6. Chapter 4
A couple of weeks.
I had a couple of weeks to convince her to stay, a couple of weeks to convince Wylder and Noah that she was our mate. It was bullshit to pretend otherwise.
I never reacted to anyone the way I reacted to her. Every time I had to help her into my truck, my blood ran hot. My knot swelled with want, and she wasn’t fairing much better. While at first, I wasn’t sure she felt anything at all, after taking her in my arms, I knew better. I could smell her arousal as if she was naked and spread out in front of me.
Her scent was intoxicating, her smile impossible to ignore. She was it for me, and I bet anything that she was it for the other two. They just had to see reason.
They just needed to believe.
I approached the house with my heart hammering inside my chest. Noah was outside, collecting logs, when he saw my truck ambling down the road. He glanced over his shoulder, staying away from the spot I usually parked, and I cursed, wishing I met Wylder first.
Wylder was easier. He would see Julia was ours. It wasn’t hard to see.
But Noah? He was stubborn, set in his ways after years of suffering. I couldn’t blame him. People grieved in different ways, and Noah coped the only way he knew how.
I took a breath and looked over at Julia, her eyes on Noah, looking interested. I wanted to ask her if she felt something when she looked at him, when she looked at me. I wanted to know if it was as obvious to her as it was to me.
“Stay here, okay?”
Julia furrowed her eyebrows in the cutest way possible, and I groaned, trying to keep my feelings at bay.
“What’s up?” Noah called, still not seeing I had someone in the car with me.
I moved closer, so close that he dropped the logs, sensing something was wrong.
“I need you to keep your mind open.”
“What are you—”
I didn’t have time to prepare him. In that moment, like I never said a word, she opened the passenger door and dropped into the snow, almost falling as she did.
Noah’s eyes followed the noise and locked on. Tiny frame, big curtain of black hair. Freckles, high cheekbones, and a loud orange coat.
“No.” That was all that he said.
Great.