Dean

Hell. This entire week had been a freaking hell.

My horoscope for the week had warned me that my 'patience will be tested' and 'intimate problems await' and though astrology was less accurate when shifters were concerned, in this case the predictions had been spot-on.

At first, when the newly repaired extractor fan in the kitchen had broken down and had to be fixed two more times, I had been willing to blame it on my negative thoughts affecting the electric appliances. The law of attraction was a real thing, no matter how much Bas made fun of me for believing in it.

However, after I accidentally broke the fridge's handle and snapped my beloved joystick in two while waiting for Predator to load, I had to admit my jaguar was to blame as well. The last seven days without Samantha had nearly driven my inner animal crazy. He didn't care about my reasons for not taking action; when he wanted something, he took it, reasoning be damned.

It wasn't helping my inner struggles with the jaguar's way of thinking that Bas shared the animal's position. Inaction was for the weak, we should go and get our female back asap – that was the kind of talk I had been subjected to daily for a week now.

This Sunday morning was no exception.

"I'll go talk some sense into that female," he grumbled, slamming his coffee mug on the kitchen table. "She has been playing hard to get long enough."

I shook my head while preparing the mixture for my omelette by the hob. I got it: my pal was suffering just like me. As evidenced by his SUV's gear selector looking like a dented ping pong ball and the fridge door having been torn off its hinges. Still, if anyone was playing hard to get at the moment, it was the two of us. As planned by me and agreed by him last Sunday.

Which didn't stop Bas from criticizing the plan. And sticking to it nevertheless.

"Our sweetie simply needs more time to come to terms with the idea of our existence," I said calmly and confidently... while whisking the eggs with enough force to send mixture flying everywhere.

My pal snorted. "She came to terms last weekend when she dated us. I saw it happen. You saw and felt it happen – on your fucking fingers."

"Yeah but... that's not what I meant."

The memory of that blissful movement on the sofa was now making the distance from Samantha harder to bear. I had been so close to marking her, only to now be faced with the possibility of losing her. I had been rejected as relationship material so many times so... everything was possible.

But Bas didn't need to hear about my insecurities. My pal needed assurance, and I could use the pep talk myself, for sanity preservation purposes.

"Let me paraphrase: our sweetie needs more time to get used to the idea of being mated for life. Can you blame her after what her previous experience with having a relationship was like?"

Bas had told me of Samantha's prick of an ex days ago so I knew what she had been through. It had made me more convinced than before that we should take things slower with her, just as my plan envisaged. And that Black Canary had nothing on my superhero mate.

"So," I kept going, "we should ease her gradually into our lives."

Bas grunted. "You speak of 'we' when it's just fucking Eric who is doing all the easing. I hate it. I can't stand it. Aren't you pissed, Dean?"

"Well... envious is the word I'd use." To have Samantha all to himself for a week? Eric was one lucky panther – somewhat thanks to my plan, of course. "Eric has as much right to be with our mate as you and I have, and he has proven himself a decent guy."

Bas' scowl was deep enough to leave permanent wrinkles. Was that a crack in his favorite mug?

"Okay, go."

He narrowed his eyes at me in suspicion. "Go where?"

I shrugged and flipped my half-cooked omelette. "To Samantha's, where else? Come on, stop wasting time on convincing me my plan sucks. It's not like I've been standing in your way this entire week anyway."

"What the fuck happened to, 'No, pal, don't you dare do it!' from before?"

I shrugged again. "I'm giving up. It's clear my approach is not working." It was time to switch to some good old reverse psychology, heheh. "So go ahead, pay our sweetie a visit. It's not like her locked door has stopped you before. Tell her you were supposed to see her in less than 24 hours at the court hearing but couldn't wait to go chewy on her neck uninvited. And to cure yourself from blue balls with an uninvited dip in her honey pot."

Bas' reply was nothing but a low growl and a long sip of coffee, gaze spearing me over the mug's rim.

"I know, you'd probably use cruder terms than mine but you get the picture." I flipped the omelette again, the vision of nonchalance. "Afterwards, I imagine Samantha will pounce on you with untamed passion and beg you to ravish her, not giving a damn about Eric being right there to see it all. It's not like our sweetie has shown us in this very apartment that she is uncomfortable making out with one of us while the other is watching... So yeah, get going already, pal."

He slammed the mug on the table, this time around the handle breaking off in his hand. "Fine. I'm not going."

I tried to hide a triumphant grin but my pal knew me too well not to notice the telltale signs.

"Smartass."

I let my grin shine freely.

"But!" He pointed the handle at me. "If us staying out of Samantha's sight for so long has made her decide Eric is all she needs, I'll make sure it's not just your balls that are blue."

"Hmm, sounds romantic. Tell me more." I chuckled but there was nervousness in my laughter.

Not because I was worried Bas would make me blue all over – he had never been that rough with me even during sparring. But because I had my fears, too, about my plan backfiring.

The idea was for our sweetie to see what it was like to not have us around after we had given her a taste of our awesome company. We needed her to be starving for us the way we were for her from day one. At the same time, we needed a way through the walls she had built around her heart. And who stood a better chance at making a crack in those defenses than Eric, a non-dominant shifter that was the exact opposite of Bruce the Prick and a victim of an evil pack like herself? With him injured, she would be focused on him during the week anyway.

But Bas had raised a valid point. Our prolonged absence could lead Samantha to the conclusion that one mate was enough for her. My plan could have, as my pal liked to say, fucked us sideways.

"Your omelette is burning."

"Wha–Damn it!" I took the frying pan off the hob but the damage had been done. I was going to eat omelette a la charred.

"Throw that piece of coal away and sit down," Bas grumbled and got up. "I'll cook you another omelette while I tell you about my plan."

"Huh?"

"Ass in the chair, Dean. Ears on me."

I snickered and obeyed. Why argue when I was going to get fed on the morning I was on cooking duty?

"Here is what we'll do," Bas said with a determined look. "After the court hearing, we'll take Samantha dancing to celebrate. I've seen how she moves to radio music: our female likes to dance."

"That sounds like a great–"

"Once she relaxes in our company, we tell her that her time is up."

"Hmm... So we give her a taste of some fun via vertical tango and then suck all that joy out of the moment with a single sentence? A great plan, indeed."

Bas pointed the spatula at me menacingly. "Hear me out, Dean! She needs to know we're going berserk in the limbo she had left us, we need clarity. Our animal halves can't take this indefinitely, as patient as our human halves wish to be. We need to know already if she is going to accept us under certain conditions or not at all. And we should let her know she either accepts both of us or none of us two."

"Right. We are a package deal."

"If she tells us she needs more time, we cut the shit and bring her home with us."

"Woah there, pal!" That escalated quickly...

He shot me a reproachful look. "We won't imprison her, Dean! We'll bring her here to seduce her. If she is still hesitant about us, we clearly need to up our game. Give her desires a nudge."

"A bigger one than what he have already given her, you mean? Heck, I don't know. That sounds risky." I swished the coffee remaining in his mug, thinking. "And what about Eric? I bet she will bring him along for the party since we would be celebrating locking his abusers up. With him watching, she will make every effort to resist us two."

"Fuck. I forgot about that."

"Hmm... I might have a solution. But you're not going to like it."

"Spill it," he ordered as he flipped the omelette like a pro.

"I'm going to conduct Operation Seduction of the Tigress: Part 1 at the club. In the meantime, you will be spending quality time with your favorite Omega." I wiggled my eyebrows at the last words.

He bore his pearly whites at me.

"Think of it as a win-win, pal. You'll have that much needed talk with Eric about our shared future and, at the same time, you will be showing Samantha how open you are to a bromance with the guy. Sweet, eh?"

Bas came to slam the plate with my tasty-looking omelette on the table. "Fine."

"Thank you, dear." I winked at him and dug in.

He had just sat opposite me, scowl back to its usual depth, when my phone rang.

Chewing, I took a look at the caller ID.

I nearly choked in surprise. And excitement.

It was Samantha.