by Jade Alters
“You know…” Hope titters and I feel hot with rage at Walter for even entertaining the idea of making Hope do anything like that when she didn’t want to. “Things,” Hope says. “It was supposed to be part of his spell. Then, he was going to help undo my spell. Wouldn’t even cost me anything. Well, it wouldn’t cost me any money anyway.”
“Would you please just show us,” Dylan blurts out. “I think you’re making too much of this.”
“I showed my ex,” Hope says. “He practically teleported, he ran so fast. I think there was a plume of smoke behind him.”
“Then he’s a jerk,” Max says.
Hope snorts at that and shakes her head. I take her glass and pour in a little more gin before sliding it back over. “Take another drink and then show us, Hope.”
Hope takes a deep breath, throws back a large swallow of gin, and shakes her head with her eyes shut. “Okay,” she says, throatily. She takes off her hat and sets it on the table and then takes off her sunglasses and begins unwinding her scarf. At first, I don’t even notice anything different. Then, I begin to see the thick, mottled lines of jagged scars along her forehead, beneath her eyes and zig-zagging down her cheeks as she takes off her scarf.
Her scarf is now completely off, and she folds it up and lays it on the table with her hat and sunglasses. She looks so pained, like we’re all going to be completely horrified and call her a monster, but I find myself weakly laughing and rubbing my eyes.
“Well, don’t laugh!” She says, her eyes bright and fiery. She slides her glass back over, and I tip in another finger.
I’m not the only one who’s relieved, I can tell. I can just feel everyone relax suddenly.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I tell her. “Well, alright, that’s not true. I’m definitely laughing at you. But it’s not at your scars. Hope, they’re not even that bad.”
“I think they’re kinda badass,” Max says, shrugging.
“Shut up,” Hope murmurs, but I do see the ghost of a smile.
“Hope,” I say softly. I turn her head to face me, stroking her cute little chin. “We don’t love you because you’re beautiful. Though to us, you are beautiful. You always will be.”
“Love?” Hope says softly. I honestly can’t tell if she looks happy or kind of horrified, and I drop my hand and sigh, rubbing my neck.
“Well...you know,” I mumble.
“Yes,” Freddie says. “Love.”
“What he said,” I say, feeling stupid and incoherent. “Yeah, alright. Yes, we love you. I know it hasn’t been long, but when you know you know. In my opinion anyway.”
“I know,” Dylan says. He comes around behind Hope’s chair and wraps his arms around her, kissing her hair. “I love you, Hope.”
I’m just a little bit jealous that he got to say it properly first. But you snooze you lose, I guess.
“I love you too,” Max says.
I’m just about to say it when Freddie blurts, “I love you!”
Hope is grinning from ear to ear, and how she ever could have thought we wouldn’t love her because of some stupid scars is beyond me. She looks transcendently beautiful when she smiles at us like that. I feel a lump in my throat, as if all our dreams are finally coming true at once. We’ve found her; our person. She’s ours and she makes the rest of us make sense together in a way that I don’t think any of us realized was possible.
I feel a tear slide down my cheek when I finally say, “I love you, Hope.”
She looks at all of us, and her eyes are shining. “I love you too,” she says. The sound of her saying it is like the singing of angels to me.
“Alright!” Max claps his hands. “Enough of this sappy, weepy stuff! Hope, you must be starving. Can we please feed you? I got all the stuff for my famous beef nachos.”
“As long as there are jalapenos,” Hope says, looking very serious before she smiles again.
Max strikes over and kisses her on the lips, “There will always be jalapenos for you, my love.”
Just like that, the tension is broken again. Hope finally looks relaxed, and she asks for a Coke to pair with her gin. I still think we might have a problem with Walter. He’s not likely to take kindly at having not one, but two, of his spells interrupted by the same person even if it wasn’t her fault this time. But I don’t want to think about that just now. I want to think only about this beautiful woman in front of me and my three best friends and how much we all love each other.
Hope gets up from her seat and demands to help Max with the nachos. When she realizes she’s still wearing her trench coat, she blushes and gives it to Dylan to hang up for her. I do a little double-take. She’s not wearing much underneath it—just a little camisole and a tiny pair of shorts. It’s not like it’s lacy lingerie, but it does heat my blood. When she catches my glance and smiles as she blushes, I get to my feet and stand behind her where she’s hanging out by the stove as Max sautees the beef. I wrap my arms around her, tentatively at first, waiting for permission. But she leans into the embrace and tilts her neck so that I can kiss her there, humming with pleasure when I follow her unspoken command.
Dinner takes a long time. The five of us can’t seem to stop talking. Then, Hope finds the ingredients for margaritas, and even hours later, we’re still hanging around chatting. Hope sits in my lap as she giggles into my neck and kisses me, tasting of tequila. It truly feels as if this is how it’s supposed to be. Hope and the four of us; five people brought together to share our souls with each other.
As if reading my mind, Freddie says, “Have you guys heard of shared fated mates?”
Max, Dylan and I just stare at him blankly, but Hope says, “Yeah! I mean I’ve heard of it with shifters. It’s usually one woman mated to multiple men. I mean, usually, they’re all shifters but—”
“Usually?” Freddie smiles at her and I catch on.
“You think we’re shared fated mates?” I ask him. “I guess it makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Freddie says, nodding. “I was doing some research. It’s rare in general, but when you bring humans into the equation, it’s even rarer. But I think that’s what we are.” We all exchange expressions a little shyly. I feel as if my relationship with my friends has shifted incredibly since Hope came into our lives. I’ve always loved Max, Dylan, and Freddie. But now I love them. Or rather, I realize I always have. Hope just made me realize it.
“Is there a way to test for it?” I ask him.
Max says, “Do we need to though? We know how we feel. Why do we need magic to tell us?”
“Because it’s fun!” Dylan pipes up, grinning. “Why not? Honestly, if it says we’re not, it doesn’t matter at all. We’ll still be in love.”
“I want to do it!” Hope says, wrapping her arms around my neck. “If it’s not too much trouble or anything. I’m with Dylan. I think it would be fun.”
“I know how to do it,” Freddie says. “I found the spell. I’ll go get the stuff.”
He pops up and Dylan joins him. In the meantime, Hope gets up from her seat on my lap and plops down in Max’s. He lights up when she takes her new seat, and they chuckle as they kiss. It’s strange how I can watch them and not feel jealous at all. In fact, I scoot a little closer, and I smirk to myself as Max’s arm comes up to curl around my neck. He pulls away from his kiss with Hope and kisses me. I reach up to stroke his cheek, lazily curling my tongue around his before switching to Hope. The only problem being, it’s getting both me and Max hard.
Hope sees our respective arousals and giggles into her hand. “We’ll save that for later, huh boys?”
“You bet we will,” I tell her, pressing one more kiss to her neck.
Freddie and Dylan come back with another one of our spell books, a stone tablet, and a needle. Freddie sets the stone tablet on the table and opens the spell book as he takes a seat. Hope just seems amused by the whole thing as she rests there in Max’s lap. I look at her, getting lost in her beauty, and somehow, it only occurs to me after a few seconds that
she has those scars. I see them and yet I don’t see them at all. Anyway, they don’t make her ugly to me at all.
“Okay,” Freddie says, sighing. “Now the pain. I need a drop of blood from all the guys. Cut your finger and drop a little blood at some spot on the edge of the tablet.”
Freddie goes first, biting hard on his lip as he cuts his finger and lets a neat little drop of blood fall and hit near the edge of the stone tablet. We each follow suit, and soon there are four drops of blood at different spots along the tablet’s edge. Dylan’s blood is noticeably messier than the others, dripping down the sides of the tablet in a somewhat gory manner.
“What about me?” Hope says.
“Right.” Freddie nods encouragingly. “You’re next, Hope. Except you’ll drop your blood right in the center.”
“I don’t want her to cut herself,” I mumble, twisting my face.
She leans over and kisses my cheek. “I’m a panther, baby. A little blood doesn’t scare me.”
Freddie hands her the needle, and Hope stands up and leans over the tablet, neatly stabbing her finger with no hesitation. We all watch a single drop of blood fall into the center of the tablet.
Freddie lets out a long breath and says, “Okay, so it’s probably going to take hours before anything actually happens according to the spell. It says to give it a couple of days before trying it again—”
“The blood is moving!” Max gasps.
Freddie just blinks and says, “That’s impossible.”
“No!” Max says. “Check it out, guys! The blood is moving!”
We all lean over the table and watch, mouths agape, as the drops of blood slowly ooze their ways across the tablet toward the center even as Hope’s blood begins to slide four ways, as if growing little arms and reaching out for us. It’s fascinating, if kind of disgusting. Our blood reaches her tiny blood tendrils in a matter of a couple of minutes, and then the five drops of blood merge into one little blob in the middle of the stone tablet which begins to glow with a bright white light.
Hope is quietly crying, a couple of tears sliding down her cheeks. But she’s grinning from ear to ear. “That’s beautiful,” she whispers.
“Wow,” Freddie says. “I read up on everything I could find about shared fated mates and this spell specifically, and it said it always takes forever for the blood to merge.”
“Guess we’re really meant to be,” Hope says happily. She hops to her feet and wraps Freddie in a hug, and I watch him squeeze his eyes shut as he embraces her.
“Guess so,” he whispers in her ear.
“Well…” I rub my chin, feeling tears prick my own eyes. “I guess you’re not getting rid of us now.”
“Good,” Hope says, squeezing Freddie tightly.
Hope
There’s a delicious kind of tension as dinner finally winds down. We’re all just a little bit buzzed as we get up from the table and clear the dishes and glasses away. We spend a little time in the kitchen, but I can feel how riled up we all are. It’s as if my connection to the guys is so strong that I’m beginning to feel their feelings too. And right now, the feeling is, well, everyone is damn horny.
I insisted on helping with the dishes, and now I bite my lip as I scrub at a plate with a soapy, hot sponge. Even this seems sexual somehow, but maybe that’s because I’m standing so close to Max. He’s rinsing the dishes, and he keeps glancing down at me. Every time I catch his look, he glances away again. But he smiles a little impishly. And it feels like a game.
“You have pretty eyelashes,” I tell him.
He nudges me and smiles slyly. “You have pretty everything, sweetheart.”
He stops rinsing and reaches over to play with my soapy fingers. I watch our hands flirt, and he leans down to kiss my cheek and my neck even as Dylan comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“I can’t stop staring at your ass,” Dylan whispers in my ear. “It’s so cute in those tiny little shorts.”
I press that ass up against him and he groans, nibbling on my earlobe as Max kisses me.
Jared appears leaning on the counter, merely watching with hungry eyes. But now, he squeezes the back of Dylan’s neck and strokes his hair. “We need to take this upstairs before I embarrass myself.”
“Seconded,” Freddie says, his breath hitching a little. I look over at him, leaning against the fridge, watching us and palming himself through his jeans. His face is red, and I can tell he’s erect.
Dylan’s hands are sliding over my body; his fingers sneak under the hem of my cami to caress my stomach and I can feel him hardening against me. My breath quickens, and Jared presses against the two of us, kissing Dylan’s cheek even as he slowly curls his finger around the strap of my cami, pulling it down my shoulder.
“Please,” I whisper, shutting my eyes, melting into Dylan. My desire is coursing through me but so is theirs, and it’s overwhelming. “Please, I need you now. All of you—don’t tease.”
I don’t know who moves first. I feel dizzy, like a drug addict in withdrawal. Suddenly, Jared has me in his arms, picking me up bridal style. I cling to him as he carries me out of the kitchen and the others follow, gradually shedding their clothes and dropping them on the floor as they go.
Jared carries me up to his room—I assume because it’s the biggest—and he lays me down atop the thick comforter of his giant king bed. I want to be open to them, naked and bare. They’ve made me completely forget about the scars by the way they’ve been looking at me all night, as if I’m the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen. I don’t feel self-conscious at all; I just want to be naked before them, and they watch me as I take off my cami and drop it on the floor. I didn’t wear a bra with it and my nipples pebble in the cold hair. Max is yanking at Jared’s shirt, urging him to take it off as he kicks off his shoes. The others are down to their underwear and now wordlessly they shed that too. Jared keeps his eyes on me as he takes off his jeans and his boxer-briefs. I’m still wearing my little shorts. I want them to take them off for me, but I’m impatient at the sight of the four of them, completely naked, their cocks growing as I absently pinch my own nipple. I press my thighs together and decide to give them a little show. I lick my lips, pinching my nipple again as my other hand slides into my shorts and into my panties. I tease myself, my fingers raking through the bit of hair there. I tease my clit with my finger, and I’m so wet already as the guys watch, eyes wide as the strokes themselves.
“I’m thinking about you,” I say softly. I do feel a little self-conscious talking while I do this. But their eyes light up when I talk, so I keep going. “I'm thinking about all of you, how it feels when you’re inside me. How it feels to know you love me and think I’m beautiful.”
“You are beautiful, Hope,” Dylan says. They all murmur their agreement, and I press my finger more firmly to my clit. “We love you so much.”
“I love you too,” I cry, arching up into my hand.
Jared utters a little growl, and he bends over to yank at my shorts and my panties so suddenly that it makes me laugh. He slides them off my body, and I sit up and kneel on the bed to face him, as the others crowd around us. Hands come toward me from everywhere, and I part my knees on the bed a little. I throw my head back and close my eyes, reveling in the sensation of four men putting their hands all over me.
My hair was up in a ponytail, but now it comes down and someone is kissing my neck. Our connection is so deep now that I don’t have to look to know that it’s Dylan, and the revelation makes me smile. Dylan is massaging my breasts, and Freddie’s hands are on my thighs, temptingly close to my center that pulses with need. I open my eyes finally, my mouth probably stupidly agape, and I see Jared and Max making out in front of me, stroking each other. The sight pleases me, and I cover Freddie’s hand with mine and slide it up to my entrance, pressing against it. He gets the idea, and I watch Jared and Max pleasure each other as Freddie’s finger teases my clit, rubbing slowly and making me moan. I reach back to encourage Dylan,
my fingers tangling in his air, and he shifts to come around and lick and suck at my breasts, his cock pressing against my belly. I roll my hips and I wrap my hand around Dylan’s cock as Freddie fingers me, the three of us falling into a lazy rhythm of pleasure. Jared and Max are watching us, stroking each other off, looking dizzy with want. I get lost in it for what seems ages until I see that Max and Jared are tensed, their mouths hanging open, their faces red as they resist coming.
“We need you,” Max whispers. “Please, Hope…”
Impulsively, I pull away from Freddie and Dylan and crawl over to Max. No one argues as I yank him away from Jared and push him down on the bed, climbing on top of him. My panther is coming out, fiery and strong, and I lock eyes with him as I straddle him on the bed and impale myself on his engorged cock. I feel so full of him, and the electric kind of thread between us hums. Max moans and I brace myself on his chest, rocking against him as he thrusts up into me. Freddie is nearby and I tug him over, urging him to kneel so I can take his cock in my mouth. I ride Max and curl my tongue around Freddie, and tears slide down my cheeks as I feel their desire in my blood. I’m shaking, it feels so good. Jared comes up behind me and I feel his finger tentatively pressing at my ass. I encourage him, pressing his hand there. The idea of having two, no, three of them inside me at once makes the tears fall faster, and Dylan appears beside me, kissing my tears away. I want to tell them how it feels, but I know they feel it too. Jared opens me up slowly, and I turn my head to take Dylan in my mouth next just as I feel Jared pressing at me from behind.
“Are you okay?” Jared whispers in my ear.
I pull away from Dylan long enough to say, “Yes, oh God, yes!” I twist my head around to kiss Jared, and he hums into my mouth, sucking on my tongue before I turn back and hunch over a little, baring myself for Jared. He slides into me and I cry out, feeling bliss so sharp it’s almost agony as Jared and Max both fill me up. I take Dylan in my mouth again and Freddie leans down to suck at my breasts. I’m trembling so hard at the thunder of sensation taking over my body, I think I’ll die from it. My mind is scrambled, and the four of them shout their love for me as Max and Jared pulse inside me. I can feel everyone’s heart beating in sync with mine as they come, and I’m pulled over the edge into a storm of absolute rapture.