More Than Pride

by Kell Amber

  “What does he do?” Chester asked.

  “Besides keep the alpha in line? He’s a game programmer.”

  “Huh. He seems nice but he smells odd.”

  “He’s a wolf shifter.” Dillon moved closer to Chester, unable to resist stroking the silky bare skin. When Chester began to purr, Dillon snatched his hand back. “Um…sorry. Wait here and I’ll get you something to wear.”

  “Why?” Chester tilted his head as he examined Dillon with his odd gold eyes. “I don’t mind being naked.”

  Dillon ground his teeth together. “Because if you don’t get some clothes on, I’m going to fuck you in the middle of the pride kitchen and I don’t think the others would appreciate coming in here and finding my cock buried in your ass.” Shifters were casual about nudity but sex generally was kept within the privacy of their rooms or remote outside locations.

  “Oh.” Chester blushed a bright red. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that. I-I like you touching me.”

  Dillon brushed his lips across the top of Chester’s head, his chest tightening with unnamed emotions. “Wait here and I’ll get you some clothes.” He vanished down the hall before he could give up on his resolve not to molest a complete stranger in his pride family’s kitchen.

  Chester stood perfectly still as Dillon walked away. Betraying the kind shifter would break his heart. When he’d agreed to give in to the humans’ blackmail, he hadn’t thought about the people he’d be spying on. Apparently, word among shifter hate groups was that the lion prides were difficult to infiltrate, but open to other shifters.

  The poison they’d injected into Chester’s body would kill him in five days if he didn’t come back with news about the pride. Having a photographic memory, he’d be able to draw them a map and tell them all about the pride members and any weaknesses. Chester didn’t want to die—not when he’d never really had a chance to live. However, after meeting Dillon, Chester didn’t want to hurt him, either.

  A loud beep from the microwave announced that his stew was finished. Chester’s stomach growled in response, as if it knew the food was for him and wanted it now. 1 “Shhh, you’re lucky I don’t starve you.” The poison slowly moving its way through his system would kill him way before starvation anyway.

  “Still naked, kitty cat?” The owl shifter had found clothing somewhere and now had a pair of jeans and a tight T-shirt lovingly caressing his thin body. Chester quickly swallowed his drool. He hadn’t forgiven the owl for his part in causing Chester’s moment of terror. The fear from being snatched off the ground and dangled from a pair of large talons lived fresh in his mind.

  “Um, Dillon went to get me clothes,” he said in a shaky voice.

  The owl shifter’s hot gaze slid up and down Chester’s body, a visual caress. Chester shivered beneath the stare.

  “I think it would be a shame to cover you.” Evin’s deep voice poured across Chester like warm chocolate. He barely stopped the responding purr. He had a feeling that any show of weakness and Evin would have him ass up on the closest surface despite what Dillon had said about no sex in the kitchen.

  Chester cleared his throat. “Dillon thought it would be best if I had clothes so I don’t upset the others.” He didn’t mention what Dillon had said about fucking him.

  Avoiding the owl shifter, he scurried over to the microwave and took out the bowl of hot soup. Luckily the glass hadn’t got too hot because Chester needed the distraction. He opened and closed several drawers before he found a spoon, but at least the search had kept his gaze away from the sexy owl man.

  “What are you doing here, little one?”

  Chester slammed the drawer shut. “I’m not little,” he growled. He could almost feel his hackles rise.

  Evin settled on a stool on the opposite side of the counter, keeping his motions slow and non-threatening. “I didn’t mean to anger you, Chester. I’m just having some fun.”

  Chester took a bite of the stew. The chunks of vegetables and meat were welcome additions to his empty stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid meal.

  They hadn’t been big on feeding him during his time in the cage. After three months of barely any food and constant beatings he’d been willing to agree to just about anything to get out of there. Unfortunately his captors had figured that out, which was why they’d injected 1 him and his brother with poison. If he didn’t care about dying himself, they were hoping the idea of his brother’s death would keep him compliant.

  He knew they weren’t bluffing. They’d shown him the bodies of the shifters who’d refused them before.

  Swallowing back the bile rising in his throat at the memory, Chester set down his bowl.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Evin reached across the counter and covered Chester’s hand with his own. “I didn’t really hurt you when I grabbed you, did I?”

  It had been easier to ignore Evin when Chester thought he was an ass. Chester blinked back tears over Evin’s concern.

  “What’s going on?” Dillon’s sharp tone had Chester spinning around to face the lion.

  Dillon’s narrow-eyed gaze sent chills down Chester’s spine. The lion shifter looked like he might rip Evin apart.

  Instinct he didn’t understand had him stepping between the two men. The heat level rose in the room as Chester felt both of the men on either side of him. Their clothes rubbed his cock and ass and his body hardened at the proximity of so much sexy male. He took a deep breath and inhaled Dillon’s luscious scent. He might not survive this infiltration mission, but he wasn’t going to go down without being beneath the lion shifter at least once.

  The feel of Evin’s jeans brushing against his bare ass made Chester nervously scoot closer to the lion shifter. Dillon wrapped an arm around Chester and swung him to the opposite side of him. Dillon shoved clothes at Chester. “Here, go and get dressed.”

  Chester bit his lip. His gaze swung back and forth, judging the mood between the men.

  “It will be fine.” Dillon stroked Chester’s hair and rubbed the back of his neck in a soothing manner.

  “Okay.” Chester bobbed his head up and down.

  Unwilling to leave the two men alone, he walked over by the wall and began to pull on the simple jeans and T-shirt that were the staple of any shifter’s closet. Almost every shifter house had extra clothes in a variety of sizes to accommodate visitors.

  A pair of groans had him looking up. Two sets of eyes were focused on Chester. He gulped, feeling like prey to larger, more dangerous predators. He’d already experienced that once today but for some reason in human form it was much sexier. He wouldn’t mind being pounced on by the sexy men before him. 1 “Um, thanks for the clothes.” He focused on Dillon, who unsettled him less than the owl shifter.

  Dillon’s smile brightened the room. “You’re very welcome, kitten.”

  Chester growled. “I’m not a kitten.”

  Evin smiled. “You are almost more of a kitten in your human form.”

  Dillon laughed.

  Chester walked over and kicked Evin in the shins. It only made him grin. Chester scowled at the owl shifter.

  “Eat your stew.” Dillon pointed back towards the bowl. “You look like you haven’t eaten in a while. I’ll get you some too, Evin.”

  Returning to the fridge, Dillon put together another bowl of stew and popped it into the microwave. The kitchen remained quiet with nothing to be heard but the sounds of the microwave and the scrape of Chester’s spoon across the bottom of his bowl.

  Chester didn’t argue with Dillon’s assessment of his hunger, but he also wasn’t going to explain his captivity and how he’d barely escaped with his life. His brother hadn’t been so lucky. He swallowed back the tears along with the stew. He couldn’t focus on Garfield now.

  He needed to keep focused.

  Dillon wrapped an arm around Chester and pulled him protectively into his arms. “Are you all right?”

  Chester nodded but didn’t speak. He couldn’t talk through the lump
in his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had shown him any tenderness. His parents had died when he was young, and Garfield had been a good brother but was not a warm person.

  The ding of the microwave saved him as Dillon felt the need to play host and fetch the food for Evin.

  Chester put his bowl in the dishwasher as Evin polished off his food with lightning speed. Chester obviously wasn’t the only one who hadn’t eaten for a while.

  “Don’t smother him,” Evin muttered after putting his own bowl in the dishwasher.

  Dillon roared like the big-ass lion Chester suspected he was.

  “Hey, big guy, I’m just trying to help,” Evin said.

  Chester glanced up to see that Dillon’s fangs had dropped and now extended past his lips. 1 Damn that was sexy. Before his brain could catch up with his body, Chester walked over to Dillon, went onto his tiptoes and kissed the lion shifter.

  A low rolling growl vibrated his lips.

  “Mmmhmmm,” Chester agreed. Heat poured through him like a warm furnace and his cock hardened as he rubbed against the large shifter’s body. His conscience tried to whisper that he wasn’t in any condition to mate with someone but his body overruled his pesky brain. It had been so long since he’d felt the slide of someone inside him. Too long.

  An odd sound snapped him out of the passionate haze caused by warm hands and a man who knew what to do with them.

  “What?” Chester whimpered when Dillon lifted his mouth to snarl at the owl shifter.

  “D-don’t touch him,” Evin’s rough voice sounded as if he’d gargled rocks.

  Chester turned around in the shelter of Dillon’s arms to face the other man.

  Evin’s skin had tiny feathers fanning around his eyebrows and cheeks, and his face had the fierce cast of his owl form.

  Dillon wrapped an arm across Chester’s front keeping him tight against his body.

  “What’s the problem, Evin?” Dillon kept his voice level as if he didn’t want to trigger the other shifter’s change.

  “Mate.” Evin’s neck bobbed as his bird half tried to break past its human guardian.

  “Oh, hell no.” Dillon’s grip on Chester tightened almost painfully. “He’s mine. You’ve got feathers in your head if you think you can have him.”

  Oh, crap. There was no way this was going to end well.

  Dillon let out a full lion roar. Chester clamped his hands over his ears.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” A new voice entered the fray and this one had Chester’s spine snapping to attention.

  Taking a deep breath, Chester dared to peek around Dillon’s wide chest.

  Talan.

  Pictures of the man didn’t do him justice. Where Dillon was large and muscular, Talan was even more so. The leader of the lions was a beautiful man. Chester could almost feel the man’s aura of command wrap around him and demand he submit. Adrian stood beside the lion. Chester would’ve thought the smaller wolf shifter would appear diminished beside his 1 larger mate, but instead it was almost as if he were part of the whole. As if Talan would be missing something if there weren’t a wolf-shifter-sized shape standing beside him.

  “Mate!” Evin insisted, his voice ending in a hoot as the man tried to fight back his bird nature.

  “Who’s your mate?” Talan’s eyes raked over Chester and he froze like a mouse spotted by a hawk.

  Evin moved his head in that boneless way again. Chester gave an involuntary shudder.

  He’d seen The Exorcist and Linda Blair had nothing on Evin. If he spewed up a mouse pellet, Chester was out of there.

  “I-I don’t know,” Evin replied with a soft hoot.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Dillon growled. “How can you not know?”

  Evin glared at Dillon. “When you stand together, I can’t tell which one of you is my mate.”

  “Dillon, release the cat shifter and step to the side. I want you apart so Evin can sense you separately,” Talan ordered.

  Evin twitched as Dillon released his hold on the kitten. The big lion had a majestic masculine beauty. Evin could almost imagine the man in lion form prancing around the grasslands. Chester fidgeted beneath Evin’s stare. He didn’t know if it was his owl features showing, or whether the younger man truly held a grudge from Evin grabbing him earlier, but he appeared intensely nervous over being watched.

  “Can you tell?” The alpha’s tone indicated that he thought Evin was an idiot for not being able to know his mate right away.

  “Not all of us can tell at first sight,” Evin snapped.

  “By a picture,” Talan said in a smug tone. “I knew Adrian was mine by a photo. Now figure out which one is your mate. I’ll not have you tearing apart my pride by breaking Dillon’s heart. Dillon, is Chester your mate?”

  “Yes.” There was no prevarication in Dillon’s tone. “Chester is my mate.”

  “Then the matter is resolved,” Talan proclaimed. “Evin, you are free to stay and seek shelter with us, but I won’t have you causing problems between a mated pair.” 1 A protest lodged in Evin’s throat but what could he say? He didn’t know which of them was his mate and Talan was right. If he claimed Chester, Dillon would rip him apart. It didn’t matter that he was equally attracted to Dillon—big and buff had always excited him in the past and this time was no different.

  Evin shook his head to clear out the fantasies running rampant through his imagination.

  He’d find another place to live. He couldn’t stay here and watch the two men he wanted for his own find joy exclusively with each other.

  “What if they are both his mates?” Adrian spoke up.

  “What?” Talan frowned at the wolf shifter. “What are you talking about, love?”

  Adrian shrugged. “What if they are all mates? There are a few cases of three people being mated. This could be one of those times. Why not?”

  Why not, indeed? It happened more with birds than any of the cat breeds but it wasn’t unheard of…though Evin had never thought he’d be put in that sort of situation. Of course, he’d never thought his brother would go insane and make a deal with psychotic hunters either. Life was just full of surprises.

  “I’ve never heard of it happening with lions,” Talan said, but his tone was musing, not dismissive. Evin had a feeling that, if anyone else had suggested the idea, Talan would have tossed it out the window.

  “It happens with bird shifters,” Adrian argued. “I’ve even heard of it happening in a few of the wolf packs. None in my pack, but I have heard of it.”

  Talan snarled at Adrian, his expression so much like a pissed off cat that Evin had to hold back laughter. “You don’t belong to a pack, you belong to a pride.”

  Adrian shook his head. “I consider it like dual citizenship. I’m not going to break ties with my brother, so you’ll just have to cope.”

  Evin turned his head fast to hide his laughter. Adrian had no fear of his mate. When confronted by his mate’s fierce frown, the wolf stood his ground and didn’t change his calm expression even when Talan snarled. He just waited him out.

  Talan gripped the back of Adrian’s head and kissed him until he melted against the larger man. When the alpha finally released his mate, Adrian swayed slightly. “As long as your first loyalty is to me.” 2 “Always,” Adrian responded without hesitation. “Now, how are we going to figure this out?”

  Adrian examined each of them carefully. Evin could almost feel the man dissecting different ideas and tossing them aside.

  “We could go with the old tried and true method,” Talan mused.

  “Throw them in a room together and not let them come out until they fuck?” Adrian asked.

  “Yep.” Talan gave Evin a wide grin. “That way, you’ll either come out mated or dinner—it’s all the same to me. The shifter council might give me hell but I’m sure they’ll get over it.”

  Adrian shook his head at his mate’s statement. “Dillon, do you want to use your room or someplace neutral.”


  Dillon smiled. “I’ll use my room. My bed’s big enough and we’re kind of short with all the newcomers.”

  “True,” Adrian agreed.

  “Then get to it.” Talan turned and headed to the door. He grabbed Adrian by the wrist on his way out, dragging the smaller man behind him.

  “Is he always like that?” Evin asked, tilting his head towards the departing couple.

  Dillon folded his arms across his chest. “Like what?”

  “Dismissive of other breeds.”

  “I’ll let that slide because you’re new here, but Talan has the biggest fucking heart of any alpha I’ve ever met. Most alphas would rip you apart and send you back to your nest in pieces just for being on their land. When a bunch of homeless shifters were dumped on our porch, Talan didn’t kick them out on their asses. Instead, he found most of them homes or jobs to support themselves. He might give Adrian a hard time about his pack, but if Adrian’s brother had any problems, you’d find a pride of lions protecting his back. I’ve met a lot of alphas in my life and Talan’s one of the good ones.”

  Evin held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean any harm. He just doesn’t seem to like birds.”

  “I think he’s more concerned about you claiming my kitten than the fact that you sprout feathers.” 2 Evin shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I’m not a kitten.” Chester snarled like a pissed off cat. Evin laughed.

  “Of course you’re not.” Dillon stroked Chester’s head like a pet. “You’re a bad-ass tabby.”

  “That’s right.” Chester nodded his head, his amber eyes flashing.

  Evin had never seen a person who so closely resembled his shifter form while human before. Chester’s wavy red-gold strands had a tabby pattern, and his eyes, although with human pupils, were the same amber as a cat’s. He was fascinating.

  “My bedroom’s back here.” Dillon led the way down the hall towards the back of the building. Chester obediently followed Dillon, and Evin followed Chester’s amazing ass, which looked like it would fill his hands to perfection. Until Dillon led the way into another room, Evin barely paid attention to where they were going.