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“I would never have set you up with an unfated mate,” I bite out, the words pushing through my lips harsher than intended.
Willem’s lips twitch with amusement, and my stomach swoops painfully. He’s tall and muscled, lean in the sort of way that lends grace to his movements, you know, despite the whole eating dirt thing earlier. Lush, pitch-black hair is cut into an undercut and styled, accentuating his sharp jawline and dark, hooded eyes.
The man belongs on the cover of a high fashion magazine, not at a campground in the middle of nowhere. His dark brown eyes travel the length of my body, and I fight the urge to shudder in delight as he responds. “I know.”
Uh, what is happening here?Ian asks across mind link. The twins obviously don’t know what I do—that my wolf has responded to Willem the same way she responded to them.
As a Fate-chosen mate.
I have a responsibility as part of Cupid’s Pack—and as the Luna’s daughter—to understand mate bonds. But this is beyond understanding. It’s one thing to have a second-chance mate, but in the span of a couple of days, my wolf has claimed four different mates.
It’s unreasonable. Unfathomable, truly. There are probably examples of wolves who have claimed multiple mates over their lifetime, but not all in the span of a couple of days. It’s happening so quickly that the only thing I can think is that I’ve been set up.
Someone, somehow is manipulating my wolf.Absolutely not!My wolf’s protest is loud and clear, but I’m not sure how trustworthy she is at the moment.
I might think my mom was behind this somehow if it didn’t run counterintuitive to her obvious desire to force me to accept Jakob MacKay as a mate. If she wanted me with that monster, giving me three obviously less threatening options certainly wouldn’t do the trick.
Unless my instincts about these three men are wrong.
I rock backward a step. My mom has already made me reconsider who in my life is trustworthy; I can’t trust the first men that come along no matter what my wolf is saying.
I resent that.
I’ll trust you again when you stop trying to tell me I’m mates with every strange man that comes along, no matter how good-looking he is,I tell her pointedly, shutting her up. Even my wolf can’t deny the situation is strange.
I cross my arms over my chest protectively as I study the three men. Nothing about them suggests they have any malicious intent, but I’m sure they would work really hard to hide it if they did.
Mason meets my eye and furrows his brows at me. “Are you okay?” He reaches toward me, and I take another step back before his hand can make contact.
What are you doing?Ian asks silently, his eyes going wide with alarm as he scans over me.What happened?
I add another step of distance, doing my best to ignore the horrified looks on all three men’s faces. Did they rehearse this? I wish I felt like it was safe to call Indie for help, but even if I did, she would probably tell me to ignore the warning signs and go all in. I sigh with the realization that calling would be impossible; it’s not like I have a phone to call on anyway.
This is the precise kind of thing I would have asked my mom for advice on in any other circumstance. And now I don’t have that opportunity. My chest aches as unease and indecision swirl in my gut.
Mason takes a step toward me, but I rush to put a hand up for him to stop. “Don’t,” I croak out.
I’m spiraling, trying to run last night through in my head over and over again. Nothing in particular seemed like a warning sign about the twins, though they did lie about there not being open cabins. If I had protested staying with them, would they have kept up that charade?
The way they touched me last night, though…
I shut my eyes and breathe in deeply through my nose, holding the breath for a second before releasing it slowly through my mouth. I sort details as quickly as I can, but there’s added pressure to arrange my thoughts because I can feel the three men staring at me, the air tense as they all wait for my next move.
Is that patience enough to prove that they’ve stumbled upon me honestly? Wouldn’t they be pressuring me more if they had ulterior motives?
I force my eyes open and look at Willem Lim.
He’s not hiding the fact that he knows me by reputation, and I can see the interest shining behind his eyes. But I want to hear him confirm what I’m feeling. “Do you think you’re my—”
“Mate?” he rushes to finish for me. “Yes.” He sounds so resolute, even as Mason sniffs sharply as if offended by the revelation. Ian side-eyes Willem but otherwise doesn’t react.
“Right.” I nod absently, a lump lodging itself in my throat.
Three men… it’s not proper, is it? Even if it’s the truth, that somehow I’ve found myself four mates and only one of them is instantly intolerable, it’s not like I can actually keep all of them.
Why not?My wolf sours, not enjoying the direction of my thoughts.Some women collect shoes, we could collect men.
I snort at my wolf’s musings, ignoring the matching interested looks from Mason, Ian, and Willem. There’s no way I’m going to share my wolf’s thoughts with them. Especially not as they grow more vulgar, my wolf trying to force ideas into my imagination of what I could do with such acollection.
