had to guess, I’d say that he’d been thinking of our mate too.
Briggs
I was gonna fall in love with her, godsdamnit. No matter how hard I tried to fight this mating shit, it was going to happen. My wolf had chosen her the first time he’d scented her aroma floating across her yard. She hadn’t even spoken yet, and I already knew. I was fucked, plain and simple.
It would’ve been easier to hold off the itch to mate with her if she hadn’t beaten me in an alpha challenge. Now he was ready, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it so fast. I hated that I missed her fighting last night. I was also thrilled that I did. I wouldn’t have been able to hold back the wolf’s demand while not in my skin. He would’ve taken her right then and there. Dead bodies littering the ground or not. Neither of us gave two fucks about an audience, living or dead.
If I could just tighten my leash on him until the full moon. Two weeks, that was all I needed. Then we could make the smartest move, and that would bring both of our wolves to full power. I didn’t even know what it would do to our power in our human skins. That’s something I’d have to research on my own. If I ever got time to do it.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to jump into a new relationship after the way my last relationship ended. It’d been a couple months, but the wounds she’d inflicted were deep. I didn’t want to jump into this as a broken male. I didn’t know how long it would take to heal from the things that bitch had put me through. The cheating and verbal abuse barely skimmed the surface of her controlling behavior. If it hadn’t been for the guys… I might still be with her. Thinking about her now made a shudder ripple through my chest. How would Sloane handle the retelling of my past? Probably not well. I hoped real fucking hard that she never met any of my exes, the last especially.
I needed to get back in my rhythm. Find my happy place again. The longer I spent with Sloane, the more I realized that she could easily become part of that place for me. It terrified and ignited me all at once. How much of this was the mate bond and how much of it was my own feelings, though? I fell in love so fast it was like jumping out of a plane. There was no parachute for me, though. When I reached the end of my free-fall it always got nasty. I didn’t want that this time.
Fuck. I needed to get out of my head. I’d wound myself so tight that I didn’t know how to untwist the thoughts anymore. I needed to be in a kitchen somewhere. Anywhere. Creating something delicious would occupy my mind and keep me busy. Taking care of everyone had always brought me solace. Being a guardian. Providing safety. Those were the things my wolf and I both needed. Palmer and I were similar on that front. He was a shoulder to lean on and filled with wise advice that he gave freely. What kind of words of wisdom would Palmer offer us all about our mate right now?
Palmer
This had been the most intense three days of my life. It felt like weeks had passed us by, not mere days. I’d spent two weeks in Belfast with my family and that had strung on forever. Every day I’d been ready to come home. The hours had ticked by agonizingly slow. All that time bled together, making me miserable. This weekend had been different. I still couldn’t believe all the things that had happened so quickly. Wednesday night I’d had an odd niggling that had made me want to speed home. I’d booked the first available flight, kissed my ma on the cheek, and went to the airport three hours early so I wouldn’t be late. Here we were on Monday morning, and everything had changed.
I still couldn’t figure out why we’d all felt that same need to be home. I hadn’t heard from Briggs in a month, but he’d been in the apartment when I’d walked in. Novak had flown back from spending time with his sister in France, arriving a couple hours after I did. Stone had left a work convention in California. We’d met in the lobby of our building and came in together. We all got home within hours of each other on Friday night. Then Vaughn had come in on Saturday morning to tell us he’d met his mate. Our mate. I didn’t know what drew us in. We’d all had the same urge, but had felt it at different times. I wondered when we would’ve had the feeling if we’d been home. Were the Fates at work or was it a coincidence?
For the first time in a long while, I hadn’t pieced the puzzle together as efficiently as Novak had. Seeing Sloane on Saturday morning was like a gust of wind knocking me off kilter. I’d never wanted something so badly in my life. It was an animalistic response that I wasn’t used to. She made power crackle at my fingertips. Electricity flowed through my veins when she was near. This trip home was giving me enough space to think, but I already missed her. It was an insane thought. I’d just met her.
There was no doubt, though. This was it for me. She was it. I knew Saturday. I definitely knew today. My feelings hadn’t changed despite the things I’d seen and done. She wasn’t who I pictured myself with. She was better. My imagination had really let me down. The real thing happened to be so much more. In every way. It was hard to wrap my head around how perfectly we all fit with her.
She offered us all the things we needed. Each of us had qualities the others didn’t. As a unit we covered all the bases, and then some. It was more than that, though. It was more than power. The aspects of a relationship that I sought weren’t the same as what the other guys wanted, yet somehow she excelled in all of it. I’d always looked for intelligence first and foremost, but also someone I could contemplate the universe with. I needed a mental equal, and I got one. I enjoyed bedroom activities that some would frown on. She seemed enraptured by the prospects. I was enthralled by her mind games. The thought of having her presence in my head, or mine in hers, made me ecstatic. I wanted our bond to be sealed at an organic pace, but I sincerely hoped that a mental connection flowed through us sooner.
My thoughts were in a twisted web now, but I knew as soon as I saw her this evening they’d untangle, and my body would become a traitorous bastard once again. One smile or wink and my heart would beat wildly out of control for her. Laughter and a sassy remark would have my intelligence bested and my tongue malfunctioning. My coherent thoughts would eventually turn back into a garbled mess that made it hard to communicate how this whole situation made me feel. It was hard to be consistent when she was so predictably unpredictable. We were all thinking about it. I knew we were. Novak would be the only one with the balls to say it aloud, though.
Novak
I'd been driving this van for hours now, listening to all the guys’ thoughts. They didn’t realize that they had all circled around to the same conclusion. Honestly, when would they learn the art of communication? They were giving me a headache. We all knew we weren’t going anywhere. It took me seconds to figure that out. Mate with someone whose mind I couldn’t read? Yes, please. She was literally a gift from the Devil himself.
Maybe I was rushing into this, but I didn’t want to wait around either. I would seal our mate bond today as long as she was ready. I told Vaughn on Saturday — before we’d even started talking about her — that I was ready to meet my mate. I’d meant it, too. I was done with the bullshit. I wanted no part in one-night stands or meaningless flings anymore. Sloane was the best of both worlds for me. I could spend days with her and not tire of her company. When I wanted to be alone, she had other mates to keep her attention. The guys were used to my occasional isolation, but I’d never want it to make her feel unwanted by me. I felt like that wouldn’t be an issue now.