“Why?” I mentally asked, voice hard.
“Because that is his power, only he can calm your storms,” she urged frantically.
“Fuck that,” I replied out loud, finding it harder and harder to say no to the power that had taken over my body, my mind. I didn’t want his help, I wanted to shift.
So I did.
I found Bestia and shoved her spirit into the shift, my wings bursting from my back in one powerful whoosh.
Glass fell, Quint swore, Cabe flew into action.
He moved to stand in front of me, clasping my face in the palms of his hands. His eyes were wide but still determined and focused.
“Come back to me, Annalise,” he commanded, his stormy eyes searching mine.
I could feel his power chasing mine, like a game of tag. Every time he caught up to me, I changed the game. Hail turned to snow, snow turned into a blizzard, the temperature dropping further the closer he got to stopping me.
“Annalise, come back to me,” he said again, whispered this time.
The cadence of his voice, the hopeful determination, had me pausing.
I felt myself come back enough to stop the movement of the storms but not enough to turn them off entirely. My legs began to weaken, losing the battle of exhaustion.
Cabe caught me before I fell. “I’ve got you.”
It took him a minute, but somehow, the storms made way for a cloudless night sky. I pulled myself together and moved away from him. I put a hand to my forehead, trying to come back to the front, ignoring the screaming in my mind, the pain in the bond.
“I thought that I was dealing with just one other thing inside me, but I think we can add another one to that list,” I groaned, pissed off and confused as hell. “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know, but we need to figure it out before you cause a natural disaster.” Quint laughed, enjoying the insanity. “That was new for you too, Cabe, right?”
I couldn’t stand any longer, I fell with a thump against the couch, sliding into the cushions and curling up in the corner. Too much, too fast.
“Yes,” Cabe replied, his voice distant. “I’ve never done that before. Never even knew it was possible.”
“It’s not fucking possible,” Lanier shouted from somewhere in the room. I wanted to rip his ass into tiny pieces, but I was too exhausted to do anything but lie there and listen. “None of this is fucking possible! I’ve spent all this time searching for the reason the mating bonds have disappeared, and now all of a sudden, we find Annalise, I’m drinking blood, and Cabe is chasing away storms that she caused because she got fucking jealous?”
That did it, I busted out laughing again. “This is fucking nuts.”
I was bitter, but if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry, so I let it out. I didn’t stop until I could form a full sentence without feeling enough negative emotions to feed Quint for a year.
“I was, hell, I am jealous. And that’s the crazy part! The part we should be focusing on,” I started, wiping my laugh-induced tears before covering my eyes with my arm, blocking them out. “I’m jealous over someone I don’t even know, sleeping with someone I know even less. And I’m angry enough to cause a fucking storm? None of this shit is normal!”
I heard some shuffling before anyone responded. It was Lanier who spoke next, surprising me. “The reason you’re jealous is the same reason I just went out and fucked someone else.”
“And that is?” Cabe questioned, clearly upset with his brother.
“She’s our mate.”
No one breathed. Everyone heard the three words that sealed our fate.
The leader of the group had recognized the situation for what it was, and we had no choice but to look at it.
“She feels us, she knows where we are and how we’re feeling,” Quint spoke first, filling Lanier in on what I’d discovered shortly after he left.
“And I know what she’s feeling most of the time, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the visions or the bond,” Cabe added. “Or both.”
The room was silent as we waited for Lanier to give his reason for believing that I’m their mate.
All he said in a tired, defeated, voice was, “She’s everywhere.”
I swear, time stopped.
Everywhere.
I was fucking another girl, balls deep, and it was Annalise that I had in my head, in my bones, on my throbbing dick. I wasn’t turned on by the girl I found sulking over a cosmo at Hellhound. I was turned on by my anger toward Annalise.
The hatred I felt toward her was feral and sexual and not at all truly about her. It was as if our bond was made wrong, and where love should have been, lust and resentment had made a home for themselves. I was twisted inside out.
But I wasn’t blind.
“She’s everywhere, and I can’t turn it off,” I said to the room, thinking about how she looked when I walked in. Freshly fucking kissed.
Quint watched me with uncertainty dipped in fear. I knew him well enough to know that he didn’t like that I acknowledged the bond. He thought I was going to ask Annalise to choose one of us. Joke would be on him. I addressed him first. “I’m assuming you haven’t been able to turn it off, either?”
“I haven’t tried,” he replied honestly. Annalise took her arm away from her face and sat up, looking directly to Quint. He attempted to hide his insecurity, leaning back in the chair with a relaxed smile, but I saw it. He was afraid she wouldn’t pick him, but he still wanted to appear confident. “What? Did you think I would?” he asked her.
She watched him, tilting her head to the side. “Stop with all that, Quint. You’re terrified of something, and I want to know what it is.”
He froze, his eyes darkening. “I’m terrified? You’re really going to start that argument right now?”
“Yes!” she shouted, standing up. She was wearing my fucking clothes again, causing my heart to squeeze, my dick waking up at the sight. She was everything I didn’t want to crave—but I did, even still. “This is the fucking time, boys. Everyone needs to lay it all out there so we can figure this out and come up with a plan.”
“You really like plans,” Cabe said under his breath, causing me to smirk. She did. Our girl was always calculating, always thinking.
Our girl.
Hmm.
“Stuff it, Goldilocks,” she snapped, then turned to me. “So you believe that I am your mate.”
I moved to the spot on the couch that she was lying in, sitting down and eyeing her with my smirk still firmly in place, trying to ignore the fact that she smelled like my best friends. “Yes.”
“And do you believe that I’m also their mate?” She pointed to my brothers. My smirk grew. She was walking straight into my trap.
“I do.”
She sat down on the glass coffee table. “Does that mean that we have three separate bonds, or does that mean we’re all connected? If one denies it, we all separate?”
I looked to Cabe and Quint, and they both nodded, so I confirmed, “We’re all connected.”
“One bond,” she stated, tasting the meaning of it on her tongue. “So, boss man, what do we do?” She raised an eyebrow in challenge, leaning back on her hands.