Page 13 of Tangled Fates

“You don’t like it,” I said.

He shook his head. “I don’t share.”

I leaned into the back of my chair and tucked my aching hands between my thighs. I was tired of cycling through the gamut of my emotions every time someone told me something, but I couldn’t help but be pissed. First, my father was likely murdered, which meant I had inherited a life I didn’t even know to exist, then I figure out that the guys knew my father wanted to find me, but never told me. And now, this?

“So, we’re just… in a polyamorous relationship now?” I spat. “I don’t even know how to do that! I’ve always been a one-man-at-a-time kind of girl. I don’t do the dating around shit that so many others do in the city. It’s exhaustive, and?—”

Dean’s soothing voice cut me off. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. Not because I don’t respect you, but because it’s complicated. And we have none of these answers for you right now.”

My moral code completely juxtaposed what I felt in their presence. I felt a pull toward all of them. Toward Dean’s smile and strength. To Levi’s boyish good looks and quick reactions that always ended up in my protection. To Hudson’s brute power and those forest-colored eyes that stared me down every time he cracked a joke just to see me smile.

There was no way the three of them could share me, right? There was no way something like that could work without jealously tearing us all apart.

Right?

“I mean, would we just share one big ass bed, then?” I asked.

Hudson clicked his tongue. “You’re really charging ahead into the big questions, huh?”

I shoved him. “Shut up.”

“Never.”

Dean smiled kindly. “Despite what the vision told me, dating and love still works much the same here as it does everywhere else. We date. We eat dinners. We go on walks.”

“Or runs,” Levi interjected.

“Or runs,” Dean said with a nod of his head. “We woo one another, even though the universe might have already fated us. Because while the universe can show us a future tailor-made for our lives, we have to take the steps to get there.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s—this is all too much. Everything is too much. I can’t do this on top of everyone else.”

Dean scoffed. “Which is why you need to start listening to people around you instead of constantly demanding a fight.”

I balked. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? This is my life. I deserve to know what’s going on!”

“It’s all of our lives on the line right now,” Levi said as his voice grew flat. “Or have you not stopped to consider that you aren’t the center of our world yet?”

I leapt to my feet. “You shut your fucking face. How dare you accuse me of being selfish.”

Hudson chuckled flatly. “She wants all of the information until she doesn’t like what she hears.”

I spun around on him. “Everyone, just shut up!”

Dean stood to his feet. “That an Alpha command? Or is that you throwing another tantrum?”

I wanted to put my fist through his fucking face. “Don’t make me regret what we’ve shared. Don’t do that to me.”

His words sliced through the air like a whip cracked against my back. “You act like you’re the first one to have that thought.”

His words stole my breath away as Levi started for the front door. “I’m out of here. Let her do what she wants, but someone has to protect this pack.”

I growled as the wolf beneath my skin started to itch. “How dare you accuse me of not wanting what’s best for this place?”

Levi whipped around and stared me down, his face hardening into stone. “Not like you’ve showed us any different. I told you guys this was a mistake. Come on. Let’s leave her to make her own decisions.”

Hudson took a step away from me. “I guess you can rejoice in getting what you want now.”

And as the door slammed behind the three of them, I could no longer contain my anger. I could no longer contain my pain. The confusion overwhelmed me, and before I knew it, my clothes tore, and my stance grew. Thick spittle dripped from my teeth as my wolf’s growl echoed off the walls of the kitchen.

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