Page 18 of Bound to Two Bears

“Bottled up anger.”

“That I caused,” Royce whispered.

“If you’d listen more—and discuss major life choices with me—maybe we can avoid this happening again.” Jared scrubbed his face. “I sensed we needed action. Not restraint. Carson’s too important to us to let him slip through our fingers. I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn’t listen. It was your way or no way.”

“You’re right. We need to work together.” Royce rubbed his chest. “Next time I don’t listen to you, maybe just a solid punch to the jaw instead of tearing a hole in me, hmm?”

Jared rose to his full height fighting a grin. “Depends on how big of an asshole you’ve been.”

Royce tilted his head back and stared up. “I love you. You know that, right? Even when I’m tired and an asshole, I still love you.”

Jared stood straighter. It had been too long since Royce had said those words. “Who knew it would take a deadly fight for you to say that.”

“It’s been that long?”

Jared nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Royce murmured.

Jared placed a mock punch to Royce’s chin.

Royce growled, but there was no menace in it. “Don’t push it. You still owe me for this wound, beta.”

“I’ll never live it down, I assume.”

“Never,” Royce said with a slow grin crossing his face. He slowly rose from the bed and stretched, wincing as he rubbed at his still healing wound. “How about we test your theory and join our mate before he’s done in that shower?”

Jared smiled widely. “We better hurry. He’s been in there awhile already.”

5

Carson stood under the warm spray, watching the bloody water slide down the drain. After it had long turned clear, he lingered under the water, his mind a riot. He couldn’t move. He kept hearing the words Jared had spoken repeating through his mind.

Our mate would be attracted to us, more so than they’d ever been attracted to any other. They’d become aroused in our presence. They’d even become aroused by us… in our animal form.

At least there was some relief that he wasn’t attracted to actual animals but attracted to two men in animal form. That was somehow better than in some stretch of the imagination. But then he kept coming back to being attracted to not one, but two men.

Two bears.

Menwho were bears.

Unable to sleep, he’d stood at the front window as if waiting for the bears to return. When he’d seen the bears racing out of the darkness, he’d stopped breathing for a few seconds. His body had immediately reacted. Then the bears had fought violently, and he’d rushed to the front door on instinct alone—as if he had any power to stop them.

The minute he’d opened it, both had transformed from massive brown bears into humans right before his eyes. Under the full moon, one so large and vivid, it had been bright enough to see the whole fightandtransformation. At first, he’d thought it was a dream, or a nightmare even. But the flood of concern for Royce when he’d watched the bear go down and become a man, he’d rushed into the fray to help.

Any sane person would’ve run down the mountain and driven as far from there as they could. Any sane person wouldn’t be thinking the thoughts he was thinking.

Somehow, he wasn’t afraid.

Before Jared had answered his questions, he’d sensed he was where he belonged. When he was with the two of them, the gnawing ache he’d felt for so long disappeared. He felt their pull, the need to be near them. He sensed the attraction, no matter how much he wanted to deny it.

They were his sun and his moon. Gravity brought them into one another’s orbit. He couldn’t break free, even if he wanted to. The attraction he felt went against everything he knew about who he was as a man, yet he couldn’t deny it either.

He was bound to them by some force he could not understand. None of it made any sense, yet at the same time, it made total and complete sense.

The shower door opened. Carson turned to see both men walking into the stall with him. His stare immediately went to Royce’s wound, only to see it no more than a set of thin pale lines across his muscled abdomen.

He lifted his gaze to Royce. “How?”

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