CRUZ

After catching an hour of shuteye, I make a second trip out into the bayou. Z-Pain has been hauled downtown and Mirandized. He’ll also lawyer up, and without Gianna’s recording, we won’t have a chance in hell of getting the charges to stick. Since Z-Pain has admitted on tape to ordering the hit on Gianna, that may be enough to put him away if there’s a Louisiana prison built to hold werewolves. Whatever. That’s a problem for another day.

Luc lets me walk into the Breaux camp, and I have no idea if that’s a good sign or a bad one. Now the two of us have our asses parked on the front porch of Luc’s cabin, although it’s deathly silent. Kind of like we’re sitting in a cone of silence. Not that I want to have a heart-to-heart with Luc, but… yeah. We have loose ends.

 Imagining Gianna here is actually easy. The man has a nice house, kind of romantic in the way my sister and female cousins like, with a big four-poster bed and a fireplace. I try and fail to banish the images of Luc and Gianna from my head. Sharing sucks. Even if I climbed in there with them and loved Gianna the best I could, Luc would be there too.

And I want her all to myself. Want alone time with her, to show her I can be the right male for her. This woman could be his mate. No matter what fucking moon led Luc to her, I’m here now too and I won’t let her go. Won’t lose her.

The sun starts to set, twilight wrapping the bayou in its embrace. A chorus of bullfrogs makes a racket, their hoarse song echoing off the trees. The bayou is peaceful, settling down for the night. Too bad it isn’t contagious, because at best we’ve achieved an uneasy détente on Luc’s porch. It’s not easy, getting Alphas to coexist. And in the same bed? Yeah, good luck with that. Both of us are used to being in charge. We avoid dominance challenges by drawing lines. For the most part, Luc rules the bayou waters, and I own the town.

Neither of us can own Gianna.

I’ll fight for this, fight for her. Fight for us. I was bred to fight, so that should mean I have this one in the bag, shouldn’t it? Either my pack accepts her and the possible enmity of Luc’s brothers, or I strike out on my own. Go lone wolf. Just as soon as I see her through this, I’ll ask her what she wants. Find out if she’s got any interest in the kind of life she could make for herself with me in Port Leon or if she wants a do-over somewhere else.

A yes from Gianna isn’t an impossibility, but just because I’ve made my choice doesn’t mean she’s made hers. She may need more time, more chances.

Luc finally breaks the silence. “That scratch of yours going to be okay?”

A wolf ripped my forearm up, but it’s nothing a roll of gauze and some tape can’t patch up. It wasn’t worth going to the doctor for, plus a set of canine teeth marks always raises unwelcome questions. State law requires all dog bites be reported, and I’m not setting up someone’s pet to take the blame for what happened.

“She promised me a week.” There’s no point in dressing up the words. After all, we’re both thinking next steps with Gianna.

“Oui.” Luc hooks a cooler with his foot and nudges it closer. “You wan’ a drink?”

“Probably a good idea.” Alcohol can’t hurt this conversation.

Luc flips the top and pulls out two longnecks. Extends one to me. A quick twist of my wrist, and I’m sucking back a cold swallow.

“She’s my blue moon bride,” Luc points out quietly. “I don’ like the idea of Fate picking out females for us, but there’s no denying she does a good job. Gianna and I—we fit.”

Which leaves me—where, exactly? On the outside, fucking looking in.

“When I first saw her, I thought I could be the wolf who was different, who gave his mate a choice about who she wanted. A chance to run, if that was her thing.”

“Gianna isn’t the kind of woman who lets a guy do anything.” Some things have to be said.

Luc nods, looking pained. “I fucked that one up, all right. I found her and I mated her, then I walked away because that seemed like the best thing for Gianna.”

“And now that you’ve found her again, you’ve got a case of the regrets.” Tough shit. Maybe Gianna didn’t feel the same way ten years ago in Vegas. Maybe she’s changed and grown apart from Luc. The reasons don’t matter. All that matters is that she’s happy. And if I’m being honest, that I get my shot at making her happy.

“She’s my mate.” Luc looks straight at me, not pulling his punches. “I love her. That’s how I feel about her.”

I suck back more beer. Too bad there isn’t a fucking werewolf manual for this one. Luc’s pack has a reputation for casual sex and sharing—at least until the guys mate, when everyone else goes off-limits and they bond with their females—and I’m not judging that. Whatever works between consenting adults, that’s my motto. Two adults, three, multiples of whatever… I don’t really give a damn. I just never imagined myself being part of a trio, let alone the lesser part.

I look at my nemesis. “I wan’ my week. If she’ll give it to me, I’ll take it.”

Luc actually nods. Whoa. “We both wan’ her—and we both wan’ her to be happy.”

“Dead right.” If she chooses Luc instead of me, I’ll wish her well, and I’ll walk. Or I’ll stick around, be her friend and her shoulder to lean on, if she’ll let me be there for her. It’s not about me or even about Luc.

It’s about Gianna.

“So we need to work this thing out between us.” Luc sets his bottle down on the porch. I get the feeling the other man might hurl the bottle out there into the bayou because he needs to break something.

“I don’ wan’ to sleep with you—or fuck with you,” I say.

There’s an answering glimmer of humor in Luc’s eyes when he answers me. “I’m right there with you.”

“So the question is: does Gianna pick one of us… or both?”

Luc flips me the bird. “You got a crystal ball?”

“She’s not a timeshare where we alternate weeks.” That kind of attitude is disrespectful of Gianna, and I can’t imagine her compartmentalizing her life like that. If she loves both of us, she wants to love both of us together. That’s one hell of a thought.

“Any ideas?”

Yeah, all of which involve going after Gianna and begging. “I could do it, if it’s what Gianna wants.”

Luc’s nod is slow in coming, but it comes. Maybe we’re both on the same page after all. Maybe we can make this thing work. “We’d both be all about her. That sounds about right.”

The bullfrogs crank it up, deafening the silence with a raucous storm of croaking. Those people who talk about the calm and peace of Mother Nature and being out in the bayou are full of it. There’s plenty of noise, but the good kind. It almost fills in the silence between Luc and me.

Luc rubs a hand over his head. “We’re a bunch of sorry asses. We don’ even have the girl.”

That’s true. She walked on Luc. Fuck. Maybe she walked on both of us. I’ll have to catch up with her to find out, won’t I? Technically if she’s giving us our weeks back-to-back, mine start tonight.

“We both have to ask her.”

“Oui. It doesn’t matter for shit if we like each other if Gianna’s not on board with the plan.”

“Glad to hear it.” Gianna’s voice floats up from the dock below as Dre helps her out of a boat neither I nor Luc saw coming. That’s the problem with feelings and discussing them—they blind you to everything else.

She smiles at us, a tentative, not-quite-sure smile, and my heart turns over.

GIANNA

I made it to my house, but floating around the place only underscores how empty my life really is. Although I spot various pack members keeping an eye on things, I have all the space in the world, but not the two men I… care for. Love? I’m pretty certain that’s the direction my heart is headed in.

Picking and choosing between the two of them can’t be as impossible as it seems, right? One of these two guys has to be perfect for me, and yet… I still want it all. So I drive out to Port Leon, find Dre, and come here. To see them both, to see where these feelings can take me.

The two pieces of my heart are sprawled on the bench in front of Luc’s house, shoulder to shoulder, sharing a beer. Not quite the mental image my imagination spun up, but maybe I should have expected it. They move apart, however, when I get closer, and Cruz pats the empty space between them. I take it, sinking into their heat and closeness. For a long time, no one speaks. The bayou gets quieter and darker, the stars coming out overhead, while the occasional silverfish flip-flops out of the water, takes a look around the unfamiliar world above water, and dives back beneath the surface.

Cruz speaks first. “I’d still like that week you offered me.”

More silence follows. Luc doesn’t say no, doesn’t counter with an offer of his own. Then he reaches for my hand, turning it palm up and placing something cool and round in it. A ring.

“I got this for you,” he says, and I stare down at the ring in my hand, closing my fingers around it. It’s old, with a delicate beauty and a patina of age. “It belonged to one of the princesses in the French court.”

“Not a queen?” I ask, trying to hold back unexpected tears.

“I didn’t think you’d wan’ a ring from Marie Antoinette. She didn’t get her happy endin’. But I was hopin’ we could.”

“The three of us? Or just you and me?”

“I love you.” He puts the words out there, plain and simple. Blunt.

I turn the ring over in my palm, the metal warming as I touch it. It’s so pretty, and it represents so much.

“We’re not sure how to make this work,” Luc continues.

“But we wan’ to,” Cruz adds, sounding both determined and forthright. “Boo, you got to know what you mean to both of us. I’m late to this party and Luc found you first, but that doesn’t mean I don’ feel every bit as strongly as he does. You’re a special woman, and I love you.”

He plucks the ring from me, sliding it onto my ring finger and rubbing his callused thumb over my palm. Easing the tension out.

“But you still want a week alone with me.”

“I wan’ a week for us, for you to get to know me. I wan’ a shot at the whole emotional enchilada. You lovin’ me and me lovin’ you.”

Luc’s arm circles my shoulders. “We’re wolves, shug. We’re territorial. It’s not nice, and I can’t dress it up for you. My wolf, he’s not one for sharin’, but if Cruz here matters to you, I’ll be doin’ the best I can to let him in.”

Cruz nods. “This is about what you wan’.”

Heat blossoms in my heart, warmth and caring for these two men who are working it out. Because they love me. I reach for both of them, pulling them in close.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes to both of you. To all of us.”

Mine. Ours. Wherever this journey takes us, we’ll be going together.