By Hook or by Wolf

I’m supposed to be the mature one o

f the group, but even I get angry.

“What the hell?” I shout. “You’re cheating on your mate?”

I’m so angry that I can’t see straight. This has got to be some sort of nightmare. We’re all going nuts. If our mom was asleep, she almost certainly is awake now because this yelling? This noise? It’s enough to bring the whole house down.

Suddenly, I noticed that Natasha doesn’t seem phased by us.

She doesn’t seem upset, nervous, or scared.

In fact, she’s still standing in the center of the room totally naked except for those fuck-me heels she’s got on. She’s not covering herself. She’s not cowering. She’s just waiting patiently.

“Are you boys done yet?” She asks finally. “Trevor, why don’t you come out so you can hear this, too?”

Sheepishly, Trevor comes out from beneath the bed, but he doesn’t shift back. Natasha considers him for a minute.

“Pretty wolf,” she comments, and although I know she’s a bad person who has done some bad things, I can’t help but feel desire. It’s terrible, but I want her to say those things about me. I want her to feel those things about me.

Cody and I wait side-by-side. Trevor sits beside me. Together, we all look at Natasha.

Apparently, there’s an explanation.

Perhaps we should have asked her for one before we completely freaked out.

“My husband is dead,” she says. “I’m a widow. Trevor and I have talked about this at great length but apparently, he didn’t realize my husband was a shifter,” she looks at him. “I didn’t lose my husband, get mated to some shifter, and then cheat on him. I was never unfaithful to my husband. Never. And I haven’t been with anyone but him until tonight. I might have mentioned he was a shifter, but I didn’t know you guys were, either, until the ride over here. Otherwise, I might have mentioned that I was a bear’s mate for over ten years.”

A bear’s mate?

Natasha?

“My husband,” she says, tearing up just a little. “Was called Henry. He was a good man. Together we came to Starton to start a new life. We grew up in a little town in Colorado that is full of shifters. We came here to experience city life and to start our family and we did. We have a little girl. Her name is Rebecca and, well, I mean, she’s not so little anymore,” she sniffles. “She’s going to start shifting one of these days, too. I just know it. So yeah, I have a mating mark, but I don’t have a mate.”

She shakes her head, as though she can’t believe what’s happened, and I can’t believe my brothers and I are so fucking stupid.

Of course, Natasha wouldn’t cheat.

Of course not.

She’s a gentle woman.

Kind.

Sweet.

Smart.

Clever as fuck.

Besides, any woman who can break into our art gallery undetected is probably the type of woman who isn’t going to get caught cheating.

I should have known better.

“I’m so sorry,” Trevor says as he shifts back into his masculine self. “I should have waited for an explanation. You told me your husband had passed away, but you never...I never...I didn’t realize he was a shifter. That explains the mating mark.”

“I’m sorry we ever doubted your loyalty to your mate,” Cody says.

“When a shifter dies, it’s possible for their mate to love again,” I comment. “The bond we feel toward you isn’t any less than it was an hour ago or a week ago or a month ago. I’m sorry that our reaction was so over-the-top.”