Page 15 of Just Right (The Beasts of Blackmoor #3)

CHARLOTTE

I have to go home. Staying in Blackmoor… spending the rest of my life with a trio of bear shifters… that’s not what I signed up for.

Right?

I came here because I refused to let Charlotte disappear without putting everything I could into finding her. This forest… the promise of a wish… it’s the last lead I had, and no matter how fantastical it was, I followed it because if I didn’t? I’d have to admit that that was it. The end.

Charlotte was gone, and no matter how determined I was to at least get some closure, there’s only so much time, effort, and money can do. Magic seemed like my last resort, but while I have proof that it exists, Charlotte is a different story.

Hearing both Finn and Colt refer to me as their mate shifts something inside of me. I can’t pretend that I didn’t like it, but instead of focusing on that, I wake up the next morning with the perfect distraction.

I wait until Rowan finishes setting out our four bowls of porridge, each of us taking a seat at the small, rectangular table in the kitchen.

Rowan has his spicy porridge, never once giving away how damn hot it is with every hurried spoonful he takes.

Colt leads the morning conversations because, to be fair, he doesn’t have to worry about his frozen porridge doing anything other than melting a little.

Finn offers me the choice between the two bowls, taking the one I don’t pick.

We’ve been doing the same routine since I first arrived in the cabin, and I know better than to grab the one with less porridge.

Whoever serves goes to great lengths to make the bowls as fair as possible, but even so, the one time I tried to grab the smaller portion, Finn insisted there was something wrong with mine and we needed to switch.

As Colt is cleaning up, I clear my throat.

Finn’s attention is immediately on me. Colt drops the dirty bowls onto the counter, then turns his back so that he’s leaning against it. His arms crossed of his flannel-covered chest, he raises his eyebrows.

Rowan pushes away from the table, shifting in his seat so that he can look at me.

Oh. Okay. I didn’t expect him to linger.

In my experience, Rowan eats breakfast, and if it isn’t his turn to clean up, he grabs his axe and heads outdoors.

Even if his brothers and I are in the middle of a conversation, if it doesn’t involve him, he’ll just walk away.

It would too, too easy for him to act as though he didn’t hear the indication that I wanted to say something, but that’s not what he does.

Instead, he watches as intently as the twins.

Maybe I should’ve expected that. Though my scent is all over the house by now, Finn’s reaction after I slipped back into his room—telling me he enjoys the scent of Colt on my skin—tells me that their bears’ snouts are powerful enough to tell who I’ve been sleeping with.

Even if I thought Rowan slept through the sounds of me fucking both Finn and Colt, the frown on his face when he walked in to the kitchen last, seeing my flirting playfully with the twins is more than enough evidence that… yeah. He knows.

Does he feel left out? Is he, like I always fear, judging me for taking two different lovers in one night? Or is he just looking forward to the future when he’ll be left to tend to his younger brothers when I’m gone, and both of them miss the woman they consider their mate?

I’m not sure, and the weight of his stare on me as they wait for me to speak just confirms my decision.

“I want to go looking for my friend. For Charlotte. That’s why I’m here. Remember?”

I know that the bears would rather forget. Once it became clear that we were reliving an old fairytale, they seemed to have decided that Aurelia Holloway’s sole purpose of testing the magic of Blackmoor was to find them and be theirs.

Their guest.

Their prisoner.

Their mate …

“She’s not on our territory, Goldie,” Rowan grates out. “We’ve told you that.”

I know. “Right, but that’s my issue. You won’t let me leave your territory?—”

A muscle in his jaw flexes. “We offered you sanctuary. We offered you protection. That means keeping you safe. I can’t do that if you leave our territory whenever you want.”

Oh, Rowan. Don’t think I didn’t notice how it was ‘we’, ‘we’, ‘we’, until, suddenly, he slipped up with the ‘I’.

I can’t do that…

“The one of you come with me. Or, hell, all of you. I’d rather not go by myself, and you’re not wrong. I could get lost out there and never find my way back.”

Finn’s brow furrows. “We’d find you, Honig . If you wanted to return, there isn’t anything that would stop us from bringing home.”

I try not to wince when he says ‘home’ like that, like it’s my home, too. I know the youngest bear wants it to be, but…

“Thanks, Finn. You’re a sweetheart. And I can’t even leave for another week, but that’s also my point. You guys have been so good to me. I don’t want to walk away yet. I mean it. But if I do leave, never even trying to find Char… I can’t forgive myself.”

“This is my fault.” Colt snorts. “I like soft things, but I never thought you’d be such a soft touch.”

If that’s how he wants to see it. “I’m going,” I say firmly. “I could’ve made a break for it, but I like you all too much that I… I wouldn’t. But if y

“No one said they wouldn’t go with you,” begins Finn.

It’s Rowan that cuts him off. “Finn is right. You need to do this, Goldie? You can do it.”

I swallow my sigh of relief. Of the three bears, it was the hardass I was most worried about.

Unlike his brothers, he doesn’t have a reason to want to keep me close—but he also doesn’t have a reason to keep me happy, either.

He could put his paw down, telling me that I had to stay, and if he decided to enforce it, he could.

He could also throw open the door, boot me out of it, and I could say goodbye to having a warm bed—and voracious lovers—for the rest of my stay.

“Thank you, Row?—”

“And I’ll be going with you.”

I guess there’s one upside to being the big brother.

Though Colt and Finn both try to argue with Rowan, when he puts his paw down, reminding them that he’s the best tracker, the strongest fighter, that there’s wood to be chopped, and hunters out in the forest to avoid?

Yeah… he wins that argument. I can leave the cabin, hoping that I might be able to find someone out there that could possibly remember Char’s stay in the forest, but I won’t be alone.

Rowan is coming with me, and when I’m the only one who doesn’t argue against spending time alone with the oldest Brown brother, the twins quickly give up the fight.

Because he absolutely refuses to let me stay out after dark, he decides that we’ll leave right away.

After gathering some basic supplies, including a skein of water, a knife for me since his bear’s claws are more than enough a weapon for Rowan, and a coat with a hood to cover me up and keep me warm, we leave together.

Rowan’s biggest concern is the hunters. I guess that makes sense.

One of them is responsible for killing his mother and leaving the twins as young orphans.

Based on their appearances, I can’t imagine Rowan was that much older than them, though I know better than to ask.

In fact, apart from telling me to stay close and that, if he tells me to run, I need to high-tail it away from danger, he doesn’t really say anything at all.

That reminds me that bear hunters aren’t the only threats in Blackmoor.

I haven’t seen any other monsters except for my bears, but I’ve learned enough over the last two weeks to admit that they’re definitely out there.

I’m just hoping we manage to avoid them.

I’d much prefer to find another shifter in the same vein of my bears: friendly and welcoming, but who just so coincidentally ran into Charlotte during her stay four years ago.

Time works weird in Blackmoor. They don’t really understand the concept of ‘years’; at least, my bears don’t.

It’s more about the seasons. They pass, and I try to explain that Char wouldn’t have been here four summers ago, but that doesn’t mean much when the Brown brothers have never had a human woman stumble upon their cabin until I did.

Because the forest thinks I’m their mate.

Because the forest wants me to give in to this mystical bond that shouldn’t—but does —exist.

Luckily, because he’s accustomed to knowing his time, Rowan can tell approximately how long we have until it grows dark by the positioning of the sun.

Between watching its journey across the sky, lifting his nose to check for unfamiliar scents, then peering down at the earth to check for…

I don’t know… tracks or something, he keeps quiet while I do everything I can to keep up.

That’s why, when I’ve grown so used to the quiet pouring off of the closed-off shifter, I jolt when he calls out my name.

I recover quickly, tightening the hold on my coat. No, Rowan, you didn’t spook me… I just needed to adjust my jacket… “Yes?”

“Tell me about your friend.”

“Charlotte?”

He grunts.

Um. Okay. “Well, she’s my age. Thirty-two in human years.

” I wait a beat to see if he’ll offer up his own age, but he goes back to silent mode.

Right. “She’s taller than me. A little slimmer.

Pretty red hair that nearly hit her butt.

Oh, and green eyes. People always thought she was Irish because of her red hair and green eyes. ”

Is that what he meant? A description?

“What makes her so important that you’d face Blackmoor?” he asks after a moment.

Oh. Guess not.

Funnily, Rowan actually sounds like he cares. Like he wants to know.

I shrug under my coat. “She’s funny. Smart.

She always had my back in school. This one time, in middle school, Joey Miller tripped me in the lunchline.

I dropped my whole tray, but before he could laugh, Char grabbed the tray and bashed him in the nose.

People used to call her ‘Red’ ‘cause of her hair, but she likes to say she’s ‘Red’ because that was the color of Joey’s blood when his nose started spurting all over the place. ”

I figure, of all of my memories surrounding Charlotte, that might be the one that gets through to a bear shifter more than any others.

She was loyal and protective, strong and fearless.

She wouldn’t have shacked up with the first beast that found her in the woods.

Oh, no. Char would’ve kicked their ass, then kicked them out of their shelter.

True, Rowan probably has no idea what ‘middle school’ and ‘lunchline’ mean, but the gist is the same. I needed a protector growing up and, for me, that was always Charlotte Linden.

“It seems like you care for her.”

That’s putting it mildly. “She was the only family I had. Then she went on a trip to Blackmoor four years ago and… she was gone.”

Rowan’s gaze slides over to me. “She could have chosen to stay.”

I’ve been thinking about that. For all the times I’ve heard that petitioners don’t always leave the forest—even on the messageboards, online posters suggested the same—I’d wondered if that could’ve been Charlotte’s fate.

I mean, it would explain why I never heard from her again.

There’s certainly no cell service here or wi-fi.

It’s not like she could have told me… but if I really think that Charlotte found a reason to stay, then I have to ask myself: have I?

“Maybe,” I say noncommittally. “But I owe it to her to at least look.”

“Family is important. I should know. Colt and Finn are all I have,” Rowan tells me after another moment’s pause. “I’ve been taking care of them for a long time now.”

“I know.

Another sideways glance. “You’ve been doing a good job yourself.”

I refuse to be embarrassed. I’m a mature woman. They’re bear shifters who are at least older than me. We made consensual decisions to sleep together, and I won’t apologize for that.

So, instead, I smile. “Thanks.” My smile develops a wicked, teasing edge. “I know you’re the big bro, Rowan, but I could take care of you, too.”

Do I expect him to shut down the conversation? Yup.

Does it still sting that he’s rejecting me again?

Oh, yeah.

Rowan falls quiet again. Following his lead, just like I have been all afternoon, I keep my mouth shut. I really do—until I can’t anymore.

Hours later, I finally break the silence when I notice the darkening sky above us peeking through the closely-grown trees in this part of the forest.

“Hey. Um. Are we getting ready to head back?”

He told me that he was coming with me to search, but we had to be home before dark. And while I might not have the best sense of direction, I don’t think we’re heading toward the cabin yet.

Like me, Rowan glances up at the sky. I might know shit-all about being out in the woods, but even I can tell that the sun is starting to set. We have maybe two hours or so before it’s too dark for me to see, and I know we’ve been out here way longer than that.

“We could,” he says slowly, “but I thought I caught a human scent when we veered off the last path. It’s faint, but it’s female. Not you,” he adds when I open my mouth to ask, “but a human who’s been in Blackmoor long enough that it colors her scent.”

I’m not really sure what that means, but if he thinks he’s on the trail of a human woman? I don’t want to get too psyched. There’s a good chance it isn’t Char… but what if it is?

“I’m prepared to push on if you are.”

This is the first time Rowan’s left a decision up to me instead of making it for me. Is it a trap? Or has he finally decided that the best way to handle me is to treat me differently than he does the twins?

It doesn’t matter.

I only have one question. “Is it safe?”

We haven’t run into any other threats all day.

Part of that is luck. Part of it is skill; Rowan can follow a track, and avoid a trail easily.

Most of all, though? It’s the fact that I’m in the company of a grizzly bear who might be in his skin, but he’s no less of a freaking grizzly.

Lesser predators are keeping their berth.

Hunters probably realize he’d be a harder kill than a Mama bear protecting her cubs.

And fiercer predators might hedge their bets and realize that Rowan has someone to protect himself and it wouldn’t be an easy battle.

So when Rowan says, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Goldie,” it’s less boasting, and more an undeniable fact. I’m in his charge. If I got hurt, his brothers would be hurt. I’m safe.

I only wish I could say the same for Rowan.