Pandemonium by R.E. Butler

Chapter Two

Rafe Fox grabbed a few fries from his plate and swiped them through the puddle of ketchup before bringing them to his mouth. They were just outside Kedrick, and two hours from taking the stage at Tails for their audition. Getting a gig as the house band would mean they could finally settle down and stop roaming like nomads. And hopefully find their heart-match.

“Can I get you guys anything else?” the human female asked as she stopped at their table. She gave Rafe doe-eyes, batting her lashes at him in what he thought was probably a seductive way except his bear was snoozing in his head.

“That chocolate cake in the case,” Maverick, their bass guitarist, said.

“Sure, a piece of cake, no problem.”

“No, the whole thing,” Maverick said.

Her eyes went comically large. “That’s like…six pieces.”

Maverick shrugged. “I’m still hungry.”

Her gaze went to the mound of empty plates on the table. Grizzlies could really put food away, especially males.

She began to clear the plates and said, “I’ll be right back with your cake.”

“Thanks,” Rafe said. “Nothing for the rest of us, but the check when you have a minute.”

He took a drink of sweet tea and settled back in the booth. His brother, Rhaider, was seated next to him and on his tablet, working on an arrangement for a new song on a music app. Across from them were Maverick and Rebel. The four had left their grizzly clan a year ago. Rebel’s father was the alpha of their clan, and very old-fashioned. He expected grizzly males to go to a match-maker and find their mate when they turned eighteen so they could get a family started. Rafe and Rhaider had decided when they were teens that they wanted to share a mate. They’d come to that conclusion when they’d both liked the same female but hadn’t been jealous of each other. They’d talked about how they could approach the situation and had been excited to consider what sharing a female would be like. While she hadn’t been interested in dating two males at the same time, they’d decided that somewhere out there was a female who was perfect for both of them to share.

Unfortunately, two males sharing one female was fairly unheard of. Match-makers didn’t match trios…it just wasn’t done.

At their alpha’s insistence, they’d gone to the local match-maker, who refused to even consider matching them with one female. They were fortunate that just going to the match-maker had been enough to get the alpha off their back. They decided that their heart-match would have to be the same female because of their desire to share one. It felt like it was ingrained in them, as if they were destined to share the same female.

When the alpha suddenly decided a year earlier that he was no longer okay with them remaining unmated after such a long time, they’d known it was time to leave. The alpha had suggested that they could find females to bear young with and remain unmated, reminding them he believed it was every bear’s duty to have offspring. Rafe and Rhaider had vehemently opposed that. Bears getting together for the sole purpose of having kids together was why he and his brother had different fathers who they’d never even met. He couldn’t imagine having a cub with a female and then never even knowing anything about his own child, and Rhaider felt the same way.

He hadn’t liked leaving his mom, and neither had Rhaider, but ultimately, she’d understood that they didn’t want to go into an arranged mating and wanted to follow their hearts and strike out on their own. Rebel and Maverick didn’t want to be forced into matings either—and didn’t want to break up the band—so they’d left too.

“You ever wonder why Mom didn’t see a match-maker?” Rafe asked.

Rhaider looked up from the tablet. “I always figured if she wanted to be mated that she would’ve done it. I wondered if she stayed unmated because of us. Like maybe she wouldn’t be able to be matched because she’d had two cubs with other males.”

“Would you really want to mate a female and raise cubs she had with other males?” Maverick asked.

Rafe let that roll around in his head. “If she was our heart-match, then we’d accept her, cubs and all.”

Rebel hummed. “That’s the difference between waiting for the right female and going to a match-maker. You two are banking on your bears finding your heart-match and feeling connected to her no matter her past. Getting matched up through an arrangement means the feelings have to grow through time. I think most males would be put off by an arranged mating with a female with cubs, particularly if they were still living with her at home.”

“That’s a good point,” Rafe said.

“Grizzlies from our parents’ generation are more traditional,” Rebel said. “They don’t see the benefit of waiting for a heart-match. My dad wanted to increase the size of the clan so he heavily encouraged everyone to have cubs with anyone they could. He could’ve encouraged the unmated females to go to the match-maker, but he was looking for volume of offspring, not getting his people mated. Now our clan is one of the biggest in the States, but your mom isn’t alone in being unmated after such a long time.”

“As long as Mom’s happy, it doesn’t matter if she’s mated or not,” Rhaider said. He closed the music app and opened the internet browser. “We should get on the way as soon as Reb finishes the cake.”

As if on cue, the waitress appeared with the cake and a fork. She set the cake and utensil down, alongside the check. Rafe handed the check back to her with a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Rhaider found the bar’s website and poked around on it. “We know we’re meeting with one of the co-owners, but we don’t know who the other owner is and the website doesn’t list them by name.”

Rafe leaned over and looked at the screen. The contact page listed a mailing address that was the bar’s physical location, a phone number which belonged to the bar manager, Titus, and an email address.

“It’s called Tails,” Maverick said, sticking his fork into a wedge of cake.

“Hey!” Rebel said. “You didn’t ask for cake, thief, I did.”

“You’re going to have a ripping headache if you eat every piece of cake yourself,” Maverick said.

“Fine, you can have one, but you know I like to load up on sugar before a gig.”

Maverick shook his head and pulled the plate closer. Both bears had a sweet tooth. Rafe thought there was probably something to that, with natural bears liking honey, but he personally wasn’t a sweets person and neither was his brother. Give him a big old grilled steak and he was in heaven.

He watched his brother click around on the bar’s website, and then switch over to the satellite image of the town. Kedrick was mostly lion. There was a B&B, which was where they were staying for the night. If they ended up with the permanent bar gig, they’d have to find a place to stay, and he wasn’t sure if the lions would let them stay in town.

“I’ll start looking for a place to rent outside of Kedrick tomorrow, assuming we get the gig,” Rhaider said, clearing the screen and turning off the tablet.

“Sounds good. Hopefully we do,” Rafe said. He eyed the way Rebel was shoveling the cake into his mouth like he thought it could disappear at any moment. “As soon as he’s finished, we can get on the way.”

“Fingers crossed,” Rhaider said.

“Every single one of them,” Maverick added.