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Everything weighed more when you hadn’t seen your mate in weeks. My feet dragged. Food didn’t taste the same. Even the air that entered my lungs felt thick and velvety like potato soup.
She was so close. My wolf wanted nothing more than to break free of this human prison and go after her, whine at her feet, do whatever it took to make her take us back.
It was the only way we would be free.
Still, my human side stood in the way. He was a brooding bastard, and that was putting it mildly.
I closed my eyes and pictured the home I would’ve built for her, that I still intended to build for her. It was two stories with bedrooms in every corner so that each mate would have the privacy they deserved with Jillian. She had a huge master bedroom that doubled the six of the rest of ours and her own en suite with the biggest bathtub I could find. She deserved the things she’d been denied all along. The comforts, pleasant surroundings, basics but so much more. I’d traded work for many of these things, like the quilts made by a group of females and the pottery created by a true artist. Others I’d been saving money for. All of that had been put on hold, of course, by my running away.
My human brain wiggled into the picture to interrupt. Life would be crappy sharing Jillian with two other men. It would be awkward and tense all the time. What kind of life would that be for anyone?
Selfishly, what kind of life would that be for me?
My wolf chimed in, mentally sending me pictures of Jillian through the bond between human and beast. He didn’t give two shits about inconveniences or insecurities. He needed his mate, and if he had to be uncomfortable for the rest of his life, she was worth it.
Gods, she was worth it.
Still, Samson and Tristan along with Wendi’s mates didn’t seem uncomfortable for one single second. In fact, they shared some kind of camaraderie. They were a team, a brotherhood of sorts, and their shared purpose was their mate’s happiness.
I swallowed against the guilt I felt. Bennett had said that Jillian was still in danger. There was someone lurking around the woods, trying to take her or something. I didn’t really know what their motive or end was to the constant stalking, but I wanted it to stop. Maybe this was why Fate gave Jillian several mates, so that we could protect her.
But then the question came to mind…what would happen after there was no longer danger? Would our mating dissolve and go to whomever she wanted most?
I wanted nothing to do with it and yet, I craved getting to the bottom of it.
At a loss for a decision, I decided that manual labor was my best bet. After all, it had served me well in the past.
I worked all day until the muscles in my hands and along my knuckles were strained and pulsing. The rest of the lumber was cut and before the sun set, I was looking at a full set of lumber, perfect for a home.
For Jillian’s home.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the key.
Perhaps the best thing I could do as one of her mates would be to build the house for her and her mates and then somehow make these feet walk away from her for good. Samson and Tristan had said I couldn’t return there without my mate.
And I certainly couldn’t return to my human life. I simply wasn’t human anymore.
Just the thought of leaving Jillian sent shards of pain stabbing through my body. I knew from reading some of the shifter books and asking questions that a bond breaking was a severely painful process. It might take days or depending on how fused the bond was, it may take years. One shifter had died of a broken heart.
Gods, if just the thought of leaving her killed me, there was no way I could do it. I needed to buck up and find a way to deal.
For Jillian.
Chapter Thirteen
Jillian
Now that I’d mated with both of the men who lived with me currently, things were running a little smoother. At least they were until I learned Dean had returned and was staying in the dorms. He hadn’t even come to see me to say hello, and since I was in the compound at least every other day for one reason or another and hadn’t seen him, I had to assume he was avoiding me.
Weirdly, that didn’t make it worse. When he’d been away, I worried all the time about his welfare. What if he got hurt or killed and nobody wanted to tell me. All right, if I was being honest, Wendy or Christi or maybe Samson, one of their alphas, would inform me if anything really terrible happened to him. The days were getting warmer, and with my woodstove, I had other means of cooking, so the fireplace I stared into held an arrangement of dried herbs and flowers instead of flames.
But it didn’t stop my imagination from running wild or my nightmares from putting him in all sorts of dangerous situations. Or from missing him, a hole in my life that only he could fill. But he was his own person and I couldn’t make him want me if he didn’t. Mates were preordained, and for the most part seemed to work out pretty well, but occasionally there were personality issues or something, and they lived apart and just got together occasionally to pacify their wolves. And because even if you didn’t like your mate much, the sex was still incredible.
“Earth to Jillian?”
I looked away from the cold hearth to see Shane and Creek standing over me. Lifting my whiteboard from my lap I scribbled,How long have you been there?
“Long enough.” Creek grinned. He was so muscular and just big that he could be intimidating—until he smiled. It took over his whole face and melted my knees every time. Kids loved him, since he had nothing but smiles for them. I’d run across him more than once fixing a broken bicycle or skateboard, and he was currently involved in heavy designs for a treehouse for a group of boys. The idea made my heart ache for Dean yet again. It would be the perfect project for my woodsman to participate in if they were only able to connect. “It’s a beautiful day out, and I put together a picnic.” He held a cooler by his side. “You in?”
