Chapter 388-The Heart Of A Heartless

Verity:

The three of us stood there, staring at one another after Theodore revealed that he had felt the mate bond with me too.

It felt as if the sky had come crashing down on my head.

And it wasn’t as though I hadn’t felt it.

I had.

My wolf had apparently decided that the first words she would say, loud and clear after waking up, were to call them both my mates.

And that wasn’t even the worst part.

She scoffed inside my head, probably because she found the whole situation amusing.

I certainly didn’t.

I stood there watching the brothers stare at me. At this point, there was no hiding what had happened.

They both knew something was wrong.

"Wait. How can she feel a mate bond with you when she just felt one with me? You’re lying."

Apparently, that was how Jaguar had decided to break the painfully awkward silence and continue the argument.

"What do you mean by that? If anyone should feel the mate bond with her, it should be me. And the reason is simple. We’ve been drawn to each other for a long time. There were feelings involved. Emotions."

Theodore’s voice rose as Jaguar stepped right up to him.

"What the fuck are you even talking about? She’s been feeling it with me." He pointed at himself.

Both of them suddenly fell silent.

Then their heads snapped toward me.

"Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize getting close to someone was such a problem," I commented, watching them frown.

"So you’ve been playing with both of us?" Jaguar demanded, gesturing between himself and Theodore.

I gasped, putting on my most offended expression even though the accusation wasn’t entirely wrong.

I had been playing with both of them, but there was no way I was going to admit that.

"Seriously? You wanna go there?" I shot back.

"Yes, we wanna go there," Theodore fired back.

I drew in a deep breath and covered my face with my hands for a moment.

"Then why the hell are you two so close to Gigi? Doesn’t that count as cheating too?"

The second I brought her up, they exchanged a glance before putting some distance between themselves.

"No. I want an answer from both of you. I was constantly asking you to back off from Gigi because it made me uncomfortable, but you both convinced me it was fine. That if nothing was going on, there was nothing to worry about."

My voice rose before I added, "And I wasn’t even official with either of you. What was I supposed to do? Go up to one brother and say, ’Oh, by the way, your brother is hitting on me, and I have no idea why, but my body keeps pulling me toward him’?"

I muttered the last part while keeping my eyes on them. Their fists were clenched tight.

Of course they were angry. I could understand that.

They probably hated me a little right now too.

Still, now that we had felt the mate bond, I could use it to explain why I had gotten involved with both of them.

I could twist the situation in my favor.

After all, they had no idea what it was like to feel a mate bond with more than one person.

And that was another story entirely, one I planned to deal with later.

"So, you..." Jaguar hesitated. "You were feeling something for both of us?"

"Yes. I didn’t understand why my body kept reacting so strangely, but now it makes sense."

I gestured toward the spot where I had first felt the mate bond with them.

"But that doesn’t change the fact that you two have someone else in your lives who you’re very cozy with too. Do you run around telling each other every little thing that happens when you spend time with her?"

The more openly I spoke, the more their expressions tightened.

Neither of them seemed pleased with where the conversation was heading.

I turned toward Theodore.

"Tell me, Theodore. Have you and Gigi never accidentally... accidentally ended up in an awkward position? Did you tell your brother about it? Did you go running to Ragnar? No? Then why do you expect all of that from me?"

The moment the words left my mouth, Theodore seemed to zone out.

That had been deliberate.

I had read his conversation with Gigi, and I wanted to see how he would react.

He swallowed hard before slowly turning his face away from his brother.

"Have you?" Jaguar asked, his attention shifting to Theo.

"No," Theodore lied.

Then he quickly added, "But she’s right. We do get close to Gigi, and there’s nothing weird about it."

He immediately jumped to defend their closeness.

"Oh, don’t act like you’ve never been close to her," I cut in. "You’re incredibly friendly with her. I thought that was normal in your circle. Until someone is actually official with somebody, there’s no reason to turn everything into a disaster."

I folded my arms.

"I was exploring my options, and so were you."

I pointed at Jaguar, reminding him that he had been with me once, only to turn around and start dating his ex-girlfriend again.

Both of them looked completely thrown off.

Theodore was the first to recover.

"So wait. Who do you like now?" he asked sharply, clearly wanting a more specific answer.

They were staring at my face as if my answer would be the most important thing they had ever heard.

That was when I realized I had them exactly where I wanted them.

I mean, even after finding out that I had been involved with both of them, that I had enjoyed flirting with each of them, they were still standing there asking who I wanted to be with.

That alone had already put a crack in their egos.

Their alpha egos.

"Well, if you had asked me that before, maybe I would’ve picked one of you. But now I’ve felt the mate bond with both of you. I have memories with both of you." I glanced between them. "I don’t know."

"But you have to pick one," they insisted.

I looked up at them and shook my head in disbelief.

"Yeah, um... how about neither?"

The moment I said it, both of their eyebrows shot up. Their bodies leaned forward slightly, as if they were trying to figure out whether they had heard me correctly.