I turn my ire on him immediately. “Listen up, my friendly neighborhood forest creeper, I have had JUST ABOUT ENOUGH of the surprises. Now what is it that I don’t know?”
“I should think it’s obvious. Look around you. These four men are tuned in to your every move. They are primed and ready to protect you at a moment's notice. And you? You can’t stop being in their orbit. It’s Fate in action. You’re their Pod Queen. It’s beautiful. You’re bonded to them!”
A lot of things happen at once.
Trevor punches Bill in the face. Bill makes everyone’s silk pants into booty shorts that are at least 4 sizes too small so they can’t get them off. Earl starts trying to shift and only makes it halfway because the magic pants won’t let him shift his bottom half. And I scream. Because I’m pretty good with the whole shifter thing but it’s terrifying beyond belief to have someone turn into a half-sea-lion, half-man hybrid thing directly in front of you. Plus, he’s top-heavy like that and keeps falling over. It’s surreal. Those little booty shorts? Yikes. Bryan and Darren start shouting at Bill. And me? I run. Because sometimes? Men are too much.
Too. Goddamn. Much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: BRYAN
SHE’S GOING TO RUN.
I can feel it in my bones.
If we let her get away, she won’t ever come back but if we force her to stay, we may never know her true love.
The look of abject horror on her face when Bill announced what we all know? That look is burned into my brain. It was a mixture of pain, confusion, and longing all at once. It was fear, vulnerability, and pure exhaustion from fighting it all at the same time.
If my soul had a facial expression, it would mirror hers. As it is, her emotional maelstrom is feeding into all of us. We can feel her distress and it gnaws at us—a constant reminder that we are failing our duties to her. We can’t protect her from this and it kills me inside.
A part of her wants us. Her desire for each of us is strong and unique. When I feel it through those tentative mate bonds, it makes my blood sing. If she had been raised among the shifters and the Fae of her ancestry, she would already have accepted us.
But she wasn’t. Our Mate was raised among humans. She was raised to be skeptical of Fate and to believe that she is the master of her own destiny.
Her new demon friend is amused by our antics, content to toy with us as if we are mere bugs on his radar. Perhaps we are. I tug at my much-too-tight shorts and grimace.
Fuck this noise.
That’s our girl out there. We need her and she needs us.
I roar and shift, shredding the demon pants and leaving them in strips on the floor. My podmates follow suit and together, we brush past Bill and lumber towards our deck and the blessed escape of the ocean.
Ronnie won’t appreciate us chasing after her in our human forms, but maybe, just maybe we can keep an eye on her from our sea lion forms
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: RONNIE
I RUN OUT OF THE ROOM and out the front door, hurrying along the side of the building until I get to the stairs to the beach. I’m still in my filthy dress from date night. It feels like an eternity has passed instead of just a day. Barefoot and carrying my bottle of tequila like a security blanket, I stomp down the beach.
Pod Queen? What the fuck does that even mean?
I didn’t sign up to be a Pod Queen.
Sure, I like them all. Probably too much for my own good. They’re good guys.
But I am NOT ready to get shifter married for all eternity just because my hormones are out of whack and some stupid jewelry says so.
A strange sort of ache starts in my chest and I push it away, but the more I push, the sharper it feels.
“No. I control my own destiny!” I scream into the wind. In an act of pure petulance and frustration, I tear the Matestone off my neck and throw it as hard as I can into the surf. “You don’t get to make me feel this way!”
I try to rip the rings off but they are either stuck or I am too drunk to manage it. I sink to my knees in the soft sand and stare out at the ocean.
For the first time since I arrived in Misty Cove, I miss my old life. Sure, Adam was a giant d-bag and my job was terrible, and, ok, I never really spent time with the few friends I did have aside from Terra. But at least I knew it was my life. Mine with which to do as much or as little as I wanted. It wasn’t preordained by some mystical force, it was made up of a series of choices.
Do I watch stupid TV, or do I dye my hair green? Do I pick up takeout, or do I swipe right on that guy on Tinder? Life is a series of tiny little choices and ever since I came here, it feels like they’ve all been taken from me.
Well, not anymore.
I stand and brush the sand off my ruined dress and turn to walk away, promptly stubbing my toe on something sharp.
Buried in the sand next to my foot is the Matestone.
“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.” I scream at it, kicking it away.
Looking very carefully where I walk, I pick my way back up the beach and head for the public access. The Matestone intersects my path another 5 times on my way there but each time I reject it.
Wet, tired, and out of breath, I make it to the top of the beach stairs and find Bill leaning against the railing in his perfect suit. The Matestone dangles from his fingertips
