by Abby Blake
Damn it!
She had no idea what they wanted to talk about. She was overreacting. She was being silly. She was just overwhelmed by amazing sex and mind-blowing orgasms. Shit, there couldn’t be anything wrong. They would have told her.
But obviously they hadn’t.
They had something they wanted to talk about.
She glanced at her shaking hands, and blinked several times, trying to clear her vision.
But the massive bear claw didn’t go away. She shook her head, her face feeling strange, feeling puffy. She tried to turn around in the large shower stall, but bumped into the wall. Suddenly the space felt much smaller.
Disoriented, she looked down at her feet.
And screamed.
* * * *
Jayden could feel the anger coming off his brothers in waves. They weren’t happy. They hadn’t been happy to delay telling her, but Jayden knew how stubborn Violet could be. He knew she would react badly to the idea of fate. She’d always told him that there was no such thing. She believed in making choices in this world, not letting something as unreliable as fate to run her life.
He hadn’t really believed in fate either until the night her ex had attacked her and they’d found the brain tumor that would have killed her. Worried that Violet would feel her choices had been stolen from her, he’d convinced his brothers that they had time, and that they shouldn’t tell her until she’d had a chance to fall in love with them the human way. But of course the stubborn woman had refused their offer to pay for her flight, and Declan and Brandon had been stuck running the ski lodge hundreds of miles away. It had taken way too long to get her here, and now, instead of being able to ease her into the idea, time was running out.
But it was the terrified bear growl that came from the bathroom that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d waited too long.
All three of them ran to the door. Brandon didn’t even bother stopping to try and unlock it. He just dropped his shoulder into the wood and forced it open. Glass cracked as their mate, beautiful in her ginger-colored bear form, reacted in fright and bumped into the safety glass of the shower stall.
“Baby girl,” Brandon said, getting closer to a pissed-off bear than was advisable in human form. “You are the most beautiful she-bear I’ve ever seen.” She growled as he moved closer. “Don’t take that tone with me.” Brandon stepped even closer, a friendly smile curving his lips as he added, “Or I’ll spank that pretty ass a lot harder next time.”
Their beautiful mate dropped her head low, tilting it to the side as she seemed to be trying to comprehend his words.
* * * *
Did Brandon just threaten to spank her ass?
Considering that it was now bear-freaking-wide, he had his work cut out for him.
She laughed at the strangeness of it all, giggling harder when the noise came out of her bear mouth as a series of squeaks and grunts. She was a freaking bear!
Fuck, could her life get any more ridiculous?
“Violet,” Jayden said as he, too, stepped closer. “It’s my fault we didn’t tell you sooner.” Sooner? How long had she been a bear? Or did he mean that they should have warned her this could happen? Or, fuck, could having sex with all three of them at the same time have caused this?
She opened her mouth—or was it called a muzzle?—to ask her million pressing questions and nearly fell over at the noise that came out. She rolled onto her side, the move strangely familiar and comforting even though she was pretty sure she’d never done anything like that before—especially on a cold tile floor.
Declan didn’t try to talk to her. He just dropped to all fours and turned into a bear. He made a grunting, squealing, squeaking sort of noise that made her bear-girly parts tingle, and then he nuzzled her face with his snout. She huffed out a bear version of a sigh and nuzzled him back, grunting when she once again forgot that she couldn’t actually talk in bear form.
Shit.
She was a freaking bear.
“Okay, baby girl, how about you change back to human form, and we’ll answer all of your questions,” Brandon said. Declan changed back into his two-legged form and nodded his head in encouragement.
She wanted to say yes, but at the last moment remembered to nod her head instead. She looked up at Brandon’s handsome face. Wow, it felt really weird looking at the world from all fours—especially when surrounded by naked Delko brothers. She did her funny bear-giggle noise again.
“Come on, baby girl,” Brandon encouraged. “Find a calm, sensible—” Did he just tell her to be sensible? She huffed what she hoped translated as a bear equivalent of “fuck you” and sat on her ass. She let her long tongue fall out of her mouth and shook her head. Okay, now that just felt funny.
“Violet,” Brandon tried to reprimand in his bossy tone, but he ruined it by laughing. “Fine. Okay. I get it. This is strange and unexpected, and we should have told you earlier. But, baby girl, I’d really appreciate you turning back into human form so that we can discuss this.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, not even realizing she was changing forms until the word actually came out of her mouth. “But talk fast because I really think all of you need a good ass whooping.”
Brandon grabbed her hand, hauled her into his embrace, and held her while he laughed. Jayden looked really pale, and she finally realized what he’d meant earlier when he said it was his fault. She held her hand out to him, and he stepped closer.
“Do you think we could maybe head back to the bedroom?” Declan asked. “It’s kind of crowded in here.” He winked at her, then turned and left the room, confident that his brothers would follow. They didn’t disappoint. Brandon lifted her into his arms, cuddling her close as they headed back into the bedroom.
He sat her in the middle of the bed, and her men took up positions around her. They all seemed to hesitate, probably having no idea where to start. She supposed they had good reason. She’d run from the “talk” they wanted earlier and gone and turned herself into a bear. Considering the wicked claws that form brought with it, she could understand why they wouldn’t want her to scratch up the mattress.
“How did I become a bear?”
“We used our healing abilities on you. Unfortunately, the amount of healing you required meant that we had no choice but to change you into one of us.”
“You healed me? When?”
Jayden grabbed one of her hands and pressed it between both of his. “Remember the day Bruce attacked you in our apartment?” She nodded. It wasn’t exactly an experience she would forget, but it seemed she had obviously missed something about that night. “He must have hit you, or maybe you bumped your head when he pushed you to the ground, but a few moments after we threw Bruce out, you collapsed from bleeding in your brain.”
“We? You were there that night?” she asked Declan and Brandon. They both nodded, but left it to Jayden to finish his explanation. He seemed to hesitate, so she asked another question. “How do you know I was bleeding in my brain?” It didn’t make any sense. Didn’t doctors use diagnostic medical imaging to find things like that? She had no memory of leaving the apartment or of being ill.
“All bear-shifters are born with a small amount of magic. We’re not sure exactly how it works.”
Declan moved closer, wrapping his arm around her waist as he sat beside her. “The mythology from some of America’s indigenous peoples says that the black bear was created by the Great Spirit. Bear-shifters believe that’s where the magic comes from. But we can only call on it to heal the sick or injured.”
Violet turned her gaze on Jayden. “If you can do that, why are you studying to be a doctor?”
“The sicker a person is, the higher the amount of magical energy required, and well, you already know what happens to a person who gets a lot of magical healing.”
Finally the answer she’d been seeking. “They turn into a bear?” she asked with a soft smile.
Jayden gave her a worried smile. “They turn into a bear-shifter,
yes.”
“So what is a mate? Is that just a bear name for girlfriend?”
“Not exactly,” Declan answered, looking a little less comfortable than a moment ago. “A mate is a special someone that fate chooses for us. She is our perfect match.”
“And I’m this ‘perfect match’ for you three?” They all nodded. “So you didn’t want to know me—Violet, the person—you’re just following your animal instinct?” She couldn’t hide how much that hurt. She’d been falling in love with them for months now, and they’d just been following the choice fate had made for them.
“Violet,” Declan said quietly, his voice very serious. “The reason we didn’t tell you is that we wanted you to get to know us, to fall in love with the men we are, not the bears fate chose for you.” He leaned over and caressed a finger over her jaw. “Fate may throw us together, but it doesn’t guarantee we’ll like each other.”
“I love you, Violet,” Jayden said quietly. “Declan and Brandon learned to love you over the Internet. Hell, Declan fell for you even before he got to hold you in his arms.” She glanced at the two men in question, tears blurring her vision as they both confirmed Jayden’s words before he continued. “I’ve loved you for over a year, even before I knew you were my mate. I can’t regret using our magic to heal your tumor, because I never want to live without you.”
“Tumor?” she practically screamed. “I thought you said I was bleeding into my brain.”
“You were, but if Bruce hadn’t attacked you we may not have found the tumor before it was too late.”
“I should have died?” It was frightening to realize that they were telling her the truth. She’d had a headache practically the whole week leading up to the attack, but so many things had changed afterward that she’d given little thought to the absence of pain.
“No,” Jayden said as he pulled her hand closer and pressed it against his heart. “You were meant to live. That was the night my brothers came to visit us—their presence was unexpected, and even they couldn’t explain why they felt the need to be there that night. Fate stepped in and made certain that help was there exactly when you needed it.” He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Please forgive us for not explaining sooner.”
“Okay,” she said softly. As much as she wanted to be mad at them she couldn’t hold on to her anger. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t told her. In some ways it just proved how well Jayden knew her. If they’d told her sooner, she might even have fought against the idea of loving three men—stubborn woman that she was. But their motives had been pure. And she’d done exactly what they’d hoped—she’d fallen in love with them all as men long before she’d learned of their shifter status.
She’d never believed in fate, yet there had certainly been an awful lot of coincidences to bring them to this point. Yet, she supposed in the end, whatever had brought them together was inconsequential. What was important was that they loved each other.
“It’s okay, Jayden,” she reiterated when he still looked concerned. “I understand why you didn’t tell me earlier.” She laughed quietly. “It just proves how well you do know me.”
“We love you, baby girl,” Brandon said as he pulled her into his arms and held on tight.
As the future that she’d always dreamed of suddenly opened out in front of her, Violet sighed her contentment. Loving and being loved by three wonderful men was everything she’d ever wanted and more than she’d ever hoped.
Nothing could be better than that.
“I love all three of you,” she said happily, and then grinned mischievously as her men breathed a collective sigh of relief. “Now, who’s going to teach me to be a badass, freaking bear?”
Epilogue
“I think you should stay out of the restaurant this week. Violet needs her space.” His mother’s words were so unexpected that Declan wasn’t quite sure how to react. His father had taken some time to come around to liking Violet. Of course, actually meeting her had changed their stubborn, cranky-bear father’s mind pretty quickly, but his mother had loved and accepted Violet from her first day at the lodge.
“Why?” he asked, having absolutely no clue as to why his mother would advise staying away from the woman he loved. He always dropped in during the day. It was one of the perks of working in the office.
“Because, my very-intelligent-but-dumb-ass-when-it-comes-to-women son, it’s mating season.”
Declan tried to hide his grin. Yeah, he knew it was mating season—oh, wow did he know it was mating season—but that wasn’t exactly something he wanted to discuss with his mom.
“So?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“So,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Sows tend to get a little cranky this time of year.”
“Oh,” he said, still not understanding his mother’s reasoning. Violet had been cranky before. It wasn’t like she was going to rip someone’s arms off. She’d practiced all spring to control her bear side. But then he heard the loud crash of plates and a low growl come from the kitchen, and he wondered if his mother was right.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said as he rushed past her and into the disaster zone. He met Jayden—who’d managed to wrangle two weeks off from the hospital—and Brandon on the way through the door. Plates and cutlery were scattered everywhere.
Violet glanced up from her position on the floor, and scowled at all three of them. “What do you want?”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay,” she said in a grumpy voice.
And then, as if a lightbulb suddenly switched on in his brain, the meaning of his mother’s words came to him.
“Are you pregnant?”
“Of course I am,” she said with just as much grumpiness. “What else did you expect during mating season?”
“You’re having our cubs?” Brandon grinned as she nodded shyly. “Baby girl,” he said in a voice so filled with emotion that Declan might have been embarrassed to witness it if he hadn’t felt exactly the same way. Brandon leaned over the mess, grabbed their mate by her hips, and moved her to stand in the middle of them.
“You’re happy?” she asked all three of them, and Declan nodded enthusiastically. His brothers did the same. Between the four of them they’d decided to let nature take its course, so it wasn’t like they hadn’t planned it. “Really?” she asked, sounding excited now. “I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
“Violet,” Jayden said, pressing a kiss to her lips. “I can’t think of anything we want more than to have children together and spend the rest of our lives loving you and our cubs.”
She smiled then, and Declan felt his worry melt away.
He had a wife who loved him, brothers he respected, a family who cared, and now cubs on the way.
Life simply couldn’t be more perfect than that.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abby Blake prefers to read or write romance over just about everything else—except maybe chocolate. Most days she can be found hurrying to do what needs to be done so that she can curl up with her laptop and her latest bunch of heroes.
Also by Abby Blake
Ménage Everlasting: Suddenly Wolf
Ménage Everlasting: Suddenly Wolf, Too
Available at
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Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com