“No, not a problem exactly,” Joe told her. “It’s just . . .” he broke off with a grimace.
“We don’t exactly have control over them yet,” Garret told her.
“What?”
Sawyer shrugged. “Joe has the best control. It seems that when we experience a high emotion our ability to keep them from surfacing shatters, and the bear takes over. Getting back to human form is more difficult.”
“Visualisation my ass,” Garret muttered.
“Oh,” she said. She wasn’t quite sure what to say, it wasn’t as though she had any experience with this sort of stuff. She was still having trouble wrapping her head around the whole “shifting into a bear” thing.
“We’re consulting with some bear shifters we know via email,” Joe told her. “But it’s taking a lot of practice to figure this all out.”
“Okay, then I guess I’ll wait.” She wrapped her arms around Garret’s neck. “Some things are worth waiting for.”
Garret smiled down at her. “They most certainly are.”
15
Two weeks. She fumed. Two weeks it had taken for that damn high priest to arrive and her men had done little more than some heavy petting with her. Oh, they’d given her a few orgasms, but they hadn’t even let her return the favor, let alone gone any further.
They’d been worried about injuring her and had wanted to give her time to heal properly so they’d decided to wait until the ceremony was complete for them to take her together. They hadn’t cared that they were killing her slowly with growing need. She wanted them so badly she could barely sleep. Her every thought
was of them. She woke up at night in the middle of a sex dream so turned on she couldn’t get back to sleep.
And worst of all, it hardly seemed to affect them at all. They’d been so busy working on their control over shifting that they hadn’t had time to get all worked up and horny. That pissed her off even more. Shouldn’t they be suffering just as much as she was?
A knock at the door had her turning with a snarl. She yanked the door open. “What?”
“Hello to you too, sunshine,” Carlin said calmly. “In a good mood today, I see.”
“No,” she replied even though it hadn’t been a question.
“Bridezilla strikes?”
They’d told her brother it was a wedding rather than a mating ceremony. The fact that her three husbands-to-be were bear shifters was a closely guarded secret. Of course, Carlin had had enough trouble with her marrying three men, finding out that they were shifters probably would have sent him over the edge.
“You can still back out. I can have you out of here before they even know what’s happened.” He smiled. “I’d enjoy that.”
She shook her head. The four men had an uneasy truce. Joe, Garret, and Sawyer had promised her brother they’d never hurt her, and he’d agreed not to murder them in their sleep. Although for once in her life, her money wasn’t on Carlin. Her men weren’t easily intimidated. Or killed.
But Carlin didn’t know they weren’t ordinary men, and she didn’t want him getting hurt.
“Carlin, I love them. I know it’s weird that I’m marrying all three, but it’s what I want. Please try to understand. As my only family, I want your blessing.”
Her brother sighed. “All right, I’ll stop trying to talk you out of it.” He looked her over. “You look beautiful.”
She looked down at the pink dress she wore. It was a little old-fashioned looking. It had a tight bodice, fitted sleeves, and then flared out from the hips into a full skirt. She’d found it in a closet in her room. Apparently, this room had once been their mother’s private space. When she’d tried it on, she’d known right away she wanted to get married—well, mated—in this dress.
“Thank you.”
He cupped her face between his hands. “I know I haven’t always shown it, haven’t always done the right thing, not even close most of the time, but I do love you, little sister. And I wish you all the happiness in the world.”
She blinked back tears. “Thank you.”
* * *
She looked nervously towards the high priest. He was an impressive looking man with shoulders about twice the width of hers and stood at least a head taller than Joe. He had a long, dark beard with flecks of gray and a lined face. Whether he’d gotten those lines from frowning or laughing she wasn’t sure. She had yet to see him do either.