Juliet

The next few days went a lot like the days before it. Except now I was aware of the little fissure in my world. So it was still happy. I still had that tiny seed of hope planted. But I had to admit a cloud of fear might have kept the sunshine from hitting it too hard.

I brooded over it when Mason dropped me at the Ursus offices. I had plans to help Alyssa sort through the ten tons of paperwork she was drowning under and Mason and the guys were meeting with a local business owner to discuss his security needs.

“If I knew just how much red tape and paperwork was involved in getting a business like this going, I might have said no when Mason offered me this job,” Alyssa said when we were elbow deep in files.

“Mason offered you the job?” I asked.

“Yup. At the time, I thought he was trying to be nice.” She turned and grimaced at me. “Now I’m wondering if I did something awful to him in a past life.”

I laughed. “I bet he had some selfish motives behind the offer. Can you picture Mason here sorting through files?”

She snorted. “No way. None of the guys. I guess I should be thankful I got here when they were just starting out. I can only imagine what this place would look like if I walked in a few weeks after they opened and had to do this stuff themselves.”

She shuddered and we both fell into giggles.

I had to admit, I loved this. It felt so normal. Never in my life had I fallen into such easy friendship with anyone. Even Kendra and I had put each other through the wringer when we were kids before we’d fully forged our friendship.

Now I knew Kendra and I would walk through fire for each other. We had walked through fire for each other. I wouldn’t give her up for the world, and I knew she felt the same about me.

But there was something nice about the easy flow of friendship that sprang up between Alyssa and I. I hadn’t gotten the whole story yet, but from a few things I’d heard here and there over the last few weeks, I got the sense her childhood hadn’t been much better than my own. I figured she’d tell me what she wanted me to know when she was ready to share and vice versa.

In the meantime I enjoyed a friendship with a woman that didn’t involve coal walking or jumping through flaming hoops. Instead it was formed over complaints about paperwork and girl talk about the guys in our lives.

Alyssa turned and handed me a stack of papers. “I think this goes with the file you were working on. The Bryant contract.”

As I took the pile from her, my gaze landed on a mark at her throat. I had noticed it before, but now it really stood out. As if it had gotten worse instead of healing in the time since I last saw her.

I drew my eyebrows together. I could feel a stirring of that instinct deep inside me as I stared at it. It was completely bizarre, but I couldn’t fight the feeling that it held a clue to some of what I wanted to know about shifters.

Catching my stare, Alyssa’s hand came up and covered the mark.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just…is that mark getting worse?”

A giggle escaped Alyssa. “Yes. But only because my mate has no sense of decorum.”

“Kaden did that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. It’s a claiming mark. I guess it’s pretty common for the bear shifters to mark their mates like this. At least that’s what Kaden’s told me. But if you ask me, it’s the same as any old hickey. That’s what happens when you hitch your wagon to a testosterone fueled, possessive werebear.”

“A claiming mark? I haven’t heard about that.”

“From what I gather, it’s the first step in changing a human to a shifter. But, as you’ve found out, it can also happen through pregnancy.” She shrugged. “Getting information from Kaden is like pulling teeth sometimes, but you know how these guys are, crazy protective and possessive. I guess I should be happy he doesn’t feel the need to pee in a circle around me.”

I laughed along with Alyssa, but I knew mine was hollow. As she spoke images flashed through my mind. Often when Mason made love to me, he nipped and licked my neck.

I raised my hand to the same spot on my collarbone where Alyssa’s mark sat. My neck was free and clear of claiming marks.

I tried to tell myself I was being silly. That we just weren’t there yet. But I knew that things had progressed pretty quickly between Kaden and Alyssa when he returned home to stay. In fact, they hadn’t been together more than a month or so longer than Mason and I had.

And Alyssa had sported that mark on her neck from the moment I met her.

A cold, sick knot formed in my stomach. When I closed my eyes, I could feel Mason’s mouth on my neck, relive every moment of his attention. And clear as day, I could feel his teeth scraping right over the spot between my neck and shoulder. He’d done it almost every time we’d been together since the first time.

And never once, no matter how caught up in the moment or lost in pleasure he was, had Mason ever slipped and sank his teeth in me to claim me as his.

“You okay?”

I pasted on a bright smile and shoved my sadness and fear down deep before I opened my eyes and turned to Alyssa. “Fine. This little one just seems determined to keep me on my toes.”

Alyssa laughed and we chatted more about my pregnancy and how much she was looking forward to starting a family of her own.

When there was a lull in the conversation, something occurred to me and I took the opportunity to check with Alyssa.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course. What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to ask you about shifting.” I bit my lip for a second before pushing on. “This is so new to me so if this is too personal, I apologize. I’m just wondering…does Kaden shift in front of you?”

She smiled at me. “That’s not too personal. I thought you were going to ask if we did anything weird in bed because he’s a shifter.”

I snorted. “Actually, I didn’t even think of that. Consider that part two of the question.”

She laughed at my teasing before she got down to answering my question. “Kaden actually only did it in front of me for the first time last week. I guess he was afraid it would freak me out.”

“Did it? Freak you out, I mean?”

She tipped her head to the side. “No. To be honest, I was a little afraid it would. But…I don’t know. It went quicker than I thought. He stood there looking like Kaden and then a minute later he was a bear.” She shrugged. “It was kind of anti-climactic after the big deal he made about not showing me until I was ready. But even in bear form, he’s still Kaden. He’s my mate no matter what form he’s in.”

“So you don’t feel any differently about him after seeing it?” I hadn’t even realized I harbored that fear. Would Kendra or even Mason see me differently after they saw me as a bear?

I couldn’t even quite wrap my head around the idea that I’d actually be able to make that shift.

“I guess I do feel different.” She smiled at me. “I feel…closer to him. Like I got to see a part of him he’d been keeping from me all this time. Getting to see him shift, and knowing he trusted me enough to witness it, I don’t know. It’s like the bond between us is stronger now, you know?”

I nodded, but my mind was screaming that no, I didn’t know. Because Mason was keeping that part of himself from me. And he planned to keep it from me at least until after the baby was born. Maybe he’d create another excuse after that.

The little bit of doubt and fear that had been planted by Mason’s refusal to shift in front of me grew like a weed. I could feel the fear twisting through me like an insidious vine climbing through my insides.

And I swear I could hear it as this new crack formed in my happy little bubble that time.

“Hey, how about if we take a break and go grab some lunch. You’re a little pale. I think getting off your feet might help” Alyssa offered me a grin. “Plus, Mason would kill me if he thought I wasn’t taking care of you.”

“Sure,” I said. But I couldn’t help but wonder—was it me Mason was so worried about or just the baby growing inside me?

* * *

Mason

“That went even better than I expected.” I jumped into the passenger side of Kaden’s truck. “I figured old man Henry would hem and haw for at least six months before he agreed to a security set up.”

Kaden shrugged. “It’s tourist season. Guess he hates them more than the thought of parting with his money.”

“True.”

“How’s Juliet doing? She still dealing with the morning sickness?”

“At least three times a day.” I shook my head. “I swear, I don’t know how she manages. But she just rolls with it and then goes on with her day like she doesn’t have that little Bruiser doing a number on her. “

I hated the thought of my mate feeling so sick. Especially because it was the one thing I couldn’t protect her from. At the same time, pride burst in my chest at how well she handled everything.

“Has she started making the shift yet?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I came in the other day and found her staring at the forest. Her bear was showing in her eyes. I’m just hoping she doesn’t have a hard time fighting the shift until after the baby’s born. Her doctor doesn’t think it’s a good idea for her to do it while she’s pregnant.”

“Huh. Never thought of that.”

I studied him, and I knew he was thinking of what all this would mean for his own mate. “Don’t worry, man. Alyssa will be fine when she goes through it. She’s just as tough as Juliet.”

Kaden rubbed his hand over his short hair. “I guess. She keeps surprising me. I showed her my bear the other day. I thought she’d…I don’t know. Get scared or flip out at the idea of ever being able to shift herself. Something.”

“She handled it okay?”

“She handled it better than I did.” A grin grew on his face. “Shit, if anything it made the bond between us stronger.”

His shit-eating grin told me what he wasn’t saying—Alyssa probably jumped him after seeing him shift.

My thoughts turned to Juliet’s reaction to seeing me in my bear form. Like Kaden said, it went way better than expected. But she had a lot more to handle than Alyssa did right now. The unexpected pregnancy, picking up and moving to a place totally foreign to her. Not to mention the fact she’d already started the transition herself.

“You show Juliet yet?”

I shook my head. “No, man. She saw my bear for a few minutes through the window. But I think you have the right idea. I want to hold off until I know she’s tied to me before I give it all to her.”

“I don’t know that I had the right idea. The more I think about it, the more I think I should have shared all this with my mate sooner.”

“But Alyssa grew up around all of us. She’s been around shifters who live out in the open. Juliet told me she hadn’t met any shifters before me. Now you know that can’t be true.”

Kaden nodded. “Yeah, I guess down south they’re a little more careful. They don’t outnumber the humans the way we do up here.”

We were quiet for a few minutes as we made our way back to the offices and our women.

Kaden broke the silence as we were turning into our parking lot. “You know, I understand what you’re saying. But I’m thinking you might have it wrong. If you wait to tell Juliet she’s your mate, she might feel like you lied to her all this time. I can’t help but think you’re better off coming clean right from the beginning. I wish I did.”

I stared at Kaden for several long seconds. Heartfelt conversations weren’t really his thing. He must feel pretty strongly about it to even bring it up.

“I’ll give it some thought,” I said finally, but then I couldn’t resist teasing him just a little. “This hen party over? Or you going to braid my hair next?”

He threw me a dark look and swung the truck into the parking lot. I grinned, knowing I’d gotten under his skin.

Then the look shifted. “Shit, now I hate to bring up anything serious. But man, we have to do something about Nate and Gage.”

My amusement fled. I’d noticed the way our friends and business partners had been acting since we’d been home, too. And it definitely wasn’t normal. They’d spent more and more time off on their own.

“You know if they’ve shifted since we got home?” I asked.

Kaden shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen or heard of.”

“Shit. Let’s give them another week or two, maybe see if we can get them out in the forest with us. If that doesn’t work, we’ll figure out a plan B.”

“Sounds good,” Kaden said and swung out of the truck. “Let’s go see what kind of trouble our women have gotten up to while we were gone.”

The thought of Juliet inside waiting for me brought the grin right back to my face.