Golden Binds

“Does my brother know I’m here?”

“He knows,” Sawyer said shortly. “I made the mistake of giving him my number, so we could keep in contact to co-ordinate our attack. Now he’s hounding me to see you.”

Joe didn’t like that idea. Didn’t want anyone near her but them.

“I want to see him.”

“We’ll see,” he told her.

“So, I’m a prisoner here?”

“You are our mate,” he whispered. “We have waited for you for hundreds of years. You should have been safe. Protected. We nearly lost you.”

“Hundreds of years? How old are you?”

“Joe’s well over two hundred. Sawyer is about thirty years younger than him. I haven’t hit two hundred yet.”

“This . . . this is too much. I can’t be your mate. You can’t be bear shifters. And two hundred? You don’t look a day over thirty-five.” She stared up at Joe then reached for the covers. “Call my brother, I’m leaving.”

“You are not,” Joe told her harshly.

She froze.

He took a calming breath then another, ignoring the warning look Garret sent him. Yeah, he knew. He was still riding that edge of control and he needed to calm down.

“You’re injured. And on a lot of drugs. It’s best you stay in bed.”

“And even if I wasn’t? Would I be allowed to leave?”

“Somehow, I don’t think we can keep you anywhere you don’t want to stay,” he said dryly.

She relaxed a little.

“A man could hope you’d stay where you were put,” Sawyer told her.

“Where I’m put!” She glared at him. “You did not just say that.”

“What? It would make life much easier. Do you think we could get that written into the mating vows?”

“There are mating vows?”

“This is a lot for Gigi to take in. Why don’t we give her some time?” Garret suggested. “I’ll stay with her while you two go rest.”

Joe stared down at her. “We can’t let you go, Georgina. You mean everything to us. It’s not just a matter of how long we waited, but of what you mean to us. You are the only woman for us. There is only ever one mate. There will never be anyone else. Please, think about that.”

He turned and walked out without a backward glance.

* * *

“Well, that was intense huh?” Garret tried to joke after his brothers left.

Gigi looked over at him. “Did that really just happen?”

“Yep.” He glanced down at his hands then up at her. “It’s true what Joe said. You do mean everything to us, Gigi. More than you can ever know. If you’d give us a chance, we would show you every day just how much you mean to us.”

“I’d grow old and you wouldn’t.”

He frowned slightly. “I’m not so sure about that. There is mating magic that binds us, it might well keep you young. Or age us.”