“How did it go?”

Rather than tell the brothers individually, Jarvis had brought them back to the clubhouse for the Council meeting Mars had called to discuss the appointment with Savannah’s social worker.

Goddesses, it was weird to be in this room.

She’d been hanging around the clubhouse long enough to know what went down, kind of, in these walls, but she’d never been inside.

Never thought she’d be invited inside either.

Funny how life turned out because back in the day, when she’d first met Jarvis, he hadn’t been on the Council. She’d never imagined she’d be mated to such a highly distinguished male. But it suited him. He wore the mantle of power well. Not that he was as powerful as Mars and Kiko, but enough that they left the brewery division of the company in his hands, and hell only knew the beer was famous around the States.

No matter where she went, The Nomad’s Bitter Ale had been on sale. In the supermarkets and at bars.

It had been a constant reminder of the man she’d left behind.

Like she could have forgotten with a pissed off She Bear rattling around inside her twenty-four seven.

“...Cinda worked her magic,” Jarvis was saying, breaking her attention as she looked around the totally unimpressive Council room. For a place that saw more action than some boardrooms of FTSE 500 companies, it was decidedly dull.

A scratched redwood table surrounded by desk chairs that, she had to admit, were comfortable as fuck. They bounced with the gentlest of movements, and they were so padded Cinda knew she’d have to buy one for her desk at home. The ergonomic beauties were also a blessing for her battered pussy.  She really needed to feel like she was sitting on damn air.

“Since when did Cinda have any magic?” Mundo retorted, shooting her a disgruntled look.

She cocked a brow at him. “You’re immune to it, brother dearest.”

Kiko snorted. “You were always too crazy for my blood, but I can see how some of her sugar might sweeten a human social worker.”

Jarvis growled. “Less of that.”

She smirked. “Poor guy didn’t know what hit him.”

“I really don’t want to hear this,” Mundo commented. “My sister is not a sexual being.”

“Your nose should tell you otherwise,” she replied sweetly.

He closed his eyes. “This feels like a TMI moment. I’m sure I’ll wake up soon and enter a reality where my sister isn’t discussing her sex life in front of me and the Council.”

“You brought it up.

He gawked at her. “I did? When the fuck did I do that?”

She chuckled. “Calm down, Mundo. I know you have sex.”

“I’m a man. And I’m mated.”

She frowned at his logic. “You make no fucking sense. You never did. I got all the brains,” she informed the Council. “If anyone should be sitting here, it should be me, but you’re all chauvinists.” She huffed, and folded her arms across her chest.

Jarvis cleared his throat but she could tell he was hiding a smile. Before he could say anything, Ava pointed out, “She’s right. You are. But, though you say you had him eating out of your hand, Cinda, do you think that came across well? The last thing we need is for social services to think you’re man hungry.”

Cinda shot her a glare. “Dear Goddess, Ava. What do you think I did? Offered him a lick?” She ignored the puking sounds Mundo made. “I was just very kind to him. Very solicitous. He appreciated it.”

“You charmed him,” Jarvis corrected, but he was less fired up than he’d been earlier.

She genuinely hadn’t done all that much to Mr. Stokes. Was it her fault if he was in his fifties and looked like he hadn’t had sex or seen tits in a low cut top for about a year?

“You’d be amazed at what politeness will get you,” she retorted with a huff. “Goddesses, you all think so badly of me. This Clan sucks,” she said with a pout, rocking back in her chair with enough force to make the delicious piece of furniture bounce her like a baby.

Jarvis squeezed her shoulder in commiseration. Ava just cocked a brow at her. “It’s important to us that this plan works. That’s all. We need it to work. We owe her father a favor, but more than that, we owe the little girl a chance at a normal life.”

Cinda scowled at her. “Which part of my words indicated I didn’t understand that?” She huffed. “I was kind to him. Offered him some coffee, for fuck’s sake, and when he started talking about his divorce, I just listened and commiserated.”

“He started talking about his divorce?” Mars questioned.

Jarvis nodded. “Yeah. Almost started crying at least twice.”

“She always did get people to open up,” Mundo said, disgust in his tone.

She glowered at him. “She has a name, you know?”

“Unfortunately, I do know.”

“Come on, guys,” Mars chivvied along. “Less of the squabbling.”

Cinda just shrugged but Mundo shot her a pissed look. They’d never gotten along, and time certainly hadn’t changed that.

Mars started speaking again, “So, after the divorce, did he mention Savannah? Or was he mistaking you for his psychiatrist?”

Jarvis answered in her stead,” Like I told you, eating out of the palm of her hand. Said he’ll sign off on the foster care agreement and will bring her around within the next couple of days. He’ll confirm when. Once she’s been with us for a couple of months, if we still want to adopt, we can look into it then.”

“But we want her out of the system now,” Kiko pointed out.

Cinda shrugged. “There are safeguards in place all round. It’s standard practice.”

Ava nodded. “From what I’ve been reading, they’re right. It’s a good sign. We’re heading in the right direction.”

Cinda murmured, “What are we going to do when she does arrive?”

Mars shot Justiss a look. “Are you okay with her staying at yours for a while?”

“Of course. We’d have been willing to deal with everything from the beginning. You know that. Toni wants more kids as it is. This just gives her body a break from pregnancy.” When Cinda frowned, he saw it and murmured, “She nearly lost Mason and had a miscarriage after.”

“I’m so sorry,” she told him, meaning every word.

He smiled at her. “It’s okay. We’re getting through it.”

“I’m glad.” She shot Mars a look. “Jarvis and I will deal with the social worker. It helps that the community is gated. He can’t get in without approval, so he has to book appointments in advance and can’t just do random spot checks.”

Ava nodded. “That seems to be something they do often, and you’re right, with no access they can’t just hit a visit on us.”

“If there’s a problem down the line, Jarvis and I will care for the girl.”

“Savannah,” Ava mumbled. “She has a name.”

Cinda rolled her eyes. She could see what Jessie meant about the Prez’s daughter being half robot.

People as loud spoken as Jessie and Cinda were rarely appreciated by folk who thought before they said even a single word.

That wasn’t to say Cinda wasn’t careful with every word that left her mouth, but she was a different hybrid to Ava, and that was no mistake.

Cinda blew out a breath and tried to expel the irritation with it. “Jarvis and I have also been thinking about something, and we were hoping you could help us out, Ava.”

The girl cocked a brow at her and it didn’t escape Cinda’s attention that Jarvis was letting her handle this. Either because he had faith in her ability to discuss this, or because he preferred to leave Ava to Cinda.

The former pleased her, the latter not so much.

“I’m listening,” Ava prompted.

“Jarvis’s shelter is aimed at runaways. Kids on the street. But it’s for humans. Nowhere, not even on the underground—” Cinda spoke knowledgeably, because she’d been asking the regulars at the shelter when she’d popped around with Jarvis over the past week or so, “are they aware that the shelter is managed by Shifters. Now, don’t get me wrong. That’s great. Jarvis said himself that if the humans learned a Shifter was involved, the government might not like that so much, but we need to do something for the kids like Savannah. But we need to figure out a way to place them first.”

Ava blinked. “You mean like a database? Just for Shifter kids who have gone missing?”

Cinda nodded eagerly. “Exactly. But more than that Savannah wasn’t on a Shifter database, neither was her father. There has to be a way of helping kids like her. They might as well be ghosts.”

Ava pursed her lips and sank back in her chair. As it rocked, her mate leaned over her and started rubbing her shoulders. She immediately nuzzled her cheek against his hand.

Mars cleared his throat, dragging the Council’s attention away from his daughter. “Would you need to open a separate shelter if we managed to sort something out?” he asked.

Jarvis shook his head. “No. But I’d have to figure out a way to make provisions for any that cropped up. I’m hoping there aren’t too many. After all, if something happens to the parent, the collective should care for the child.”

Mars nodded. “Of course. It’s like if anything had happened to Annette and I when Ava was a kid, I knew one of my brothers would care for her.”

“Exactly. So, fingers crossed, that’s what’s happening all over the country.”

“But some always fall through the net,” Cinda pointed out, tone sad. “If we can get the news out that there’s a shelter for Shifter kids with a Clan backing, they might come to us for help.”

“It’d only be one shelter in the whole U.S.,” Major pointed out. “That’s not enough.”

“No, but if we can make a go of it, prove to the other Clans, Packs, and Prides that it’s needed, at least one per state, then that’s something. We have to start somewhere. And you can’t tell me that there aren’t more Savannahs roaming around out there in the cold.”

As one, the Council winced. Then, Ava murmured, “I might have a way of creating a database, but it would be totally illegal and would violate so many civil liberties it’s beyond a joke.”

“But it can be done?” Mars asked.

Ava snorted. “I like how we always just bypass the illegal stuff.”

“Hell, we’re legit now, Ava, but that doesn’t mean we don’t work on the wrong side of the tracks from time to time,” Mundo retorted.

She rolled her eyes.

“Explain, babe,” Chris urged.

“You know it’s illegal for hospitals and clinics to share any details on a patient’s blood work, right?”

Cinda nodded. “The humans passed that weird law, thinking they were helping us.”

Ava nodded. “Weird, considering they’re the ones who want to put us on a database in the first place. But,” she said with a shrug, “it’s to stop Shifters from not seeking medical help out of fear our heritage would be broadcasted to the authorities. We rarely use hospitals, but when it comes down to bloodwork, we have to.”

Mundo frowned. “But why would that help us?”

“Because it means a Shifter doesn’t have to fear being discovered or outed if he’s not on the database. He can go in, seek medical attention, and all without the cops being alerted if he doesn’t have any documentation,” Cinda explained to her brother—he’d always had his attention fixed firmly only bikes and never the news.

He nodded. “I see. But how does that help us, Ava?”

“Each hospital will maintain bloodwork records on all their patients. If I could create an algorithm that picked out bloodwork with Shifter traits, then collate that information along with personal details, we could probably pick up some names of Shifters who aren’t on any database. If I cross reference those details with a state’s missing people’s list, it’s a start.”

“But what if someone has never been to a hospital for treatment?” Kiko asked. “Hardly any of our women give birth in hospitals, so it’s not like the babies would be on record from the beginning.”

“Some will sweep under the net,” Ava said with a grimace. “But to be honest, what I just said is a hell of a lot of work. I don’t mind doing it, but that will take me long enough to figure out. We can explore other ideas at a later date.”

“Does that mean you’ll have to hack into every hospital in the country?” Chris asked, aghast at such a prospect.

She blew out a breath. “Eventually, yeah. Like I said, it’s a lot of work. A hell of a big project. Plus, you have to bear in mind that we’re going to be bagging and tagging people who have decided, implicitly, against being bagged and tagged.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s worth it, though.”

Mars rubbed his jaw. “That’s more of a moral dilemma than anything I’ve ever dealt with at this table. And we’ve dealt with the lowest of the low here.” He looked to the Council. “Thoughts?”

Justiss spoke up, “I dislike the idea of having a database of people who have no desire to be registered, but at the same time, it’s for a good cause.

“There will be kids out there who are lost to the system and who are too scared to reveal what they are for fear of the backlash. They’re a danger to themselves and to society because they’re having to hide something that’s as natural as breathing for them.

“I think it’s a worthy risk, even if it does present a moral dilemma as you say, Mars.” He pursed his lips. “We’re not going to use the information for ill gain. We could even use it to help people. If we cross referenced people in jail, like Joe for example, we could help them. Shifters need to be anywhere but a human prison, for everyone’s sake.”

“Some people don’t want to be helped,” Major pointed out. “They want to be off the record for a reason, and I can’t blame them. I’m not on a database.” He looked around the Council table. “Put your hand up if you’ve been bagged or tagged.” When nobody did, he flung out his hands. “There, you have my point. We’re all in the same boat. Do you like the idea of some hacker from a small Clan down in Houston having their paws on your personal information?”

Kiko retorted, “No, but to be fair, it has to happen at some point, and if anyone has the database, I’d prefer it to be another Shifter than a human organization. Fuck knows what they’d want to do with the information, but a Shifter Clan would have no desire to do any harm with it.”

Major snorted. “You can honestly tell me that when we had Jefferson for a Prez? Mars ain’t gonna be Prez forever. He’ll stand down one day. What if the next guy who sits in the big chair is a narcissistic psycho like Jefferson? What if he wants to use the database to fuck with the Shifter community? Just because we’re all brethren doesn’t mean we’re all good.”

Mars sighed. “He has a point.”

“It will be my database,” Ava murmured softly. “Nobody will have access to it but me.”

Cinda blinked at her. “That’s a huge responsibility and I already know you have a lot of tasks to fulfil for the MC. And by tasks, I mean slave labor,” she snapped, glowering at Mars. She didn’t have to like the girl to feel for her.

Mars rolled his eyes. “She gets a better wage than I do.”

“That’s because she does more than you do,” Mundo retorted, grinning widely when the Prez flipped him the bird.

“I need to get you to negotiate my next deal with my agent,” Cinda remarked, grinning at Ava.

The girl just looked at her blankly. “Chris handled that.”

Jeez. Robot alert. “Well, Chris, I know where to come next time.”

Jarvis growled. “And what am I? Dog meat? I manage a national brewery conglomerate.”

She grinned at him. “You’re so jealous, sweetheart. There’s no need.” She patted his thigh, then squeezed. He grumbled but simmered down.

Ava slotted in, “I think Cinda is right. There will be a let of children that have slipped through the net, and if I can do something to help that, then I want to. I’ll have a look in the social welfare’s database too. They’ll all have medical records on the kids in care. If I can get my hands on their bloodwork records too, then I can sift through and pull the wheat from the chaff.”

Chris murmured, “That’s probably the best place to start. Going through each hospital will take time. It’s inefficient.”

Ava nodded. “I should have thought of using the foster care system first, but my gut reaction was hospitals and urgent care clinics as being the first place to start.”

Chris’s lips twitched. “You got there eventually, baby.”

When her cheeks bloomed with heat, Cinda gawked. The robot could blush?

“You think it’s achievable?” Mars asked his daughter.

“Definitely. But let me have a nosey through their system interface first. I don’t want to say I can do it and then find I can’t.”

“You can do anything,” Mars stated, his tone proud as punch.

She grinned. “Thanks, Dad.”

He winked at her, then murmured, “Well, if that’s everything?”

The Council nodded and started to pull back from the table. When Jarvis made no move to leave, she stayed put too. The Council trudged out, talking and bitching as they went.

“You needed something?” Mars asked, leaning back and propping his feet on the table.

Kiko hadn’t left either and was shooting looks between her mate, Mars, and Cinda.

“We won’t be building anywhere on the estate for a while,” he told the Prez once the Council had departed, a few odd looks cast back at them as they stayed behind.

“No?” Mars frowned. “Is that wise?”

Cinda felt relief wash through her at her mate’s remark, and she answered for him, “We’re happy in the city for the moment.”

Mars shook his head. “And what about Jarvis’s needs, Cinda? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he’ll stay in the city with you for your benefit.”

“I can come to the clubhouse and shift.”

“That’s forty minutes out of your way,” Kiko argued,

“So? I used to make the journey every day anyway. It’s not like it matters to me.” Jarvis shrugged. “I’m only letting you know because I’ll be moving out of the clubhouse.”

Cinda reached for her mate’s hand. “Tonight.”

He grinned at her, then lifted her hand to his lips. “I’ll be moving out tonight, apparently.”

Mars shook his head. “You’re more love sick than Jessie and Spyder.”

His disgusted tone had Cinda snorting. “I’ve heard stories about you and Annette, Mars. Don’t make out like you’re not an old romantic.”

The Prez huffed. “Not in front of people.”

Jarvis hooted and even Kiko snorted out a laugh. “Since when?” her mate demanded. “Kiko, do you recall that time we thought Annette and Mars were going to start fucking out in the back yard?”

“What? You mean the first, second, or twentieth time over the last quarter century?” the VP retorted, grinning when Mars glared at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I get the picture.”

“Once we’re mated, you know we’re whipped. We just make it look good,” Kiko continued, making Cinda laugh and the men look on at him with disgust.

“I never said I was whipped,” Mars retorted.

“Me neither,” Jarvis grumbled.

“When you start doing stuff to make them happy, stuff that makes you unhappy—like having to travel miles out of your way to shift—you’re whipped.”

Jarvis just rolled his eyes, but he climbed to his feet shortly after. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?”

Mars nodded. “Sure. And Cinda?” he added as she stood too. “Great idea for the database. If there are more kids out there like Savannah then it’s our duty to help.”

She smiled at him. “I’m glad we’re on the same boat.”

“Goddess help me if that’s the truth,” he retorted.

When Jarvis chuckled, she whacked him on the belly. “No fair,” she retorted with a pout.

He just grinned, grabbed a tight hold of her hand and lugged her across the Council room. As they made it out into the hallway, they didn’t have to walk far before they reached his quarters.

When he opened the door, she wrinkled her nose. “This is where you live?”

“Lived. Past tense.” He winked at her. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, staring around the room.

“It’s like a…” She frowned. “I don’t even know what it’s like.” Then, she clicked her fingers. “Hell, I do know what’s it like. No one lives here.”

He huffed. “Well, that’s a lie. I’ve lived here a long time.”

“That’s my point. It’s not a home. You’ve been living in a…” She was lost for words. “I mean. There’s not even a rug, for Goddess’s sake.”

“Who needs a rug?”

“I need a damn rug. It’s so barren, Jarvis.” She bit her lip, and bizarrely enough, felt tears prickle her eyes.

He’d been living here like this for so many years, and all because of her.

She knew she’d been selfish. Every year she’d spent away from him, she’d felt the loss of him in her life. Not just as her mate, but as a companion. The Goddess wouldn’t have pressed them together, after all, if they weren’t supposed to be friends as well as lovers, as well as everything else.

But in all that time, even knowing she was thinking of herself, of her goals and her desires and not his, she’d lived a good life. She’d made friends and she’d lived in nice places. Her homes had been just that. Homes. No matter how many times she moved, she always decorated. And even if she knew she was going to be somewhere temporarily, for less than nine months maybe—like the time she’d been living in Nice, France—she’d made the best of her apartment.

But this?

It was so stark that her heart ached.

She felt her betrayal from his side of the fence. Which she knew made no sense, especially when it boiled down to nothing more than a lack of furniture, but it meant so much more than that.

“Hey,” he chided. “What’s wrong?” He stepped away from the chest of drawers where he’d been gathering clothes and dumping them on the bed and approached her.

As he neared though, he saw tears in her eyes and the move prompted him to wrap her up in his arms.

She shivered within his embrace. She’d been missing this, him, for so long that it had become almost second nature to her to feel the loss of him.

But he hadn’t experienced that. He’d just felt the hopelessness of each year passing without the Goddess giving him his other half.

He lived in a bedroom. With a bed, a chest of drawers, and a TV. That was it. The walls were white. The linen on the bed was navy blue. And the TV was huge, taking up nearly all of the back wall.

That was it.

Nothing more, nothing less.

She knew bachelors led simple lives, but this was beyond a joke.

“Don’t be upset. This was only somewhere to lay my head, Cinda,” he tried to reassure her, but his reassurance did nothing more than make her feel even worse.

How could it not?

He was trying to make her feel better when all of this was all her fault.

She began to cry in earnest now. And maybe the tears were self-piteous, but she didn’t think they were. They were for the lost years. His lost years.

She knew he’d led a fulfilling life. That the shelter was his grand oeuvre and it wasn’t like he wasn’t busy with the brewery—she’d learned he was the damn CFO of the company—but that wasn’t enough.

Just like her journalism hadn’t been enough.

The Pulitzer had reaffirmed that she was doing the right thing. That her word held meaning, that people could read what she put down on paper and feel. But it hadn’t taken her need for him away.

She clung to him. Her arms sliding around his waist as she pressed herself tightly into his hold.

It took an endless amount of time for the ability to speak to hit her, and when it did, she whispered, “We can look into building at the estate.”

He reared back at that, obviously not expecting those to be the first words to come from her mouth.

“What? Why?” he asked, frowning down at her from his great height.

If the Goddess had matched them together so perfectly, then really she should have made Cinda at least another five inches taller. Minimum. After eighty years together, they’d both have to visit the chiropractor for chronic neck fatigue.

“We’ll live at the estate,” she repeated before nuzzling back into his hug.

“You didn’t want to live there ten minutes ago. What the hell changed since we left the Council room?”

“I realized how fucking selfish I’ve been, and how I’m still being that way.”

He froze. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth, Jarvis. This is how you’ve been living all these years…” She shook her head, and the move had her forehead scraping against his soft shirt. It made his scent over the essence of laundry detergent blossom in her nose. “I have to say that because it’s the truth. It’s the whole truth.”

He sighed. “We don’t have to live at the estate. Ignore Mars and Kiko. They’re used to living where they work. I have to travel into Houston every day, anyway. That’s where the main distribution HQ is for the brewery. It’s not like I need an excuse to ride to work. Hell, we all love being on the backs of our hogs.”

She shook her head. “No. You need a home and I want to give one to you.”

This time, he pulled back and grabbed hold of her chin to make sure he could look her square in the eye as he asked, “I don’t understand where this is coming from, Cinda. I want you to want to live on the estate. When you’re ready. Not a moment sooner.”

“And that’s because you’re the most wonderful mate in the whole freakin’ world, and I’m just the worst.” Her wail had him looking even more confused.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“Apparently not,” he replied, laughing a little at her exasperation.

“Look around, Jarvis. Look how you’ve been living. And all because of me.”

“What’s wrong with it? It’s clean, isn’t it?” he asked, tilting his head to stare around the room like he didn’t already know the contents numbered three.

“It’s not a home, Jarvis. I want to make you the home I’ve denied you all these years.”

He shook his head. “You’re my home, Cinda.”

“And that just makes it so much worse,” she wailed again, pulling away from his hold now to wrap her arms around herself. She stalked away from him, heading to the window to look out onto the miserable view ahead.

How they all lived here, she didn’t know.

The estate was the Clan version of suburbia. Just the notion made shivers of horror rattle along her spinal column, but for him she’d endure because he’d had to endure this barren starkness for too long.

He growled a little, and she cocked her head to look at him out of the corner of her eye. “Cinda, I want to know what’s going on here. I feel like we’re having an argument and I don’t know why.”

She closed her eyes. “A mate is softness. She’s home. She’s love and kindness. Warmth.”

He snorted. “Since when are you any of that?”

That had her brow puckering and she shot him a glare. “I can be kind.”

“Since when?” he hooted, laughing at her glower.

She glowered harder. “I’m trying to be selfless here.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not doing that great a job of it, babe,” came the amused retort.

“That’s because you keep interrupting,” she huffed.

His lips twitch. “Do go on, Miss Martyr.”

It was her turn to growl. “This room looks like someone died in it.”

“How the hell do you figure that out?”

“You know when someone’s murdered,” she immediately put in. “And they send in those special cleaners to get rid of the blood and shit?” When he nodded warily, she continued, “Then, they get like basic furniture so that the next renter, who would have to be desperate to live somewhere someone was just murdered, can forget the fact someone died in their living room.”

“So, this whole…” He blew out a breath and waved his hands. “Whatever this is, is because you think my room is a little cold?”

“Exactly. It wouldn’t be if I’d been living here.”

“Babe, you wouldn’t have been living here. Having you and Mundo together is an impossibility. We’d have always had to live outside of the clubhouse.”

“That doesn’t matter. My point is, there would be cushions. A fucking rug. Dear Goddess, I don’t know,” she rumbled, “a couple of throws on the sofa. Shit that makes a place home.”

He sighed. “I don’t need any of that.”

“Of course you don’t. You don’t need it, but it’s nice to have it.”

“That reasoning is one hundred percent female.”

“Exactly. You’ve been lacking that all this time.”

“Well, that’s a truth I can’t hide from.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, you won’t be lacking it from now on.”

He grinned. “I’m grateful to hear that. Does that mean I have those fucking throw cushions in my future too? You know, the ones that you put on the bed when it’s made?”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the look of amused disgust on his face. “Yes. Yes, it does. So freakin’ many of them that we need another bed to store them on when we’re asleep.”

He rolled his eyes. “This being mated business is hard work. Throw cushions and rugs. You do realize that’s more shit to clean?”

“How do you figure that?”

“You need to hoover more. Dust shit. Living like this is easy. Low maintenance.”

“Yeah, it’s also post-murder scene chic. That’s nobody’s idea of elegant.”

He went from gawking at her to roaring at her. This time with laughter. She watched as he, honest to Goddess, slapped his knees as humor rocked him.

Her lips twitched at the sight of him, but her She Bear was supremely satisfied because this was what she wanted from her mate.

His happiness.

Goddess, she’d loved this man from afar for so fucking long that it seemed impossible to her to believe that she’d nearly fucked it all up by being selfish. Just because the mate bond was infallible, didn’t mean she could forget its preciousness.

She’d always known he’d accept her back into his life because he had no choice. That was the mate bond. But he could have made it harder for her. Could have made life miserable.

Instead, he’d been selfless. He’d watched over her, protected her. Let her get used to him once more. He’d learned her from scratch, allowed her to learn him from scratch too.

His generosity was more than she deserved, and because of that, she felt no compunction in being the first to admit, “I love you, Jarvis.”

That had his laughter braking to a halt. He froze, mid-roar, and stared at her like he’d swallowed an orange. His throat worked, like he was trying to talk.

She wafted a hand. “You don’t need to say it back. I don’t need to hear the words from you yet. It wouldn’t be fair. I’ve known you all this time, and I’ve known all of that time that I loved you. But you haven’t had all those years. I can give you time.” As he stepped towards her, her words seeming to draw him out of the stasis he’d fallen in, she cautioned, “Not too much time, mind. I only have so much patience.”

As he neared the window, he held out his arms. She took a step forward and was immediately encircled by him. All of him.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and against her hair, whispered, “I love you too, Cinda.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to say that,” she repeated. “All these years, I’ve been anything but lovable towards you. I don’t deserve your love, but I swear to the Goddess, that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that I’m worthy of your love, Jarvis. I will. I’ll spend the rest of my days being worthy of you.”

He froze, then she felt his gulp because his Adam’s apple rubbed against her cheek. “You don’t have to be anything other than you, Cinda. You’ve been a pain in my ass for as long as I’ve known you, but do you know what? You’ve never been far from my thoughts. I can’t say I loved you the day you came into the shelter. You’re Mundo’s kid sister, and a pain to boot, but you’ve never let me forget you either.” He sighed. “I don’t love you because the mate bond means we have to love one another. And I have no doubt that what I feel now will only deepen with time, and that these feelings are probably only a fraction of how you feel after knowing what I am to you for all those years, but I do love you. I knew it when you told me you’d tried to help Leah at the shelter. When I watched you serving lunch there the other day. When I saw you spill coffee all over your desk and you stood on the chair like you were going to drown in it. I knew I loved you when you boasted about how well you can parallel park. And I loved you even more when, tonight, you had that social worker eating out of the palm of your hands because a girl you don’t even know, from a situation the MC is involved in not you, needs to find a home within the Clan.” He shuddered. “How could I not love you?”

“I’ve lied to you for so long,” she whispered, closing her eyes, afraid to believe in his words even though they were so beyond sincere, she felt them to her bones.

“Yes. You have. And that will take time to forget and forgive, but forgive I will. It’s time to forget the past, sweetheart, because we’ve got too much time ahead of us now. Too much to do, too many things to keep us busy for that to be at the forefront of our days.” He sighed. “I told you that I held back on Claiming you to be mean. I regret that. When I saw you flinching at my touch, it justified my actions, but as every day you gentled towards me, I knew I was being selfish. That’s the thing. It’s hard to stop that because we’ve been alone for so long. Now, we’re not alone, and we’ll never be alone ever again. That’s what matters, baby. That and nothing else.”

Her big gruff brother in an MC was nothing more than an old romantic at heart. His words told her that, but they resonated with a truth that had her melting into him.

She believed he loved her then, and she also believed that everything would be alright. Because he’d make sure of it.

She sighed, loving his scent, loving his arms around her, and loving him. Period.

They stood there for endless moments. She didn’t know whether an hour had passed or five minutes, but the spell was broken at the sound of a motorbike ramming its way down the road to the clubhouse.

The sound of the engine had them both jerking to attention, simply because the stupid bastard on the back of the bike was driving so fast, on a dirt road, that he could have slipped or anything.

“Open the fucking gates!” the rider hollered and Jarvis pulled away to open the window as the prospect hesitated.

He stuck his head out the window and hollered, “Erick. Open the fucking gate! It’s Kon! Can’t you see that from his bike?”

The kid jerked to attention, opening the gates so Kon, Cinda’s nephew, could ride in. “What the fuck’s the matter with you, boy?” Mundo called out the minute Kon roared to a halt. “You want to give your momma a reason to hide the ignition key to your bike again?”

Kon practically leaped off his ride, and he didn’t bother removing his helmet as he cried out, “Dad, it’s Jayden.”

Mundo, who’d been wiping his hands on a dirty rag, froze. “What about him?”

Cinda’s heart stuttered to a halt as her nephew’s next words hit home.

“I think he’s dead.”

FIN