AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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.”
