Ryan must have heard the scream I’d let out upon first seeing the Creeper, because suddenly, he was charging over in wolf form, snarling, before I even had the chance to run. Hastily backing up against the tree to get out of his way, I screamed again when he leaped directly over my head in order to tackle the Creeper on my other side. At first, just for a fraction of a second, it had seemed that he was intending to tackle me.
While I hid behind the tree, glancing over and seeing that the fight was definitely winding down by the wall, he made quick work of the Creeper, tearing into his flesh in a way that made blood spurt several feet in the air. Once I caught a glimpse of this stomach-churning scene, I didn’t look again until I heard the Creeper stop making a strangled gurgling noise, probably dead.
After shifting back into his human form within a blink, Ryan began running over to me, asking if I was okay.
I nodded. “Yes. Just a little shaken up is all. I ran out of orbs and thought I might be in serious trouble for a second, there.”
He wrapped his strong arms around me, pulling me to his chest. “I’m so glad you’re okay. When I heard you scream, I raced over here as fast as I could.”
“I’m glad you did. You probably saved my life. I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Ryan.”
After pressing a kiss to the top of my head, he said that me being okay was thanks enough. “I don’t think I’d make it if anything ever happened to you. You’ve become the most important thing in my life, and I can’t imagine ever having to live without you. I just want you to be all mine forever.”
Touched by his words, although at the same time just slightly troubled by what he’d said last, I slowly lifted my face from his chest. “You know I’m not all yours, though, right? I’m yours and Eric’s. You both have my heart.”
Frowning a bit, Ryan looked into my eyes for a long moment before speaking. “We have more chemistry, Ellie. You know we do. So, if you ever feel like you want to choose between-”
“No.” Now far beyond troubled, I disentangled myself from his arms, pushing him away. “No, don’t do this. The arrangement was that you and Eric would share me…and I love you both equally.”
I truly did.
Raking a hand through his hair, Ryan scoffed. “You may think that’s true, but-”
“You’re telling me how I feel now?”
He scoffed again, although this time, the action was closer to a sigh. “No. I’m not telling you what you think, but I am telling you what you might not realize yet. You were made for me, and me for you. You can’t tell me that you don’t feel something very special when we’re together. You can’t tell me that there’s not some sort of magic between us that you and Eric just don’t have.”
Now sighing myself, I folded my arms across my chest. “Look. We do have something very special together…and there is a certain magic between us. But I also feel these things with Eric, too. I really do love both of you equally, and I’d never want to have to choose between the two of you. In fact, I’d refuse. I just know that I could never do it.”
Frowning hard, Ryan raked a hand through his hair again. “Then, I’ve probably said far too much. I’ve probably said things that you’ll never be able to forget now.”
With my frustration disappearing, I took his hands in mine. “Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean that I have to exactly keep what you said in the front of my mind either. Now that you know how I feel, we can just move forward, with nothing changing between you, me, and Eric. Things will just go on how they have been…as long as you’re good with that, anyway.”
Still frowning, Ryan brought his hands to the sides of my face, looking deeply into my eyes. “Believe me when I say that there’s nothing that could pull me away from you or make me walk away. Nothing. How could I, when I’ve finally found the woman I’ve been looking for my entire life? How could I, when I love you as much as I do?”
Smiling a little, I moved one of his hands from my cheek to kiss it. “I love you too…so incredibly much. And there’s nothing that could make me walk away from you either. I don’t want to jinx us, but I’ve really been starting to think that you, me, and Eric are going to enjoy a happily-ever-after story, even in this messed-up, post-Chaos world.”
Ryan’s eyes had seemed to darken when I’d mentioned Eric, but only for a second.
Now managing a smile, he pressed a brief, tender kiss against my lips. “I think you’re right. I think a happily-ever-after story is definitely in our future.”
We kissed a few more times, and presently, I asked him if I’d been at the center of his and Eric’s argument.
Dropping his head with a sigh, he said yes before looking up at me again. “I guess I just let my love for you turn me into a bit of a jerk that day. I’d overheard Eric telling one of his good buddies something about how you make him so happy or something like that, and it just rubbed me the wrong way or something, even though it shouldn’t have.
Then, later, I just felt like I wanted to pick a fight with him about some dumb thing, so I did. Then, the conversation turned to you, and…well, I’m not proud to say it, but I just kind of flew off the handle, telling him that before any marriage proposals happen, maybe we should just let you choose which one man you’d like to marry or something like that. Eric reminded me that this was not the agreement, and then words escalated a little right before we got in the house and found you home.”
“Well, I guess we can leave all that in the past now…just as long as you’re willing and able to move forward, and just as long as you think everything with you and Eric will be good from now on.”
“It will be. I’ll tell him that you and I had a talk, and that you’ve made it clear that you love us both equally, and that you’d never be willing to choose between us, and that’s that. I’ll tell Eric that now that I’ve heard how you feel, I’m sorry that I ever brought the whole thing up. I’ll tell him I’m sorry that I’ve had some temporary insanity or whatever’s been happening to me.”
I gave Ryan a little smile. “I don’t think you’ve been ‘temporarily insane.’ I think maybe you’ve just been having some ‘adjustment pains’ as far as our relationship. After all, a trio relationship isn’t exactly a ‘normal’ thing, or at least it wasn’t until the Chaos. Alicia has even told me how a lot of other couples are really struggling with the whole thing. I heard that Darcy’s two boyfriends have had such a hard time with jealousy issues that they’ve nearly killed each other over it.”
Ryan said that unfortunately, that was true. “I’ve given them one final chance to get things under control before I step in and start making some decisions about the whole thing, because if they keep going at each other how they have been, one of them really is going to end up killing the other. Which, as far as that…just know that it will never come to that point with me and Eric, Ellie. We’ll all work through this together, because I’m committed to making you happy, and I never want to let you go.”
He pulled me into his arms again, and I set my head on his chest. “You’ll never have to.”
Soon, while his men pulled all the Creeper carcasses into one gruesome pile, Eric arrived on the scene, racing toward me and Ryan at top speed in wolf form. Once he neared us, he came to a stop, shifted into his human form, and jogged the rest of the way. “Ellie. Are you okay?”
I said that I was, and he gently but firmly pulled me from Ryan’s arms and into his own.
“I was running a security patrol about a mile from the south side of the wall when I got word about the breach. Terry told me that you were in the thick of things, throwing orbs.”
I said that I had been. “I stunned a lot of Creepers, too…even killed one. I didn’t really run into any major trouble until the end of the fight, when I ran out of ‘battery power,’ so to speak. One of the Creepers almost got me, but Ryan jumped in at the last second and killed him. He honestly saved my life.”
Eric held me even tighter, saying that he was so glad. Then, after planting quick kisses on the top of my head and my mouth, he turned to Ryan. “I’m glad you were here.”
With his expression unreadable, Ryan said thanks. “Me too, man.”
After giving me a few more kisses, holding me close, Eric released me and asked Ryan for a more detailed rundown of how everything had happened.
Ryan answered his questions, then said that the tractor wasn’t going to hold the piece of sheeting over the breach forever. “If they were strong enough to pull the steel support cables from that piling and then knock the piling down, they’re probably strong enough to tip the tractor over just by pushing on the steel eventually.”
With his gaze on the tractor in the distance, Eric said he had no doubt. “Which is why at some point, I think we’re going to need to reinforce the walls, but in an indirect sort of way.”
Ryan asked him what he meant, and he explained.
“I think at some point, we should build a secondary wall around the existing wall…maybe one or two hundred feet from it. The space in between will serve as a buffer zone, where we’ll have guards patrolling at all times. This way, if and when the Creepers breach the outer wall, they’ll have a lot to deal with before they’re actually able to enter our community and get anywhere near our women and children.”
Ryan said that sounded like a good idea. “Building a secondary wall would be one hell of an undertaking, though, not to mention how much timber and steel it would even take to accomplish it…and we’re already low on the building supplies needed to even continually patch the wall we already have.”
Eric said that was true, but that they’d just have to send some of their men on more intensive scavenging trips. “There are still a few construction sites that haven’t been picked clean yet…two about twenty miles east, just to start with.”
Ryan said they could send a team out with a fleet of trucks for hauling supplies back to Silverfield first thing the next morning. “Even if we’re down a few men on guard patrol for the next few months or however long it takes to gather all the materials we need and ferry them back here, it’ll be worth it. Anything to keep Ellie and everyone else here in this community safe.”
Eric agreed, and soon, he said that he and Ryan should probably start helping with all the Creeper corpses, and then see about reinforcing the breach from the other side. “We should also send a few dozen men to do a security sweep of the entire village right now, in a grid formation, just to make sure that there are no stray Creepers who were able to make their way to the houses unseen.”
Ryan said that was a good idea, and after each giving me a kiss, he and Eric went off to do what needed to be done. Relieved that the danger was over for the time being and that the situation with Ryan’s “temporary insanity” had been resolved as well, I made my way back to the house. However, even while I was experiencing all this relief, I was also experiencing a little disappointment as well, because I knew that with everything that needed to be done as a result of the breach, I probably wouldn’t be seeing much of Eric and Ryan for the next several days.
I wasn’t wrong. For the next three days, I saw each of them pretty much just in passing, usually asleep by the time they arrived home at night. In the mornings, they both usually only had time to scarf down some breakfast before heading out again. The three of us didn’t even have much time for bedroom activities, only managing to snag about twenty minutes one afternoon when Eric and Ryan came home to grab a very quick lunch.
Trying to distract myself from missing them both so much, I spent these days working long hours with Jessie, Alicia, and another woman named Trisha, canning the very last of the autumn harvest to stock the community food storage rooms for the coming winter. At the end of all the canning, we agreed that everyone would probably be absolutely sick to death of pureed pumpkin and butternut squash by the following spring. As it was, most people were already a little sick of these items, especially the squash. Trisha said that her two little boys, who normally ate anything and everything, had gone “on strike” when it came to this particular food item.
The fourth day after the breach in the wall and the ensuing battle with the Creepers, I was at home late in the afternoon, indulging in a little watercolor painting after having spent a few hours helping the community’s doctor reorganize boxes of handwritten patient files in her office. Deep in contemplation while working on a painting of the greenspace in the center of town, I jumped about half a mile when I heard the front door being opened. Paintbrush in hand, I whirled around from my spot next to one of the living room windows and saw Eric coming through the front door.
With my surprise quickly turning to joy, I gave him a smile and asked him to what I owed this honor. “It’s not every day that I get to see you before midnight, you know, or even see you at all.”
Closing the door behind him, he smiled in return; however, it was a smile that didn’t reach all the way up to his eyes. “I just snuck away from patrol for a bit because I need to talk to you…alone, without Ryan present.”
Immediately uneasy, I set my paintbrush down and went over to him, asking what was going on. Wearing a weary, resigned expression, he said that maybe we should sit down and began leading me over to the couch.
Once we were both seated, with him facing me at an angle, he took my hands in his own, taking a deep breath. “We need to talk about Ryan, Ellie. I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s possibly dangerous somehow and doesn’t have this community’s best interests at heart. He doesn’t have your best interests at heart.”
Becoming increasingly upset, I asked Eric what he meant, and he took another deep breath.
“I’ve had some talks with Ryan lately, and he says that he’s sorry for ‘temporarily losing his mind’ about you, as he puts it. He says he’s sorry for ever suggesting that we ask you to choose between us, and he says that now that he knows how you feel about that, he’s resolved to never again entertain the idea of that. Basically, he’s vowed to be on his best big boy behavior when it comes to sharing from now on.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
“No.” With a pale shaft of sunlight illuminating his tired gray eyes, Eric sighed. “I don’t.”
“And what makes you think that you can’t trust him?”
He lifted his broad shoulders in the hint of a shrug. “Just a gut feeling, but it’s a pretty profound one. I just flat-out don’t trust him on any level anymore, and I’ve come to deeply regret inviting him to be co-alpha alongside me as quickly as I did. I now know that that was a hasty mistake, although at the time, I was truly doing what I thought was best for the people of this community. And his people have been assets, no doubt about that. It’s just that Ryan himself…well, like I said. I just don’t trust him anymore. It’s almost like he gave up on the idea of having you choose between us a bit too soon, like he’s just giving us lip service or something.”
“Well, even if that’s the case…let’s just say that it is, even though I don’t think it is. He still can’t force me to choose between the two of you, Eric, and if he ever brings up the subject again, I’m just going to tell him what I told him last time, which is that I’ll never choose. I love you both equally, and at this point, I know for sure that I could never push one of you out of my life in favor of the other.”
Eric shrugged. “I’m just leery of him not being able to get the idea out of his head, and this leading to trouble down the road, no matter what you tell him.”
“Well, none of us should be borrowing trouble down the road, especially when it seems like we have more than plenty when it comes to trouble on a daily basis with the Creepers.”
Eric cracked a small, wry smile. “That’s true.”
I gave him a little smile in return. “Please just give this whole situation some time to just settle. Like I told Ryan, I think ‘adjustment pains’ in any trio relationship are bound to happen, and that’s all I think was going on with him. Just temporary ‘adjustment pains.’ Nothing more. I think he’s gotten over things now, and he’s resolved to just continuing on, keeping in mind what I told him. I don’t think he’ll ever suggest that I choose between the two of you again. And like I said, if he ever does, I’ll just firmly remind him of what I told him last time.”
Seeming more than a bit reluctant, Eric finally said okay after a long pause. “I guess maybe I just need to give him a chance to earn back my trust when it comes to sticking to our arrangement. Maybe he can earn it back after a while; I don’t know.”
Pleased that Eric was at least going to give Ryan another chance, I gave his hands a little squeeze. “This is all I want from you…just for you to give Ryan another chance, and just some time to let this all settle. After all, this whole thing is brand-new for all of us. We’re bound to experience a few bumps along the road, and maybe even always will from time to time…but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep trying to make this trio relationship the best relationship that it can possibly be.”
Eric conceded that I was right. “I know we should at least give this all some more time.” Looking down at our clasped hands, he fell silent briefly before returning his gaze to my face. “Do you know that there’s a little part of me that actually wanted you to accept Ryan’s suggestion that you decide between the two of us? There’s a little selfish part of me that wanted what he wanted and probably still wants. I almost wanted you to agree to choose one of us only, and I wanted that man to be me.”
Glancing down to our clasped hands again briefly, Eric paused for a moment before looking into my eyes again. “I never should have agreed to share you in the first place, Ellie. I wish I’d known then just how deeply I’d fall in love with you, and just how much I wish you were mine and mine alone sometimes.”
I couldn’t help but heave a sigh. “We can’t do this, Eric. I can’t do this again. I can’t explain yet another time that I will never choose between you and Ryan. I love you both too much to ever do that.”
Eric quickly said he knew. “I just wanted to tell you how I feel.”
Now thinking that maybe I’d just responded too sharply to him, I gave his hands another little squeeze. “I appreciate that…but let’s not talk any more about regrets. Let’s just move forward. You, me, and Ryan, all just making a fresh start so that I never have to choose between two men that I’ve grown to deeply love. Okay?”
Eric said okay; however, I could see in his eyes that he said this with continuing slight reluctance or hesitancy about the whole situation. Not wanting to discuss things any further, I resolved to just let this go, thinking that everything with him and Ryan would eventually work out in time. I had no way of knowing at that moment just how wrong I would soon be proven to be.
*
For the next week or so, everything between me, Ryan, and Eric was fine, seeming just how it had been before Ryan’s bout of “temporary insanity.” He and Eric didn’t snap at each other anymore, not while working together and not at home. Alicia reported that Mark had told her that Ryan and Eric had seemed to “chill out” around each other.
With the construction materials they’d need to start with now scavenged, they began work on the secondary wall, having to be gone from home for long hours to do it, but at least not gone seemingly every minute of every day, like how they’d been in the days immediately following the breach in the existing wall. The three of us were still able to have breakfast together and spend most evenings together, having dinner together most of the time.
Ryan and Eric each had time to come spend some time with me individually a few times, which I found I liked a lot. One day, Ryan came home around noon just to have lunch with me, and the next day, Eric came home for lunch. The three of us agreed that even though we were all part of a trio relationship, there was nothing wrong with parts of the trio meeting up to visit just as a duo every once in a while. Somewhat to my surprise, while the three of us had this discussion, Ryan didn’t display any flashes of jealousy or possessiveness at all, at least not any that I saw, which made me think that his “insanity” really had just been temporary.
Eric’s little flash of having feelings of possessiveness also seemed to have been just a very fleeting thing. As the days went by, he never again said anything else to me about wishing that I was his and his alone. He also never said anything further about wishing that he’d never offered the title of co-alpha to Ryan. So, as far as I knew, all “temporary insanity” had officially left the minds of all parties involved. Or, at least all male parties involved.
It was the beginning of the second week after the wall breach when I realized that I had a serious problem. In fact, I had a problem so serious that it made my stomach churn with dread every single time I thought about it. My problem was that I’d suddenly realized that I didn’t exactly love my two alpha lovers exactly equally anymore. For whatever reason, I’d just started feeling slightly warmer toward Eric, and I just couldn’t think of any way to describe it.
Maybe it was something about the expression on his face when I caught him watching me paint in the living room one afternoon. Saying that he wanted to just “rest his eyes” after lunch for ten minutes before heading back out to work, he had a seat on the couch, and I began quietly working on a watercolor of the main gates at the entrance of the community, with him and Ryan in wolf form just off to the side.
After working for a few minutes, painting Eric’s silvery fur with pale shades of gray, I reached for a different paintbrush to add detail to his ears and just happened to catch a glimpse of him on the couch. Sitting back with his hands loosely clasped across his six-pack abs, he was just watching me with heavy-lidded eyes and his lips curved in the slightest of smiles. Unable to keep from smiling a little myself, I asked him what he was looking at, and his smile got a little bigger before he responded.
“A dream come to life. Just you. I’m just watching my own dream come to life.”
Face warming with pleasure, I set down my paintbrush, went over to him, and had a seat on his muscular thighs, leaning into his chest. “Come on. You can’t love me that much, can you?”
His expression, which had been lighthearted, suddenly became one of complete seriousness.
“I love you more than words can say.”
What soon ensued was a lovemaking session that made it so that his lunch break lasted about a half-hour longer than he’d intended it to.
This all might have had something to do with my increased feeling of warmth toward him, or it might have just been the way he always held me all through the night. Ryan held me when we went to sleep together too; however, upon falling asleep, he usually released me, rolling over to face the wall. It wasn’t like he meant to do this; I knew. I realized that some people just simply slept more comfortably with their arms and limbs not entangled.
I even sometimes liked to sleep without anyone touching me in any way. Even still, though, there was something about the way that Eric hardly ever let go of me while sleeping that stirred someplace deep within my heart. Even if he wasn’t outright holding me, he usually always kept a hand on my shoulder or even a hand on one of my own hands. Even while sleeping deeply, even snoring a little some nights, he seemed just completely unable to not have some part of his skin touching my skin, as if even when unconscious, he just couldn’t bear to be parted from me.
Maybe it was all of these things, or none of these things, or something else entirely. Maybe it was just something unquantifiable that I felt deep within my soul. At any rate, the fact of the matter was that to my horror, I’d started to feel in some way warmer toward Eric than Ryan. This horrified me because not too long earlier, I’d been certain that I loved them both equally. Maybe you still do, though, I told myself. Maybe this new increased warmth toward Eric is just some kind of funny “adjustment pain” of being in a trio.
I found myself telling myself this a lot, as if trying to convince myself of it.
I’d told Alicia and Jessie everything that had gone on with Ryan’s “temporary insanity,” and one afternoon, while Jessie was at my house helping me make cupcakes to deliver to a woman who’d just had a baby, I suddenly blurted out that I was scared that I was starting to love Eric more than Ryan.
Having been quietly spreading vanilla frosting on a caramel cupcake, humming, Jessie looked over at me, eyes wide. “What?”
Deciding to just spit it all out because I knew she wouldn’t judge me, I quickly explained how I’d been feeling to her. With a knowing sort of look indicating that my admission maybe wasn’t that shocking after all, she poured us each a mug of coffee, saying that maybe we should have a seat and take a break from frosting cupcakes for a while.
To my relief, once we were seated up to the island, she told me that what I was feeling was perfectly normal. “Sometimes having ‘warmer’ feelings for one man over the other is just part of being in a trio relationship. It doesn’t really mean that you actually love one man over the other. It’s just kind of the normal ebb and flow of things. Some days, you might just feel warmer toward Eric, and some days, it might be Ryan.”
“It hasn’t been Ryan, though. Every day, it’s just been Eric, and I’m almost starting to feel like my newfound ‘warmth’ toward him is just getting stronger and stronger, while my ‘warmth’ toward Ryan is just sort of pulling away somehow.”
I hadn’t even realized this about my “warmth” toward Ryan until I’d just said it out loud.
Now, Jessie frowned a little. “So, you don’t ever feel warmer toward Ryan than Eric?”
I said no. “Not like this has all been going on a really long time or anything, though. Like I said, it’s just been since the day of the wall breach.”
“Well, maybe it has something to do with that. Maybe you’re still just a little disappointed in Ryan from learning about how he wanted you to choose between him and Eric…and maybe that disappointment is somehow manifesting subconsciously or something, just making you temporarily feel a little warmer toward Eric.”
“Maybe. Or maybe this is going to continue, and maybe I’ll soon be the one wanting to make a choice.”
Cradling her mug of steaming coffee between her hands, Jessie lifted her dark brows at me. “Do you think you’d ever really want that?”
Frustrated, I let my breath out in a rush. “I don’t know. I mean, no. I really do love Ryan and Eric equally. I really do. And I have chemistry with both of them. And it’s the exact same amount. No matter how I feel about Eric over Ryan some days.”
“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself more than me.”
Becoming increasingly troubled, I sighed. “What do I do, Jessie?”
With her expression sympathetic, she said I should do nothing. “Not until some time has passed, anyway.”
“And then what?”
“Well…let’s say that these feelings of increased warmth toward Eric over Ryan go on for a whole month or something…and let’s say that they become even stronger. Then, you do some serious heart-searching and decide if being in a trio relationship is really what you want.”
“But it’s what I’ve committed to, though.”
“Right, but you haven’t committed by signing an agreement in blood or anything. You’re not eternally locked in. Sometimes, things just change.”
“Yeah, but the whole heart of my arrangement with Eric and Ryan was that I’d be mated to both of them in exchange for a long list of things for my old community.”
“And if you eventually decide that you’d like to be with Eric only, do you really think he’s going to cut off the supply line to Towering Pines just because you’ve kicked Ryan out of your bed? Heck, if anything, I think Eric would probably step things up, sending even more supplies to your old community.”
Beginning to feel miserable, I lowered my gaze to my coffee mug with a sigh. “Maybe. I guess I’m just starting to hate talking about all this. I do truly love Ryan, and I’d never, ever want to do anything to hurt him. In fact, just thinking about that…it’s making my chest ache right now. I can’t imagine ever telling him that I’m letting him go.”
Jessie said that I never had to if I never wanted to. “Maybe we’ve started thinking too far in the future, here. All you really have to deal with is what’s happening today, which is that you’re having increased feelings of warmth for Eric over Ryan, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, then, this is all really no big deal at this point. Like I said, it’s pretty normal to have fluctuating-type feelings in a trio. I know I do, even though I love both my husbands with all my heart, and in a way, I think that is pretty much equally. So, like I said, just give things a little more time. Just see if this isn’t something temporary. Okay?”
I said okay, and we soon began frosting cupcakes again; however, I did so with a sense of heaviness in my heart, almost as if I could already tell that the simple passage of time wasn’t going to help anything.
Over the next several days, my fears came true. I not only started feeling warmer toward Eric than Ryan, but I also started to think that I might truly love Eric more. I couldn’t tell exactly what had changed from the time when I’d been so sure that I loved them both equally, but something definitely had. Like Jessie had suggested, I thought that it might have had something to do with being disappointed when Ryan had told me that he wanted me to choose. At the same time, though, it was more than that.
Just like when Ryan had been so sure that I simply had more chemistry with him than with Eric, I was now nearly sure that the opposite was true. There was just something about my chemistry with Eric that just seemed to be pulling me toward him on a level much deeper and more profound than just the physical.
Maybe two weeks after the wall breach, they both started to think that something was up with me. Over breakfast one day, Ryan asked me if anything was wrong, and I said no.
“I guess I’m just tired. Maybe just because the days are getting shorter and all that. Gloomy days and dark early evenings just always seem to zap all my energy.”
This was true, although as a response to Ryan’s question, it wasn’t true.
He suggested that maybe I start sleeping in some days. “You don’t have to wake up and make us breakfast every day, you know. We appreciate your good cooking, but if it means you getting more sleep, Eric and I can whip up our own breakfast sometimes.”
Eric agreed. “Maybe Ryan and I will start cooking more and start leaving you a plate of food bedside some days so that you can have breakfast in bed.”
They both always tried so hard to please me and make sure I was happy. For some reason, I was finding this somehow heartbreaking at the moment.
In response to what Eric had said, I gave him a little smile. “Thanks, but I like getting up to cook for the two of you. And I don’t really think I’m sleep-deprived. Maybe I just need to get outside and get more exercise during the hours of the day when it’s actually light out. In fact, if we have a nice, sunny afternoon like we did yesterday, maybe I’ll take a long walk around the village. Maybe I’ll check and see how you guys are coming along with the new wall.”
Eric said he’d love that.
Ryan agreed, saying that he and a few men would be working on the south side of the new wall that day. “So, stop by to visit anytime you want. Just listen for the sound of construction work; look through any of the tiny gaps in the first wall to spot me, give me a little yoo-hoo, and I’ll come running around the other side of the wall to find you.”
His use of the word “yoo-hoo” made me smile, and I told him it was a date. “I’ll come find you and give you a little yoo-hoo sometime late this afternoon, when I’m finished passing out the new winter hats for the kids with Jessie. I’ll come find you, too, Eric, afterward.”
He said he’d love that. “I’ll be working on the western side of the new fence this afternoon.”
That all settled, they soon finished their breakfasts and departed for work, leaving me feeling slightly better about the recent problem of my feelings toward them both. Maybe Jessie is right, I thought. Maybe this is all just going to take some time. And maybe after a while, I’ll just somehow go back to loving Eric and Ryan the same.
After all, as I’d just discovered, Ryan did still make me smile, and that had to count for something, I figured. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have any love for him at all. On the contrary, I still loved him a lot, and he still made my heart beat a little faster when I saw him. It was just that Eric made my heart beat a little faster still.
With my mood at least better than it had been in a few days, I met up with Jessie that afternoon after lunch, and we walked all around the community, distributing a box full of children’s winter hats that one of the men had discovered in the back of an abandoned sporting goods store while on a run to scavenge construction supplies. As I’d hoped it would be, the day was sunny, and it was also unusually warm. Rare for late November, the temperature was at least sixty degrees and climbing, making me take off my jacket and drop it off at my house while passing out hats in my neighborhood.
While Jessie and I went along, taking a few minutes to visit with each of our neighbors at each stop, my mood began rising along with the temperature. I wasn’t even exactly sure why. It was just that the day was nice, sunny, and warm; after my breakfast with Eric and Ryan that morning, I was just simply starting to feel better about things. It will all work out, I told myself a few different times while thinking about the situation. Feelings ebb and flow. Right now, I might feel like I love Eric more, and next month, it’ll probably be Ryan. A few years from now, I’ll probably be completely used to all this.
After passing out all the hats with Jessie, we met up with Alicia for coffee and cookies at her house; while the three of us talked, laughed, and ate, my mood became even a little more buoyant still. When I left Alicia’s house to go visit with Ryan and Eric, I was feeling better than I had in two weeks, ever since Ryan’s bout of “temporary insanity.”
However, walking to visit him at the construction site to the south, my buoyant mood popped like a bubble when I suddenly realized something. I wasn’t walking south. In fact, I was walking west, to Eric’s construction site, and had been for at least five minutes. Also, during these five minutes, I’d been thinking about Eric, picturing his handsome face and how his eyes would light up when he saw me. This, after I’d told Ryan that I’d come to visit him first.
Thoroughly deflated, and even a little disgusted with myself, I suddenly stopped walking and had a seat on a bench beneath a gazebo in the community greenspace. Suddenly, I felt like I was disintegrating somehow, breaking down on a molecular level, as if the very cells that made up my physical body were even sick of me lying to myself and rationalizing things that couldn’t be rationalized away.
I loved Eric more than I loved Ryan. I knew that now, and I just couldn’t fight it anymore. I loved Eric on some deeper level than I loved Ryan; despite all the pleasure they both brought me in the bedroom, I wanted to be with Eric and Eric alone. A trio relationship was never going to work for me in the long run. Not as long as there was still the option for me to choose Eric to be my only man.
Before I knew it, I was nearly hyperventilating, knowing that I was having an anxiety attack. A little dizzy, I forced myself to take deep, slow breaths while a woman named Michaela arrived at the greenspace with her two little sons in hand. She waved to me, came over, and started making pleasant small talk about the unusually nice weather.
“We haven’t even had many Creeper attacks lately either, have we? Let’s hope all this nice weather and peace isn’t the ‘calm before the storm,’ right?”
She laughed, and I forced myself to laugh in return, amazed that a person could be having an anxiety attack while still probably appearing at least semi-normal to another person.
After another minute or so of listening to Michaela talk about her new dining room table, or maybe it was even chairs, while slowly returning my rate of breathing to normal, I got up from the bench and told Michaela that I was sorry to cut our visit short, but that I had a little errand to run. She said that she understood and told me to enjoy the rest of my afternoon, which almost made me stifle a chuckle, because I knew I probably wouldn’t be.
After giving her a wave, I began jogging across the greenspace, intent on doing my “little errand” before I lost my nerve. I was going to go visit Ryan and have a talk with him, telling him how I’d started to feel. After all, I thought, it wasn’t fair to him to be in a relationship with someone who still loved him but definitely didn’t love him as much as someone else.
Also, I knew that the more time passed before I told him this, it was just going to make things harder. As it was, I figured that if the tables were turned and I were in a trio with him and another woman, I’d be devastated if he told me that he’d been loving her more for two whole weeks while acting like everything was just fine.
After crossing half the village at a jog, I stopped to catch my breath at the southeastern portion of the wall, away from all the houses, realizing that I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I’d overshot my intended destination by maybe a whole quarter-mile of wall. Now, after catching my breath, I was going to have to backtrack south until I heard the sound of construction underway.
Frustrated, I leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, while a few birds in a tall pear tree nearby tweeted their appreciation for the unusually nice day. However, after a few moments, I heard something else besides birdsong. I heard the muffled sound of a conversation taking place on the other side of the wall. It was two deep male voices. And both of them had a tone that somehow made me think that something crucially important was being discussed.
Intrigued, I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but I felt unable to help myself at the same time. I’ll just listen to a few words and then go on my way, I told myself. Just a few words to see what’s going on.
Quietly inching my way up to the wall, toward the voices, I soon realized to my complete shock that one of them belonged to Ryan. Now well beyond simply being intrigued, I silently made my way down the wall for maybe ten feet before coming to a stop. Then, tentatively, I moved one of my eyes to the thinnest of cracks between two sheets of metal welded together with strips of steel. Because the wall at this point was maybe only eight feet high, topped with barbed wire, I was able to hear pretty well from this point, as well as see through the thin crack.
Now looking at Ryan from a distance of only four feet, if that, I hardly dared to breathe. He was having a conversation with Malcolm, who was one of “his” shifters, meaning that he’d come to Silverfield with Ryan as his alpha. Ryan soon continued talking about whatever he’d been talking about before I’d shown up, and I strained my ears to listen.
“No, man, I’m telling you…I’m positive about all this. She’s falling out of love with me, or she’s falling more in love with Eric, or something. I can see it in her eyes. I can see it in her eyes whenever she looks at him. Something has definitely changed, but she’s still trying to act like everything is normal. I’m not blind, though. She’s even been acting a little funny too…just different things that I can’t even explain, but I’m sure about all this. She’s getting ready to push me out of the relationship or something, and I just can’t let that happen. I won’t.”
With his gaze on the ground, Malcolm mumbled something quietly that I couldn’t quite catch, and Ryan continued.
“Well, I don’t care what I have to do. Ellie is the woman for me, and with Eric gone, she’ll finally start to realize that I’m the man for her. The only man for her. It’s just that she can’t properly think when he’s around or something. He’s just got her all confused. But once he’s gone…she’ll be all mine. I just know it. The only thing is that obviously, I can’t be blamed for Eric’s death, and no one can think I’m responsible. That would completely throw a wrench in things with how Ellie feels, I’m sure. So, like I said before, this can’t be anything like me having a physical fight in the street with Eric or whatever dumbass things you and Kevin are always doing over Darcy.”
Malcolm finally looked up from the ground. “So, what do you want to do?”
“I’m going with plan A, just like we talked about. The next time the Creepers attack in a large group, I want you, Kurt, Don, and Mason to locate Eric, wherever he is, and lead a big group of Creepers toward him. Really tease the Creepers a little bit, but don’t fight them. Just make them completely frustrated and hungry for blood. Then, once you’ve led them to Eric, you guys just circle around the Creepers, forcing them even closer toward him, to hem him in.
He’s a strong shifter, no doubt, but there’s no way he’ll be able to fight his way out of a large group of Creepers in a tight circle around him. At that point, you, Kurt, Don, and Mason just keep corralling the Creepers toward Eric, making sure that they really start tearing him up. Then,
just for appearance sake, if other guys are around and aren’t completely distracted fighting other Creepers, maybe you, Kurt, Don, and Mason can even pretend to help him a little bit, but you don’t have to keep that up for long. Once they’re really tearing him up, maybe even holding him down in a dogpile, you guys just take off, pretending that you’ve gotten injured or pretending that you’re urgently needed to fight other Creepers.”
With his gaze back on the ground, Malcolm didn’t say anything, and Ryan spoke again.
“Kurt, Don, and Mason are already on board with this whole thing. They know what to do, and they’ve already been promised compensation. The next young woman that we stumble across while out on a supply run, if they like the look of her, she’s theirs. I’ve told them that I don’t even care if she’s willing or not, or married, or with a big group of guys or a family group, or what.
We’ll just take her, and she’ll be theirs. If she doesn’t come with us willingly, I’ll just put the fear of God in her with a few threats, telling her that if she ever tells anyone that she was taken here unwillingly, she’ll be killed. This way, when I’m Ellie’s only remaining alpha hero once Eric is dead, I won’t have some new woman with loose lips changing Ellie’s opinion of me.”
With his expression unreadable, Malcolm lifted his gaze to Ryan’s face after a long moment. “You’ve changed.”
Ryan’s response was a short, sharp burst of laughter. “Hey…maybe I have. I’ve never wanted anything in my life more than I want Ellie to be all mine, and maybe that does change a man in some ways. All I know is that I’m going to do what I have to do in order to get what I want, and what I want is her. This is just the alpha way, man, and I feel like I’m finally just now coming into my own as an alpha. It’s about damned time, I’d say.”
Chuckling again, Ryan gave his head a little shake before speaking again. “Now, the only thing we have left to talk about is your compensation. I’ve promised that if you help me do this, Malcolm, Darcy will be all yours. We’ll make sure of that. A few weeks after we take care of Eric, we’ll make sure the same thing happens to Kevin…and then, you’ll finally have Darcy all to yourself. So, what do you say? Are you on board?”
Malcolm hesitated in responding, and Ryan spoke again.
“Come on, man. I need you. Kurt, Don, and Mason are strong shifters, but not half as strong as you. I need you in order for this plan to work. Without your muscle, pushing a large group of Creepers toward-”
“I’ll do it. I’m willing to essentially help murder Eric in order to have Darcy finally be all mine. I may not be an alpha, but maybe it’s time I start acting like your description of one with this whole situation.”
Grinning, Ryan clapped his hand onto Malcolm’s shoulder. “There you go, man. Now, we’re both going to get what we want. And our women will never be any the wiser. No one will be. All we have to do is just wait for the next Creeper attack, and if my thinking is right, it won’t be long now. Mason and I saw a huge group of them heading this way yesterday while bringing one of the trucks back with some scrap metal for the new wall. I didn’t say anything to Eric about it, because…well, I think it’s best if the next Creeper attack is something of a surprise for him, don’t you?”
Malcolm agreed, and Ryan said they’d better get back to the job site.
“Ellie’s supposed to be stopping by to see me this afternoon, and I don’t want to miss her.”
They both soon left, walking south. I took my eye from the tiny crack in the wall and turned to stand with my back pressed against it, feeling curiously numb. I thought that I should probably be crying. I thought that I should probably be feeling like my heart had been torn in two. Maybe that would come later, I figured.
However, at present, along with the numbness, I just felt a strange sense of resignation. I was going to be with Eric and Eric alone, although this wasn’t going to happen in the way that I’d planned, by way of me having an emotional, painful conversation with Ryan. I knew it was probably going to happen by way of Eric ripping Ryan to shreds once I told him everything that Ryan had said.