“Shut up.”
“Then comes marriage…”
Daria was just being an idiot, capering around the apartment, but she didn’t know those words had my chest tightening, every breath a fight to take, because while she finished the song off with a reference to a baby, I knew how that went. Not happily ever after, not for my grandmother or my Mum, so why should it happen for me? Men got women shackled, tamed, locked down, and then… they went waltzing out the door, leaving you to deal with what was left of your family.
Chapter 20
Kieran
“How’d it go?”
I was up and out of my seat on the couch the minute Tor walked in. He stopped, smiled, then raked his hand through his hair.
“Terrible at first.”
“What the fuck did you do, Tor?” Mack growled. “We talked about this. Take things slow?—”
“I’m guessing introducing her to my entire family isn’t slow.” Tor sighed. “I thought the fam was at the community hall, that we’d have the restaurant to ourselves. I know the food is good there and Harper liked it, so it was supposed to be a nice night.”
“So what happened?”
I was trying to be cool and failed completely. Everything that had happened since the first day we met Harper seemed to be one screw up after another.
Something my dads had made clear.
I was forced to endure a very long, involved lecture about the topic once they found out how badly we’d fumbled things.One that ended with them insisting I form a sleuth with other bear shifters. In some ways, Tor’s date was supposed to prove to them, to us, that we had what it took to woo Harper.
“Missed the email that a pipe burst at the community hall.” Tor shook his head. “We walked in to find every single tiger shifter in the city there.”
“Bloody hell, did you get Harper out of there?” Mack barked. “You know how skittish she is.”
“I asked her if she wanted to go.” I leaned forward, my fangs grinding together, because I was waiting to hear the words I’d expected to hear all evening. That she bolted, refused to see him, or any of us. “But she said we’d stay.”
“And how did she cope with that?”
That was what I needed to know, the bear pushing hard against the barrier between us. In his mind, we could take fur, go loping down the road, through the city streets to find Harper. We’d throw her on our back and run off into the bushes, holding her close, keeping her safe, until she realised we were the bear for her.
“Great.” I blinked, sure I’d misheard Tor. “My sisters told lots of embarrassing stories and the aunties tried really hard not to ask a million questions. Mum went overboard, cooking every damn dish she knows, and Dad was just cool, calm, and collected. We had a little moment upstairs in the apartment, then I took her home.”
“Without pushing for anything else.” Mack stared him down. “Right, Tor?”
“Harper was the one pushing to take things further,” he replied, “But I worked it out, Mack. Harper…” Was perfectly comfortable jumping into bed with us. It was feelings that sent her running. I finally allowed myself to smile. “I said we’d see her in her dreams.”
Mack and Tor both looked at me, because I was the one who could dream walk. I nodded slowly.
“Give her a taste of how things will be if she accepts the bond,” Mack said, warming to the idea. “Show her how good it could be. We need to plan this dream.”
“That’s not how this shit works.” Everyone was back to staring at me. “It’s a dream, Mack. Your subconscious is in control, not you.”
I watched his jaw muscle flex.
“Alright, well, everyone needs to get to bed.” I snorted because he couldn’t have sounded more dad-like right now. “So Kieran can do his thing.”
Could I?
I asked myself that after I’d showered and got into bed. The first time it’d happened, it was completely accidental. My head hit the pillow, and I forced my breathing to slow, but my head felt too full to go to sleep. Mack, the dads, even Tor, everything they had to say bounced around in my mind until I came to the final person. Harper and her smile. Harper and the way her head fitted perfectly into my shoulder as she leaned back against my bare chest. The way my mate drank down her rum, eyes wide, sucking in everything we’d had to say. I got lost in the memories.
And that helped me find her.
