Page 41 of Elias
Jezebel giggled. “That’s true. I guess he’s not in denial anymore.”
Leah shook her head. “No.”
“Were you mad?” Suzette asked.
Leah drew in slow breath as the three of them dropped down to sit on the floor in the middle of her nursery. “No. I didn’t have a right to be mad. I felt the same way. I’ve always been disgruntled about this entire mating process. It infuriated me that I would be forced into an arranged relationship as if I have no freewill.”
“Oh, wow,” Jezebel whispered. “I never really thought about it that way.”
Leah shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I thought because it’s all true. We don’t really have freewill. Not when it comes to mating. It’s eerie though and kind of creepy.”
Suzette giggled. “You’re right… I bet you’re not happy to have all of us in your house when you’ve only been here a week.”
Leah lifted her shoulders again and let them fall slowly. “I’m kind of glad you’re here because I wasn’t sure what was true.” She pointed at their dresses. “I was leery about believing everyone would be dressed like me. The only thing that kept me from being overly skeptical was the fact that Daddy said you all picked out my clothes.”
Jezebel nodded. “Trust me. We all felt like surely we were the only Littles alive who were forced into a strange new life of deep submission. I was still a bit panicky until Suzette arrived. Luckily, the two of us were friends. We grew up next door to each other. I was relieved when we finally got together and saw that we were in the same predicament.”
Leah smiled. “Well, I’m just as relieved.”
Suzette grinned. “I bet you’d like us to leave now, though.”
Leah inhaled deeply, drawing in her mate’s scent. “Nope. He’s gone into some kind of uber dominant overprotective mode. I don’t think he currently wants to, uh…”
“Jump your bones?” Suzette supplied.
All three of them giggled so hard that Elias showed up in the doorway.
Leah turned her head to look at him. He was so large and imposing. Every time she saw him in a doorframe like that, she got a bit googly-eyed. He filled up so much space she wouldn’t even be able to get past him if she wanted to.
He narrowed his gaze. “What’s going on in here?”
“We’re just talking, Daddy.” She was surprised how easy it was to call him Daddy in front of everyone. She supposed it helped that they’d all called their own mates Daddy, too. After a week, it came naturally.
“Talking or plotting?”
Jezebel sat taller and cleared her throat. “Talking. We promise.”
Elias’s chuckle had an odd tone Leah hadn’t heard before as he nodded toward Suzette and Jezebel. “The last time I gave you two a few yards of space totalk, I ended up nearly having a heart attack.”
Suzette shook her head. Her dark pigtails swayed back and forth. “That wasn’t our fault, Sir. Olivia was the one who shifted and left the back deck to talk to the bears. And you can’t really blame her for that either. I would have freaked out if I’d discovered I could communicate telepathically with another species.”
Leah gasped as she looked around at all three of them. “She can talk to them…in her head?”
Suzette and Jezebel nodded together.
Daddy came farther into the room.
Leah swallowed. “When you said her senses were heightened, I thought you meant she could smell them before anyone else.”
Daddy shook his head as he squatted down next to Leah. “It’s so much more than that, Little one. For one thing, the bears have advanced skills. Remember I told you they can block their scent from wolves?”
Leah nodded. He had said that was what had happened when Suzette was kidnapped. Her mate had not been able to scent the kidnapper, but he had been able to follow Suzette’s scent.
“The bears can also communicate with each other without speaking, even in their shifted form, and that day, Olivia learned she could communicate with them also.”
“Holy moly. That’s wild.” Leah was stunned. “So that’s why she wanted to sit out on the porch. She will be able to tell if any bears approach when no one else can.”
“That’s what we believe. It’s only been proven with the two who visited that day—Surge and Thorn. We’re hoping she can also scent the two rogue bears if they get too close to us.”
