“Marcel!” I yell up the stairs to my husband, who is showering before he goes into work. Last night, after we had sex in the kitchen, we talked about the fact we need to tell Jean Luc about our children shifting. Before we got married, I was a regular at Jean Luc’s house, and even though the alpha was my boss, we treated each other like siblings. I’d have no trouble telling him about the twins, but Marcel has his pride, and I know he wants to be the one to share the news.

I’m about to take my children over to Izzy’s house for a play date so we can put the finishing touches on Marcel’s swearing-in ceremony as leader of warrior training, and I’m very afraid of what might slip out of my mouth around one of my best friends. But if Marcel tells Jean Luc today, then anything I tell Izzy won’t have to be kept a secret. And since I don’t want there to be any confusion about what we agreed to, I’m about to be a nagging wife.

My husband comes to the top of the stairs with a towel around his hips. As I gaze up at him, the sexy vision before me brings all sorts of naughty thoughts to my mind. “I hate when you do that,” I say.

“Do what?”

“Make me wish you were what’s for breakfast.”

“Mommy,” says Ava as she walks over to me, “you can’t eat Daddy.”

Marcel chuckles and says, “Wanna bet?”

Ava tilts her head at him as I shoot him a warning glare.

“You’re right, Ava,” says Marcel. He curls his fingers into claws and opens his mouth to snap his jaw shut a few times as if he’s a monster. “Maybe just a little bite of you instead?”

She giggles, and I say to my husband, “You’re talking to Jean Luc this morning. Right?”

“I am,” he says, and I detect a note of apprehension in his voice. I’m nervous too, because it is well within Jean Luc’s right to lay down laws we may not like. I try to take comfort in the fact that the alpha of the Ouellette clan is a forward thinker who is not prone to quick judgments.

“Great,” I say. “I’m off to Izzy’s. If you can text me how it went, that would be nice. Otherwise, I’ll see you tonight.” I feel a pang of jealousy for werebear mates. Once a male and a female complete the true-mate bond, they can communicate telepathically. So it would be much easier for Marcel to tell me how his conversation with Jean Luc went if I were a werebear. I shake off the feeling as best I can, but uneasiness lingers.

I take Ava and Adam to the van and strap them in their seats before climbing behind the wheel. Izzy’s triplets are in kindergarten, so they won’t be there, but Izzy has plenty of toys to keep my kids occupied while we work.

“Songs, Mommy,” cries out Ava, and I click a cord into my phone to stream kid music to the stereo system. I think back to when Izzy first came to Canada and we met. We hit it off instantly. And even though our lives are busy now as mothers, wives, and important members of the clan, we manage to pick up where we left off no matter how much time we’ve spent apart.

When I get to Jean Luc and Izzy’s house, Grace, Jean Luc’s mother, answers the door. And she welcomes me before ushering my children to the playroom. “Hey,” says Izzy. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Tea, please.” I notice muffins on a cooling rack. “Are those Grace’s blueberry muffins?”

“Sure are,” says Izzy as she grabs a plate and puts one on it for me.

Grace comes into the kitchen to join us. “They’re growing like weeds, Tally. I can’t believe they’ll be three soon. Before you know it, they’ll be shifting.”

I let out a cough as I choke on my mouthful of muffin, but I manage to recover quickly because there’s no way Grace could know the twins have already shifted. “I know.” But since she brought up the subject, I take the opportunity to ask her questions. “Is it hard when they start to shift?”

Grace says, “It depends on the child and their expectations. I think the ones that are used to being good at everything tend to struggle the most. They try too hard.”

Izzy chuckles. “That was Tristan. He wanted to be perfect at it from the start, and he was frustrated when he wasn’t.” She’s talking about her twin brother, who is the alpha of the polar bear clan Izzy came from. “I was such an angry child I had no trouble at all.”

“What about teaching them not to do it at school or in front of humans?” I ask. “How do you keep them safe?”

“It’s like most things,” says Grace. “Kids take cues from their parents. Since the majority of us are careful in public, they already know to do the same. Besides…” Grace chuckles. “Most teenagers are mortified to think that once they shift back, anyone around will see them naked.”

Great. Both of my kids would prefer to be naked, and now that their bear sides are active, it’s bound to be a stronger instinct.

Izzy sets a mug before me. “Yeah, and then there’s those of us who had a bipolar mother to contend with. Role model, she was not. I shifted whenever I felt like it, because I didn’t know any better. But I was also living in the Arctic, where if a human ventured anywhere near us and discovered what we were, we’d just kill them.”

I grimace. Izzy had a difficult childhood, living on a glacier that was melting. Her clan dwindled in numbers due to starvation and only managed to save themselves when they relocated to Maine.

“Oh my gosh, did you hear about what Jan’s boy did last night?” asks Grace.

“No,” I say.

“Nick,” says Izzy. “It was awful. He got into a fight with a human boy at a party and shifted. Put the poor kid in the hospital.”

“Whoa. What’s going to happen to Nick? And what about the human boy?”

“The human thinks his joint was laced with PCP or something that made him hallucinate and see a bear, so that crisis has been averted,” says Izzy. “I’m not sure what Jean Luc is going to do to punish Nick.”

Grace sighs. “He’s a prime example of what happens with bad parenting. We really need to keep a closer eye on high-risk kids like that.”

I think about Jan. I don’t know the woman very well, and she’s refused to talk to me the few times I’ve tried to draw her out. I frown because I hate hearing about those who won’t let me help. It also makes me wonder if the fact I can’t shift and be a role model for my kids means they might get in trouble like Nick. Kimi’s words haunt me. You are the problem.

“Tally?” asks Izzy. She’s looking at me with concern.

“What?”

“Are you worried about this? Because I don’t think it’s going to be something you can’t handle.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m just curious. It’s becoming clear to me that I don’t know as much about werebear as I’d thought.”

Grace reaches over and places her hand on mine. “You don’t need to know everything. You’ve got a clan full of werebear to help.”

“Right.” I smile back at her. But that’s part of my problem. I’m the one werebear come to for help in difficult situations, and I’m usually able to do so with my magic. But Marcel is still very against me using it with the kids, so I’m helpless. The fact I can’t help my children with shifting is also a good reason for all the naysayers to remind Marcel he shouldn’t have married a werebear. And I can’t fight the nagging sensation in my gut that makes me think they’re right.

Izzy says, “We should get to work on the ceremony.” She grabs a hair band out of her pocket and sweeps up her white-blonde tresses into a ponytail. I notice the faint scar on her neck, branding her as Jean Luc’s mate, and I think about last night with Marcel. His need to bite me is strong. And I’ve seen how mates look at each other’s scars and their lips turn up in pride. It’s a symbol that they have someone for now and forever. I reach up to my neck as longing for that kind of bond fills me. But I know I’ll never have it, and even though Kimi says I need to trust the love Marcel and I have, I can’t help but wonder if it’s enough.