He Wouldn’t Marry a ‘Widow’ So I Left Him and His Brother Both Chapter 01

He Wouldn’t Marry a ‘Widow’ So I Left Him and His Brother Both Chapter 01

Clan law forbade a widowed female from remaining without a bonded mate for more than three years. Once those three years were up, the clan would assign her a new male mate.

For three full years, I had dropped hint after hint that I wanted Ronan to take me as his bonded mate. Yet every time he left my bed, he acted as though nothing had happened and never once brought it up.

Then, with only one day left before my three-year deadline, panic drove me to his home. Even if it ended in an ugly confrontation, I needed an answer.

Instead, I found a shifter who looked exactly like him.

“Ronan, Winter’s almost at the end of her three years. Are you really not going to take her as your bonded mate? You’re just going to let some other male have her?”

Ronan shot him a dismissive look. “Why would I take a widowed female as my bonded mate? If you want her, go ahead.”

“Forget that for a second. When it was your turn with her, couldn’t you have been gentler? You wore her out so badly that I barely got to enjoy myself last night.”

The other shifter clicked his tongue in annoyance. “You’re one to talk. You do the same thing.”

All the color drained from my face, and I turned and ran home.

My eyes burned as I looked at my little cub, who was still too young to understand any of it. I had thought Rory and I were finally going to have a home, but it had all been wishful thinking.

To keep the clan from handing me over to some male shifter I had never met, I spent every last coin I had to buy passage with a trading caravan.

I was never coming back here.

…

“These coins will only get you as far as the Far North. Any farther, and you’ll have to pay more.”

The old shifter had a pipe clenched between his teeth as he counted the coins in his hand. When he finished, he looked me over.

“Traveling with us doesn’t guarantee your safety.”

“And the Far North isn’t just freezing. The shifters up there don’t take kindly to outsiders.”

“You’re a female traveling with a cub in tow. Are you sure about this?”

I nodded without hesitation, though a bitter smile tugged at my lips.

“That’s fine. Just take us as far as my money will cover.”

“All right. The caravan leaves tonight, and we won’t wait for anyone who’s late.”

After thanking him, I trudged home, exhausted.

The moment I opened the door, I saw a tall shifter standing with his back to me. He was smiling as he entertained Rory with a little grasshopper woven from straw.

At the sound of the door, Rory reluctantly tore her gaze away from the grasshopper. The instant she saw me, she waved her arms and held them out to be picked up.

“Mama!”

At the sound of her voice, the shifter turned around as well. A trace of laughter still lingered in his slightly upturned eyes.

“Winter? Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“And you left Rory here all by herself.”

I said nothing. I only stared at the smiling face identical to Ronan’s, lost in thought.

Now that I looked closely, they really were different.

Ronan was always lazy and irritable, while Callum was much more open and easygoing. His eyes turned down a little more at the corners, and his smile was warmer.

Other than their faces, they had almost nothing in common.

How had it taken me all these years to see that?

A bitter ache rose in my throat.

I opened my arms to Rory. “Rory, come here.”

She immediately wriggled free of Callum’s arm and threw herself into my embrace. Then she excitedly held up the straw grasshopper for me to see.

“Mama, Ronan gave this to me.”

“I love it!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she glanced at me nervously.

Then she asked in a small voice, “Mama, when is Ronan going to be my papa?”

“Toby next door said that if you don’t become bonded mates with Ronan soon, the clan chief will find another male shifter to be my papa…”

I pressed my lips together and gently stroked her cheek.

“You like Ronan that much?”

When my little cub nodded without hesitation, my lashes trembled. I looked toward the shifter who was still standing there and steeled myself, ready to lay everything out in the open.

“Winter, I came because there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Callum’s expression suddenly turned serious.

I froze for a moment as my heart skipped a beat.

Rory glanced back and forth between us, then obediently let go of my waist and pattered into the back room. The curtain dropped back into place behind her.

I instinctively clenched a fistful of fabric, my palm damp with sweat.

Then Callum finally spoke.

“Winter, I’ve thought it over. I think we should stop seeing each other.”