Fearless (The Willowdale Village Collection #2)

13. Macon Demir

CHAPTER 13

MACON DEMIR

I could feel something was wrong with my bunny.

Before she even came into view, her stress became apparent through our connection. The intensity of her emotions throughout the day, ranging from fearful to joyous, were all completely unexplained to me. But in the past half an hour they’d grown to something even more overwhelming—jealousy, possessiveness, fear, and then pure anger all intermingled into one heavily saturated wave. The only reason I hadn’t gone to find her was because I knew Liam was bringing her here.

Even now, even after I’d felt her joy and relief, the heaviness of those emotions weighed on me as I listened for her approaching footsteps.

“Fucking finally,” Connery cursed as Liam broke through the brush, off the normal path. Lena’s face held a softer expression than I’d dared to hope for, an encouraging sign for the conversation we needed to have.

“What’s wrong?” Ari demanded, noticing that her cheeks were wet with tears. Why the fuck had she been crying? Also, why did she look so damn exhausted?

On top of that, I couldn’t help but notice how damn sweet she smelled, even more so than usual. I knew it was because of her mating heat, and I found it almost impossible to hold back, to not surge forward to touch her. To kiss her.

“Misunderstanding,” Liam said.

“I thought Liam was implying that I had to choose between the four of you, but he wasn’t,” she explained. “But I do think we need to talk. I feel like I keep assuming things and then getting them wrong.”

“When I said that, I meant that she needed to choose to be with us, not choose between us,” Liam said.

“Let's make it clear then,” I said. “We really fucking?—”

“I want to be with all four of you!” Lena blurted. Her cheeks flamed bright pink as I smiled massively. “I want to be with all of you. I don’t want to choose, and it scares the hell out of me that you might want that. I’m scared you’re not going to want to share and see what this could turn into for our future.” She bit down on her bottom lip, hard, to keep herself from a continuous worried ramble. She didn’t need to be worried, though.

“I promise you, Lena, that is far from the case,” Liam said, pulling her attention.

“We’re all on the same page and have been since this past summer,” Ari agreed. “We all recognize that what we feel for you individually isn’t going anywhere. We aren’t letting you go anywhere, Lena.”

“Don’t worry, bunny,” I said, trying to bring a smile to her face. “My brother and I don’t plan to steal you away anymore—although when we first met you, it was damn tempting.”

My brother shook his head at my antics, adding, “Do you think we would’ve put our mating marks on you while expecting you to choose, gorgeous?”

My gaze darted to the soft skin between her left shoulder and neck as I tried to resist the urge to mark her here and now. That would be absurd…still extremely tempting, though. Especially if I could take her out on the forest floor like the animal she turned me into.

“I didn’t know what to expect, or if any of you had talked,” she said softly. “I just immediately thought of the worst possible scenario…which obviously was far off base. The way all of you make me feel is so much more intense than I ever expected, and I’m terrified of what that would mean if you ever decided you didn’t want to be part of this…or didn’t want me.”

“Never going to happen,” I assured her in a low rumble.

“But that’s not all I’m scared of,” she breathed out, twisting her fingers. I stepped forward instinctively, wanting to pull her into me, but she put a hand out to stop me. “I love the idea of you touching me, but I've got to get through this. I’ve got to get it all out or else I’ll chicken out.”

Nodding, I put my hands in my pockets and restrained the urge to go to her.

“I’m scared of losing the four of you,” she said, her tone more firm. ”You four mean everything to me. Literally everything.”

I could practically hear the word ‘love’ on the tip of her tongue, but she held back. I wanted to hear her say it when we were alone and she was under me, so I understood her hesitancy.

“Scared of losing us?” Connery asked in confusion.

“I’m scared of something happening to you like it happened to my parents,” she whispered, looking down at her feet. “I’m so damn scared of that.”

“Nothing will happen to us,” Liam assured her. “Putting aside that we’re the town’s entire damn police department, we are more than capable of handling ourselves. We will always do everything in our power to come home to you, Graves.”

I had literal death on my hands, my soul stained with the blood of those that had wronged my brother and me in the past few years. I didn’t plan on telling Lena that, but the last people she needed to be worried about was us.

“If anything, I’m more worried about you,” Ari agreed. “This town is peaceful, but that doesn’t mean it's not dangerous. I don’t like the idea of you going home to an empty apartment every damn night.” Although I highly doubted it would be empty ever again.

“We are going to do everything in our power to protect you,” Connery agreed. “And if that means protecting one another, then we will.”

“Or anyone else in our family,” I said pointedly in reference to her heat and potential pregnancy. I knew Lena damn well, and I knew it would be on her mind. If she was scared of losing us, I could only imagine how fearful the idea of motherhood would make her. It wasn’t going to be a fear I allowed to fester, though. I planned on proving to her just how safe we would keep our entire family.

“We need to talk about that.” Lena bit down on her lip. “I went to see Eliza today, about the future…I didn’t ask her about us, but I did ask her about that . I know she can see multiple paths at once, but in most of her visions, she saw that we would be expecting…and soon.”

Music to my fucking ears.

“We knew what we were doing, gorgeous. I told you that,” Connery pointed out quietly as I nodded.

“I’ve always wanted a family with you,” Ari said, pulling a smile to her lips. “I think I told you that once.”

“And before I even asked you to dinner, I could sense your heat was coming,” Liam added.

“And that didn’t stop you from asking me to dinner or starting any of this,” she murmured.

Now she was fully getting it.

“Let me make it as clear as possible—we want this, Lena. We want you. We want you with us every damn second, living and breathing the same air as us. We want all of that. There is absolutely no doubt in any of our minds, so you should remove it from your own.”

“Okay…” Lena breathed out, a smile slowly forming on her lips. “So we’re doing this? For real?”

“For real,” I confirmed, finally approaching her and tugging her around her waist. “Just say the word and we’ll all move in together , bunny.”

“I would love that—I want this. I want a future with all of you.”

We would absolutely give that to her, and so much more.

“ W e need to take her home,” I told the others.

After pack dinners, everyone usually went on a run, but we’d skipped out this time—we didn’t think Lena’s rabbit would enjoy that as much as our dragons or wolves did. We did, however, go to the bonfire. Now a few hours later, Lena was curled up on my lap, her head tucked against my neck and my hand strung through her hair.

I could feel people looking at us, but I did my best to ignore it, not wanting my temper to spark when I inevitably found that some of those gazes were male. They had no right to be looking at our woman. Still, I understood that Lena was popular here. Everyone loved her, and before us she’d never shown an interest in mates. Now she was surrounded by four of them.

“I’m hesitant to move her. She looks exhausted,” Ari said. All of this had been a lot on Lena, and while I think we finally had a very clear understanding, it didn’t take away from the stress it had caused her.

“I’m surprised her brothers haven't said shit,” Connery pointed out.

At this point in the night, her brothers and their mate had disappeared inside, and while they had offered us looks, none of them seemed particularly surprised. It wasn’t like we’d been quiet about our feelings for Lena—outside of her own damn brothers, we had pretty much told every other bastard in the vicinity to stay the fuck away from her.

“I’m sure that's coming,” Liam sighed, approaching and crouching down next to where I sat with her on a log. “We should bring her back to her apartment.”

“The house is nearly done. Sure we don’t want to just go there?” Ari asked.

“I think we should bring her by tomorrow and show her. She’s finally on the same page as us; I don’t want to send her running,” Liam said. “Plus, the first shipment of furniture won’t be delivered until late tomorrow night.”

I shook my head in disagreement but knew it wasn’t worth the battle. Instead, I stood with her in my arms and made my way down the path that led from the backyard to the front of the house where we had parked. When my brother shouted that he would drive Lena’s car back, I got into the back seat of the SUV as Liam and Ari took the front.

Lena murmured something against my neck but other than that continued to sleep deeply, her steady breathing causing my own to regulate and slow. My body always felt like it was in a constant state of alertness when she was around—almost like I was manic or hyper. It was intoxicating. But in moments like this, I felt content just holding her against me. I could hold her like this forever.

“Who’s going to do rounds tonight?” I asked Liam.

“All of us, unfortunately.” He sighed. “There have been some sightings of unmarked vehicles throughout the area. Hunter thinks it could be someone looking for Colette, so they’re keeping security tight around the pack lands.”

We’d already been on heightened alert last night, but it seemed the problem was developing further.

“So if we see anyone, pull them over?” Ari asked.

“I’ll call and see how they want to handle that, but I would assume so,” Liam said.

“One of us should still be posted outside of her place tonight—it's centrally located, so if any unmarked vehicles drive through town, it would be fairly obvious,” I pointed out.

I didn’t like the idea of not being by Lena’s side tonight, especially with a potential threat, but protecting Willowdale was my job, and there was something satisfying about that. For so long my brother and I had wandered without purpose, and while the main reason we’d joined the police force was to protect Lena to the best of our abilities, it was a good feeling to serve a larger purpose.

I’d never let that get in the way of Lena’s safety, though. As we drove, my thoughts wandered to when we had first met her.

“ I have no idea what we’re doing here,” Connery said. I grunted in response, running a hand through my hair. We’d driven into this town late last night, another stop on an endless journey.

“I think we should give it a try. The big cities give me a fucking headache,” I admitted as I looked around the quaint streets of Willowdale. There were shifters everywhere, and the flower beds that lined each street were in full bloom. This was objectively the most beautiful town we’d traveled to so far.

“Yeah, but we’re going to stand out here.”

“Hi there.” A bright voice had me snapping my head to the side as I squinted up, nearly blinded by the sun. Or blinded by this woman’s fucking beauty, because the minute I shifted and got a full look at her, a rumble broke from my chest in surprise.

Large golden eyes and bright teal hair that fell to her waist, the woman in front of us looked like something out of a fucking storybook. She was wearing a sundress and sneakers, a bag under her arm that appeared to be filled with freshly purchased flowers. I actually felt the need to distance myself from her, feeling like I was somehow polluting her space.

What the hell was going on with me right now? I never gave a shit about that type of thing. My dragon roared in silent protest at the idea of moving away from her at all.

“Hi,” Connery offered. That single syllable was impressive considering my words seemed to be stuck in my throat.

“Are you new in town?” she asked curiously. “I’ve never seen either of you around.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “Just passing through.”

“Are you staying at the bed and breakfast?” She looked behind us at the establishment in question.

“Yeah,” Connery said.

“Well if you need a tour around ? —”

“We do.” I needed a lot more than that, but a tour was a fucking amazing place to start.

I t had taken only one afternoon with her to realize that we were absolutely staying in Willowdale. Not only that, but Lena was set to be our mate. It wasn’t until days later, after finding an apartment, that we realized we weren’t alone in our affections for her—or that our girl wasn’t exactly keen on settling down just yet.

It felt fucking fantastic to finally be here, where there was no more damn confusion.

When we reached her apartment, I told Liam and Ari I would make sure she was settled before coming back down. They decided to check the security system, the locks on the bakery, and her apartment as I carried her upstairs.

She’d only lived here a few months, but Lena had absolutely made the space her own. The walls were warm, every corner filled with soft, comfortable surfaces. Her kitchen had recipes plastered to the cabinets and the fridge, and the room always smelled faintly of vanilla. I couldn’t wait until our house together smelled similar, the scent so tied to her.

Walking into her bedroom, I laid her down and removed her shoes and jacket, tucking her under the covers. Making sure the windows were locked, I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips as she sighed my name.

“I love you, bunny,” I said quietly, knowing she wouldn’t hear it but wanting to tell her anyway. “I promise that this is going to work out how it's supposed to.” With her in our home as our mate and wife, carrying our children, and being spoiled every single damn day.

Walking out of the bedroom, I closed the door securely and nodded toward Ari, who was locking up the guest bedroom windows. Connery had already dropped the keys for her car on the table and gone back downstairs to the car. Leaving her apartment, we made sure everything was secure before finally getting back into the SUV.

“We’re going to have to figure out scheduling going into the future,” I pointed out. “I don’t like the idea of leaving her at home by herself.”

“I don’t either,” Liam admitted. “Which is probably fucking insane.”

“Is it?” Ari asked openly. “My wolf sure as hell doesn’t think so.”

“I don’t see an issue with thinking like that either,” my brother agreed. “Plus, imagine how we’ll feel if she really is pregnant.”

A low rumble broke through my chest at the thought. The concept was fucking mesmerizing to consider—Lena carrying our hatchlings.

“Or even more so,” he continued, “how we’ll feel if we have to leave her and our kids at home.”

“You’re right,” Liam agreed instantly.

“I was surprised she went to Eliza,” Connery said.

“I’m not,” I told him. “I’m surprised she didn’t ask her about our relationship, though.”

“I think some part of her recognized that she already knew where we stood,” Ari said.

I believed that. I just had to hope that when Lena did find out she was pregnant, she wouldn’t get scared and run. Our girl was fearless when it came to everything but matters of the heart, and this situation had the potential to shake her to her core.