Her Brothers Scented Me at the Gate, Now All Three Claim Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: One More Year

Linnea admits she smelled the bond on Lowen the week they met and hid it with pine oil, and Lowen walks out. Her car is stalled by Beck's stolen battery cable, so she gives the brothers forty-eight hours, and at dawn Garrick tells her the Elder comes to breakfast.

"Out," I said. "All three of you. I want my friend."

They went without arguing.

Torsten stopped at the door and looked back at me for a long second.

Stellan went last, and he left the door open a hand's width, until Beck reached around and pulled it to.

A minute later it opened again, and Linnea came in with her coat still on.

She sat on the end of the bed. Her face was white under her freckles.

"I thought I'd have one more year," she said.

"One more year for what?"

"Before you stood on that gravel." She pulled the brown bottle from her pocket and turned it over in her hands. "I could smell it on you the week we met, Lowen. A bond that's waiting. It shows up on a person, if you're a wolf."

"For seven years you knew I was somebody's mate."

"I knew you were something's. I didn't know it was all three."

"And the pine oil?"

"It hides the smell for a day. I put it on you every time so my brothers would never catch it." She looked up. "It didn't work tonight because I didn't put it on. I wanted you here. I wanted you to see the house."

"You wanted me to see the house, and you didn't tell me."

"I can't tell you everything yet. I'm sorry. I can say that much without lying."

I stood up.

My legs held. That was something.

"Seven years, Lin."

"I know."

"Don't say you know. Say something that isn't an apology."

She opened her mouth, shut it, and put the bottle on the bed between us.

I took my coat and my keys and walked out.

The stairs went down into the great room, and the great room was full.

Every pack member on the lawn had come inside to not look at me.

A woman with silver hair held out a plate of lemon cake as I passed. "Congratulations, dear," she said.

"Please don't," I said, and took the cake, because it was my cake.

I went down the porch steps. The three of them had not followed me. They were standing at the porch rail, in a row, with their hands flat against the wood.

None of them moved. All three of them watched me go.

It was a quarter mile of gravel to the gate. The air was cold, and the trees whispered the whole way.

My car was exactly where I had left it. I got in and turned the key.

It clicked and did nothing.

I tried again, and again, and then I popped the hood and got out.

Beck was sitting on the front bumper with a battery cable in his hand.

He had taken off his apron. Under it was a grey t-shirt with a pancake printed on the chest.

"Don't be mad," he said.

"You're holding my battery cable."

"To keep you safe, not to keep you. There's a difference."

"Explain it to me."

"Keeping you means I'd sit on this cable until you gave up." He turned it over. "Keeping you safe means I wanted you to have one more reason to think before you drove an hour in the dark, crying."

"I'm not crying."

"No. You're furious. It's very impressive."

I held out my hand.

He put the cable in it immediately, and added a sandwich wrapped in foil from his jacket.

"Turkey," he said. "You didn't eat. I'm not saying that to keep you, I'm saying it because it's a fact."

I looked at the cable, and the sandwich, and then up the drive.

On the porch, Torsten and Stellan were still standing at the rail.

If I drove away now, I would be gone from the only people who had ever looked at me like that, and I would never know why.

I decided to stay forty-eight hours, on my rules, and then decide.

"Forty-eight hours," I told Beck. "Not a minute more."

He grinned.

"I'll set a timer," he said.

That night I slept in Linnea's old room with the stars on the ceiling.

At two in the morning I got up for water and opened the door.

Stellan was asleep across the threshold, on his back, with one arm thrown over his eyes.

Beck sat in a chair in the hall with his boots on, snoring slightly.

Torsten sat at the top of the stairs with his elbows on his knees, awake, looking at the wall.

He looked at me, then back at the wall.

"We're not touching you," he said. "We're just here."

I stepped over Stellan, who did not wake, and went down the back stairs to the kitchen.

The kettle was already on.

Garrick stood at the stove in his cardigan, making toast.

"Sit," he said. "You'll want to hear this before the others are up."

I sat.

He put the toast in front of me and a mug of tea next to it, and sat across the table.

"The Elder comes to breakfast at eight," he said. "He eats at every Alpha's table on the first Sunday after the new moon. He's old, he's polite, and he notices everything."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because his law says what happens to a woman three men have scented." Garrick's kind eyes did not move. "You are Linnea's friend, Lowen. That's true. Say that and nothing else."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend