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“I can smell the scent of you, even here. You’re truly marking your boundaries around your home,” she continues. I don’t think it's a worry that I can hear in her tone, but she’s definitely unsettled.
Alex realises, too, and he sits forward, patting Iris’s leg. “Don’t worry. You and the pack are safe.”
“Is this because of—” Iris starts, but she’s interrupted by Phoebe, who grunts and then whines very loudly.
I lean over, getting ready to help her, but Alex places his hand on my chest and shakes his head. She’s struggling to roll over and is getting frustrated because of it.
She whines again, but instead of crying, she just shifts into her wolf and charges over to the ball that she wants.
“Oh, my gosh,” I say, sitting back slightly. My head feels light as I watch the little grey wolf bounding around. “She did that on purpose—right?”
Topher nods at me, a huge grin on his face. “Seb’s going to be so upset he missed this.”
“You little angel,” Ben says, dropping down to the floor. He lifts Phoebe into his arms, laughing as she licks his face. “You’re such a clever girl, aren’t you, Pheebs?”
“Oh, how… peculiar. She’s so little.” Iris leans in close, looking at my daughter in her wolf form as she clambers all over Ben with her tiny little paws. “She’s quite cute.”
Her words are nice. But the look on her face combined with that tone… it gives me an eerie feeling, and I don’t like it.
“Very cute,” Ben says, grinning at Phoebe. “Toph, toss me her ball back. She’s desperate to play.”
“You play with her with a ball?” Iris tilts her head as a knock at the door sounds.
“It’ll be Talia with her men, or maybe even Iris’s mates,” Alex says, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I’ll get it.”
I snuggle into the sofa a little more, feeling a little overwhelmed. Phoebe starts chasing the ball, and Ben is put out every time she bats it past him. She’s playing alone—not with him, despite how much he’s trying to be involved.
“Oh, hey,” Alex says. I peek over, but can’t see who is at the door from my angle. “I thought you were Talia and her lot.”
“No,” a pretty familiar voice answers. I sit up straight, turning to look at the door, as Alex moves back to let them come in.
Three very identical and familiar men enter the room. All three of them are dressed differently. One in a suit, one in a tracksuit, and one is wearing a red shirt with a pair of light grey shorts.
But that’s their only difference. They’ve got dark brown, fluffy hair and bright green eyes. They’re all very slender, and a little shorter than my mates.
Athletic builds and cheeky grins on the back two.
The one in the suit is far more uptight, a very intense kind of confidence surrounding him, whilst the other two are a lot more relaxed.
This is either a huge coincidence, or fate has truly been having fun playing with my life for a lot longer than I thought.
35
MAIA
“Oh, my god, Cade, hi,” I say, grinning at the trio of men. I’m very, very surprised that he’s here, and wave, since I have no idea which is which between the three of them.
Cade is a man I know—well, a man I’ve known for a little while—and whilst I’m guessing he’s the one at the front in the suit, I’m not too sure with the full trio here. It’s been a good few years since I’ve seen him, but he practically looks the same.
Two of the men give the one in a suit a weird look as he beams at me in return, and it’s pretty clear. That one’s Cade.
He strides over to me, coming to a stop behind the armchair that Ben was sitting on a few moments ago and rests against it. “Maia. How are you doing? Wait—” He looks around the room at each of my mates and gasps. “Fucking hell, what a coincidence.”
His voice is the exact same baritone, the Northern accent strong, but his words are polished. He’s uptight… until he’s not.
“You two know each other?” Iris is not impressed, and she rises from the sofa, glowering at her mate as if he’s done something wrong by being on friendly terms with me.
I don’t think that she’s jealous. In fact, I’m horrified to think she could be. Cade’s nearly ten years older than I am, and I knew him a lot during my teenage years.
