“Okay.” I slid over and took both of her hands in mine. Amazingly, she didn’t move, but instead waited for me to speak, with wide open eyes. “Nevaeh, you’re our mate. Grayson, Aaron and mine.”
“Your… mate. What do you mean?”
God, her eyes were beautiful. Aqua, flecked with silver and a rainbow of sky blues.
“It means you’re meant to be ours. Our… wife. Our partner—whatever you want to call it.”
Nevaeh withdrew her hands and stared at me with a strange smile on her face.
“You seriously think I’m going to believe that you are I are meant to be together? You’re really nice, and very hot… but I don’t know you.”
Pride blossomed over my back at her compliment.
No one had ever said I was hot. Ever.
“But you will. And you’ll learn to love me and Grayson and Aaron. Just like Claire has done with her pack.”
That’s when I lost her.
Her eyebrows flew up and her jaws snapped together like the clapping of her hands.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?”
The sarcastic tone wasn’t lost on me.
“Ah… nope. Personally, I’d love to keep you all to myself, but you fainted at Grayson’s touch, and Aaron’s too, from what they said. So, you have to be everyone’s mate. It’s how it works.”
“I fainted… What? Hang on… What are you saying?”
Nevaeh abandoned her food and stood up to throw her hands around and yell.
“Because this better be a joke, Brad! Seriously. I am not getting sucked into your weird cult where there’s some sort of upside-down polygamy thing going on. I don’t want even one husband, let alone three! What the hell would I even do with you all?”
Histrionics was how they use to describe it and for the first time I realised how blessed I was, not to grow up with sister.
“Nevaeh, calm down.”
“Calm down? CALM DOWN! You fucking calm down. I’m out of here, and if any of you— Claire, this goes for you too—tries to stop me leaving, I swear to God, you will be sorry.”
>
She found her keys and I ran to the door to block her exit. I had to convince her we were meant to be, and I had no idea how to do that.
“Nevaeh, can’t you feel the connection between us? The attraction? You have to feel something. We do. And Claire said she knew straight away when she met her triad that they were for her.”
Nevaeh stormed up to me. “Get out of my way, Brad. Now. Or I will call the cops and have you guys arrested! I already have one restraining order up on my ex, I’ll happily put one on you too.”
I fell away from the door and Nevaeh yanked it open.
While my heart was breaking, I heard a feminine chuckle.
It was Claire. “Fight it all you want to, Nevaeh. But you’re never winning this battle. You’re meant to be theirs, and you will be.”
Nevaeh let out a feral growl as she stomped to her car, slammed shut the door, and drove away. A cloud of dust billowed up around the spot where her car had once been.
Claire and Jay walked up behind me and Claire patted my arm. “That actually went better than I expected.”
She laughed as she walked away and my heart fell.