Chapter 5
Erick
There are no Internet searches and no national databases with shifter statistics available to the average bear. Much of shifter knowledge is passed down through the generations and shared orally as traditions at the full moon pack hunts.
One such ghost story is about Farnons: shifters birthed in their animal versus human form.
It’s so rare of a phenomenon that most modern shifters think they are a myth but those who believe consider them a curse on the pack they’re born to.
As the story goes, they cannot shift until weaned from their mother—usually between three and four years old.
The lore surrounding Farnons claims they’re born with physical deformities and are severely developmentally delayed, making it impossible to integrate with the human population later in life.
Shifters say Yetis and Sasquatch are Farnon.
They are the outcasts of the shifter world, the anomalies, and rarely come up in normal conversations.
So imagine my surprise when Kit brings them up casually between bites of potato casserole.
“What did you say about Farnon?” I ask.
He swings his gaze to me. “Some asshat was calling a bunch of us it.”
“The shifters in Fortune Falls use it as a slur?” I raise my brow, disappointed but not surprised to see it’s alive and well in a closed community.
One positive of living in an open community like Broken Falls—where humans have no idea shifters exist while living beside us—is that some prejudices have died.
Of course, with that so have some of the knowledge and old traditions.
“No way, man. This was NPC dialogue in this game called Were Call: House of Lycan. It’s this online multiplayer world-building game with vampires, werewolves and super humans battling for supremacy.
We were testing it as part of our thirst-trap channel.
” Kason chirps from Kit’s left side, the two of them seemingly sharing a brain at times.
“It’s built into the game?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Kit nods. “We figure the game designers or investors have to be shifters, right?”
“Wolf shifters specifically, if the name is anything to go by.”
“Truth.” Kason points his fork at me.
My attention goes to the back door as Koran walks out of the kitchen with Kylian behind him. She’s wearing a pair of form-fitted leggings and even though her top is baggy, it hits at the perfect length—mid hip—allowing the curve of her ass to pop.
Now if she would just turn around and …
“Yo, Erick,” Sly hisses from my right side.
“What?” I tear my gaze from her to turn to Sly whose eyes go from me to her and back to me, a knowing arch of his brow quickly schooling any expression my dumb face might be wearing.
My bear is confused about what he wants and is very interested again.
But he’s not claiming her as ours and I can’t help but wonder why.
Yes, she’s attractive, but no woman is pretty enough to tempt estranging my friend, pack member, and business partner.
“I was saying, do you think we should tell the Colonel about this game?” Sly asks.
I shrug. “Not our fight but I guess it won’t hurt to mention it to Crash.”
“Have you been drinking Wolf’s Run?” Karter asks Kylian while handing me and Sly fresh beers.
She’s been dancing around the fire for the last two hours, seductively swinging her hips and coyly looking over her shoulder in my direction whenever she thinks her brothers’ attention is occupied.
With their mates on their laps they’re fairly distracted.
I’ve given up pretending I’m not watching her right back and figure I’ll deal with whatever repercussions come from Kade or his brothers later.
My bear’s alert but un-threatened and not demanding I claim her.
I assume it’s because she’s related to every male here besides Sly, and that’s why he’s not in a rush.
For some reason Sly doesn’t threaten my bear either, as if he were a mated male.
But that makes no sense and the mystery bothers me.
Why doesn’t my bear find Sly threatening to my mate?
He’s a good-looking guy, just as virile as me and even though she’s related to bear shifters, she herself is not one.
Not really.
Kylian stops spinning and puts her hands on her hips. “Of course not. You know I’m not stupid enough to mess with that stuff. No offense, Valery.”
Valery shrugs and retakes her seat on Karter’s lap. “What did I know?”
“What’s Wolf’s Run?” Sly asks.
Karter ignores the question, his eyes narrowing on Kylian. “Then why are you twitchy and sweaty?”
Kade looks over and projects to us. “It’s a wolf adrenaline-based drug they slipped to Valery on her first night in town. Karter thought her brain was going to fry. She was burning up, head to toe, for hours.”
That explains the state of Kylian’s undress.
Since we’ve been here, she has stripped down to a thin tank top she has tucked into her bra to expose her stomach while rolling the top of her fleece leggings down to mid hip.
There is a sheen of sweat glistening on her skin and at some point she pulled her thick dark auburn locks into a messy bun on top of her head.
“I don’t know. I’m hot. I have been all day. Maybe it’s the fire?”
“The fire’s not affecting Valery or Dinah,” Karter says out loud.
Kade responds telepathically, “What the fuck, Karter? Wrong thing to say.”
“You mean it isn’t affecting the other humans.
” Kylian’s lips press together and her eyes narrow but she says nothing more.
Then she rolls her shoulders and waltzes over to her chair, grabbing her beer and tilting it back until she’s drained the contents.
Looking directly at me and only me, she asks, “Can I grab you anything while I’m up? ”
My survival instincts must have taken a break because a wicked smile spreads my lips as I lift my full bottle. “I’m all set but thanks for looking out for me.”
“It’s my pleasure. You’re nice to look at.” She sashays her sexy ass out of the pit, passing between Sly and my chairs, before entering the cabin behind us.
I turn to watch her walk away, knowing what I’ll find when I turn back around and not giving a solitary fuck about it. As expected, Kade and Karter stare at me but it’s the frown on my pack member’s face that has me hiding my grin behind my beer. “I think your sister’s flirting with me.”
“She’s just trying to piss us off,” Karter dismisses me.
“Don’t you have something going on with Carla?” Kade points out, poking me with much more subtlety.
Carla—Cricket’s cousin and server at the Broken Falls diner—and I have been fucking on and off for over a year.
She’s a cat shifter, tall and lean with long blonde hair, and wild in the sack.
But she’s a friend, a bona fide fuck buddy, and that’s all she can ever be.
I know it and she knows it. Unlike me who wasn’t looking, she’s been hoping to find her mate—and her desperation has become palpable as of late.
“No.” I shrug. “It’s nothing more than two shifters scratching an itch around the full moon.”
“I don’t know her experience but I don’t think my sister is the scratching an itch type,” Karter says, exchanging a glance with his brother—the subtle warning coming across loud and clear.
“You don’t know that,.” Valery interjects. “She’s been going to school in Great Falls for months now, going out to bars and clubs and living a normal young woman’s life. It’s not like she’s going to tell you about her sexual experiences—if and when she has them.”
Kash moans from under the stadium blanket in the chair on the other side of Karter. “I don’t need to hear this about my baby sister.”
“She’s not a baby, Kash. She’s twenty-two and beautiful and deserves to experience all the love and passion the rest of us have,” Valery states with an air of empowered female authority.
“Yeah. Girl power!” Reading my mind, Dinah giggles and pumps her fist into the air.
Kade tickles her until she’s squirming on his lap and then whispers in her ear, “I’ll give you something powerful.”
My bear grumbles at the idea of Kylian gaining experience recently and then it strikes me she could have an entire secret life that none of them know about. A relationship with some boy at whatever school she goes to.
Shit. If she’s not a shifter and she’s never going to shift, why would she want to be mated to someone who will remind her of what makes her different from the rest of her family?
“Still,” Kade projects, “it’s one thing if she’s a fucking every dude in her biochem class—I don’t know those assholes—but I prefer she not fuck around with someone in my pack.”
“Even if she’s their fated mate?” This comes from Sly, which causes my head to swing in his direction.
How did he fucking know?
Sly raises his beer to his mouth and takes a swig while the rest of us sit in stunned silence. I’m almost afraid to turn back to face the brothers. Thank Fates the triplets aren’t here to add their own commentary.
“Are you guys speaking telepathically?” Dinah asks, breaking the tension thickening the air.
“Yes, Honeysuckle,” Kade says calmly.
“Do you have a good reason for doing it right now?” she mildly chastises the group. We try not to speak telepathically when they’re around because, as they’ve pointed out, it’s rude.
“Yes,” he says to her but keeps his eyes on me. “Is she, Erick?”
I sigh. “I think so. I’m not sure.”
“Fuck,” Karter says.
“Fuck,” Kade agrees.
“What if she is?” I project and watch a bevy of emotions pass over his face.
“Good. She deserves someone like you,” Kash says and then sits up with a start. “Fuck me. I heard that. I heard the entire conversation.”
“Can you guys hear me?” he projects.
Smiles break out on our faces. “Yeah man, we read you loud and clear.”
“Thank fucking Fates.” Kash collapses back into his chair.
We sit in silence for a few minutes, not speaking out loud or telepathically. This is it. The moment Kade presents me with a choice I won’t be able to make.
Finally, Kade leans forward and offers me his hand. “If the Fates have chosen her for you and you for her, then I won’t stand in your way.”
Karter frowns but says nothing.
“How can you not be sure?” This question comes from Valery. She glances at her mate, then at Kade, then at me, and then back to Karter. “I thought it was an overwhelming knowledge—something your animal wouldn’t shut up about until you claimed your mate?”
It’s obvious the Barrington men have been honest with their human mates about the bond.
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.
” I shrug. “But my bear took notice the moment I walked into your house and she wasn’t home.
I know when she’s about to walk around the corner and I can feel her in the house right now, even though I’ve never touched her.
But my bear isn’t screaming at me to claim her, so I don’t know what that means. ”
“Everyone here is related or mated,” Sly offers.
“You’re not.” I turn to him.
Pursing his lips as if holding back a retort on the tip of his tongue, Sly glances down at his lap. “I’m a wolf and maybe he doesn’t threaten your bear.”
“Kade’s bear would have ripped us apart if we had so much as looked at Dinah sideways when he first brought her around. I had to stop him from tearing Cricket’s throat out the first time they met. It didn’t matter the species, or even if they were shifters.”
“I almost killed Kit for flirting with Valery,” Karter adds. “My bear did not care that he’s our brother.”
As if speaking his name summoned him, a very large and very naked Kit runs out of the darkness followed by two large brown bears. He at least has the decency to cup his genitals with both hands before he speaks. “Where’s Kylian?”
“Boy, why the fuck are you running your naked ass around in front of my mate?” Karter growls.
“I’m not naked,” he balks. “I’m covering all the good stuff.”
“What do you want?” Karter snarls.
“We need a hapless human to run through the woods for us. What do you say, Valery, are you game?”
“You must have a fucking death wish,” Kade grumbles and pulls Dinah’s face into his neck while covering her eyes.
“No, she’s not game, asshat,” Karter answers for Valery. “And if you call Kylian a hapless human to her face, we’re all fucked. What are you doing, anyway?”
“We have an idea for a video.” Kit grins like a loon.
“No!” Both Kade and Karter exclaim at the same time a loud crash comes from inside the cabin.
Without thinking, I jump out of my seat and run inside to find Kylian collapsed on the floor, my bear sitting up and loudly demanding I take care of our mate.
Well, fuck me. I’m glad we had our conversation because there’s no way I’d be able to hide this now.