It took me a moment to figure out exactly what that noise was outside my window. I rolled over and shoved the pillow on top of my head and tried not to scrammed at the top of my lungs.
Hiring that drumming yoga teacher for early morning yoga classes at our location of Ursa Ranch was a terrible idea, especially given the fact that she held her classes for the tourists and locals in the empty field. On the other side of that empty field was the giant log cabin that my biological brothers and I lived in since we had reconnected. We thought it was just far enough away from the ranch to have tourists not bother us, but close enough that we could walk to work.
Obviously not.
I tried to listen to the rest of the house to see if anyone else was awake. Surely I couldn’t be the only one who was bothered by this stupid yoga class.
I got up and headed towards the living room to turn on the coffee maker. Being a bear shifter did not mean I could face the morning without coffee.
As I turned on the machine, my brother Johnathan came down the stairs.
“Whose idea was the yoga drumming thing?” he asked. “We have to fire her.”
“It was Jacob’s idea,” I replied. “Without a doubt.”
“You two don’t get it,” Jacob said as he joined us in the kitchen. “I've put it up on the website as an add-on to people’s packages. That yoga class is getting us $5,000 a week. Something about sunrise yoga with horses surrounding you makes it a better workout.”
“Well, maybe she can find a better place to work out,” I said. “Because it’s ridiculous. Money into the corporate account is not worth my early morning wake-ups.”
“You guys are wimps,” Jacob said as he stole the first giant cup of coffee. I sighed and then reached for the second one. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
“It’s Friday,” I said. “And if we don’t not work for fifty seconds tonight, I’m going to lose my mind.”
“Ah, a man after my own heart,” Johnathan said. “I am all for working hard, but I can’t seem to make myself work on Fridays.”
“I do support this plan,” Jacob said with a grin, as he sipped his coffee. “But I think that the problem with that is that we have a video call with the rest of the locations at like five.”
“Whose idea is that?” I asked, and Jacob grinned.
“Braden’s,” he said, referencing one of his many adopted brothers. “Of course. You know how he is. He likes to control us every second, even during our weekends.”
“I just want to get some tail,” Jonathan said, and I smirked.
“Some tail?” I asked. “You want to bring a wolf shifter girl home or something?”
“Uh, no,” he said with a head shake. “Ew.”
“I wonder what would happen if we did,” Jacob mused. “There aren’t a lot of hybrid shifter relationships out there, are there?”
“No,” I replied. “And there's a reason for that. Hybrid shifters are basically shunned by the councils. They are thinking of passing a law that says they are not allowed.”
“What if it’s an accident?” Jonathan asked. “You know, it just happens?”
“I think what they are trying to say is don't run around claiming that your mate is a wolf shifter when you are a bear because you are probably lying,” I replied. Johnathan smirked again. He managed to find the sarcastic humor in everything. Sometimes, I admired him for that, and other times, I thought he was rather rude. What can I say? As triplets, we couldn’t always get along.
“Yeah, but it’s not up to them to determine whether or not we find mates,” he said. “Like...what if they say no, that’s not your mate, and then it is, and we throw ourselves off a cliff from not being with them?”
“That’s a rather far leap,” Jacob said. “Given that neither of us has ever experienced what having a mate is like.”
“To be honest,” I said, “I’m starting to think that it doesn’t exist. I mean, yes, I know that everyone else has found their mate, and they are happy and blah blah blah…but like...what if it’s just they were tired of being alone and they settled down with the first person that they met?”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Jacob said. “I know you two didn't grow up with the others...but they...they wouldn’t have settled down unless they thought it was right for them.”