by Eve Langlais
When she came, her back arched and her pelvic muscles clenched. He’d lost his grip on her breast and went for her mouth, his kiss hot and possessive.
Her body throbbed in sated orgasmic bliss. He kept stroking her, drawing out the climax, stoking it and building it up.
When he positioned himself over her, she was ready. More than ready.
Her hands went to her pants to lower them, only he vaulted off her, suddenly bristling with tension.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Stay here.” He didn’t bother to add any layers or even his shoes. He stalked out of the hut, wearing only his pants and nothing else as he shut the door behind him.
The abrupt switch from lover to guy on alert had her scrambling to put on her blouse then her coat and shoes for good measure. She stuffed the extra nuts into her pockets just in case they had to run.
Minutes ticked by. He didn’t return.
She didn’t hear a damned sound but for the crackle of the fire.
Exiting the cabin, she realized twilight encroached. No sign of Lawrence.
He wouldn’t have just left her. Not without his clothes.
Perhaps he’d gone to check a trap. Surely he wouldn’t have bothered in the midst of… She blushed to think of it, and her lower parts twitched. Since she didn’t want him to think she was looking for him, she grabbed some leaves and headed for the spot around the side. She’d discovered earlier that the woodpile made for a decent cover so that she was barely exposed.
The leaves didn’t feel as good as the snow probably would have on her hot flesh. The darkness cloaked the ground quickly as the sun dipped below the tree line.
Still no Lawrence.
She was about to go back inside when it appeared at the edge of the woods—a giant cat. Had to be a cougar. Or a mountain lion. The species didn’t matter. She would wager it was hungry.
As it stalked toward her, it was joined by two more. They circled her, gazes intent, their low rumbles a warning of what was to come.
She’d survived kidnapping and a blizzard, just had the best orgasm of her life, and was now about to get eaten by the wildlife. Wait, had they already killed Lawrence?
The thought saddened her even if she barely knew him. But she couldn’t let it affect her. Not when her life was also on the line. She wasn’t going to die easily or quietly. She bolted for the door of the cabin, and the cats pounced in the snow, one of them pulling ahead to cut her off.
Oh shit.
She backed against the cabin wall, trying to keep all three cats in view. One of them stalked forward. Trembling like a leaf in a storm, Charlotte froze. The cat shoved its face right in her crotch.
That drew a loud shriek, which led to another cat suddenly bounding into the clearing. It was a massive striped lion that roared, and then the lion was Lawrence bellowing, “What the fuck are you doing, you crazy old cats? Stop scaring my Peanut.”
“Spoilsport.”
Charlotte blinked, and yet the giant cat with its golden fur had disappeared and, in its place, stood a giant-sized woman who was very naked.
The other two felines were suddenly humans in the buff, too, and Charlotte realized she must be dreaming. Or having a nightmare. Something. Because people did not go from cat to contorting impossibly into human beings.
“Peanut.” Lawrence’s soft tone drew her attention. “Look at me. You’re okay.” He snared his pants from a bush, and began pulling them on.
“This isn’t real,” she muttered. “People aren’t cats.” The expired soup must be at fault.
“Not all people. Only shapeshifters.”
She stared at him and shook her head. “Shapeshifters don’t exist.”
“I’d say you just saw proof they do.”
“No. That wasn’t real. Cats don’t turn into people. You are not a lion. This is a dream. Nightmare. Maybe there is no cottage at all, and we never escaped the forest.” She babbled as she sidled along the edge of the cottage, looking to put some distance between her and the naked people. She was feeling overdressed and very confused. “Maybe I’m in a hypothermic coma and imagining this is happening.”
“You’re not dreaming, Peanut. I know this seems a little strange.” He finished buttoning his bottoms, but remained barefoot and chested in the snow.
“A little?” A hysterical giggled bubbled from her. “You were a giant freaking lion!”
“I’m a liger actually.”
“A what?”
“I’m what you call a hybrid. Part lion, part tiger.”
“Of course you are.” She finally found out the reason why he couldn’t hold on to a woman. He liked to pretend he was an animal. “Let me guess, these women belong to the same crazy commune.”
“Actually, we’re his aunts. And who are you?” the woman with the darkest hair, streaked in gray, demanded haughtily.
Lawrence did the introductions. “Aunties, this is Charlotte. Charlotte, Aunt Lena, Aunt Lenore, and Aunt Lacey.” He pointed them out, one by one.
“You’re related to him,” she stated.
“His father was our brother,” said the biggest of the aunts.
“Much older brother,” clarified the blondest of the three. “I’m Lacey by the way. Chubby is Lenore, and the one with the trucker mouth is Lena.”
“Rather speak how it is than be all fake,” scowled Lena, tossing her messy silver hair.
Lenore of the dark hair and light streaks, and the one to sniff her crotch, frowned. “Lawrence, is that—”
Before his aunt could finish, he threw himself at her, hugging her, which Charlotte would admit was weird. Half-naked nephews did not hug naked aunts. Or turn into lions. Had he put some mushrooms in their soup?
“You have one seriously messed-up family,” was the last thing she said before she shoved past the naked Amazon lady and into the cottage to check for drugs.
Chapter Nine
“You better start talking, and fast,” threatened Aunt Lenore.
“Nice to see you, too,” he drawled.
“Don’t you sass me.” Lena shook a finger at him, and while a human might have been uncomfortable being confronted by three naked family members, shifters didn’t have the same taboos about nudity. For them, skin was like fur, and clothes were simply a costume they had to wear to pretend they were human.
“I’m sorry. I should have said thank you for coming to my rescue. You arrived a tad quicker than expected, though.” He thought he’d have until later tonight or the following morning at least.
“Are you calling us old and slow?” Lenore took offense at a perceived slight.
Rather than clarify, he teased. “Well, you have started wearing slippers.”
“They aren’t just any slippers but unicorn flamingoes,” she stated, lifting her chin. “I like them ’cause they’re cute. That doesn’t make me old.”
“Yeah it does,” coughed Lena, earning a glare.
Lacey stepped in before it went any further. “Now isn’t the time, sisters.”
“Yeah, we should get back to our dumb-ass nephew and the fact he is not in danger but shacking up.”
“Wish we’d known that before we commandeered those snowmobiles,” grumbled Lenore.
The mention pricked Lawrence’s attention. “Are they far? I thought I heard engines.” Having the machines would make their trek back out a lot quicker.
“As if you heard us coming,” scoffed Lenore. “We parked about a mile away.”
“A mile? Not too far, then.”
“We thought you might be in trouble and snuck in,” Lacey explained.
“I was in trouble but managed to get out. On my own,” he emphasized.
“Well la di da for you. Guess we’ll just turn around and leave then.”
The aunts as one lifted their chins and acted as if they’d depart. And they would, too, if he didn’t say the magic words. “While I did escape my initial capture, I could use your help getting out of these woods.”
“What’s
that?” Lena asked. “I don’t think I heard you.”
“I said please help.”
“Not until you tell us what happened. Who is that girl?” Lenore demanded.
“I’d like to know, too. There’s something about her…” Lacey trailed off as she glanced at the cottage.
“Something strange yet familiar,” Lena added.
“You nitwits. Are ya fucking blind?” Lenore swore. Apparently, she’d seen what the others hadn’t. “She had marks on her neck.” She squinted at him. “You mated her!”
“He what?” screeched Lacey. Probably more pissed he’d done it without letting her plan a wedding first. Having only a nephew didn’t stop his aunt from starting a wedding scrapbook—over which he had little control.
Lenore nodded. “He did. He bit that girl—”
“Woman,” he corrected, earning another glare.
“Human,” was Lena’s correction, and he winced.
“Well, that would explain why she smells funny,” was Lacey’s contribution.
He thought she had the most enticing scent.
“He can’t be mated,” argued Lena. “The boy is like us, free spirited.”
“Was,” Lenore corrected. “I know what I saw.”
“Lies!” Lena hissed.
“I don’t think so. Look at his face.” His aunt Lacey didn’t look any happier, but she did soften her tone as she said, “Tell us, Roarie.” She used her pet name for him. Because apparently as a baby he had the cutest mewling roar. “Tell us what happened.”
Admit what he’d done? His aunts would probably go ballistic. Lie and they’d probably do something to his Peanut. “First promise no one gets hurts. Not me and especially not her.”
For a moment, he thought they might refuse. Lena opened her mouth, but Lacey put her hand on her arm and gave a slight shake of her head.
“We promise, no harm to the woman.” Lean scowled.
“Her name is Charlotte.” Best they start seeing her as a person right now. An important person. He already knew it wouldn’t go over well. It never did.
“Charlotte as in a wily spider who dragged you into her web?” Lena eyed the cabin suspiciously. “Did she force you to mark her?”
“Hardly,” was his dry reply. “She has no idea what the bite means.”
It was Aunt Lenore who cuffed him. “You bloody idiot! You broke the rule!” The one that said no biting unless the other person was aware of what it meant.
“There were extenuating circumstances,” he grumbled. “It happened by accident while I was under the influence of drugs.”
“You got high and bit the girl?” Lenore screeched. “I thought we taught you better.”
He ducked the cuff to the head and quickly replied, “I didn’t take the drugs on purpose. The people who abducted us injected me with something.”
That paused the waving paw of his aunt Lenore. She frowned. “Someone kidnapped you?”
“How is it we’re just hearing about it?” Lena barked.
And that was when he got his best dig. “Perhaps if you’d located me faster… Noticed when your precious nephew, like a son, went missing…”
“How were we supposed to know you weren’t tomcatting?” complained Lena.
“You keep saying you want your space,” added Lacey.
“It’s obviously because I am just not loved.” He sighed theatrically.
Lenore snorted. “You are such a little shit.”
He winked. “Learned from the best.”
“You did, which is how I know you’re stalling rather than explaining.” Lenore snapped her fingers. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”
“Rest of what? I wasn’t myself when I marked her.”
“And were you still drugged when you were f—”
“Lena!” Lacey shrieked. “Don’t you dare say it.”
“Fine, I won’t because we can all smell it. And I think someone needs to be explaining how, if the bite was an accident, he ended up in her pants.”
Admitting he couldn’t help himself would result in his aunts making more tomcat remarks. Instead, he chose to explain how he got to the cabin. “So I was kidnapped during the reception…” He embellished the story and had the men armed with cattle prods as well as guns. He went on to tell about the mysterious boss lady, her conviction he knew where a certain object could be found, and the fact they possessed the kind of drugs meant to make him talk. A drug that appeared to have unintended consequences for shifters. Was his reaction an anomaly or something they should be aware of?
Aunt Lacy appeared thoughtful. “I’ve heard of a few plants that can have that kind of blackout effect on us, but nothing as long-lived as you experienced.”
“Some kind of ultra-version then,” Lenore remarked. “We’ll have to track down what they used and let our scientists play with it.”
Because a danger to one was a danger to all.
“Anyhow, I woke up here, just before the storm hit,” he continued.
“And didn’t go far once it passed on.” Lena cocked her head.
“I thought about it, but I worried about Charlotte’s ability to withstand the cold and snow. I figured it best to wait for your arrival.”
“That explains why you had the dirtiest fire in existence burning. Could see and smell it for miles,” Lena complained.
“As if you needed help. When did the satellite pick up my location?” Because his aunts chipped and tracked him after that weeklong binge in his early twenties that had them freaking.
“We picked up your signal the afternoon after the party mostly on account we didn’t get worried until around lunchtime when you didn’t wander back to the hotel. We all know how much you hate sleeping over.” Aunt Lenore knew him well.
Sleeping over led to talk and expectations he preferred to avoid. He really was a jerk. But in his defense, he’d tried to date longer than a couple of times with the last few women he’d met. Three dates to six dates. That was the maximum he managed before he had to move on.
“If you saw it that afternoon, we were still at the farm. We must have just missed each other.”
“Not exactly,” Lacey said sourly. “Someone was in a mood and didn’t want to go on a road trip.”
“It was a ride to the middle of nowhere. Of course I didn’t want to go,” huffed Lenore.
“Given the delay,” Lacey continued, “we didn’t leave until around noon the next day, when we realized your signal had moved to some unpopulated woods.”
His brows rose. “And that was when you finally got worried? Feeling so loved.”
“Stop it. You’re fine. And aren’t you the one who keeps saying you’re a big boy?” Lena reminded. “Still, knowing you’re an idiot, we decided to check in on you and arrived at the farm just as the storm hit. Not that it would have mattered much. There was nothing to find in the ruins.”
“What ruins?”
“Place was set on fire, probably right after you left, given the ashes were fresh. Between how hard it burned and the snow, we didn’t find shit.” Lenore grimaced. She took her tracking seriously.
“And as my loving aunts, you just knew I was alive and still in trouble rather than dead.”
“I did,” Lena insisted. “But that one was sobbing like a baby.” She pointed at Lacey.
“Because some of us have hearts.”
“Pussy.”
“C—”
Lenore cleared her throat. “I reminded them that your tracker put you farther than the farmhouse.”
“But that didn’t mean he was alive,” Lacey insisted.
“Dead people don’t make smoke,” he reminded.
“Didn’t mean it was you. For all we knew, someone was having a giant barbecue. We had no idea who lit that fire until we got close.” Lacey clasped her hands, her worry obvious.
Lena shook her head. “Still can’t believe you’d mark your position in such an obvious way. You had to know we’d find you without it.”
“Charlotte was co
ld,” he explained.
Three sets of eyes stared him down, but it was Lenore who softly said, “And? If you mated her by accident, then letting her succumb to the elements would have been an easy choice.”
Easy yes, but not an option, and rather than explain that, he changed the subject. “Where did you manage to rent sleds?”
“We didn’t exactly rent them,” Lena admitted.
“Meaning you stole them.” Lawrence sighed. “What have I told you?”
The scowl on Lena’s face went well with her sighed, “We should ask first.”
“Exactly, because people tend to be happier if you give them money rather than just taking their stuff.”
“Sharing is caring,” Lena huffed. “And we only need them for a few hours. They should be happy they’re doing us a favor.”
“Of course, they should.” He wanted to bang his head on a wall. His aunts truly lived in their own world.
“Don’t let him chastise us,” Lenore barked. “He’s the one who’s still in trouble. He mated that girl.”
“Charlotte.”
“Whatever. You marked a human.”
“I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“And then made it worse by…by…”
Lacey couldn’t say it, so Lena crudely did. “Making her yowl. Meaning any chance of breaking the bond is definitely toast.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he said, only to realize he didn’t really mind. Something about his Peanut had him acting strangely. Feeling different.
“Too late for regrets now,” snorted Lena. “For better or worse, you’re tied together. Until death do you part.”
“Need help with that part?” Lenore asked, cracking her knuckles.
“No. What I need is for you to fetch those snowmobiles while I try to figure out how to explain all this to Charlotte.” She’d not looked impressed when she’d stalked into the hut.
“Explain?” Lena doubled over laughing. “How you gonna explain that not only are you a big fucking liger but she’s your wife?”
The door flung open. “His what?”
He shriveled harder than the time he jumped into that glacier-fed lake. “I can explain.”