Prowling Their Mate

by Tamsin Baker

  Brandon’s face contorted and turned bright red. “Are you kidding me? You think I’d fuck a vomiting, half-conscious woman?”

  He looked truly perturbed by the idea, his face twisting into a grotesque mask.

  I turned away to hide my smile. The man might swear like a sailor, but I couldn’t fault his moral compass on this one.

  “Excuse me.”

  I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

  For fuck’s sake, Belle!

  I let out a sigh that should have belonged to our mother. But both of our parents were long gone and buried, so Belle was my responsibility and it was time to get my sister cleaned up. Again.

  Yuck. Not a pleasant task, but I’d certainly dealt with worse.

  I had to get her home and ready to begin her new life.

  Belle was not missing out on this opportunity for future study, and I would make sure she got everything in life she deserved.

  Chapter Two

  Brandon

  My abs were quivering like I’d just run ten miles. What the hell was wrong with my body? My heart was pounding, my hands were shaking, and I could swear my balls had never felt so tight.

  “Who the hell is she?” I demanded of my brother.

  Tyler tightened his grip on the kitchen counter top and growled like the wild animal that was trapped inside both of us.

  “Hey. Stop it!” I stepped away from my brother’s vibrating figure and opened the fridge, pulling out two cold beers. “What’s wrong with you?”

  My brother was smaller than I was, in both our human form and our lion. And as such, I was usually the more aggressive and dominant of the two of us.

  But in this moment, fear pricked up my spine. I’d never heard my brother make that noise before.

  “I...can’t...” Tyler dropped his head and stretched back, his brown hair beginning to lighten and change into the characteristically golden fur of the Canadian Rockies mountain lion.

  Shit!

  “No! Ty, pull yourself together.”

  Tyler’s head shot up, his eyes already changed to tawny yellow and his nose beginning to morph into the face of the lion.

  Shit. It was already too late. Tyler’s human body was gone and in the pool of his clothes stood his lion instead.

  “Go. Quick.”

  Tyler took off through the house and I raced after him. Watching him go, even in this erratic state, I still felt an incredible lightness of heart as I watched my brother nudge open the unlocked screen door with his head and leap out.

  He disappeared into the dark and I walked back to the kitchen, picked up Ty’s clothes and threw them down the laundry chute.

  The girls still hadn’t come out of the bathroom, so I took a swig of beer, the cold hops relieving some of the dryness in my mouth and throat.

  I think we’ve found her.

  I sympathized with my brother. I knew what had caused Tyler’s shift, even if he hadn’t been able to articulate it.

  I had pretty strong control over my lion, and yet the shifter inside me was prowling. Pacing along with the wild emotions surging through me.

  I hadn’t kissed her yet, so I couldn’t be sure, but I was beginning to believe my father may have been telling the truth about our destiny.

  Part of me had always hoped our father would be wrong. How could there be just one woman destined for both of us? And if we were part of some grand Fated plan, it didn’t mean I had to just fall into line. I did have some say in how I lived my life. I had always been totally against being told what to do and with whom to mate.

  But the touch of her skin against mine had been nothing short of brilliant.

  I ran my hand through my hair and shook my head.

  She was nothing like the woman I had expected, let alone what I normally was attracted to. Physically, she wasn’t thin or dressed to impress, and I could see the keen intelligence in her eyes. She wouldn’t be easy to talk around to my way of things.

  Not at all.

  I glanced towards the back door and sighed. Tyler losing control like that wasn’t a good thing. I’d learned how to control my lion during my teenage years, letting it rise and fall enough times to truly accept the shifter as part of myself. Tyler hadn’t.

  He’d fought our natural form every step of the way.

  “Brandon?” Laura’s smooth, sensual voice called out to me and I turned towards her like so many men before me, responding to the call of a siren.

  The hairs on my arms prickled as our gazes met. Damn, she had a beautiful face.

  “Can you help me get Belle into my car?”

  I nodded and set my drink down on the kitchen table, not trusting myself to speak. I wasn’t sure words would come out. So I stayed mute and walked forward, swinging the tiny blonde up into my arms.

  I couldn’t help the instant comparison of the two sisters that flashed through my mind.

  Belle was a Barbie doll. Skinny, pretty, and incredibly common. I’d talked to her for half an hour at most, like I always did when I spoke to these types of women.

  I was a builder, not an architect like my brother, yet I still struggled to engage with airhead women. Dumbing down every sentence while flirting to keep them interested was not my strong suit. I generally ended up bored out of my brain, but at least they agreed to come home with me.

  I hated sleeping alone and my sex drive had hit an all-time high recently. If that was on account of finding her, then she’d better be able to handle me.

  Laura walked ahead of us, her lush ass swinging seductively in her jeans. Okay, I had to admit it... Laura was pretty sexy. Beautiful, even. Just not in a currently popular way.

  She had magnificent green eyes without a hint of makeup distracting from them and delicious-looking skin. I didn’t usually go for overly fleshy women, but she had perfect proportions. Her huge, bouncing breasts were just begging to be exposed to the cool air and sucked.

  Blood flowed straight to my cock, arousal sweeping through me as I imagined what Laura would feel like beneath me.

  Perfect, probably.

  “Thanks for this,” she said as we walked down the stairs and she opened the car door for me.

  I deposited Belle onto the seat, who was groaning and burping like a baby. She smelled like vomit too. Great.

  “I’ll strap her in.”

  I stepped back to allow Laura to slide by me and got a whiff of her incredible scent. Honeysuckle and daisies—fresh, earthy, and clean. I wanted to roll in the smell, close my eyes, and get lost in it.

  Fuck...move away now!

  The saving grace thought made me stagger away as my lion rose to the surface. There was pressure in my rib cage and a need to fall away into the abyss, allowing my cat to roam. He was calling for his mate, needing to claim Laura as his own.

  I pushed my lion down with a small struggle, physically clenching my abdominals and exhaling deeply to contain him.

  As I watched the woman my lion believed to be my woman ready herself to leave, I realized I had to stop her. I couldn’t just let her go.

  “Where do you live?”

  Laura righted Belle up in her seat, kissed her forehead like a mother would, and shut the door. My lion purred happily inside me at the show of maternal instincts within Laura as she moved around to her side of the relatively new car.

  Obviously, Laura wasn’t a student like Belle.

  “Why?” Laura asked, her elegant eyebrow quirking up.

  Shit... why, why, why?

  “Ah...I’ll need to check on Belle tomorrow.”

  Yes. Good one.

  As Laura’s mouth turned down, I realized using Belle probably wasn’t the best way to stay in touch with the older sister.

  “You didn’t get her number?”

  I shook my head. More than likely I wouldn’t have gotten around to asking for it, even if I had bedded her.

  “I probably shouldn’t help you here—but you know what—who am I to stand in the way of true love?” Her voice dripped with sarca
sm and I worked hard not to let the blush spread across my face.

  True love. Yeah, right.

  “What’s your number?”

  I recited my cell number and she pressed several buttons on her phone.

  “There. Done.”

  Laura gave me a mocking wave and slid into her car before driving away.

  Pride blossomed in my chest as my lion rose to the surface once again. She was strong and fiercely protective. Exactly as a mate should be.

  I held it together by holding my breath and pressing down on my diaphragm until the car disappeared, then I bolted inside. I had to join my brother and shift too. My skin burned and my groin was on fire.

  I stripped as quickly as possible and roared as my body transformed.

  A contented rumble bubbled inside my chest as I stretched within my new body then ran out the door as fast as I could. When I reached the lake, I inhaled my twin’s scent. Tyler had been here recently.

  I needed to track him down. We both needed to spend the night sorting out our own demons.

  Tyler would accept our fate with an open heart. I knew that as surely as I knew my blood was red. My twin had always embraced our father’s prediction of our Fated mate, but I had never been so sure if it was fact or fiction.

  I’d always wondered if our father was just passing down a story, or if it would happen no matter what I did?

  If Laura was the one for us, how was she going to be enough for us both? Even when I gave some woman a chance at a semi-relationship, within a couple of nights I was bored stupid. And sexually, they couldn’t keep up with my hunger. I would end up frustrated and feeling more alone than ever

  I turned around and took a slower pace back around to the house, my body no longer burning in its need for freedom.

  This woman—Laura—was going to change everything.

  Instead of peace or happiness, inside me was restless fear, and I hated being helpless against it. My future was full of more waiting, and unfortunately I could think of no other way out of this mess than to see how it went with Laura.

  If we developed some sort of ménage mating, then I could always keep my one-night stands on the side if I needed to. Surely Laura wouldn’t care if I was discreet?

  It didn’t matter what my father had said, no destiny could be better than the freedom I had now.

  And no woman was going to keep me starving when there was a plethora of available females out there.

  TYLER.

  I woke with a terrible hangover, my head pounding and my body aching from the long-overdue run last night. The beers hadn’t helped my cause, either.

  “For crying out loud,” I groaned as I rolled onto my back in bed and squeezed my palms against the sides of my head.

  It sounded like someone was ringing a gong in there.

  “Morning!” my stupid brother called out as he walked through my bedroom door, already showered and dressed.

  “God, Brandon! How are you so fucking chirpy?”

  Brandon chuckled and handed me a glass of water with a couple of painkillers.

  “Practice.”

  That’d be right.

  I forced myself to sit up, my head spinning faster with the change of altitude.

  “Thanks.” I swallowed the white pills down with a splash of water, relishing the feel of the cool liquid sliding down my dry throat.

  “I’m going to call Laura this morning. You want in?”

  The hairs on my neck prickled and I placed my glass down on the nightstand.

  I’d pushed most thoughts of last night from my mind, but Brandon’s comment brought it all rushing back.

  Was it really possible?

  Had we found our mate?

  “You were attracted to Laura too?”

  Brandon crossed his meaty arms over his chest, then nodded once. “Yeah, I think so. I mean...she’s not exactly my type...”

  I groaned, frustration clawing at my gut. I knew Brandon was gonna say that. “Yeah, I know that. But you feel it too, don’t you? She’s our mate. Right?”

  Brandon dropped his arms down and began to pace. “I always thought our woman would be a shifter too.”

  I nodded slowly, relieved to find my headache was disappearing. “Yeah, but we looked at them all years ago.”

  And we had. Following our parents urging, we’d dated most of the female mountain lion shifters and found nothing enthralling about any of them.

  We both knew it would be so much easier if our mate had been a shifter too. Someone we didn’t have to introduce... everything to.

  Now, we had to get Laura used to the idea of us both wanting her, and the fact that we turned into animals whenever we wanted to. Not that I’d had much experience with it, but from what I understood, it wasn’t an easy thing for a human to understand... or accept.

  “So, what’s the plan then?”

  I looked up and saw a shadow of confusion cross Brandon’s face. He was definitely not one to think through something before he did it.

  “What do you mean?” Brandon cocked his head and stopped pacing.

  I swung my legs off the bed, not liking the dizzy sensation swirling around my brain. “I mean, how are you planning on getting her to agree to be our mate? She’s not going to just move in and accept two of us, is she?”

  Brandon frowned, his handsome face wrinkling. “Why not?”

  I laughed without mirth and got to my feet. “I’ll get dressed. Don’t call her before I come out.”

  Brandon opened his mouth to retort and I let loose a little growl.

  Whoa. Those noises are way too easy to make now.

  Brandon’s eyes widened before he turned and headed back to the living room.

  I showered quickly and dressed, doubt and fear filling my mind.

  How the hell were we going to convince some intelligent human woman that she had to love both of us? Brandon and I were like night and day. Not many women ever truly liked both of us.

  In fact, I was yet to meet a single one.

  “Big brother, do you have her number?” I called out as I walked into our recently renovated kitchen.

  Brandon pushed his cell across the countertop. “Yeah. She messaged me Belle’s number last night, so I have hers, too.”

  I was impressed. Smartest thing Brandon had done in years. “So, how are we going to get her to start seeing us?”

  Brandon shrugged and I rolled my shoulders back. We needed to be smart about this. The rest of our lives depended on it.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, my brain racing with ideas. “We don’t even know her last name or where she lives. How ‘bout you call to ask about Belle and if you get the opportunity, invite Laura here for dinner... to say thanks.”

  “Thanks for what, exactly?” Brandon asked, his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion.

  I clenched my teeth and used all the patience I’d accumulated over the years to deal with my brother. “Thank her for coming here to get her sister. Otherwise, you would have had to look after her.”

  “Oh, yeah. Great idea!” Brandon grabbed at the phone and dialed Laura’s number.

  “Put it on speaker.” I pointed to the cell on the counter and Brandon did, transferring it to loudspeaker and setting the phone down in front of him.

  Her cell didn’t ring, but instead went straight to voicemail.

  “Hello, you’ve reached Laura Carver.”

  I shivered as her voice filled the cavernous space.

  “This is Dr. Carver. Please leave a message. If this is after regular office hours and your pet is having a medical emergency, please call our emergency service at (587)333-1200 and we will be paged.”

  Brandon pressed the red button to end the call and looked up at me slowly, his blue eyes filled with mischief. “She’s a... vet?”

  A moment of silence passed between us, then we burst out laughing.

  Oh my God... of all the things she could be... it had to be an animal doctor.

  “Hope she likes big cats.”
I said, before chuckling again.

  I collapsed onto one of the kitchen stools, holding my aching side with one hand. Just what our family of lion shifters needed—a vet.

  “Mom’ll be thrilled,” Brandon chortled as he walked to the fridge and grabbed the juice.

  “She’ll be intelligent, too.” I mused, pleased by this turn of events. I’d always wanted a mate I could talk to, share concepts with. But with Brandon more impressed by looks than smarts, I’d been worried that our mate would be a little on the dumb side.

  Like Laura’s sister, Belle.

  “Yeah...” Brandon said, his enthusiasm lacking at this turn of events.

  “It’ll be fine.” I said as reassuringly as I could, then jumped to my feet and headed toward the study. “I’m gonna to search the internet for a veterinarian named Laura Carver and see what I find.”

  Brandon made a grunting noise and I continued on my quest for knowledge about our new mate.

  I was an architect and Brandon was a builder.

  We were both successful in our own right, and hard-working. But when it came to the brains versus brawn debate, it was pretty obvious who was the mastermind of this operation.

  Chapter Three

  Brandon

  I cooked some bacon and eggs, shuffling some onto a plate for Tyler in case he was hungry. We were so used to looking after ourselves. What would it be like when a chick moved in?

  “I found her!” Tyler cried as he walked back into the kitchen, waving a piece of paper in his hand triumphantly.

  “Where?” I asked. Not that I had a lot of interest at this point. Laura didn’t sound like a mate of mine. Tyler’s—yes. Me, not so much.

  I brought our breakfast plates to the table and sat down and grabbed my coffee mug.

  “Hinton. About thirty minutes away. She works in a small vet clinic there. Maybe one of us could surprise her at work?”

  I wasn’t sure I should be the one doing the wooing in this situation. Tyler was much more impressive on paper than me, and even though he was the less physically imposing of us, he still had a decent body.

  “Maybe you should go see her, Ty. I mean, she’s obviously pretty clever, and I’m not sure how much she’s gonna love me when she remembers that I picked up her sister last night.”