by R. E. Butler
“Just one for me, thanks.”
“It’s not like I went into tonight expecting to come out with two mates.”
Farrah dropped off their drinks and disappeared. China picked hers up and took a sip. “True. Still, I think it’s safe to say that most lions only have one mate. You’ll be the talk of the pride.”
Demi rolled her eyes. “The good news is that finally finding my heart-matches means that Benecio isn’t an issue for me anymore. If he comes around again, he’ll realize I’m mated and fuck off.”
“Hear, hear,” China said. She lifted her drink higher and Demi clinked her soda with it.
Demi’s heart fluttered and she smiled at the males as she listened to them sing. She couldn’t wait for their set to be over so they could take a break and she could meet them.
She hadn’t planned for tonight to be special, but it sure was turning out that way.
Chapter Five
Rafe knew the moment his heart-match stepped into the bar. He’d felt a pulsing within him, like his bear was coming alive for the first time. His skin prickled with awareness, his bear rolling inside him and stretching, wanting free.
Then the door opened and the most gorgeous female he’d ever seen in his life stepped inside.
Curves for days. Long, dark hair like a silken waterfall. Lush lips meant for kissing and other wicked things.
His bear had roared so loudly in his head that he’d flubbed the verse he’d been singing and strummed a bad chord.
Rhaider had also messed up, his fingers slipping into an unholy sounding chord that stuck out like a sore thumb.
Rafe was elated to be in the presence of his mate and to know his brother was equally affected. He’d glanced at him as he’d picked up where the song went bad and continued on.
Rhaider had nodded, his eyes the deep amber of his bear. It had taken all of Rafe’s willpower not to toss his guitar off and stalk to the beauty. But they were trying to land the house band gig, and they’d promised Titus to be professional.
Hauling the lovely female out of the bar like cavemen was hardly professional.
Although that’s all he could think about.
He watched her join a table with two females and a male. She looked strikingly similar to the male, so he suspected they were at least siblings if not twins. A glance at the clock on the tablet hooked up to the mic stand told him they had thirty more minutes in the set, then they’d have an hour break.
He was positive it would be the longest thirty minutes of his life.
Switching smoothly to the next song on their playlist, Rafe watched as his mate’s possible brother took the hand of the female next to him and walked onto the dance floor. Their mate and the other female spoke quietly, but her gaze pinged between him and his brother the whole time.
He hoped she knew what they were together. He couldn’t scent what she was from this distance, but with her eyes turning gold and the fact the bar was in pride territory, he bet she was a lion. They’d make an amazing trio—two grizzlies and a lioness.
Nerves kicked through him like wildfire and he had to concentrate on the words to the song again so he didn’t rush off the stage. He wanted to ask her if she knew she was theirs and if she was okay having two males dote on her for the rest of their lives. He had no idea if their pride was progressive and would allow her to remain in their ranks after taking two mates, but he’d make sure that she never wanted for anything, no matter if they were able to stick around in the pride or not. He didn’t want to think about her losing access to her pride and family if she took them as mates, but he also wasn’t going to walk away from her.
He’d just keep his fingers crossed and hope for the best.
And if they had to give her time to get to know them and get used to the idea of having two males claim her, then he and Rhaider would do just that.
He could woo her. Treat her like a queen. Give her a glimpse of what life with them would be like.
Damn, he was getting ahead of himself.
He hadn’t even introduced himself to her.
Mentally shaking his thoughts back to the music, he kept his gaze on his mate but sang with all his heart.
All the songs were for her now. Every chord, every note.
* * *
“Fucking longest half hour ever,” Rhaider said with a low voice as they finished their last song and the crowd clapped. Recorded music came across speakers as their one-hour break began. The bar was busier now than it had been when they’d started at eight, but the only person in the universe that Rafe cared about was still seated at the small table with the other three people.
Rafe set his guitar on the stand and moved to the piano. They hadn’t been able to talk during the set, but he’d known Rhaider felt the same pull.
“We’re on the same page, right?” Rafe asked.
Rhaider turned off the keyboard. “Hell yes. My bear was really antsy before she showed up. I think maybe I smelled her in the bar—maybe she works here or hangs out a lot. When I saw her, man…” Rhaider’s voice dropped off and Rafe stiffened as he felt his bear recognize their mate was close.
Rafe turned to see the petite brunette was making her way toward them, weaving through the dancing couples, her gaze on them.
“Let’s go meet our mate,” Rafe said.
“We’ll just hang out then,” Rebel said.
“Ah, give them a break,” Maverick chided. “It’s not every day heart-matches happen.”
Rafe snorted and smiled at his band mates. “Behave.”
“Aye aye,” Maverick said, giving a lazy salute.
Rafe and Rhaider hurried down the side steps and paused, watching as their mate walked toward them. Rafe’s heart was in his throat. He was fairly sure it was going to pound out of his body and flop around on the floor. And that was if his bear didn’t force him to shift first.
Her steps slowed and then she stopped, with just a few feet separating them.
“Hi,” all three of them said at the exact same time.
And just like that, the tension dissipated as they all laughed.
“I’m Demi,” she said.
“I’m Rafe.”
“Rhaider.”
“You’re brothers?” she asked. “You look similar.”
“Yep,” Rhaider said.
“I thought we could go outside and chat for a bit. When do you have to be back on stage?”
“Ten till ten,” Rafe said. “We’ve got another set at ten and then our audition will be over.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at her watch. “There’s an employee area out the back. It’s quiet and private.”
She held out her hands and they each took one. The moment that their fingers linked, Rafe felt a jolt of awareness. He hadn’t been imagining things. She was one hundred percent their mate.
They hurried through the bar and down a hall, passing several closed doors which were labeled for storage and bathrooms. Rhaider grabbed the door ahead of them and held it open. There were a few picnic tables under an awning; some bare bulbs illuminated the space.
When the door shut behind them, the music became muffled so they didn’t have to talk loudly over it.
The employee parking lot was before them, and to the right were a few yards of grass and then woods.
“Let’s sit,” Demi said.
Although it wasn’t ideal—since Rafe wanted to sit as close to her as possible—he and his brother sat on one side of the table and she on the other.
He opened his mouth to tell her what he and his brother suspected when she said, “I felt you when I walked into the bar. I wasn’t looking for anything but just some time to hang out with my brother and his mate and my friend. But then I saw you. Heard your voices when you were singing.” She rubbed her temple and gave them a hopeful smile. “Tell me that I’m not alone in feeling connected to you?”
He and Rhaider reached for her at the same time, each one taking one of her hands. “Not at all,” Rhaider said.
> “Our bears have been driving us nuts since we got here a little while ago. Then you walked through the door and all the anxiety made sense,” Rafe said.
“You felt me before I got here?” she asked, her head tilting slightly.
“In some way, yeah,” Rhaider said. “Do you ever work here?”
“Occasionally I fill in as a waitress if Titus or Duke ask me, but generally I just hang out if I’m feeling like it on the weekends. Yesterday, my brother Hemi’s car needed an oil change and his mate had to stay after school for a conference, so I dropped him off and took him to the bar. He’s a bartender and he made me a drink and we waited for his car to be finished. Maybe you guys scented me a bit even a day later?”
“Whatever it was, we’re glad we came.”
“Me too,” she said. “When Annie invited me, I almost said no. I had a long day.”
“What do you do?” Rhaider asked.
“I teach a combination of first and second grade at the lion school in town.”
Rafe grinned. “That’s awesome. Rhaider and I have done some teaching, mostly music, of course.”
“You said you’re bears,” she said, giving Rafe’s hand a little squeeze.
“Grizzly bears,” Rafe said. “We left our clan a year ago because our alpha wanted us to go to the match-maker.”
“Match-makers don’t traditionally match two males with one female,” Rhaider said, his voice dropping a little. “We’ve known since we were young that we were going to share a mate.”
Demi’s brows rose. “It’s not normal for lions either.”
Rafe glanced at his brother. Was she upset there were two of them?
“But,” she continued, “I know I feel drawn to you both. It’s actually a relief that your intentions are to share a mate since my lioness is pretty happy to have two mates.” She paused and her cheeks darkened with blush. “I feel like I’m making a lot of assumptions here. We just met.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” Rhaider said. “What you’re saying is what we feel. Rafe and I hoped we’d find our heart-match and that she’d be happy to have two males dote on her. We’ve been traveling around the States looking for a place to settle down. We had no idea when we answered the ad to audition here that we’d wind up finding you, but we couldn’t be happier.”
Rafe nodded.
“So, what happens now?” Demi asked.
“We get to know each other,” Rafe said. “Would you be up for grabbing a bite to eat after our set?”
“I’d love that,” she said. “There’s a diner in town that’s open late. They have really great pie.”
“That’s perfect,” Rhaider said.
“Where are you staying?”
“The B&B,” Rafe said. “You live here in town, I assume?”
“Yes, I share a split-double with Hemi and Annie.”
“Hemi and Demi?” Rhaider asked. “Is there a back-story to your names?”
“Yeah,” she said. “My grandmother said that with twins in the house, it would be nothing but mayhem and pandemonium. Our parents are pretty strait-laced, so I’ve always been surprised they went with such unconventional names. The only people who call me Pandemonium are my parents if they’re being stern.”
“That’s awesome,” Rafe said.
Demi gave them a warm smile.
They chatted about the bar and the town, and then all too soon, Rafe’s watch buzzed with the warning they only had five minutes before they had to go back to the stage. “Damn, the time went too fast,” he grumbled.
“It did,” Demi agreed.
“Any requests?” Rafe asked as they all stood and walked toward the door.
“I’d say a nice slow song, but I don’t want to dance with anyone but you guys.”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Rhaider promised as they went inside.
Demi introduced them to Hemi and Annie and her best friend China.
“Your friends are cute,” China said, glancing toward the stage. “Are they single?”
“Yep,” Rafe said.
“That was blunt and to the point,” Demi said with a grin.
“Life is too short to beat around the bush,” China said.
“Hear, hear,” Annie said.
“They’re both single. We can introduce you to them after the set is over,” Rhaider said.
“Have a good set,” Demi said.
Rafe and Rhaider each kissed her on the cheek. Rafe one hundred percent wanted to do a lot more than that, but they were in public and had just literally met less than an hour earlier, so chaste cheek kisses were perfect. Their mother had raised them to be gentlemen, and he could think of no one more deserving of being treated like a queen than Demi.
“I have an idea,” Rafe said as he took the steps to the stage two at a time.
“Yeah? It’s not ‘quit right now and leave with Demi,’ right? Because I’m damn tempted to do that,” Rhaider said.
“Of course not,” Rafe said with a chuckle. “We definitely want to get this gig. But I was thinking about ways for us to get in a dance with Demi.”
“Cool, I’m in.”
“You don’t even know what the idea is yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. If it means I get to hold her for a song then I’m on board.”
“Good,” Rafe said. He slipped the guitar strap over his head said to Rebel, “You meet anyone interesting?”
“No, but I’m getting eyes from a female at the table with your mate. She’s cute as hell.” He spun the sticks between his fingers and looked past Rafe.
“No one came to talk to us, though. Am I the only one who didn’t feel any spark with anyone? Shit,” Maverick said.
“Hey, I’m not feeling any kind of mate pull to her. I just think she’s cute,” Rebel said. “Just these two planning a trip to mate heaven tonight.”
“Shut up,” Rhaider said. “We’re being very respectful of our mate.”
“Respectfully sexy. Got it,” Rebel said.
Rhaider let out a warning growl and Rebel gave him a shit-eating grin. “Shall we, gents?” Rebel asked, then counted off the first song by clacking his sticks loudly.
Rafe mouthed to his brother, “You can kill him later.”
Rhaider mouthed back, “I intend to.”
Rafe came in on the first verse, his attention fully on Demi. He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in a short amount of time. No more aimless wandering and lonely nights. Sure, they hadn’t ironed out all the details yet, but he and Rhaider had found their mate and she was one gorgeous, sexy female.
A lioness for two grizzlies.
Chapter Six
Demi had danced twice during their one-hour set. The first time, Rhaider had stepped away from the piano and taken her out for a dance. Then the second time, Rhaider had taken over the lead vocals and Rafe danced with her. She hadn’t thought it would be possible for them to both be able to dance with her, but they’d figured it out.
They were almost done with their set. She’d enjoyed listening to them play. While they’d danced, Rhaider told her he wrote and arranged most of the music, but they also had a wide variety of cover songs as well. They’d played weddings and corporate parties, even the occasional school dance. She’d admitted that she never even had any kind of school dance, let alone a prom.
Before their set was finished, Hemi and Annie left for home because Annie couldn’t stop yawning.
“So now that Hemi’s gone,” China said, swirling her straw in her empty glass, “what’s the plan for the night?”
“Grabbing a bite at the diner and then I don’t know.”
But she did kind of know, because her lion hadn’t shut up about taking Rafe and Rhaider home and finding out how well they fit together with her in bed. Her cat was yowling nonstop and being very pushy. Demi agreed with the beast, of course. The short time she’d gotten to spend with the guys, and also dancing, had cemented in her mind the certainty that they were meant to be together. She couldn’t believe a
house band job posting had brought her mates to her.
“How do you feel about them?” China asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, didn’t you think your whole life that you’d only have one mate? Are you really not a little concerned about having two mates? Especially since I can’t think of a single time in our clan’s history when there was a mated trio, which means you might be the first lioness to have two mates.”
Demi blew out a breath. “I did think I’d only have one mate, but my lioness is banging around in my skull to be with both of them. It just feels right. I’m not saying there won’t be difficulties, maybe even people in the pride who think it’s wrong, but if I’m happy and they’re happy, then that’s what should matter.”
“Our people can be so damn traditional. Look at how Duke almost had to leave the pride in order to mate with Ree.”
Demi nodded. Their alpha female, Ree, was human. In the past, lions had to choose to leave the pride if they wanted to mate a human or another type of shifter. Duke and Ree had made a lot of changes to pride law since they’d taken over after Duke’s father stepped down, and being allowed to mate whoever you wanted was one of the biggest changes. And it was the change that the older generation—like her parents—disliked the most.
“I guess I’ll cross the bridge of my parents’ approval when I get to it. If they’re my heart-matches, which I really feel that they are, then I’m not going to walk away from them because people might give me side-eye.”
China smiled. “I’m not sure if I could be so brave, but then again I’m not feeling a heart-match pull to anyone like you are. My parents would probably have a cow if I came home with two males and said they were mine.”
Demi thought her parents might feel the same way. “Finding my heart-matches is so unexpected, but it feels right.”
“So, after dinner, you’re going to take them home with you?”
“Sorry?” Demi asked
“You said you don’t know what’ll happen after you eat, but I think you’re just keeping your sexy thoughts to yourself. If you can’t tell your bestie that you want to jump your heart-matches’ bones, then who can you tell?”