was missing. Part of that hole could be filled by my missing brothers, but part of that hole would also be filled by a mate that I obviously haven’t met yet.
“What else do we know about him?” I turned back to Johnathan, in order to take my mind off all of this.
“He’s…”Johnathan scanned the website. “Well, according to this, he has only been there for a few months. So I don’t know whether they were together before or whether they met here.”
“I think they were together before,” Jacob said. “There’s something about the way she acts that says she has put up with this for quite a long time.”
“So, you think they moved here?” I asked and he nodded.
“I do,” he said. “And I think they moved here because he probably treated her terribly in the other town and people were starting to catch on.”
“Can you find out anything about her from that hacker website of yours?” I asked, and Johnathan typed in a few more details.
I didn’t know how he found out these things, and frankly, I didn’t want to know. I knew that what he was doing was probably illegal, and that was all that mattered.
“Uh...she dropped out of college,” he said. “No reason was given, so I’m guessing it was for him.”
“Wolf shifters always do this,” I said. “They like to own women. They find them young and then they captivate them and ruin their lives.”
“Do we not like to...possess a woman?” Jacob asked. “I just want to make sure that we are not putting ourselves on a higher pedestal than these guys.”
“Of course we do,” I said. “But we...I don’t know. We aren’t total assholes about it.”
He laughed.
“I suppose you are right,” he said. “At least, we try not to be.”
“And if we are, our community calls us out a lot faster,” I said. “It wouldn’t be possible for us to get away with the type of behavior that Matthew has been displaying for years.”
“He does give a point,” Johnathan looked up to Jacob. “Wolves are terrible like that.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Jacob asked. “Kidnap her because it’s a service to all shifters?”
Jacob looked at me when I didn’t say anything.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, and I shrugged.
“Look, we each feel something for this woman, right?”
There was a silence among my brothers, which I found incredibly annoying.
“Right?” I repeated, and eventually, the other two nodded.
“So we each feel something for her...why don’t we do something about it and do a service to the shifter community at the same time?”
“You do know that what you are suggesting is not legal, right?” Jacob asked, and I smirked at him.
“Are you trying to tell me that in all of Ursa Ranches, no one has ever done something that was slightly questionable?”
“How would we go about it?” he asked. “We couldn't just waltz in and kidnap her.”
“No...” I replied. “But we could do it a bit more...subtle than a cartoon hook.”
“What if she asks questions?”
“She won’t ask questions,” Jacob said. “I could tell by the look in her eyes. She wants to be rescued.”
“She does?” I asked. “How can you tell just by the look in her eyes?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I just...think that she smells like...sadness and desperation.”
“And yet she is so attractive to us,” I said. “Maybe we are the desperate ones?”
“What if she is more than just...an attractive girl?” Jonathan put in. The two of us looked at him.
“What do you mean?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just...I’ve never acted like this about a girl. Have you?”
“No,” I admitted and turned to Jacob.
“I’ve seen people act like this before, though,” Jacob said.
“When?” I asked, and he sighed.
“When my brothers met their mates,” he said. “They all acted like they were possessed.”
“Do you think that she is our mate?” I asked. No one said anything for a long moment.
“I think it’s a bit soon to declare something like that,” Jacob said. I leaned on to the counter so I could level with him.
“But how did they know?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“I’ve asked a few of them before,” he said. “And they usually just give me some weird answer, like when you know you know...which is...I mean, I guess sometimes that can make sense, but it doesn’t give us any...like direction about what we were supposed to do.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I could ask more questions…”
“Don't,” I said. “I don’t want any of them to judge