by Maia Dylan
Cody’s mom had never let a day go by without her telling them that she loved them, even when she had to punish them for being stupid. Lucy’s mom basically pushed her out the fucking door at sixteen, not caring where she ended up. Cody felt his wolf start to pace at that.
Despite the anger that was swelling inside him, Cody felt a deep sense of pride as well. Their mate never backed down, or let her circumstances defeat her, and instead she got a job, worked hard, and took herself off the streets. As an adult he had often wondered what type of mate the fates would have for him and Brendan, but he never imagined he would find himself falling so hard and fast for a woman with more determination and strength than he and his brother combined.
Lucy closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. “I met Seth O’Connor four months ago.”
Cody froze at the mention of another man.
Lucy was so lost in her story and shouldering all the blame for a bad and violent relationship she missed the sudden rise in tension in the room. Cody felt his wolf leap forward, and he felt a constant rumbling growl in his chest. It was echoed by the other two shifters in the room.
“Looking back? It was just so pathetic how I forgave him time and time again. I mean, just what in the heck was I thinking? This went on for about two months with me just rolling over and giving in to it.”
Lucy was looking at the table, wringing her hands together in distress. Cody met his brother’s gaze for just a moment and saw his wolf in the arctic blue he encountered. Hell his own wolf was right there so he knew his would be the same damn color.
This fuckwad Seth had made their mate feel unworthy and dared to put his fucking hands on her? He needed to bleed. Cody clenched his jaw to give their mate the opportunity to continue.
“So I started to squirrel away money from my shifts, most of my tip money from the diner.”
When they had found Lucy they had discovered nearly a thousand dollars of cash in small denominations in her pocket, so that made sense.
“I had almost enough to make a clean break, when something really bad happened.”
Lucy’s voice had dropped to a whisper, all noise had stopped, all three shifters listening intently.
“The night before you find me in Molly’s bathroom, I had come home from my shift to find Seth, well, um, feeling no pain.”
Cody froze. So the woman-beating-walking-dead-man was a user or an alcoholic as well? This was becoming too much to handle for his wolf who was currently going crazy inside him.
“He was agitated, and I had never seen him that wired. He started beating on me, and um, he hurt me.”
Cody felt the whole world shift under his feet when he saw a tear slide down her beautiful soft cheek.
“He hit me lot.”
Lucy stopped talking and sat there quietly for a moment. Cody could feel fear, sadness and shame coming from her down their bond, which was strengthening quickly as the three of them came together as the Fates intended, and he could tell that she was lost in the horror of that night. Her face was ashen and her hands shook, Cody placed a hand on one of hers, and her eyes flew to his.
“If this is too much for you, we can stop,” Cody spoke softly, wanting to stop her reliving it.
Ty growled at the brothers across the shifters’ bond. Cody knew that their alpha wanted to get the rest of the story. Well, he could just beat him up for it later. His mate was in too much pain, and it was killing him.
Lucy gave him a sad but grateful smile but shook her head. “No Cody, it’s okay. If I can get this out now then I can move on.”
Lucy took a courage gathering deep breath and gave his hand a squeeze before moving her hand out from under his. Cody didn’t like what that could mean at all.
“I was lying on the living room floor when Mani and his two bodyguards turned up. Mani Vasquez is Seth’s dealer, I guess. They argued, and pretty much ignored me. Apparently Seth owed Mani a lot of money, and everything we had of value had already been sold to feed his habit, so the only thing he had left to sell…was me.”
“He fucking sold her!” Brendan’s roared down their bond.
Cody hadn’t taken his eyes from their mate and noticed her flinch and raise a shaking hand to her head. “Brendan, calm the fuck down, Lucy may not be able to understand what is happening to her with our bond, but you shouting like a fucking caveman is hurting her,” Cody sent back and watched as his brother struggled for control.
“So they argued. And Mani had his boys beat on Seth, hard. They had him unconscious so quickly and I thought to myself, ‘see how you like it sleazeball!’” Lucy voice caught a little on the last two words, and she looked up at them with her eyes were bleak.
“But I didn’t know what they were going to do next and I was so scared.”
Lucy’s heart began to beat a little faster, and Cody could see the pulse in her neck jumping.
“Mani told them to shoot him, so they dragged him into the kitchen and they just shot him. While they were arguing over how to get rid of the body, I ran. I got to the truck stop then climbed into the back of the first unlocked cab I came to, and it brought me here.”
“Did they say why they wanted him dead, Lucy?” Ty’s voice was little more than a garbled snarl.
Lucy shrugged and her gaze dropped to the table. “Apparently Mani had plans for me that involved other men. He was furious because he said with me being beaten up the way I was, he wouldn’t get the money for me he had planned on.”
A full five seconds of silence followed that. Cody knew what that meant as soon as Lucy had finished speaking, and it took all his strength to keep his wolf from surfacing fully. His mate had faced an abusive relationship, seeing a murder take place in front of her very eyes, and then told that some fucker had plans to sell her to other men to abuse. This beautiful five-foot-five woman who didn’t say a bad thing against anyone had faced more hate, horror, and hurt than anyone should have had, too, and she was his mate, their fated one. Cody called on every single ounce of his strength and will to keep in control.
A flash of red filled with pain and rage crashed down their bond and Cody knew that his brother hadn’t been quite so successful with the whole keeping in control thing. Cody leapt back from the kitchen table, grabbing his mate as he went. Brendan’s shout of rage changed midstream to the angry snarling of their kind.
“Brendan, you hotheaded son of a bitch!” Cody roared down their link but knew that Brendan was more wolf than man at that moment—a huge gray wolf to be exact, and he was extremely pissed! Lucy screamed, and Cody threw her behind him, facing off against his brother.
“Brendan, you need to calm the fuck down and shift back.” Ty leapt to stand shoulder to shoulder with Cody, his dominance filling the room. “Now!”
The fact that Brendan’s wolf was able to shake off the impulse and dominance of their alpha was proof of just how pissed off he really was. Ty flinched back a little in shock.
“All right, you stubborn little prick, pain in my ass beta, you wanna ignore your alpha? Then let’s get to the beating you deserve.” Where Ty once stood, feet shoulder width a part, fisted hands at his side, now stood a large black wolf. And if Brendan was a ten on the angry dominant wolf scale due to his anger, Ty was a sixteen. Cody knew what was about to happen and leapt to open the kitchen door that lead outside, not wanting to be in Brendan’s shoes for love nor money.
“Take it outside!” he yelled to the snarling, grappling wolves who became a fighting mass of canine anger in his kitchen. Fur was flying, grunts and snarls echoed though the room, but they made it out the door and into the yard. As soon as they cleared the room, Cody slammed the door shut and spun around.
Lucy was standing at the side of the room, where he had shoved her, doing the perfect impression of a statue. From where he was standing he wasn’t even sure she was breathing. “Lucy?” he asked tentatively, not having a bloody clue what he was going to say or do.
Lucy looked up at him, eyes glazed in an expression he ha
d seen many times in his job. She was in shock. Her eyes suddenly rolled up into her head, and she started to collapse. With the supernatural speed born to a shifter, he leapt across the room and swept her up in his arms before she hit the floor. She was out cold, and he stood there for a moment, growls still coming from beyond the kitchen door. What the hell were they going to do now? He didn’t think there was a book out there titled What to Do When Your Human Mate Finds out You’re a Shifter. But if Brendan got his head out of his ass soon and they were able to navigate through the next while without their mate leaving them, he as sure as hell was going to get started on writing one!
* * * *
Lucy heard someone talking to her, and could feel someone pressing a cold compress on her forehead. She opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times bringing Cody’s handsome face into focus, full of concern. She was lying on the plush couch in the living room. Suddenly it all came crashing back to her.
“Wolf!” she screamed, or at least she had tried to, but it came out as more of a high-pitched yelp. She sat up quickly, eyes sweeping the room in panic.
Cody pressed her gently back down to the couch and winced. “Listen, pet, I know what you saw was frightening and strange, but there is totally an explanation here that will make it all, okay?” The fact that his statement became a question at the end took Lucy back a little.
“Are you asking me if I’m okay with this, Cody?” she asked incredulously. “Really? Because I can tell you right now, I am having a little difficulty with the whole body-imploding-into-a-wolf thing. Sooo not okay, Cody, so far from being within the realm of being okay it’s in another freaking time zone!”
Apparently, shock made her a little over dramatic. She pushed Cody away from her and got to her feet, a little woozy but feeling a little better now that she was up on her feet. All the better to pace, which had always helped her to process and think. “What in the name of holier than all holy things did I just witness in that kitchen.” She pointed to make sure he was clear where she was referring, again a little dramatic but she felt it made her point.
“Well,” Cody started but was interrupted by two naked men, chests heaving, covered in mud with smears of blood across their torsos walking through the door. And they were naked. Lucy gasped, her jaw dropping to the floor, and no doubt her tongue was hanging out. Because they were naked, had she mentioned that?
“Jesus Christ, you two,” Cody muttered, frustrated hands raking through his hair as he walked over to a credenza against the wall.
They were both seemingly oblivious to the fact that they had blood all over them and were naked. Lucy closed her eyes and did a quick ten count. Was she still unconscious? Nope! When she opened her eyes, they were still there, still dirty, blood smeared, and still naked.
“Will you two put these on!” Cody threw them each a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that he had apparently pulled out of the credenza and they pulled them on. This sort of thing must happen a lot here if they kept clothes handy for one changed into a wolf. Not that nudity was a bad thing—no siree, Bob—nothing to be ashamed of for these men.
Shaking her head a little to bring her thoughts back to the issue on hand, she grabbed the tendril of anger that she had inside her with both hands, and pulled on it until it was front and center. With her hands on hips she asked, “I ask, again, what was that in the kitchen? What is going on here? Oh, and the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, What are you?”
Lucy knew she was a little on the shrill side but felt the situation justified a little shrillness. She felt a strange buzzing in her head and watched as the three men looked back and forth between themselves, as if having a silent conversation with looks only. Wanting them to actually get to the portion of the evening where they explained exactly when it was she had stepped into a scene from Van Helsing, she crossed her arms, frowned in their direction and gave an angry “Ahem!”
Three sets of eyes turned her way, two wary and one clearly amused. “Lucy,” Ty said, “I think these two have a few things to talk to you about, and I don’t necessarily want or need to hear them grovel.” He smirked as the two brothers flipped him off in unison. “I’m gonna head into the station and see what I can find anything out about what’s happened since you left.”
Ty walked over and stood in front of her, his head tilted to the side and staring at her intently, almost as if her were taking her measure or something. Nodding at whatever he was thinking, he gave her a reassuring smile. “Thank you for trusting us with your past and your story, Lucy. I know it wasn’t easy for you, and I certainly know what it is like to feel like you aren’t in control of anything. We won’t let anything happen to you, Luce. These guys are good men. The very best. I have known them all my life, and they have never let me down. There will come a reckoning for what you have had to endure, and we will talk more about what needs to be done to keep you and our pack safe. But for tonight just open your mind and maybe your heart to these two. I have a feeling you won’t regret it if you do. If you need anything then just holler!” With that he turned with a general wave to the room and left.
Lucy stood there in silence, waiting for whatever Cody and Brendan were going to say. She could see that they were nervous.
“I’m sorry if I scared you, kitten.” Brendan gave a sheepish shrug and ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s just that knowing that you were hurt and that you could have been killed before we even got the chance to meet you? It drove me crazy! I know it’s a little hard for you to understand at the moment exactly what it is you mean to Cody and I. But when I thought of what you had endured, and we hadn’t been there to protect you, my control snapped and I shifted.”
“Now wait.” Lucy held up a hand and recommenced pacing. “See that right there is what I am trying to understand. I get the whole getting upset over me getting hurt. I would feel the same way if it were you or Cody. In fact seeing you step into the room with Ty with blood all over you drives me a little crazy, too.”
“It’s nothing, baby, I’m all healed up and not a scratch on me.” Brendan drew his shirt up over his abs. They were still smeared with a little blood, but no long claw marks remained. Handy little skill that.
“That’s good, unnatural for sure, but good that you’re not hurt anymore. Now, tell me about the shifting thing. I mean I’ve watched a lot of movies in my time. Are you telling me that you’re werewolves?” Lucy couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice. This was downright stupid given what she had witnessed with her very own eyes!
“No, pet, not werewolves.” Cody stepped forward. “We aren’t evil or dependent on a full moon to shift, and we don’t howl at the moon unless we feel like it. We’re more likely to howl at a beautiful woman.” He winked at her.
Lucy narrowed her eyes a little at him, even as her heart gave a slight kick. “So, not werewolves, just shifters?”
“Yeah, kitten.” Brendan stepped forward so the brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, a warm wall of muscle and yumminess. “We can shift into wolves when we want, too, and have a few other side benefits that come with it. We live a little longer than nonshifters, and we’re faster, stronger, and better looking, too.”
Now it was his turn to grin and wink at her. Lucy felt her knees tremble a little and her pussy, feeling a little empty, clench. She couldn’t really argue with that.
“Okay then.” Lucy nodded, feeling a little weirded out but nowhere near where she thought she should be. And funny though it seemed to her, she was okay with it. Hell, if she could survive all the really stinky things that had happened to her in her life, then why on earth couldn’t there be something like shifters in the world? To her, the fact that there could be people in the world with the ability to do really cool things was almost magical. Having seen it for herself in all its Technicolor glory just made it all the more so.
Cody and Brendan looked at each other then back at her as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Really? You’re okay with all this?” Cody ask
ed.
Lucy couldn’t help but hear the hope in his voice.
“Yeah, I think I am.” Lucy smiled softly back at them. “Is there anything else you want to tell me? Now would be the time because I don’t think I will ever be more willing to accept the unbelievable than I am right at this very moment.” She chuckled and expected them to join in, but the serious looks they gave her cut the laugh short and had her feeling a little apprehensive.
“There is one more thing we need to tell you, pet.” Cody stepped forward and grabbed her hand. He led her over to the couch and sat down beside her, Brendan taking her other side, both of the surrounding her, angled a little so they could both look at her.
Taking her other hand in his Brendan took a deep breath, shot a quick glance at his brother, then turned those amazing green eyes her way. “Lucy, there are a lot of similarities between a wolf shifter and natural wolves in the wild. We both have packs that we belong to, and there is a definite hierarchy in those packs. Ty, Trent and Faith are our alphas. They lead our pack, and Cody and I are betas. We are part of an inner circle that assists the alphas in their roles as the head of our pack.”
Lucy nodded. This made sense to her. She had definitely felt the sheer power and dominance that practically dripped from Ty.
“Another reality that we as shifters share with natural wolves is our strength of belief in family,” Cody said, taking over their shared explanation. “We believe that for every wolf shifter pair, usually brothers, there is a fated one destined to be theirs. Brendan and I have a mom and two fathers. Our upbringing was a little unusual, but filled with love and laughter. Not a single day went by when we didn’t know we were loved or didn’t see the love that exists between our parents.”
Lucy thought about that for a moment. She knew nothing of that, nothing of a life in which she was loved, in which she was shown what it meant to be loved and learned how to love. Her gaze lowered, and she felt a sudden tension in the brothers.