by Ever Coming
Luckiest hyena in the entire freaking universe.
“Just out of curiosity, what was the other thing?” Noah asked as I slipped my panties over my ass and down my legs.
“She wants us both coming inside her at the same time.”
Yeah, I did.
“Best mate ever,” Noah said between kisses up my left leg as Shane worked his way up my right.
“Truer words were never spoken,” Shane agreed as they both reached my very wet, very needy pussy at the same time. “I call firsts.”
“She’s ours, Shane. I vote we both get firsts.” And, at that, both of their tongues licked along either side of my clit, effectively shutting off my brain entirely.
Chapter Ten
“The mountains—I feel like I’m looking at a postcard. They’re so beautiful.”
We’d been driving for hours and, with each one, the scene before me became more and more beautiful. The mountains we were now winding our way through were almost too beautiful to be true.
When my mates offered to hire a driver and movers so we could make the journey home together, I thought it was over the top. Now that I was witnessing it firsthand, I saw how right they were. Experiencing this with them was everything.
The guys took turns driving, Noah at the wheel for the last leg of our journey.
My hyena wanted out. She wanted to run and explore, the absence of tall buildings and small plots of land exciting her to the point of her trying to take control. How I had underestimated how very much she hated city life.
“Glad you approve.” Noah’s hand brushed my thigh before returning to the steering wheel, the roads a bit windier and a whole lot bumpier than I was used to.
“How far out are we?” At least I didn’t ask if we were there yet.
“Only about fifteen minutes.” Shane squeezed my shoulder from behind.
“So I will get to see this every morning.” I couldn’t even wait to watch the tree-covered mountains as the seasons changed.
“See that clearing off to the far right?” He pointed, bringing his arm in front of me and accidentally brushing along my breast. Good mate.
“Yes.” It took some squinting until we rounded the corner and it came into full view.
“That’s our home,” he said proudly.
“You live on a mountain?” I’d seen pictures of them at home, but, taken out of context, I assumed they lived in a far less magical place.
“We live on a mountain.” He accentuated his point by running a finger over his mating mark, which had somehow gotten more sensitive as he had healed. He sat back with a chuckle at my intake of breath at the sensation. Darn tiger did that on purpose.
“And the rest of the clan?”
The clearing wasn’t tiny, but there was no way it held his entire clan. I knew not all shifters lived in as close quarters, as hyenas generally did, but I expected to see more of an enclave than I was seeing. Not that I loved living with everyone on top of me. I had moved away the second I reached maturity.
“Throughout the mountains, mostly.” Noah turned the car down a much smaller road, the kind where one vehicles would need to pull over to let the another pass. “Some live in the city just past where we just turned off.”
“That’s not a city.” We were in the middle of nowhere. At most, there was a town. Which suited me just fine. I was all done with city life.
I still had quite a few shoots lined up, but, other than that, I planned to stay put in the beautiful mountains that had become my home. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to keep working, in that field, anyway. Now that I had seen my future, I was more than ready to make a start of it. Shane was pretty sure we’d not have a shared vision like that again, adamant it was fate trying to make sure we all “got it.” I was pretty glad about that, since I wanted us to forge our future together, not live for a future we’d caught glimpses of here and there.
Noah agreed with my assessment, but Shane made the valid point that his dream as a small boy was what had brought us all together. Sure, he’d found Noah on his own, and they would have been happy, their love shining bright, but after only a week together, most of it either in the bedroom or running as our animals, I already saw that the three of us together were so much more than any pair we could create.
“Not like that concrete and steel mess you’ve been used to,” Noah started in, defending his city classification. “But it has three grocery stores, multiple stores that end with mart, and a dine-in movie theater, so I think it qualifies.”
So, not a city, but I didn’t want a city. It sounded perfect.
“Don’t forget the state’s best Mexican restaurant,” Shane jumped in, describing the last three meals he’d had there.
“I love Mexican food.” And after listening to him rave about his meals so, I planned to learn how to make some or at least how to make reservations.
“We’ll have to take you there. It’s owned by one of our clan mates.” Noah slowed down and as a rafter of turkeys meandered across the road. Turkeys. Did they have no self-preservation at all?
“Is your restaurant in the city?” It was still not a city.
“It is just beyond the city. In an old tavern.” Shane handed me his phone with a picture of the restaurant pulled up. It looked just as I’d imagined, with leather furniture and beautifully carved wooden accents. The photo was a candid of Noah, more accurately his ass as he bent over to pick up a dropped menu at the hostess station, but I could still appreciate the room even with that yummy distraction front and center.
“Isn’t that hard—having your clan so spread out?” I turned my head, directing my question at Shane, since he was the one responsible for their wellbeing.
“Tigers are more chill about that kind of thing.”
Noah started driving again, the last of the turkeys across the road.
“We function autonomously and come together for things of value—like a hunt or school-board garbage.”
“Garbage?” Surely he hadn’t just called schools garbage. Shifters tended to run their own schools. It made it easier for them to avoid incidents. Not all shifters changed young, but those who did tended not to be able to control their shifts as well as humans would have liked. They also allowed for the children to have a lot more time outside and learn their history.
“They spent a month deciding what color to paint the classroom.” I scoffed at my misunderstanding. The schools weren’t garbage, the politics were. That was about right.
“My statement stands.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed.
What if I was the equivalent of the wrong classroom paint? Shane’s mother liked me well enough—well enough to buy me even, I sighed to myself. But what about the rest of the clan? Shane had called them chill.
“You got nervous all of a sudden.” Noah took my hand in his. “Let us in, beautiful.”
Because, of course, he’d noticed my unease.
“You know it’s creepy how you do that. And it seems to get creepier by the day.” He was beyond in tune with my emotions, Shane’s too, for that matter.
“That’s because he’s an empath on a good day, but as our bond grows, so does his connection to us,” Shane fluffed off as if it were common knowledge, and a common skill for that matter.
“And you never told me?” He never hid it, though, so maybe that was the same thing?
“It’s not the big deal Shane thinks it is.” Noah held his hand up as if to thwart Noah’s rebuttal, which had yet to begin.. They really needed to make vehicles conducive to three people sitting up front.
“Shane sees things, so I think his opinion might hold some validity.” If he saw the future, understanding and sensing opinions would feel like no big deal. “It’s not like everyone has some super-cool power.” And if I did, I’d choose teleportation and travel the world in a blink like the genie from that television show.
“Says the woman who has mastered pheromone manipulation,” Shane teased, his amusement over finding my
comic collection still fresh in his mind.
And since he knew every comic I had, it wasn’t like he had room to talk.
“I’m no wallflower,” I faux pouted. I’d been called far worse than a hot chick with the ability to control pheromones.
“No, you aren’t, but every time you’re near, pheromones go flying,” Noah piped up as he rounded another corner and we began a steeper ascent than I’d anticipated. It was going to be interesting driving my truck through the mountains the first few time, but at least I wouldn’t have asshats cutting me off at eighty miles an hour.
“Not a super power.” I rolled my eyes. “Not even a real thing. It’s a comic.”
“And, yet, whenever you are around—”
“What if they don’t like me?” I blurted out my discomfort that had somehow turned into some odd sort of nerd seduction.
“Who?” they both asked.
“The clan. I’m a hyena.” And they were tigers. Not the most common of combinations, especially since I was now officially an alpha female. Or whatever their equivalent was. Except, his mom did try to arrange my marriage knowing I was a hyena and my mother, desperate for me to be mated, agreed to allow it outside our species, something I’d have to ask her about one day when I was significantly less pissed at her. All my life, it was hyena mate this, hyena mate that, and then…boom, here are two tigers. It didn’t set well.
“They will love you because you are ours.” Because that was reason enough. Although, if Noah had as strong a grasp on emotions not just within our triad, then maybe he had a solid point.
“Still a hyena.”
“Our clan is mostly tigers, but not exclusively.” Once again, Shane held his phone out to me. The picture was of some sort of run, I could see both my men in the lead but, with them, were tigers, a scatter of wolves, a gorilla, and a few foxes.
As we rounded yet another curve, two eyes peered from behind a tree, those eyes very much not human.
“We’re being watched.” Noah pointed to what I’d already noticed. “Probably best to warn you, now, tigers are a nosey bunch.”
“That was Mrs. Martinez, and she’s the busybody neighbor who means well,” Shane clarified. “Dimes to dollars, she brings a casserole before the sun sets.”
At least one thing about this clan was the same as the one I grew up in. Nosey-body old ladies who liked to feed you.
“Here we are. This driveway is us.” He switched on his signal then turned up what looked more like the entrance to a hiking trail than a drive.
We came to a stop in front of a beautiful cabin at the end of the drive, my car and the moving truck already waiting for us, having left a day before we had.
“Home sweet home.” Shane had opened my car door, both of the men already outside and waiting.
“It’s beautiful.” A large cabin, complete with wraparound porch.
“Would you like the grand tour?” Shane gestured to the front door.
“Absolutely.” I was more excited than a kid on Christmas morning. This was my home. Mine.
As Shane held the door open, Noah scooped me up, carrying me over the threshold in a very human move. It was adorable.
“This is the main seating area. It’s extra-large because I hold council meetings here when possible.” The room before me was mammoth, yet comfortable. I couldn’t see it being used as an everyday let’s-hang-out-after-a-long-day’s-work kind of thing, but it was absolutely perfect for entertaining.
Behind the room we were in was the formal dining area. Not that it was stuffy and formal, but there was no way a table that seated at least twenty comfortably was for breakfast and coffee before heading to the office.
“Your dining room is huge.” Which was an understatement to be sure.
“Once-a-month clan dinners.” Shane shrugged before leading me into what I soon discovered to be the kitchen. Not that it belonged in a house. The thing looked like it belonged on one of those fancy cooking shows about upscale restaurants.
“Once-a-month dinners explains your commercial kitchen.” I would easily be overwhelmed in the space, although it held a few normal appliances like a percolator and a toaster oven so at least my morning was set.
“It’s not commercial, but having a mate who is a chef requires a decent kitchen.” If this was merely decent, I couldn’t begin to fathom what a spectacular kitchen looked like.
“This is where we normally eat.” Shane showed me the small breakfast nook off the main kitchen, surrounded by windows that displayed the most stunning view I’d seen yet that day.
“I love the view. Hold on.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to take a picture to show Gina.
We hadn’t talked since I met my mates, and I was feeling pretty craptastic about that and rationalized that she hadn’t contacted me either. Which was a super unfair comparison, given her workload.
“What are you doing?” Shane looked over my shoulder and smiled.
“Sending a text to my friend Gina. She needs to see this view.” And hear all the things. I would need to find out her schedule so we could chat. I never could figure out how she kept her animal in check with the insanity that was her workload, but she did. She was pretty freaking amazing.
You will never believe the week I have had. Spoiler alert. This is my new home.
“It will take her a while to get that.” Shane hip checked me before pointing to where the bars on my phone should’ve been highlighted. “Check out your bars. It will send when you get to the city.”
My shoulders slumped. I loved the location, my hyena in full agreement, but not being able to communicate with the few people I cared about without going into the city wasn’t ideal.
“We have decent Internet, though, so you aren’t completely shut off from the rest of the world,” Noah added, probably in response to my inner whining.
“I’m pretty sure I’m okay with being shut off—at least for a while.” I opted to change the subject to something quite a bit more appealing. “Does this place have a bedroom?”
“I believe it does,” Shane sassed as Noah scooped me up, 100 percent onboard with my naughty plans.
Best. Mates. Ever.
Epilogue
“How are you feeling, beautiful?” Noah asked as he tied my robe closed. As if he didn’t know. But I discovered quickly that the communication thing was just the way he was, and it was nice to have someone care, so it bothered me not at all.
“Nervous. Excited. All the things.”
It was the night of the first clan run since I’d arrived. They marked the change of every season with a run, only this one was more. At this one, I’d be officially presented as the mate of the alpha alongside Noah. While Noah had been part of the clan and by Shane’s side for over four years, this would be his first time running as mate. It was a pretty big night for both of us. All three of us, really, even if Shane was the only one without a change in status in the clan.
“Hyenas don’t run as a clan…” Shane spoke in a half question. He still couldn’t quite grasp how my cackle had functioned—or malfunctioned, depending on your view.
At first, I thought he kept asking questions just to make conversation, but it soon became clear he was trying to see what we did that worked to put in his bag of tools for being an alpha. It was one of the reasons he was such an amazing leader. He wasn’t one to thwart change, nor was he one to jump on any new idea. He was thoughtful in his decisions and constantly trying to become better.
“Not in my cackle, anyway.” In my cackle, if we all hyenaed out at once, the bleeding would be of epic proportions. And they would think it was fun.
“Do you remember how it works?” Shane wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
“Absolutely.” I thought back to all they had told me about where to stand, what to say, how to approach the gorilla, whose human name was Sal, when our animals met. All the minutia that would matter not at all as I remembered the day. Well, maybe the how-not-to-have-a-gorilla-beat-you thing wo
uld matter, but not the rest.
“Shane tells them we plan to be shacked up forever and then calls the run to a start with his roar and, boom, we run until we can’t anymore and then we come back here to pig out and then have wild monkey sex.”
I may have added the monkey sex.
“I’m pretty sure you took some creative license with that.” Shane kissed my cheek.
“A fair amount, yes,” I agreed daring Noah to comment. Which he totally did, just not in the way I’d had been trying to encourage.
“Don’t take her bait.” He tsked at our mate. “She’s just trying to get herself some—”
“Now I am,” I called out in shock, even though I totally had been angling for some sexual retribution, the term I’d playfully coined for spankings and a little play, occasionally, with his flogger. “Why did you have to bring that up? Everyone is going to smell me.”
“You think they haven’t already?” Shane started us in the direction of the door. It was time.
Since I was pretty much walking around in a state of constant arousal around my two men, he wasn’t wrong on the scenting thing. They all knew. Every last one of them and, if they somehow missed it, Mrs. Martinez would be sure to fill them in. She was kind and all but her nose was up in all people’s business.
“You—stop helping with all the logic already.” I grabbed Noah’s hand as we made our way out of the house and down to the clearing.
To anyone flying over, we probably looked like some sort of cult all dressed in robes in the moonlight.
Shane stood front and center, as the crowd became silent. There were a few woman to the side not wearing robes. Some of them were watching the children who’d yet to have their first shift, but, predominantly, they were woman unable to shift due to pregnancy.
“Tonight is the night we run. This run, is more special than most. Tonight, we will run with my mates for the first time. Juniper and Noah were sent by fate to make me whole and, in turn, a better alpha.”