Charlotte turned so she faced the two of them. They made a triangle, three points, three connections, three souls who she feared would never be the same after this moment.
“We do,” she said, her voice annoyingly shaky.
“We’re both Redwoods,” Bram said after a moment. “That much you already knew. The two of us have been friends since we were children.”
Shane frowned between them, seeming to sense the unspoken history and tension. “And yet you didn’t mention to her that you’ve come to see me a couple of times to help me heal?”
Charlotte turned to Bram, glaring. “You have?”
Bram shrugged, but she could see the anger in his eyes. “You didn’t seem like you were coming back, and he needed help.”
“You could have told me,” Charlotte snapped. “You know what this means, and yet—” She cut herself off, aware Shane was watching them with avid interest. “You know what, I’m going to go. I need to think about what all of this means, and I can’t do that here.”
She stormed away but stopped at the door, looking over her shoulder as she spoke, “I’m glad you’re out of bed, Shane. I’m sorry… I’m just sorry.”
She left Bram and Shane to speak to each other in the gym, unsure what to think. One part of her hoped Bram would explain everything so she wouldn’t have to, but, of course, that made a coward out of her.
She just hadn’t been prepared for the magnitude of what she’d just seen and felt. She’d figured Shane was her potential mate and knew Bram was as well despite the fact that they couldn’t bond.
But if Bram and Shane were also potential mates… Did that mean the three of them were a different kind of potential when all together? She’d known of some triads, but only knew one personally. Her aunt and uncles were a rare triad in that they held the trinity bond, a bond that had its own sense of magic and wonder and strength.
Charlotte wasn’t sure there could be two trinity bonds in existence, and while people lived in triads, she didn’t know if those were bonded matings. She’d never asked, and now she felt all the fool for not doing so.
Could Shane and Bram not only be her mates but be mates with each other? If that were the case, could they become a true triad? Even if that were true, she was still broken. Her birth father’s sins had marked her as someone who couldn’t find the happiness she craved, of that much she was sure.
But what if she and Bram had needed Shane to complete their bond?
She pushed that thought from her head as soon as it showed up. She couldn’t focus on that, not when the rest of her reeled, and there were far greater threats going on in the outside world. She couldn’t be selfish and spend all her time worrying about her mating.
And yet…something had shifted once more.
Once she was able to breathe again, she would find the two men who had altered her reality and figure out what to do. But for now, she did the only thing she could think of when her mind was too full.
She ran.