Page 8 of Just Right (The Beasts of Blackmoor #3)

FEVER

I t’s been five days since I’ve started my time in Blackmoor. Four since I woke up as a guest of the Brown brothers. Just as many since Finn let slip that he thinks that I’m meant for one of them.

Is it Finn? Colt? Rowan? I immediately shut him down when we were in Rowan’s room—though I’ve returned to that closet every morning for a different outfit to wear because, yeah, my black dress started to get iffy by the end of day two—but I’ve done a little surreptitious digging about the topic of mates?—

And who am I kidding? Finn. Whenever I get the youngest brother alone… and I say youngest with a grain of salt because, while he’s younger than Colt and Rowan, he’s certainly older than me … whenever it’s just Finn and me together, I ask my questions and let him talk.

So… mates. It seems like one of the largest classes of ‘beasts’ that live in the forest are shifters or animal-based creatures.

Men who turn into bears. Others who are part wolf half the time, full wolf at others.

Centaurs that are always half horse. There’s a lake with merfolk that he warns me against going near, as if Rowan would even let me step two feet away from the cabin.

There are demons and other monsters, too, but luckily—or maybe not luckily so much as coincidentally —I’ve found myself on brown bear territory.

Shifters mate for life. They have one fated partner that soothes the savage edges of their beastly nature.

Translation: since none of the Brown brothers have found their mate yet, each one of them is still a virgin.

They’ve been waiting for their female to venture into Blackmoor and find them, and it seems like I might belong to one of them.

Who? That’s the only time that Finn shuts down. He’ll tell me anything I want to know while Rowan and Colt are out in toiling in the words, but the topic of who might be his mate… he always changes the subject.

Colt and Rowan? Neither one mentions the topic at all.

Now, I know there’s something going on. Rowan grunted the first time he noticed I’d changed into one of the outfits in his closet, but that’s the only acknowledgement I got.

If he’s pissed that I borrowed an outfit he handpicked for his future mate, he doesn’t say so, and I’m just glad that I can squeeze into them myself.

It’s not even a squeeze. The clothes fit like a glove, a point that Colt likes to make when I join the brothers at the breakfast table to eat our morning porridge.

Colt’s not hiding his attraction to me. If Rowan is feeling any, he’s doing a phenomenal job of doing so. As for Finn…

He’s adorable, but he’s so fucking clingy.

A little smothering, too, but since I’d be lonely otherwise…

I deal. He’s certainly fond of me, even if he’s not coming out and telling me that he thinks that he is my supposed mate, and if that’s because I make it clear that once my twenty-one days are done, I’m gone… well, I’d be wary of a stranger, too.

It’s mid-September. With the bees winding down their honey production, Finn uses that as an excuse to keep me company while the others are working. I spend most of my time with him, but just yesterday, for the first time all three of them stayed inside with me.

It took me until I was lying awake in bed later that night to realize why.

That was technically my third day in Blackmoor.

If I’d entered into a usual contract, I would’ve finished my seventy-two hours.

I would’ve been free to leave yesterday, and as though they wanted to make sure I didn’t, we hung around the cabin, baking bread in the wood stove and telling stories in front of the fire.

Well, Finn and I did, with Colt adding his own input. Rowan, of course, sat on his tool, quiet and baleful as he watched the rest of us as though he was being our guardian instead of part of the discussion.

Then again, maybe that’s the case. Finn told me that Rowan is the quintessential older brother.

He basically saved Colt and Finn from the hunters in the woods—the only thing other than another powerful predator that could challenge one of the bears—and has taken on the position as head of the family ever since.

Finn and Colt—well, more Finn than Colt, but both of them really—run nearly everything by Rowan.

They do the same when I first mention Charlotte, and only when he nods do the twins admit that they don’t know Charlotte, but there have been plenty of other human females who have found their way to Blackmoor.

Some have stayed. Some have left when their time was up. Some… didn’t make it.

The idea that that could have happened to Charlotte… I drop the topic myself. Instead, I ask about Blackmoor.

I ask about fairytales.

And that’s when Rowan decides that the evening is over, and I have to wonder why that of all topics is the one that he refuses to talk about.

On my fifth day in Blackmoor, I wake up in an irritated mood.

Ever since the bears told me to stay, I’ve been borrowing Finn’s room.

Last night, when I had to pee in the middle of the night, I nearly tripped over a slumbering bear in the hallway.

Realizing that he’s been shifting to his fur and sleeping just outside the doorway…

part of me wanted to sleep on the couch so that he could have his bed back.

The other part thought about inviting him to join me in the bed.

In the end, I did my business, climbed back under the quilt, and tried to fall back asleep without the guilt eating me alive.

Over the last few days, I’ve become much closer to Finn than his brothers, and while he’s let me know that he’s definitely interested in his very obvious way, I don’t want to ruin our budding friendship just because he’s pretty and I didn’t realize how lonely I’d been until he devoted himself to becoming my shadow.

Then there’s his brothers… if Finn is obvious, Colt is almost cocky in his come-ons.

I’ve ignored him because I can’t be sure if he’s serious or if he’s just needling Rowan by constantly hitting on me, but if I’m having a low self esteem day, all I have to do is wait until Colt returns to the cabin because he’ll surely give me a pick-me-up with his compliments.

But that’s as far as he goes. As though even he suspects that I’ll choose one of his other brothers over him, he doesn’t cross the line… until I do.

I blame the irritation. Last night, I fell asleep feeling guilty that Finn was sleeping outside the door.

This morning? I’m annoyed at myself for passing up the opportunity to sleep next to him.

It wouldn’t take much at all to go from ‘sleeping next to him’ to ‘sleeping with him’, and the achy, needy feeling in my pussy is wondering why I’m punishing us both by sleeping alone.

It’s not just my pussy that needs something . My whole body seems like it’s on pins and needles, it’s that alert—and that sensitive. My head hurts. My skin itches. I’m overheated to the point that, I swear, I’m suffering from a fever with no other symptoms except extreme horniness.

Simply put, I need to fuck. It’s almost like I’ve been slipped an aphrodisiac, and if I’d had anything to eat this morning, I might’ve wondered if that was what happened to me. Only I just woke up like this and, somehow, that’s worse.

I manage to duck Finn by pretending to sleep until he goes out to check on the bee hives he keeps nearby.

He showed them to me a few days ago, letting me keep my distance after my near miss following my arrival in the forest, but he hasn’t been back since.

Too busy with me, I guess, and when he murmurs through the closed door that he’ll return for me later, I wait until the cabin seems silent before I go to the bathroom to freshen up.

There is no shower here, and when I mentioned that, Finn seemed confused.

I asked how he washed up, deciding it wasn’t worth it when he mentioned wading into the nearby river to get clean when he wasn’t just scrubbing at the hand pump near the weird toilet.

Since I’m not about to swim butt-ass naked in a river, I give myself basic sponge baths and hope that my lack of deodorant isn’t too off-putting to the bears.

Then again, they are bears. For all I know, they like it.

After my makeshift bath, I decide to go outside. Mainly because I’m dying for some fresh air, but also because it’s been a little cooler lately. As hot as I am, that might be what I need.

I don’t go far. I told Rowan I wouldn’t, and when I do finally go off in search of Charlotte in a few days, I want it to be after he’s stopped expecting me to disappear.

It’s a messed-up thing to do, but I’m not in Blackmoor to make a man happy.

Even if he’s gone out of his way for me…

if I waste my chance to find out more information about Char, I’ll never forgive myself.

That’s not today, though.

Today? I just need… something .

It’s like that sensation from my first day.

When I followed some unseen path, sure that if I left it, I was making a mistake.

This is no different. As I stumble down the stairs, walking with more effort than it should take toward the door, I feel a sliver of relief as if this strange fever is rewarding me for doing what it wants.

Pushing open the door, I step out onto the front porch.

Maybe it’s the mid-morning sun shining through, but I swear I see golden curls, wisps of light, magic swirling around my bare feet.

I’ve long given up on my fishnet stockings, and considering Rowan’s collection includes everything except underwear, I’m not wearing anything under the casual pale green dress I have on.

The gold mist wraps around my ankles. Up above, the leaves seem to glitter. The sun gleams. Around me, the air is thick and heavy, but it’s not warm. How can it be when I’m the one that’s one fire?