By the time Cass made her way out of her bathroom after soaking for over half an hour and rewarming the water twice, she could smell the aroma of bacon and coffee beckoning her closer. She smiled at the thought of those two sexy sasquatches cooking in her kitchen.

They were angels. Literally. Well, fallen angels who’d been cursed, but still angels. And they’d been waiting for her. She hurried to her bedroom to get dressed and smiled the whole way. She usually spent all day in her pajama pants and a tee-shirt while she worked, but today she wanted to look pretty. For them. And for herself.

This is was the first time in a long time she’d felt this good inside. It hurt her heart to know Andrew had unknowingly caused her to grieve for so long, but she forgave him. He didn’t mean to. She was fueling him with her heartache every time she thought of him, and he just wanted to make sure she was okay.

Yes, Damon and Jax had helped heal her but she knew if she’d let go of Andrew a long time ago he would have moved on and she would have gotten better. Her inner strength would have pushed her along. And now, she was ready to look pretty again.

Even though she rarely wore makeup and had no skill at putting it on, she applied a little eye-liner and mascara to play up her eyes. She walked into her closet and when she emerged she had on her skinniest skinny jeans— they were more like denim leggings than anything else— with a yellow sweater that fell just above her butt. Her men seemed to appreciate her curves, and she loved them even more for it, so she’d show it to them. They’d already seen all of her important parts but there was nothing wrong with dressing it up for the two men who looked at her like she was the center of their world.

To complement her wardrobe she put on her fuzzy yellow and orange socks with the grips on the bottom. She didn’t like to wear slippers and didn’t plan on leaving out for a while, so they were in for a treat with her most comfortable favorite house-socks.

“Put that thing away,” a familiar voice said as she was about to walk into the kitchen.

Cass startled and almost slammed into the wall. “Oh, my God. Andi! What the heck!” she whisper-yelled at her sister. “How did you get in? And what thing?”

“Your ass. And I have a key, smart ass. And who the heck are Jax and Damon? I was going to use my key to open the door but then the one with the yellow eyes—”

“Damon.”

Her sister flitted her hand as if dismissing his name. “— whatever, opened the door. Cass. Are you letting drifters stay in your house for extra money so you won’t be lonely?”

Cass felt as if she’d been punched right in the chest by her sister’s words. Was Andi implying that she couldn’t get two sexy men to want her for her? Of course she was.  Andromeda, Andi for short, had always thought negatively about Cass’s shape and wasn’t afraid to let her know. She thought Cass should strive to be more like her when it came to body shape. Skinny. Andi was naturally thin and had perky breasts that came with the territory.

Well, Cass was finally sick of her shit. “No. They are not drifters. They’re my… my… I don’t know what to call them. They’re mine!”

Andi scoffed and turned away from Cass, her dark, chin-length bob moving side to side as she shook her head. “Oh, please. Those are freaking gym rats and you’re out of shape. Maybe it’s a fetish,” she said, more to herself than to Cass.

“Really, Sis? That’s what you think of me? Am I so freaking fat that no one who looks like them would want me? They love all of this,” Cass said, waving her hand in front of her body. “And you know what. From now on you can keep your mean thoughts about me and my body to yourself. If you can’t, well then you don’t need to come around me anymore. You’re just mean. Maybe that’s why Scott left. You’re so freaking critical.”

As soon as the words fell out of Cass’s mouth she gasped and slapped her hand over her lips.

Andi’s ex-husband had left her for an older, more voluptuous woman, almost a year ago. Once her daughter decided to switch colleges and moved three states away, Andi had been on a war path. She had never really been the nicest person, but after Scott left it was as if a rattlesnake had taken hold of her tongue. Her filter had completely disappeared, not that it was ever that great in the first place, and the only reason that Cass hadn’t put her in her place was because she felt sorry for her.

Cass knew what it was like to lose a husband but she didn’t know what was worse: having him die on you or having him leave voluntarily. But to Cass, that was no excuse.

“Crap,” Cass said, resting her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. No matter what you say to me, I shouldn’t be so mean.” She lifted her chin and looked her sister in the eyes. “At least now you know how it feels.”

“Umm, your car is fixed.”

Cass and Andi snapped their gazes to the front door. They hadn’t even heard it open.

A broad-shouldered beast of a man with tattoos up and down his arms and neck and a silver bar in his right ear stood there, looking uncomfortable to be intruding on their argument. His skin was the color of porcelain, and he had muscles that bulged from everywhere.

As Cass said, “Who are you?” Andi said, “Is he yours too? Please say no.”

Clearly uncomfortable for barging in on their spat, he clicked his teeth together and started backing toward the front entrance. “I’m Cole. I’m with Jax and Damon.” His wide eyes switched from Cass to Andi and then back again.

“Oh,” Cass crooned with happiness. “They had you fix my car? That is so sweet.”

Damon opened the kitchen door, careful not to hit Cass as he walked through. “Thanks, Cole. Think you can change the oil in my pick up? I haven’t driven it in a while but I want Cass to hold on to it until we get her something bigger. Snow’s too thick for her to be driving around in her car.”

Cole nodded, wiping his hands on his black workman’s jumper. “Will do.” He looked at Cass and smiled. “Pleasure to meet you, Cass. Those two are great guys.” His eyes cut to Andi and he gave her a nod and a tight-lipped smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Cass would bet her morning coffee that he wasn’t too pleased by the way Andi had spoken to her. “Cass’s sister.”

He turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him with a gentle click.

Cass walked over to her sister who now looked uncomfortable and touched her shoulder. “No, Andi, he’s not mine.”

“But I am,” Damon said. He winked at Cass and she blushed right down to her fuzzy socks. “Hey, Beautiful. Hungry?” he said, eyes roaming over her body.

“Yes. I am.” She looked at Andi and took a deep breath. “Want to stay for breakfast.”

Andi shrugged and sucked her top lip into her mouth. When she finally let it go she said, “It’s more like lunch time but, yes.”

Damon ran his tongue along the inside of his jaw and Cass was pretty sure he was trying to measure his words. “Here’s the thing, Cass’s sister. I don’t like the way you talk to her. It hurts her. If you can’t learn to be nicer to your sister then you won’t be welcomed in our home when she moves in with us.” He took a deep breath and held it. “Not that we’d ever try to convince her not to talk to you. She’s a grown woman and does what she wants. We just want her happy. Play nice.”

They wanted her to move in with them? She didn’t even know where they lived. He leaned down and kissed Cass’s forehead, and then went back into the kitchen.

Cass and Andi stood there for a few moments looking at each other.

Andi broke the silence first. “I see Laurel helped you put up the tree.”

Cass nodded and leaned against the table in the corner. “Yep. She did. She knew I wouldn’t have done it by myself.” She looked over at the tree. “Did Scott pay for her flight to New Orleans or did you have to?”

“No,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “He did. We did it together for her twenty-first birthday. She wanted you to take her since you’re the one who put the love of that place in her heart, but she knew you were still grieving.”

“Look, Andi. I know it’s going to be a big adjustment with me seeing two men, but it’s fine. I’m okay with it. That’s what is important, right?”

Andi pursed her lips and flattened out her bangs. “Yes. That is what’s important.” She walked closer to her sister and pulled her into a hug. “Cassiopeia, I’m sorry I’ve been this way. It just hurt when he left and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“Well, Andromeda, it’s not like you were the sweetest person to begin with.” She put her hands up to calm her sister. “But that’s just who you were. You’ve always been kind of pushy and opinionated, and that’s fine. I admire that about you. He knew the strong woman he was getting when he proposed. But then, you were just kind of mean. You just switched gears when he left and you let your pain rule you. But I’m one to talk, right?”

Andi looked off to the side and then finally met Cass’s gaze. “We didn’t ever think you’d be all right again. Are they the reason you’re all right?” she said, pointing to the kitchen. “You look like you again.”

Out of some unknown emotion to her, Cass fluffed her hair and smiled in the direction of the kitchen. “They’re a big part of it. They helped me let Andrew go. I was holding on so tight to him that I couldn’t let either one of us get better.”

Confusion blanketed Andi’s face, but Cass shrugged and grabbed her arm. “Come on. Let’s eat. And God help you if you make a comment about what’s on my plate.”

“They couldn’t keep their freaking eyes, or hands for that matter, off of you.” Andi looked in the mirror and smoothed out her hair. Where Cass’s was wild, past her shoulders, and coily, Andi’s was short and straight. “It was like watching the opening scene to a porno.”

Cass bit her tongue, literally, and stared at her sister. “You could have left. Besides, that’s just how they are. They like touch.”

Cass had known a few things about shifters, and one of them was touch. Depending on the type of animal a shifter had inside of them, they relied on touch to bond. It healed them, made them feel more connected to one another. Apparently, ghost shifters where no different.

Andi’s eyes shot toward hers in the mirror. “Are they shifters?”

“Yes. They are. Problem?”

It wasn’t Cass’s secret to share that they were Ghost shifters. In fact, it wasn’t Andi’s business to know. Even though she could feel the rift that had been dividing them for years slowly begin to heal, she still didn’t want to trust her sister with something that could bite her or her mates in the butt.

Andi shook her head and then turned around. “So they’re like pack leaders? Alpha and Omega?”

“Yes.

“And they already know that you’re their mate?”

“Yes.”

“And they’ve chosen you forever?”

“Yep.”

“And they won’t die.” It wasn’t a question.

Cass gave her sister a sad smile and felt the burning of tears beginning behind her eyes. “No. They won’t. Not for a long time. You really were worried about me.”

Andi leaned against the small table in the corner and shrugged up one shoulder. “Of course I was, Cass. You’ve been stuck inside your head for two years. I was afraid I’d walk in here one day and find that you’d…” She rolled her eyes heavenward and swallowed thickly. “I’m happy that they’ll be here for you. That they’re strong enough. Even though it feels funny to see you with two guys who you are apparently having sex with, barf, it makes it better that they’re yours and that they’ll live for a long time. I am so going to tell mom.”

Adrenaline spiked in Cass’s chest as panic set in. She hadn’t thought about telling her mother. Heck, she hadn’t even thought of telling anyone just yet until her sister came over unannounced. Not that their mother was super conservative but what mother wants to think of her daughter being with two men. It was all just so new to her. Less than twenty-four hours ago the only thing that Cass had been worried about was making it through the snow storm with her lights still on while she ate from a can of tuna.

“Andromeda Danielle Wolford-Theobald, you better not tell mom,” Cass said, walking toward her sister with her finger pointed at her. Her ears felt red hot at the thought of their mother finding out she was with two men. Two, grown, hard, big, tatted up men. She was going to have to break it to her in person. “It’s my relationship and I’ll tell her when the time is right. We just met—”

Andi sucked in a dramatic breath and let her mouth fall open to an over exaggerated ‘o’. “Holy shit, you just met them? And they are spending the night? And you’re having sex?” Her voice rose with each question. “And I know you’ve been having sex because your face is freaking glowing and you winced when you sat down to eat. This is so freaking priceless.”

“I thought you were trying to be nice?”

“Oh, Cassiopeia, my dear, slutty little sister. This isn’t me being mean. This is me being a big sister.”

“You’re almost forty. Act like it.”

Andi’s brows furrowed as her eyes widened. “I’m only thirty-seven, damn-it. And fine. I’ll let you tell her. Maybe,” she said, her eyes shrinking down to little taunting slits.

“Get out.”

“Walk me to my car.”

Cass moved toward her sister with a playful grin and helped her put her coat on. Bending down to slip on her winter boots, she shivered as Andi opened the door and the freezing air hit her right in the face. She decided she was too lazy to go to the closet to get her own coat so she grabbed her hat and scarf that she’d left on the table beside the door.

“Come on, walk faster so I can go back inside,” Cass said, jumping up and down while rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

Right before Andi opened her car door, she turned around pinned Cass with a serious eye. “Did you tell them?”

Cass knew exactly what she was talking about. Why she chose to have Laurel so early in life were her secret to tell. “No. If you want to tell them then that’s up to you. I don’t know why you act as if it were some huge secret. In hindsight, you actually made the right choice.”

They both knew that people had a tendency to look down on girls who got pregnant while they were still in high school, but Andi had a good reason and had done it on purpose. If she hadn’t made the choice she wouldn’t have had Laurel or any other child to speak of. Even when Cass was twelve and Andi was sixteen she supported her sister.

That’s how Cass knew she wanted to wait to be a mother. She’d helped raise Laurel as if she were her own to make sure her sister got better. Although Laurel was as cute as they came, Cass knew that having children would come later in her life. It was a big job, and their mother had been helping Andi get through the biggest storm in her life.

As a child, there were so many mornings when Cass got up to go to school and was tired from taking care of an infant. A teething baby. A moody toddler. But once Andi was better she took over the care of Laurel as if it were her life’s work.

“Well,” Andi said, shrugging and opening the door. “I’ll tell them when they like me a little better. They won’t even call me by my name. Did you notice that? Cass’s sister this, and Cass’s sister that. That hate me.”

“They like you just fine. They just didn’t like you being mean.”

“But I’m working on it.”

“Yeah. You’re working on it. At least now you know that you were a mean bitch,” Cass said, goading her sister. “And knowing is half the battle.”

“Ohh, Cassiopeia Geneen Wolford-Stephens. I’m definitely going to tell mom you said the B-word.” She got into her car and then looked up at her sister shimmying to stay warm, practically beaming in the sunlight. “I want us to be close again.”

Cass smiled and started walking back toward the house. “Me, too. Be careful and call me when you get home.”

After her sister made it out of the driveway that Jax and Damon had so kindly shoveled, Cass ran back into the house and slammed the door. She silently cursed herself for going outside with no coat on. She was freezing, and jumping up and down wasn’t doing anything to make it better.

“You are going to get thoroughly fucked if you keep wiggling your ass and tits like that,” Damon said as he watched her from the couch.

She smiled but kept jumping, and then finally toed off her boots. “I’ll take it if that’ll make me warm up faster.” She ran over to him, grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch, and jumped next to him.

Good Lord, the man was warm. She snuggled into him and put her face into his armpit, and he pulled her close.

Running his hands up and down her arms and legs, he said, “Shifters are warmer. You are freezing.”

“And you’re like an electric blanket. I love your deodorant.” Her voice was muffled as she held her face close to him. “You smell really, really good.”

He kissed the top of her head and wrapped both arms around her, and she loved it. She reveled in the feel of someone being by her side to keep her warm, to talk to, to make her feel adored.

“Are you free all day? We’d like you to take a ride with us,” Damon said as she finally started to still.

“Most of my job is online. I can fib and say that the storm took out the cable lines.” Cass wanted to stay next to him and Jax as much as she could. She thought about it for a minute and then shook her head. “I hate lying. It’s pointless. So, no, not free all day. But I can just start later this evening and still be done by midnight.”

Damon tilted his head and looked at his watch. “It can wait. I don’t want to rush you.”

“Wait for what?”

“To meet our clan.”