“I’m surprised you didn’t put a tracker on her,” Joe said tiredly.
“I put a GPS chip on the back of that locket she wears all the time.”
“Fucked. You are so fucked,” Garret breathed.
Joe glared at him. “You’ll need to clean up your language before our mate comes to live with
us.” Although he did agree with the sentiment.
Garret rolled his eyes. “Give it up, old man. She swears more than the rest of us. Look.” Garret sat forward. “We’re all going to have to make adjustments if this is going to work, all right? Our mate isn’t a bear. She doesn’t know anything about our kind or living with us. And you’ve got to admit we’ve all got issues. So, we might have to compromise on some things.”
“Like?” Sawyer asked.
“Well, for a start, placing cameras and GPS chips on her without her permission is kind of a no-no.”
Sawyer looked undeterred by the reprimand. Garret turned to Joe. “And you need to loosen up. She’s human. This isn’t the eighteenth century. She’s going to swear. She’s going to want some freedom. She isn’t going to want to sit on a pretty chair and have us worship her while doing everything we tell her to.”
“And what adjustments will you be making?” Joe asked stiffly.
“Why, I’ll be the one trying to pull us all together,” Garret said with a grin. “Not an easy task.”
“Especially when our mate doesn’t even live with us,” he pointed out.
Garret frowned. “No. Which is why I think I should go back.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s my turn.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Sawyer asked. “What about your bear?”
“I have control over my bear.” Like he did over every aspect of his life. “And she will be returning with me.”
He was aware of his brothers sharing a look, but he would not be dissuaded. He was going to his mate. And he would not leave without her.
11
They had got to be fucking kidding her! Would they not give up? She wasn’t their mate. She wasn’t going back to their castle with them. She thought they’d have given up after her brother nearly caught Sawyer last night.
She shivered. That had been too close. Carlin had been suspicious. But she’d managed to convince him that he’d heard her stub her toe as she was making her way to the toilet and the reason she’d taken so long to answer the door was because she’d been disorientated.
At least she hoped she’d convinced him of that. She wasn’t certain he’d bought it.
And now they thought she was going to let one of them in a third time? Uh-uh, not happening. No way. She stormed her way over to the window, pulled back the curtains and flung it open.
“Piss off, asshole.” She should have shouted it. It would have had more impact. But that stupid urge to protect them welled up inside her, meaning she ruined the impact by whispering the words.
The man standing on the ground below looked up at her with a cool, calm face. Crap. Joe. She didn’t know why she hadn’t expected the third stooge. Her stomach went jittery. For some reason, she was more nervous about seeing him than the other two.
Maybe because she got the feeling that once he set his mind on a course he never deterred, never strayed, and she was very much afraid that when push came to shove, she would be helpless against him.
“Throw the rope down, Georgina,” he told her in that formal voice.
Did nothing rattle the man? It didn’t seem to worry him that he was standing out in the open, in the middle of a compound filled with men who would kill him without a qualm. But then it hadn’t bothered those two other idiots. Did none of them have any sense of self-preservation? Didn’t they understand how dangerous Carlin was?
Just as she thought it, she heard a noise. The sound of voices. Someone was coming. She stared down at Joe, terror holding her frozen.
He waved his hand at her. Then melted back, seeming to disappear into the shadows. She quickly closed her windows, but kept the curtains open, watching as two of Carlin’s enforcers walked past. They didn’t even glance in Joe’s direction. Still, it wasn’t until they were well past her room that she started to breathe easier. When she glanced down again, she groaned to see he was standing out in the open once more.
With a sigh of resignation, she got the rope. This time she was going to make it more than plain she was not interested in being their mate.