“It means we’re like goddesses to them. We epitomize everything they want. They wish we were theirs, but at the same time, they don’t want us, they want the women who were made for them. We’re like forbidden fruit they have no desire to touch or eat, but looking at them fills them with yearning. It’s pretty sad actually,” Christie concluded as they made it into the kitchen. When they did, they saw two large dudes—but hell, when weren’t they large in this place?—bustling around the stove.
Mischa, Kiko’s mate, was there too, stirring a large silver cooking pot with a big paddle.
“Hey, guys,” Christie called out when they didn’t spot them, intent on their tasks.
“Christie, baby, I told you, I’m not sneaking you anything else until that cub has popped out,” one of the men said, propping his hands on his hips as though that was the period at the end of the sentence.
“I want tea, Grizzly, nothing more, nothing less.”
She said it so piously that even Toni wanted to believe her, but Grizzly, it seemed, was used to being hit up. “You said that the last time you came down wanting donuts then spent half the time you were eating them wailing about your swollen feet! I ain’t getting blamed for no swollen feet,” he finished on a huff. “You hear me?”
Christie pouted. “When they swell so much, they hurt!”
“Eating greasy foods probably won’t help,” Toni concurred, grinning when Christie elbowed her in the side.
“Look, I wanted to introduce you to Toni as well. She’s new.”
“Like I needed the introduction.” Grizzly narrowed his eyes at her, scanned her up and down, then grinned. “You wearing anything under that shirt? Because I’d think about a change of clothes before your mates find out you’re walking around this place half-naked.”
Christie spluttered, “She’s perfectly decent! Everything’s covered up, isn’t it?”
“Might very well be, but she doesn’t look decent, does she, Kingston?”
Kingston shot her a swift look before his cheeks burned bright red and he went back to kneading the dough he was working on the counter. “Nope, she doesn’t.”
Toni scratched her hairline and said, “I want coffee before I move.”
“Aaron said you’ve been sleeping since you came here,” Mischa asked, her Slavic tones all the more pronounced in a kitchen where Texas was reigning supreme in the accent stakes. “Is this true?”
Toni cut Christie a glance. “Yeah, it’s true.” When Mischa just nodded, she asked, “Why? Does it matter?”
“No, I was just curious, that’s all.”
“She asks weird questions,” Christie whispered. “Don’t worry about it.”
Toni just nodded but had to admit, the younger woman was a little peculiar. She seemed to watch all the time. Toni had noticed that during the car ride here as well. Mischa had spent some time staring straight ahead, sure, but she’d peered back a lot and had studied Aaron, Justiss, and Toni while her mate, Kiko, had driven them here.
Grizzly seemed to take pity on them all because he reached for a coffee pot and poured a huge cup of coffee for Toni. Grabbing a stainless-steel sugar pot and a carton of milk from the fridge, he brought it all over to a counter which was lined with high stools.
“Thanks, Grizzly, I appreciate that.” She yawned as she thanked him and took a cautious sip of the brew but sank a lot back when she realized it wasn’t scalding hot. After the buzz hit her, she perked up and watched as Christie pouted while the kettle boiled and Grizzly made her some chamomile tea. He pushed a pot of honey toward her and set some butter, preserves, and peanut butter in front of them too. A few minutes later, they had a stack of toast as well, and Toni buttered hers up with some strawberry jam.
Christie ceased pouting the minute she got her mitts on some PBJ, and Toni realized some of the baby weight was probably donut weight too, although Christie could really do with putting a little more on, she was slender from the morning sickness. But the notion of donut weight amused her and told her that Christie, once the morning sickness was settled, would probably be a nightmare after Toni laid down the law, but she wasn’t overly perturbed. She liked Christie, and for someone who rarely liked anyone, that was a large admission to make.
Once the toast lined her stomach, Toni felt the gnawing ache that had only just crept up on her dissipate. She hadn’t woken up starved, more like desperate for coffee, but once her taste buds had started salivating at what could only be homemade jam—a jam-making MC, who’d a thunk it?—she felt the hunger beat at her with heavy fists. She buttered more toast, eating it like she hadn’t eaten in days, which she guessed she hadn’t.
Grizzly frowned at her and said, “Jesus, and I thought Christie could eat.”
“Hey!” came the immediate complaint. “I’m pregnant. I’m eating for two. Plus, whatever I put down usually comes back up again an hour later, so I have to stuff my face.”
Toni grimaced. “Yeah, it doesn’t work that way, Christie. Feasting like that won’t do you any favors.”
“You’re on his side?” she asked with a pout and then spoiled it by taking a huge bite out of her impromptu breakfast.
“I’m on no one’s side; I just want you to feel better that’s all.” Toni tried to keep her tone sensible, but probably spoiling it by being unable to hide her smile.
Christie nudged her with her elbow. “I knew I liked you. And you’re not telling me anything I haven’t heard before. Mundo tries to stop me, but I get so hungry, and then booom. I can’t keep anything down.”
“I know.” She patted the other woman’s shoulder. “We’ll try to medicate it and keep it in line.”
Grizzly pursed his lips. “Well, I’m glad someone can talk some sense into her, but it looks like you’re in need of taking in hand too, doc. You need more for breakfast than just bread. What can I make you?”
Toni blinked in surprise. “How did you know I’m a doctor?”
“Aside from the fact you’re talking about medicating a stranger, you mean?” he asked, brows raised until she nodded, flushing all the while. “It’s all around the clubhouse. Talk gets around here. And you, you’re top of the list of things to talk about.”
“Yeah, and they say women are the gossipers. Never mind bears. They’re like a bunch of wing-flapping chickens,” Christie stated with relish, enjoying Grizzly’s moue of annoyance.
Toni hid her smile. His reaction confirmed that both she and Christie could say whatever the hell they wanted and all with a free ride. This ‘mate’ card business seemed to be like a ‘get out of a jail free’ one too. Not that she intended on exploring how far the Shifters would let them take their teasing. Goading men who turned into bears seemed churlish to Toni.
Grizzly let out a small growl, but Christie just snorted, ignoring his little burst of temper. “Mates are our lifeblood, Christie. Even if they eat us out of house and home.”
His pointed remark had Christie sputtering. Deciding to throw down an olive branch, because war on an empty stomach was never that great an idea, Toni murmured quickly, “Put any group together for long enough, and they all gossip. But yeah, I’m a doctor, and I am starving.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to put you out though. I guess I missed breakfast if Christie was watching Ellen.”
“It was a rerun. It’s ten, after breakfast, but Grizzly is such a gentleman, ain’t ya, Grizz? You like feeding us chickadees.”
“You get any sweeter, I’ll think that baby messed you up more than it already has,” the cook grumped. To Toni, he said, “I can make pancakes. Won’t take me a few minutes to whip up the batter.”
“Are you sure? Because that sounds like heaven.”
Christie made to talk, but Grizzly held up a hand and rolled his eyes. “I’ll make some for you two too.”
He turned around, intent now on his task, and she and Christie mostly just chatted and watched the three in the kitchen as they worked. It was probably the most relaxed she’d been in a long time. Ironic considering things we
re getting more stressful in her life—more specifically, her love life. She’d gone from no hope to having two, count ‘em two, hotter-than-hell Bear Shifters who were hers for eternity. She’d gone from being utterly alone to the integration into a who-knew-how-many strong MC clubhouse. For someone who was used to controlling her days, who needed to control them, it was a bit much.
Overwhelming wasn’t the word.
But, after that sleep, she couldn’t deny she felt like she could handle anything that was thrown at her. Especially after pancakes.
Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, a roar sounded through the clubhouse.
Make that two roars.
The cooking in the kitchen stopped, the men’s head rearing up in surprise. Their bodies tensed, arms in their muscles suddenly seeming like steel, and their faces turned grim, every sinew visible as they tried to make out the threat.
Christie spun around, terror lining her features, and Toni hopped down, rushing over to the door to see if the other men in the clubhouse were stampeding outside. After what Christie had told her, she had to figure that the roars were the indicator that something was about to go down. Christie’s reaction didn’t help either. She obviously thought they were under attack again.
The air seemed to vibrate as each Shifter tried to investigate the threat, but no one made a move. There had only been those single roars and nothing else. The men seemed to realize it was a message, not a warning beacon.
As she turned back to Grizzly, who was still tensed up, waiting to spur into action if need be, she heard a clomping thud.
“What the hell is that?”
Mischa had gone back to her cooking, unlike the two Shifters who were still waiting. She answered in their stead, “It’s your mates. They think you’ve left.”
That was Justiss and Aaron making all the noise?
Grizzly scowled at Mischa’s words. “What kind of noise are they making?”
“They’re running down the stairs in heavy boots.”
Mischa’s certainty struck Toni as odd. Very odd, in fact, but if she was right, and somehow Toni knew she was, there was some lessons that needed to be taught.
Hell, she needed to be able to leave the bedroom without them thinking she’d abandoned them.
How long did they think she could sleep?
Pressing her hands on her hips, she stood in the hallway outside the kitchen door. The position gave her ample view of the wide corridor that led to the central foyer, the place where days before, Justiss had been bleeding out. Dying. She gulped at the thought then shrugged it aside because the idea would make her lenient when she needed to take a stand.
They hadn’t even mated yet, and this was their reaction to her getting out of bed?
The sight of them tearing down the stairs had her freezing a second. The panic. She could sense it. It was like nothing she’d ever known, and she’d been a little girl, lost and alone and terrified, when her parents had died. She’d been in the car, had known when they’d passed, had waited for the ambulances and cops to find the vehicle to save them all, her included—trapped in the wreckage, alone with the bodies that once had held her parents’ souls. Even though she’d known they’d gone, hope hadn’t left her until her grandparents had told her they were dead at the hospital.
She knew panic.
And this was that to the nth degree.
It softened her some, she couldn’t deny. “Justiss! Aaron!” she barked, and her voice, their names, had them braking to a halt so quickly Justiss nearly rammed into Aaron, almost pushing the other man down the stairs.
Aaron leapt the final steps to rid himself of the momentum, and Justiss just maintained the insane pace as they made it down the hall, not stopping until they were close to colliding with her. The instant she was in arm’s reach, they grabbed her. Justiss taking her front, Graver her back, cocooning her in their scent, the strength, and the feelings they had for her.
It was heady. The most encompassing sensation she’d ever known.
This was adoration. It was passion and caring. Desire and need. Lust and love.
She was their everything.
Knowing, roughly, how the mate bonds worked was nothing to feeling it.
Their world revolved around her now.
It could have been frightening, instead, Toni felt herself blossom in the cocoon they sheltered her in.
They had her wrapped up so tightly she couldn’t do much, but she managed to plant a hand on Justiss’s lower back and curled the other around the arm Graver had clamped about her belly.
“Where did you go?” Justiss whispered, remembered terror in his voice.
“I was hungry,” she told him. “Christie took me for food.”
Graver gulped. “We thought you’d left.”
She sighed. “I figured as much. Why did you think that?”
“Because this place is beneath you,” Aaron confessed, voice small.
“I never said that,” she denied. She might have thought it, but that was before. Now, today, with all that sleep giving her more energy than she remembered having in ages, she felt differently about it.
Sure, it wasn’t as swanky as her home. The décor was rough and ready, befitting a group of hard men. Her bedroom was brighter and more clinical than the hospital she worked at, but hadn’t Justiss said she could decorate it how she wanted? And that this didn’t have to be their permanent base?
What she did know was that each MC brother she’d come across had treated her kindly. Sure, she’d come across few, and hell, one of them was a rogue who had attacked her mate, so she knew they weren’t all friendly, but… she was one of their own.
She felt that. Knew it to be true. She’d yet to bond herself to Graver and Justiss thanks to sleeping for as long as she had, but that didn’t matter. The men knew she was mate to two of their brothers, and they included her as a given.
Inclusion… something else that was heady.
She’d been excluded almost all her life. Her fault, mainly. Unable to open up, to let go of the fear that came from losing the two people who were supposed to love a child unconditionally, she’d never allowed herself to be included. The hospital staff, her colleagues, didn’t like her. She’d never made any friends. And maybe if she had, maybe if her attitude had been better, the administration would have believed her when she’d complained about Rodriguez. It shouldn’t have mattered, but that was the world they lived in, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t what you knew, but who.
And here, it was the same. Because she was Justiss’s and Graver’s, she belonged here. But they didn’t care if she was anal retentive or a bitch. All that mattered was she was a mate. What had Grizzly said? That mates were the lifeblood of the Clan?
She felt like that, like a vital cog in a machine she’d been born to be a part of.
“Breakfast’s up.” Grizzly’s words broke her silent reverie as she let them embrace her, let them absorb the fact she was here and not going anywhere.
Realizing that the meal was for her, as Grizzly’s voice had been loud enough to carry into the hall, her men started to let her go. But she quickly grabbed hold of them, keeping them close, and whispered, “I will never leave you. You never have to fear that. This is my place now. I-I just needed time to acclimate to this new world that’s all.”
She felt their relief shudder through them and smiled at it, at how her acceptance made them happy.
Justiss croaked, “You need to eat, baby. Then, we need to claim you.”
“I think I’d like that.” Patting her hair nervously, she shot them a shaky smile.
Aaron laughed a little, then teased, “We’ll make sure you love it.”
Toni had no doubt about that.
Chapter 6
With the open road smashing him square in the face, normally, Graver would have felt on top of the world, the engine purring beneath him, the road flying by as his odometer ate up the miles.
Today wasn’t normal however.
Today, he should have finally claimed his mate. Instead, he was on the bike, heading down to Channelview, to a house about five miles from downtown Houston. Never had he wanted to ride his hog less than he did now. He wanted to ride Toni. Well, he wanted her on top of him, if he was being totally honest.
But, club business…
Jesus, being in an MC could be a pain in the ass at times. Even if this situation revolved around his new little family-unit, the timing couldn’t have been shittier for Mars to get word that Moses and his goons were holing up in the city with a pimp who’d been friendly with Jefferson.
It wasn’t that Graver wasn’t grateful to have some news on the son of a bitch who had almost succeeded in killing Justiss—hell, had succeeded. Without Graver’s intervention, they’d have been burning J’s body on a funeral pyre. But still, today? Of all days?
Why now? Why not when Toni had been asleep?
Trying not to feel churlish and failing, he thought back to the breakfast they’d been having that Mars had disturbed.
She’d accepted them. Both of them.
Out in the hall, when the terror had subsided that she hadn’t abandoned them because their home was a classless dump and that she had no desire to be mated to any Shifter, never mind two of them, he’d felt her settle between them. Then, she’d near as dammit twisted his heart by telling them, point blank, she’d never leave them.
Just thinking about it now had him tightening his grip on the handlebars of his bike, but it was a painful kind of pleasure. Why? Because close to an hour after she’d said those words, he and Justiss had had to leave her.
Sure, they weren’t disappearing for good. That wasn’t the principle though. They’d yet to claim her.
In comparison to Mundo, who’d been in jail when he’d met Christie, his mate, and had had to wait two weeks for freedom, four days didn’t really seem all that bad.
Yeah. Right.
Tell that to his bear.
His pissed off, madder than fuck bear.
It was rampaging around his insides, demanding to return to the clubhouse, roaring his outrage at leaving the one woman who would settle his soul.
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