Page 4 of Delivered to My Beasts (Mail-Order Matings #22)

Jax

Crew, Duke, and I were bears living in the woods among the mountains. Sounded like a constant good time, right?

Not really.

We’d fallen into a comfortable routine which was good for our human sides.

Our bear sides, not so much. Usually bears lived in groups for protection and safety but kept to themselves.

We loved to roam the forest and run wild and free.

Hence the place we’d decided to settle when we found ourselves ready to leave the sleuth.

After all, we were a sleuth of our own. We protected each other.

The thing our shifter and human sides agreed on? We needed a mate.

When our bears first bonded, when we were adolescents, we thought we were destined to be best friends.

And that was still true. But there was more.

Somewhere along the line, our bears decided we wouldn’t have separate mates.

We would share one. How that decision was made was a mystery to us all, but not one of us had a problem with it.

There was no one I’d trust around my mate than Crew or Duke.

Plus, there would be three of us to make sure our mate was well taken care of in all areas.

Except, I thought the others had given up on finding a mate a while ago.

I had as well. Not that we were so old that we couldn’t find our mate, but we didn’t go out a lot.

We didn’t date or go to bars. We had nothing against bars or dating, but we were homebodies and the small towns around us were filled with people who looked at us as though we had three heads.

Not really the best place to try and flirt.

If we tried, the female would’ve probably fled for the hills screaming.

“I wonder why she doesn’t have more pictures.” We were having breakfast the next morning after concluding that we should sleep on it. Sleeping on issues solved everything according to Crew. He was the quiet and calm one amongst us.

“And they are all in the same place. Same walls. Except the one that is outside. It’s like she took five pictures all on the same day but with different outfits.”

Duke chuckled. “Or we’re picking apart details that don’t matter.”

Crew threw a biscuit at Duke but he caught it midair. “What matters, then? Let’s focus on what we know.”

I took a long sip of my coffee. “She’s a wolf, but I don’t think that’s a problem. It’s not for me, and it’s clearly not for her.”

“Not a problem for me either,” Crew concurred, and Duke nodded.

“We looked at her information,” I said. “There’s not a lot there, but her preferences are for multiple mates. She commented something about our home, so she knows we live in the mountains.”

We had uploaded one picture of the three of us when we’d first purchased our home. It had belonged to a female omega and her reverse harem, so there was plenty of room for a polyamorous group and room to grow.

“She doesn’t know we live in the mountains, Jax. She said something about our beautiful house. We could live in a suburb with a mountain behind us. She has no idea we live as far away from civilization as we could get without being complete recluses.”

“Does it matter? Let’s say she comes here and she’s our fated and wants to live in the city. We’ll move in a heartbeat, and we all know it.”

No one expressed opposition to my statement.

Duke leaned against the counter. “So, we like her. She doesn’t mind that there’s three of us. She doesn’t mind that we are bears and she’s a wolf. And she may or may not like our house. What are we waiting for?” He often dove into situations headfirst, but things usually turned out well.

“We should message her back. Like now?” Crew already had his phone back out and tapped keys.

“What are you typing?” I could get on my phone and see, in real time, thanks to the app updates, but I trusted my bond brother. Kind of.

“I’m saying that we would like to talk to her on the phone. Maybe video chat. I also officially accepted the match, so she knows we’re serious.”

When he put his phone down, we all exhaled. The ball was in her court now, which felt terrifying and somehow calming.

His phone beeped before he could pick up his coffee cup again.

“It can’t be her already.” Duke paled. The reek of anxiety and fear filled my nose. We were all stressed out about this. Our fate was in her hands.

My bear was invested. He’d stirred inside me the first time I saw her picture, before Duke or Crew even knew we’d gotten a message. More than stirred. He growled and demanded I go and find her.

“It’s her.” Crew stared at his phone for a minute longer than I liked. “She…she said she can’t speak over the phone or video chat. She apologized.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to speak to someone you were matched with. She messaged first and now she doesn’t want to talk? I’m confused.” I knew my friend. By confused, he meant hurt. Hearing that she didn’t want to or couldn’t speak to us was a letdown.

“She said couldn’t?” I sat up straighter in my chair.

“Yes. She can’t.”

I took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m reading more into this than I should, but what if she’s in a dangerous situation?”

Crew nodded. “That could be it. But if we can’t talk to her…what’s the next step?”

Duke growled a bit. Not at either one of us but because of the situation and the questions cropping up. Questions with no answers. “Ask her if we can come visit her? Or if she could come here? Is that too forward?”

I chuckled. “We’re really bad at this.”

“We are but if she’s in trouble, if you are right, then we have to do something. Even if she’s not our mate, I’m not comfortable letting anyone suffer if I can do something about it.”

“Ask her,” I said. “The worst thing she can say is no. I’m not sure how we will move forward if she does, but we have to know.”

Crew typed some more. Judging by her fast answer before, I expected his phone to beep immediately but instead, there was nothing.

No beeps. No notifications. Just nothing.

I couldn’t sit there and wait any longer.

After a few minutes, I stood and cleaned up after breakfast then headed out to my shop.

I’d completed a big order the day before.

Usually, I would then take a week or so to recoup and rest but with the suspense surrounding Imogen, I had to do something distracting.

I could’ve run, but my bear was antsy, and there was no telling how far he would take us. Nothing wrong with that, except I wanted to work through this on my own and had to be close to my phone.

Just in case.

My bear had carried my phone in his mouth once, leading to a phone replacement. I’d considered getting a pouch to carry it in when I shifted, but it had never seemed to be a priority before. After all, my friends were here, and who else was going to call?

Hours later, after I’d cleaned my workspace from floor to ceiling, my phone beeped, and I paused, trying to still my heart.

I didn’t want to get too excited only to be let down again, so I forced myself to slow down and took a long, cleansing breath.

If Imogen was who Fate wanted us with, then it would happen, one way or another.

Reading the message, I sat down on one of my chairs as my knees buckled.

Imogen wanted to come visit us. To our home.

I ran to the main house. We had work to do.

Our mate was on her way.