All they could get approved was a weekend for their non-human honeymoon. Not even an extended weekend. Alpha Calvin no doubt saw right through the request for what it truly was: a means of escape and maybe some mating on the forest floor. He offered them two and a half days and they accepted without hesitation. If they hung around, he might find some reason why they couldn’t run away.

Georgie went first to pack her backpack, then to raid the kitchen. Inside was an alpha, but not the one she had intended to find.

Cove was brooding over a dark cup of coffee, the steam long gone. Only one sip had been taken from what Georgie could see as she rounded the counter. It was near full.

“Morning.” She flung one of the fridges open and snatched up all that would fit in her cool box – with space for fresh milk bottles, of course.

The look he flicked to her was hard and no verbal response came. The look was his reply.

“You’re a little old to play statues,” she joked, her voice croaky around her own awkwardness. This was her mate, she shouldn’t feel like she’d just stepped onto the auditorium stage in her underpants. He was supposed to love her. Georgie swallowed the surge of hurt that flew through her at that reminder. She bumped the fridge closed with her elbow, the cool box now weighty in her hands. Good thing she had an alpha mate to carry it for her once they departed for their honeymoon. Her dreamy sweetie Casey.

She tried one last time for an amicable exchange with her other alpha mate. “Wanna reheat that in the microwave?”

Both hands were gripping his mug and the knuckles were white, there was no way he was putting all that alpha power pressure on the ceramic and it was still holding. The coffee was a prop. He was squeezing his own fingers to a ghoulish hue.

Without acceptance or refusal from him Georgie shrugged and turned away to pull just a few more bits from the cupboards. Casey could cook well with only the basics. Georgie could eat well with even the basics. A perfect pair, really. And the one turning it into a true love triad was digging a dirty look into the space between her shoulder blades. She shut off her container and kept her own eyes trained on the door. A dozen steps and she was out from under his steely stare.

“Okay, have a good day.”

It wasn’t surprising that her well wishing still didn’t rouse any words from him. Miserable git was his default act ever since he turned twenty-one. Georgie left him to it.

Upstairs, Casey was still rolling his underpants like his mother did hand towels. “Have you heard Cove?” he scoffed. “He’s been stomping about in a right huff all morning.”

“He seemed his usual moody self when I came through the kitchen.” She held up her cool box, heaving it with both hands and all her strength.

Casey took it off her with three fingers and plopped it onto the bed beside the tent roll. “Something is really up his butt today,” he said under his breath.

“Maybe I should talk to him…” And get utterly ignored again. Given the events of her birthday not a full day earlier, she could make a confident bet that his foul mood was related to her mate maturity. Surely it should be on him to explain why he was keeping their bond a secret, and why that secret had turned him into a massive grouch the last six months.

This did not appease Casey. “Good luck,” he said on a sigh. “But maybe it’s best to let him be a grumpy guts.”

Georgie stroked along Casey’s spine, feeling his shiver and basking in the smile that perked up his face when he peeked over his shoulder at her.

“Sorry, looks like it’s catching.”

“Fresh air will do you good,” Georgie cooed, falling into his side and wrapping her arms around his waist. He hooked an arm around the back of her neck and swayed them. “Are you packing anything…” She caught herself and giggled, hiding her face in his side.

His bewildered smile when she looked up only embarrassed her more. “What?” he laughed.

“I got something for my birthday… a secret present.”

Casey cocked his head.

“Missie got me some sexy stuff to wear,” she blurted, immediately diving back into hiding.

“Lingerie?!” Pawing at the pack strapped to her back, he knocked her off-balance in his desperation to find the frilly panties hidden inside. Georgie struggled and giggled and escaped by squashing herself between his legs and crawling away.

“You’ll have to wait and see!”

When she scrabbled to the door he didn’t follow, only the salacious smile clung to her.

Back in the kitchen, Cove hadn’t budged. His foul mood prickled over the skin of her shoulders. An unsettling feeling.

“What’s wrong?” She climbed a stool and pushed herself into his bubble of personal space. “Casey says you’ve been huffing and puffing around the house all day.”

Cove growled, “Wouldn’t most people?” A strained breath. He avoided her eyes. “If their soulmate was planning to leave on a trip without them?”

“You’re upset about the camping weekend?” Incredulous, Georgie drew up onto her knees. It didn’t put her at head-height with Cove still.

“You’re going to be off in the wilderness with some other alpha-”

“My soulmate,” she corrected, a confused humour tickling her lips.

Cove’s expression snapped into that of someone who had just been hit by an ungodly smell.

“Who you have refused invitations from for the last six months when it comes to our camping trips,” she reminded him.

Through gritted teeth he grunted, “It’s different now.”

“How?”

“You were ignorant to all of this… mess before.” Mess. Like being her mate was something disgusting. Something to be cleaned up and fixed. “Now that you know about both of us, choosing to still go away with him alone feels deliberate.” He settled his hard, and unfortunately handsome, gaze on her again. “Like you’re trying to get a rise out of me.”

Georgie blinked. Georgie scoffed. Georgie snapped. “You are so conceited! Not everything is about you, especially not my honeymoon, and I’m not going to change my plans for your tantrum. We always invite you and you always turn us down, that’s on you.”

“It’s different now!” he huffed. The indignant points of his eyebrows were almost childish, his frown pouty. He was insufferably endearing despite his attempts to push her away via poor personality. “Invite me.”

Georgie blanched. “So I can get rejected for the hundredth time?” She shook her head. He really was unbelievable.

“Invite me.”

“Cove.”

“Invite me unless you really are just trying to rub my nose in this shit.” She wasn’t. She really, truly, wasn’t.

Georgie sighed. “Would you like to come camping with us?”

“Yes.” He stood, bumping his seat back with his knees. “I’ll see you at the door with my pack.”

Georgie watched him stride out, jaw hanging and mind reeling as to how she was supposed to explain to her mate – her other mate – that his brother was now coming on their honeymoon.

It was a silly human tradition anyway, she told herself in consolation.

―

It wasn’t okay. Georgie could feel that it wasn’t. Casey, again, assured her that it was. If this was what she wanted, if Cove had agreed to come after so long, it was okay. Her soulmate was too kind and too agreeable and under the surface he was bristling with irritation that Georgie now had a super-sense for. He acted well, smile soft, no anger directed at her. Georgie hovered in front of him, desperate to say something soothing.

“Come on, let’s go make the most of it.” He took her hand and nodded them out of his bedroom, a half-lidded look of love glowing down at her.

Oh, the guilt. Georgie swallowed back her queasiness and did her best to reflect his affection in her own face. He was too kind, painfully and sickeningly kind.

Out front, Cove was loitering. At the sight of him, Casey let some of his aggravation show. It was ignored by his mirror image. Georgie took the first step away from the stoop that shaded the doorway and set them off on their journey into the woods. Fresh air to blow the cobwebs away could only help… hopefully...

A few hours into their walk, Casey suddenly took an intense interest in Cove’s luggage. Georgie caught him looking over his brother, then away, then checking him again. She tried to catch his eye and tilt her head in question, but he had returned to watching the distant forest unfold again.

Finally, he broke the leaf-muffled quiet. “Where’s your tent?”

“Hm?”

“Your tent, Cove.”

Cove frowned. “On your back.”

“You didn’t think to bring your own?”

“I’ve never brought the tent, you always brought it.” To Georgie, Cove’s playing of the fool wasn’t particularly convincing. Maybe that was the soulmate bond at work. “I packed tarp and pillows like always.” Always? Georgie restrained a sulky sniff.

Casey pursed his lips. Patience was not usually a problem for him. Yet, Georgie could sense his last straw was being pulled upon. “Did you not think that’s a bit awkward now?”

“Why?”

“Georgie’s my mate,” Casey reminded him curtly.

A flared temper shot fire from Cove’s tongue. “Do you have a quota for how many times a day you have to announce it?”

Casey softened. “I’m not trying to boast, Cove.” He loped a little closer to him as they walked, as though they were taking a second to talk somewhere private, just the two of them. “I’m just happy. And I’d be happy for you if it were the other way round. Can you just try and see it from my side?”

Cove sighed quietly.

“No one knows like us how full dad’s keeping our time. If I can get a few days with my mate, I don’t want my brother in the bed.”

With reluctance he made sure they both witnessed, Cove replied, “Sure. But it’s too late now so you’ll have to put up with me.”

There was nothing more to say. Nothing more that Casey could try to reason with him, at least as far as Georgie could tell, so she decided to distract by pointing out a creepy-looking mushroom and asking what they saw in the strange pattern on its cap. Casey declared it to be fangs, Georgie argued it was daggers, Cove didn’t join in.

Over half the day had drifted by in the sky by the time they reached their chosen camp. Plenty of tree cover and far from the lake since it was so overcast. It had already drizzled in the early hours, wetting patches of mud that weren’t so lucky as to be canopied by tree branch. Unlike some of their other special spots, this one had little in the way of stored stuff. Over the years, they’d left their mark, though. The twins pitched and Georgie opted for a dawdle nearby in hopes of finding something dry enough to go into her journal, and to escape the pressurised atmosphere between her soulmates.

They could work things out better without her watch. Two halves of the same soul, it was impossible they could fall out for good. Did she believe that or did she have to believe it so as not to cave under her worry for them? She blew the thought away with a long out-breath and forced her focus to picking her way through the slightly soggy undergrowth.