The rest of the people in the room sighed in relief. Delilah especially, still feeling guilty. I again reiterated she shouldn’t feel guilty. I was the one that went back to the mansion. After seeing all those women wanting their escape and were fearful of asking for it, I knew I was meant to be there all along.
I made the right choice because look where it led me to.
After the first extraction, Tajah requested we come at sunset each day for the next several days until the demon was finally removed. I needed to get as much rest as possible in between, but that was proving difficult.
Did they seriously think I would want to sleep after that? At least I had Bear by my side before we started this mess, and it wasn’t so painful. Unfortunately, we have angered the demon now. Who knew what the entity was going to try now that we were trying to pull him away?
As Tajah said, the nightmare was going to be frantic. Trying to hold on to what it could to keep me.
Tajah ruffled through the bag she had brought in earlier and gave Bear and me several items. She kept her voice but a whisper, but I knew most of the people in the room could hear it. The mated ones, anyway.
It was all about birth control. The human birth control pills I was taking wouldn’t work anymore now that I was gaining a bear. I immediately bowed my head and looked away from Bear, but Delilah, Journey, and Anaki were laughing in the corner.
Bear continued to listen, taking whatever Tajah gave him, and listened to the explicit instructions on how I should take it. He was acting like some big hovering figure taking care of all the adult stuff, but hell, I didn’t want to know what that bag full of grass he had in his hand was for.
She held out another bag that was specifically for Bear. He cleared his throat and shoved the sack into his pocket, seeming to know what it was.
“What’s that?” I nudged him when Tajah turned away.
A pretty blush came to his tanned cheeks, and I pursed my lips to hide my smile.
“It’s to help with my rut and with your heat. I don’t want it to start before we get this demon out of you,”he linked.
Right, shouldn’t have even asked.
Bear nodded at Tajah and Bram and thanked them for their time. The rest of the room, there for moral support, was helpful but difficult to accept. These people welcomed me so easily, and they had no other ulterior motive. It was refreshing, nice, and for once, I felt accepted.
Delilah gave a thumbs-up to me as we walked out the door.
Yeah, they were all really nice. It was… wonderful.
“Damn, I’m starving,” Anaki groaned. “How about we go feed little miss here and get a round of drinks? We could all use it after today, yeah?”
The men grumbled in agreement, except for Grim. He latched his hand on Journey’s ass and playfully bit her on her shoulder.
Bones continued to glare at Bear, but Bear didn’t seem to care one bit until he slapped Bones upside the head.
They were all one big, crazy family.
Two days later, I was sitting in the Iron Fang Gym. Bear had a thing for literal names and couldn’t come up with anything creative. If we ever decided to have children, I would need to make sure I was in charge of naming the child; otherwise, it would be called cub, baby, or kid.
Was I really already thinking about having kids with Bear?
Seriously?
I snickered as I watched Bear try to fix the boxing ring that sat in the middle of the gym. It was much larger than a typical human one; this one was three times as large. The ropes, I was told, were taken down years ago.
Bones said that the Saturday and Sunday night fights needed to be suspended when everyone was getting sicker and no one could heal themselves like they used to. With everyone getting mates and their souls healing, it was time to put it back up and begin sparring once again.
In order to fight, you needed to be mated and bonded and have your animal close to being fully healed. They didn’t want any accidental deaths.
“Morpheus, throw that blue rope this way.” Bear motioned for Morpheus, a large dark-skinned man with a shaved head and raging muscles, to toss it his way.
Morpheus picked it up, muttering, “Back for two days and already bossing me around.”
“I believe this gym is mine,” Bear snapped back.
Morpheus’ lip curled into a smile. “That it is, but I take care of it more than you.”
