22. Gideon

Dante and I had a really long conversation about our move. It was necessary. That wasn’t a question. But even though Dante had been in that apartment longer than Kai, it represented stability to Kai in a way it didn’t—couldn’t—for us.

Kai had been through so much in coming here. His entire world had literally been yanked out from under him as he was thrust into ours. He was still learning about his new life and the differences between here and his old home. I couldn’t pretend to be sad that it happened. It was fate bringing me my mate, but I did hate that it often caused him stress.

And now, here he was, very pregnant, and we were asking him to accept some big changes again. Moving was a big deal for anyone. You took the place that you had felt safe in and bid it farewell, starting over in a new place with new quirks and new neighbors. And we were talking about doing it while he was pregnant. Just because it was necessary didn’t mean that it didn’t suck. It did. Big time.

Dante and I made a pact that we would wait until we found something absolutely perfect, something we knew that Kai loved completely, before making any decision. We refused to settle. And if that meant we were in tight quarters until after the baby came, then so be it. That was how it was going to be.

We wanted what was best for our mate, and yanking him from the place he felt most secure and tossing him into all-new surroundings he wasn’t in love with wasn’t going to happen. Not on our watch.

The day had come that the three of us had to head out and look at potential places. When we arrived, the renter’s agent had bad news for us.

“Nothing on your list is available any longer.” She held a stack of papers in her hands. “I did make up a potential new list.”

“What do you mean none of them are available? Why didn’t you call us?” Kai was pissed, and I didn’t blame him. Why set up an appointment if you were going to bait-and-switch us like this?

“Because you are my first appointment today, and when I checked the site this morning, all of yesterday’s pendings populated, and sadly, that included all of your places. The market is moving very quickly at the moment. If you want a place, there is no dawdling.”

I hated the idea of that. This was a life-altering decision. This wasn’t something to just spontaneously jump into. Signing a lease because you had a fear of missing out would only lead to regret. I understood why she said what she did. It was her job to say it like it was. Sure, there was a component of her wanting to make money, but I detected no lies. If we waited too long to decide to look at something, we might not be able to. That was the sad reality of it.

She led us to her desk, and we went over some paperwork, including making her officially our renter’s agent and listening to our legal rights as potential renters. She also told us what to expect during this process and let us see the listings for the places she was taking us to.

A few of them required additional flood insurance on top of rental insurance, which meant we didn’t want any part of them. Not only was the insurance over-the-top expensive, but it meant that there had been flooding in the recent past. None of us were up for that.

One of them had a community association to answer to, and Dante hard passed that before I was able to. We didn’t want someone telling us what color our curtains could be or which plants were suitable to have in our flower boxes. We also didn’t want the added fees, not with rent so high already.

Very quickly, we whittled the pile of listings down to only a few places, and they were fine, nothing great. I did have to give it to our renter’s agent; even though not all of the price points were exactly where we wanted them, all of the places had most of what we asked for. She wasn’t asking us to sacrifice a bedroom or a bathroom in order to get the type of neighborhood we wanted or a basement.

One by one, we visited the homes, and one by one, we were unimpressed. And when we got to the final place, Kai started to act weird. I couldn’t even place what that weird was. He was just off.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Yeah, why?” he replied, not meeting my eyes.

“You just feel off.” And the more I looked at him, the more worried I became.

“No, it’s fine. I’m just over this. Can we just go?” he said, turning to Dante, who nodded.

“Yeah, sure. We don’t have to do this today. Where would you like to go?” I hadn’t missed that he didn’t ask to go home. He asked to go. They were two different things.

He leaned his head against my chest. “Maybe you could take me to your mountain?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

The three of us said goodbye to the realtor, promised her we’d call and set up another appointment, and we drove out to where my bear liked to roam.

“It’s beautiful here.” Dante stared out the side window as I drove up the dirt road to where I planned to park.

“It’s my bear’s favorite place. In the summer, the water gets warm enough to swim in our skin, but today, it is fur-only weather.”

“We can swim another time.” Kai reached up and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Today, I just want to snuggle your beasts. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Dante answered for us. “Our animals would love that.”

After we reached the clearing, Dante shifted into his wolf first. He was absolutely stunning. I took my fur next, watching Kai’s face as I did. I was large—extremely large, and I didn’t want to frighten him. In his eyes, I saw anything but fear.

Kai hugged us both, telling Dante’s wolf he missed him and my bear that he was even more stunning than he had imagined. My bear was overflowing with joy.

If only Kai was, too.