Page 28 of Shared by the Werebears (Hidden Hollow #5)

FINN

I ’d never felt peace like this before.

Goldie’s scent was in the air, warm and sweet and sharp with need.

The Lust Hut was lit like a dream—low firelight and moon-drenched shadows.

It smelled like sex and magic and something older, like wild honey melting on a silver altar.

The scent of a sacrifice we were about to make… a deal we were about to fulfill.

I should’ve been nervous…but I wasn’t.

All my life, I’d dreaded Bonding. I didn’t want to leave my Clan. Didn’t want to be claimed by some narrow-eyed village girl who wanted pups and propriety.

But this… this was different.

Goldie wasn’t just anyone. She was fire and shadow, kindness and kink. A goddess in mortal skin, and she wanted both of us. She didn’t just see me—she saw Ronan too. Not just our human outsides—she saw the beasts within. She saw our Bears.

And still she didn’t flinch.

I’d never dreamed it was possible to share a mate—it’s really not done in the Were community. But now it seemed insane to do anything else. I wanted to Bond her and have her as my Heartmate—I wanted Ronan as my Heartmate, too. He was my brother in arms, in survival, in suffering. My Clan mate.

Maybe now, we’d get to be mates in something better—something that felt like coming home.

I just hoped that the ritual we were about to perform went off without a hitch.