by Eva Chase
A whimper crept from her throat. She arched into my touch encouragingly. Her curves were so soft under my fingers, but I could still feel the strength all through her body. The combination thrilled me. What a woman my mate was.
I edged up the hem of her shirt to touch her skin to skin. Serenity let out a gasp against my mouth when my fingertips grazed the tip of her breast through her bra. Her fingers curled against my shoulders. Then she tensed.
I eased back to see her face. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth twisted. Desire still burned in her eyes. “I want to keep going. But... West is supposed to be sleeping in the tent the first half of the night too, isn’t he? He might come in while we’re...” She gestured between us with a crooked smile.
Ah. It was going to take time for her to adjust to that aspect of our relationship too. I stroked her cheek and the side of her neck.
“You know if all goes well between the group of us, there’ll be moments in the future when the other alphas aren’t just seeing you with me... they’ll be joining in as well.”
She drew her legs up to her chest. “I know. It’s still a little hard to wrap my head around. It’s not like I’ve ever tried a threesome before, let alone a... five-some?”
If Serenity had grown up among the shifters, seeing her mother with her four fathers, she wouldn’t feel this hesitation. And that was the fault of the rogues who’d ripped her family apart with their bloodshed.
My jaw clenched for a second before I forced it to relax. The past was gone, as horrific as it had been. All we could do was move forward from there. And make sure none of the rogues who remained got another chance at harming the dragon shifter we still had.
Serenity didn’t deserve to be rushed, but it wouldn’t be right for me to encourage her to see me as her only mate either. I pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. “We can give you time. Don’t feel you have to rush things. And I’m here for you, however you need me. But I think it’ll be good for you to try to keep your mind open. Dragon shifters aren’t meant for only one mate. I won’t be enough to satisfy you on my own.”
The glint in her eyes turned mischievous. “You’re doing an awfully good job so far.” She kissed me again, long and slow. Then she scooted her sleeping bag as close to mine as she could get. “Hold me until I fall asleep?”
I lay down next to her and wrapped my arm around her waist, tipping my face next to hers. “Until then and after, Serenity.”
Ren
My toe caught on a ridge in the path, and I stumbled forward. A curse fell from my mouth, but I caught my balance before Nate’s helping hand reached me. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Whoever picked this route obviously wasn’t too concerned about ease of travel,” Marco said, raising his eyebrows as he took in our surroundings. “A little redecorating might be in order.”
I couldn’t argue. If I’d thought yesterday’s hike had been difficult, today’s was downright brutal. The path had veered sharply upward through the morning, and just after we’d stopped for a quick lunch, the walls above slanted together to form a ceiling overhead. We were walking through a cave now. A cave with a really uneven floor and only dim light from the occasional gaps in the ceiling. Our steps echoed faintly through the cavernous passage.
The temperature had dropped at the same time. A damp chill brushed my face as I trudged on. I was very glad for that down jacket now. But the tug inside me kept urging me onward, more insistently now than before. Whatever we were heading toward, we were definitely getting closer.
“Have you gotten any clearer sense of what we’re looking for or how far ahead it might be?” Aaron asked me.
I shook my head. “The feeling I have is still just a vague pull. But I know we’re going the right way.” If that feeling hadn’t been enough to confirm it, just an hour ago I’d spotted another score mark where Mom’s energy had lingered. She’d entered this cave too, seven or so years ago. Entered it and left her mark for me to find.
We’d also spotted a couple slivers of fae magic etched in the walls, although nothing the guys had thought was recent.
Something split the hazy gray tunnel ahead of us. I squinted at it. After several more steps, I made out what it was—a seam of rock. The cave was splitting into two passages.
“I’m not much of a fan of mazes,” West muttered.
Neither was I, but as we reached the branching, the pull inside me tugged to the left clearly enough. “We go that way,” I said, pointing. “No problem.”
“I trust your instincts,” Aaron said, “but I don’t like the additional possibilities for an ambush when there are multiple passages to move between. I think we should quickly scout out both sides—check for any signs of potential enemies.”
“Fine,” West said, stalking toward the passage to the right. “Let’s just get on with it.”
“Fifteen minutes, and if you haven’t seen any reason to worry by then, meet back up,” Aaron called after him. He headed down the left passage, leaving me with Marco and Nate.
The big bear shifter crossed his arms over his chest, looming over me as if there were some immediate threat I needed to be defended from. I appreciated that he wanted to look out for me, but sometimes his protectiveness felt a little smothering.
“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing around here except for rocks,” I said. “Unless there are some rock demons or something you guys haven’t bothered to tell me exist, we should be fine.”
“No rock demons,” Marco said with a grin. “As much as I might enjoy a little break. Hiking, hiking, hiking does get monotonous.”
“We’ve seen those signs that the fae have been through here,” Nate said. “It’s better to be cautious than to put you at risk.”
I couldn’t say I exactly minded this kind of break. I set down my pack and rolled my shoulders. They throbbed with the motion.
“Need a little help with those?” Marco said in a suggestive tone.
I rolled my eyes at him, and his grin widened. But I actually wouldn’t mind a little assistance working out the kinks in my muscles. “Give them everything you’ve got,” I said, shrugging my jacket down to give him better access.
Marco’s lithe hands settled on my shoulders over the fabric of my shirt. He dug his thumbs into my muscles with the perfect amount of pressure. I groaned at the burn spreading through my shoulders, and he chuckled. Suddenly the cave’s air felt a whole lot warmer.
A pattering sound carried from the other end of the cave, back the way we’d come. Nate’s back went rigid. He turned toward it, his bulky arms flexing. No other sounds followed, but he didn’t relax.
“It’s probably nothing,” I said. “Just a pebble falling off the ceiling.”
“I should take a look to make sure,” Nate said. Then he hesitated, his gaze moving to Marco. “You’ll watch out for Ren?”
“Of course,” Marco said, sounding amused. “Anyway, there’s one of the rest of you in any direction an enemy could come at us from. If you start screaming, we’ll know to get moving.”
Nate glowered at the jaguar shifter and headed down the cave. Marco resumed my shoulder massage. It didn’t take long before the bear shifter’s brawny form disappeared into the darkness. Marco leaned closer, letting his fingers dip down to my collarbone.
“Finally we’re alone,” he murmured in my ear.
A shiver of anticipation ran through me even as I smiled. “And what exactly are you assuming will happen now that we are?”
“I make no assumptions. Only offers. How would you like to spend the rest of our wait in a way we’ll both enjoy very much?”
“You think so highly of your abilities,” I teased. Then his hands dipped right under my bra, tracing the sensitive skin just above the tips of my breasts, and my breath caught. My body moved of its own accord. I leaned back against him, tilting my head as he pressed his mouth to the side of my neck.
“For good reason,” Marco said, his breath hot against my skin. It was so hard to resist
the passionate need flaring up from my core. And why should I resist it? Like Aaron had said last night, all four of these guys were my mates. I needed to get more comfortable with all of them. To open myself up to the experience.
I turned in Marco’s embrace and yanked his mouth to mine. He kissed me, a hungry sound reverberating from his chest. His hands slipped up my back under my shirt and nimbly unhooked my bra. As the cups loosened, he reached for my breasts again, swiveling his thumbs around my nipples and then flicking over them until I gasped.
My hips canted toward his. He dropped one hand to grasp my waist and spun us around so he could lean me against the stone wall. His touch teased over my hips and thighs. I kissed him hard, not caring about the rough surface behind me, just wanting to feel more.
Marco’s lips moved away from mine to nibble a tingling line along my jaw. “Oh, my Princess of Flames,” he said between nips. “You’re amazing. There’s no other word for it. I couldn’t have imagined a better mate.”
I mumbled something inarticulate and encouraging, lost in the haze of pleasure. My eyelids fluttered. The light in the cave behind Marco seemed to flutter with them—and to solidify into a humanoid form.
We weren’t alone anymore.
Chapter 4
Ren
A yelp broke from my throat. I jerked away from Marco and the figure beyond him, smacking the back of my head on the wall of the cave. Marco whirled to place himself between me and the figure in one smooth movement. What must have been an instinctive shout of warning burst out of him, but his shoulders came down when he set eyes on the strange woman. He drew himself up straighter.
“You know, I really thought the fae had better manners,” he said.
The fae. Yes, the woman standing at the other side of the passage was as slim and pale as the man I remembered Mom talking to. Her skin, hair, and filmy dress had the same bluish shine, a little dampened here in the dimness of the cave.
I fumbled to fix my bra, my face flushing. This wasn’t exactly how I’d have wanted my first meeting with fae-kind to go down, not when I was supposed to represent the entire shifter community.
The woman didn’t look at all distressed or apologetic about the make-out she’d interrupted. Her expression was blandly blank.
“I have a matter of some importance to relate to you,” she said in a thin, shimmering voice.
Footsteps were thudding over the stone floor on either side of us. Nate appeared first, then Aaron and West, all of them slowing to a halt when they saw our visitor. Marco waved them all over, but I saw his jaw was still set a bit tight. He wasn’t completely at ease, no matter how nonchalant he liked to appear.
How had the fae woman gotten past all of the alphas? Was there some other passage we’d missed—or had it been some kind of magic? It didn’t seem wise to ask the guys right in front of her. I didn’t need her knowing just how ignorant I was about all things supernatural.
West’s lips had drawn back over his teeth in a wolfish snarl. His stance was completely tensed. “What are you doing here?” he gritted out.
Nate stepped closer, towering over the slip of a woman. I could tell from his pose that he was braced to shift into his grizzly form the instant he felt he needed to. Aaron set a hand on his arm, but the eagle shifter’s eyes gleamed with a determined light. He might not want to rush into a confrontation, but he was ready for it.
“Apparently she has some important info to pass on,” Marco said, and nodded to the fae woman. “So go on.”
She cocked her head consideringly, taking in my alphas. “I come with the intention to help. There is no need to be defensive.”
“We’ll judge that for ourselves,” West said.
Aaron stepped forward, making a brisk motion toward the wolf shifter as if asking him to stand down. “We’re listening,” he said, his voice even but not friendly. “What is it you wanted to tell us?”
“We discovered one of your kind sneaking after you in the caves, carrying a weapon,” the fae woman said. “One with no ties to any of your kin-groups. Clearly he had ill intentions.”
A rogue. My back stiffened. “Where is he?”
“You don’t need to worry about him any longer. We disposed of him in an appropriate manner.”
She moved her hand in an arc through the air and conjured an image like a hazy video recording, floating in mid-air. A weasel scuttled along the wall of the cave. It had a small knife clamped in its jaws. A chill ran down my spine.
I recognized that animal. One of the rogues who’d ambushed us in the mountain pass had transformed into a weasel to flee. I was sure that animal was the same one. So he’d been tailing us through the cave, carrying yet another forbidden weapon. The moment we’d all had our guards down, even for a moment, I had no doubt he’d have tried to finish the job the group of rogues had attempted before.
Killing me.
In the conjured image, a fae man appeared in front of the weasel. His mouth moved, but the conjured display contained no sound. The weasel flinched and darted for a crevice. The man threw a bolt of searing light toward it. The bolt struck the weasel—and consumed it in a brief blaze. When the light faded, nothing of our enemy remained.
The fae woman gestured again, and the image vanished. She spread her arms as if to say, There you have it.
“We would rather have had him captured alive so we could have questioned him,” Aaron said. He managed to keep his tone even, but his rasp had become more pronounced. And why shouldn’t he be upset? The weasel shifter might have been our enemy, but the fae couldn’t have been sure of his intentions. He’d been our business to deal with as we saw fit. And they’d just slaughtered him with a single swipe of magic.
What if they decided we deserved the same treatment?
“He was not inclined to cooperate, as you could see,” the fae woman said. “My companion could feel the murderous intent in him. We believed we were doing you a kindness.” She paused, and her filmy eyes glittered in a way that set my nerves on edge. “You are the alphas of the shifter-kin, are you not? And the long-missed dragon shifter.”
I liked the way her gaze settled on me even less. Apparently the guys all had the same feeling, because they drew closer around me at the same moment.
“We are,” Marco said. I guessed she must have been able to sense their status, maybe through the oath-scars on their hands. “And she is. And as far as we knew, no one has made a direct claim on this mountain. I hope we aren’t intruding.”
“Not at all,” the fae woman said, but I thought her sheen jittered a little. “We venture into the mountains from time to time, but we don’t consider them truly part of our home. There is room enough for both.”
“So this is basically a vacation spot for you,” Marco said. He raised his eyebrows at the cave around us. “You have interesting tastes.”
“The landscape has qualities that appeal in their own way. I suppose you’ve noticed other signs of our presence on your travels.”
“We didn’t think you’d been here recently,” Nate put in. “Otherwise we’d have reached out to you.”
“Did you pass on word to your people elsewhere?” the fae woman asked. She gave us a demure smile. “I know we’ve had our disagreements in the past. If there will be more shifters arriving, it would be best for us to know they’re here on your request. To avoid any awkward encounters.”
Like a fae deciding to incinerate another shifter?
“We aren’t expecting anyone to join us,” Aaron said. “But please, if you come across another rogue lurking around, bring the matter up with us before taking any action.”
The fae woman bowed her head in a way that didn’t look all that apologetic to me. My skin prickled. Maybe the dragon shifters and the fae had worked together long ago, but right now I didn’t trust them at all.
“Is there any particular reason you’re here right now?” West asked, his voice tight. He obviously shared my sentiments.
“We were simply passing by and noticed
you doing the same.” The fae woman tipped her head. “All four of the alphas and their long-lost mate up here together—you must be making this trip on a matter of some importance.”
She said it as a statement, but the question was clearly implied. My hands clenched. She claimed she was helping us, but every sense I had screamed that she had other intentions. I had no interest in sharing my mother’s story with her.
“Serenity is still adjusting to her new role,” Aaron said. He was the only one who called me by my full name, the name my mother had urged me to keep secret the entire time we’d been in hiding, and sometimes it still felt as if he were talking about a stranger. Right now, faced with the fae, I appreciated the formality of it. “There aren’t many places a dragon shifter can exercise her powers without needing to worry about discretion.”
“I suppose your people must at least know you’ve traveled up here,” the fae woman said. “They’ll be awaiting your return.”
“We’ll be back soon enough,” Marco said. I restrained a frown. What was she getting at?
Maybe it was time we started asking more of the questions. I didn’t want to tell her much about Mom, but she might know things I didn’t.
“My mother came up here at least once in the last several years,” I said. “She liked to visit the mountains too. I don’t suppose you ‘passed by’ her then?”
The fae woman pursed her lips. “I can’t recall the last time I saw any dragon shifter in these heights. I can ask my companions if they have more knowledge.”
That was an incredibly vague answer. And if she could tell the alphas were alphas just by sensing it, surely she’d picked up on the marks Mom had left behind on the walls. Maybe she just assumed we’d already seen those?
“It sounds as though you’re more familiar with this mountain than we are in general,” Aaron said. “Is there anything we should know for safe passage from here on?”
The fae woman’s mouth curled into another smile, but this one looked even chillier than the last. “You’re the five most powerful shifters alive. I’m sure there’s nothing on this mountain that could threaten you. I suppose I shouldn’t delay you in your journey any longer. We are moving on now, so I doubt our paths will cross again.”