“We would all give you the bite.” Dean grinned at me and waggled his eyebrows, surprising a burst of laughter out of me.
“In the ceremony tomorrow,” Owen said, shaking his head at Dean’s salacious expression, “instead of one of us standing with you as you take the vow, we would all be there. And at the end of it, we would all three bite you.”
“I thought the bite that turned me created some sort of bond?”
They all laughed. “That’s kind of the werewolf’s version of a fairy tale,” Liam said gently. “It’s sweet and pretty, but it doesn’t really correspond to the truth.”
“You would all be my mates?” I studied them each in turn as they nodded. I wasn’t entirely certain how I felt about the idea in terms of being married to three men. I mean, what if they all got some kind of virus at the same time? They might all try to die of a man-cold.
I had to admit, as my sense of my duties as pack alpha grew, the idea of having all three of them to support me and guide me made me feel a lot more comfortable than the idea of choosing just one.
And the thought of having the three of them in my bed, whether all at once or one at a time, made my toes curl.
Not that I was certain they would ever agree to all coming to my bed at the same time. They might be a little too alpha male—if not pack alpha—for anything like that.
I wouldn’t have to choose. I could have more passion in my life, more intellectual stimulation, more love and kindness than I had ever imagined possible.
Yes. That voice inside me that had been guiding me ever since I started whispered fiercely. Yes, I want them all.
“Yes,” I said—and a little of that ferocity came through in my tone as all three of my werewolves stepped in close, each of them planting a kiss on me—Owen on the back of my hand, Liam on my cheek, and Dean on my neck.
My life was about to turn so damn hot.
13
Later that morning, Liam’s sister Tara helped me dress for the ceremony. We were cutting it close—it should have been the day before, but the fairies’ plot had wrecked that. We would still have to deal with them, but not until after the full moon.
I was about to put on the simple sundress I had chosen to wear for the ceremony when someone knocked on the door.
Tara opened it, and I heard murmuring. I sighed as I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Butterflies danced in my stomach. This was not at all how I had imagined my wedding day would be. Beginning with three grooms and ending with three bloody bites. And, if what Owen had told me was true, a miserable night locked in a cage while I waited for my first transformation.
Some wedding night this will be.
Tara appeared in the bathroom doorway. “I think you need to come see this.”
I followed her into the bedroom, where a box sat on the bed. I picked up the note on top of it.
I know it’s last minute. I’m sorry it took so long, but I had to have some alterations made.
~Mom
I pulled the dress out, immediately recognizing the satin, chiffon, and lace from my mother’s wedding dress—but this had been altered into something that was entirely me. A beautiful, flowing wedding dress. In fact, it looked almost exactly the like the sundress I had chosen to wear, only in white satin and chiffon instead of cotton.
“But I can’t wear this,” I said. “The bites will ruin it…”
Tara pulled a wrap out of the bottom of the box—made of heavy satin, it was a burgundy so dark it was almost black. It reminded me of the color of blood.
“I think this will keep that from being a problem,” Tara said.
For all that the wolves tended to congregate at The Moon Moon, my three grooms had arranged for us to use the convocation grounds—apparently owned jointly by all the wolves in the San Francisco area. It had a beautiful view of the water, and the pack had arranged to set it up as if for an actual wedding. Any humans walking by wouldn’t have been surprised to see the set-up.
But there wouldn’t be any humans, because this was private pack land.
I drew a shaky breath as I stepped up to the end of the makeshift aisle created by the folding chairs. Everything had been decorated in red and white roses. I glanced at the end of the aisle where all three of my grooms stood. The flowers would be Owen’s touch, traditionalist that he was, but I would bet anything that the idea to have a traditional human-style wedding was Liam’s. He was the one who was thoughtful that way. And Dean? He was probably responsible for the bar and dance floor under the tent I spied not far away.
When I reached the end of the aisle, the three of them moved to stand in a circle around me—one on each side, and one behind. They’d decided on that placement to provide a visual of their support for me as pack leader.
In front of us stood the pack historian, James, the equivalent of a judge, Owen had assured me. As I repeated the words after him, something in my chest tightened at the solemnity of the occasion—the entire ceremony was more moving than I anticipated.
“I do solemnly swear, from this moment forward, to consider all my actions in light of the pack’s needs, and to act, in word and deed, for the good of the pack. I will always do whatsoever is necessary to strengthen, support, and aid in the survival of the pack. With these men, my mates, I will work to obtain the highest good of the entire pack. This I swear in the name of all that I hold dear and holy.”
Then, one at a time, each mate stepped forward and repeated the vows, adding in a line swearing to support me as pack leader.
At the end of this public part of the ceremony, the four of us stood in a receiving line in the front of the audience as each pack member came by and briefly murmured words of support.
The formal fealty swearing would take place at the convocation in the fall. For now, though, these less formal affirmations of my role as pack leader would be considered almost as binding.
“You made a bold choice,” the pack historian murmured to me as the last of the pack finished offering congratulations. “Smart, too. Taking all three as your mates will forestall any number of possible coups that anyone might have planned. Among the three of them, they have more ties to this pack than you could ever hope to develop on your own.”
I glanced across to the tent where we had music playing, at the three grooms standing in a semicircle chatting with other pack members. They were almost unbearably handsome, and my pulse leaped at the thought that all three of them were mine—and I was theirs.
James glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Ah. I see your decision wasn’t all political, either. I’m glad they were willing to go along with it.”
“It was their idea.”
He blinked at me. “Interesting. I would not have expected three wolves so close to being alphas themselves to come to an agreement like that.” Humor underlined his comment, but I could tell he was serious, too.
I shrugged. “I just hope it never causes problems.”
“So do we all, my Alpha. So do we all.”
He moved off then, and I joined the rest of the pack to eat and dance.
14
As the night wore on, though, I found myself growing more and more anxious about the final part of the ceremony. By pack law, taking the bite to become official pack leader required witnesses. And yet all three of my wolves had talked about it as if it were the most intimate thing they had ever contemplated.
I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect—but in any case, I was as nervous as… I snickered to myself… as a virgin on her wedding night. We’d elected Tara and James as our witnesses and had decided the day before where each of my wolves would bite. The bites needed to be in places where I could show them easily to any pack member who asked, but where they were hidden should any humans talk to me during the time between the bites and my first shift.
We moved to a smaller, more private tent, the four of us and our witnesses meeting there about two hours into the party. I took a seat on the chair in the middle of the enclosed space, trembl
ing with something between fear and anticipation. Carefully I pulled my dress hem up over my knees, pulled off my white sandals, and placed my feet on the tiny footstool in front of me.
I found myself gripping the armrests of the wooden chair. Tara very carefully tucked the dark burgundy wrap around me. Then, on top of that, she spread a lightweight sheet over most of my body. “Just in case the wrap doesn’t catch everything,” she explained.
My three grooms—mates, I guessed I should call them now—gathered around me. Owen stood at my left shoulder, Dean at my right, and Liam knelt in front of me. The plan was for the three of them to shift enough for their fangs to descend. Then each would place his mouth in position and bite down when James told them to. Theoretically, that would keep us from ever knowing who bit first, whose bite carried the lycanthropy that would activate my latent werewolf genes—or infect me, depending on which version of the werewolf genesis story you believed.
Their choices in bite locations reflected who they were, too. Owen, the traditionalist, had chosen to bite my shoulder, just below my neck. Dean, the sensualist, placed his mouth against the crook of my elbow, his breath tickling the sensitive skin there. I hope the bites wouldn’t hurt as much as I suspected that they would. And Liam, my romantic, had chosen my calf. I hadn’t understood why until I saw him kneeling before me like Cinderella’s prince, my foot resting in his hands.
One by one, each werewolf dropped a light kiss on the skin he planned to pierce. I shivered at the touch of their hot lips against me.
“You may shift,” James announced.
It was the first time I saw them taking their werewolf forms, other than the first time I had met Owen. I watched with interest as Liam bent his face down to the floor. Crack and pops filled the room, the sounds of their shifting bone structure echoing and sending new shivers through me—this time in sympathy, as I listen to what sounded like tendons snapping. I wondered what my own first shift would be like.
In only a few moments, the partial shifts were complete.
I half expected to be horrified by the sight of their partially shifted forms. But I found that it didn’t bother me at all. When Liam looked up at me, it was still his beautiful brown eyes shining out of a semi-lupine face. And I knew that no matter what, he would always care for me.
Glancing around at the other two men, I realized I felt the same way about them. Their partially shifted faces did not look malformed to me. They were beautiful, all of them, no matter what shape they took.
Having watched them go through even part of the shift, I suddenly realized why they burned so hot – they needed that energy to fuel the shift to werewolf from human.
They all gathered around me, again carefully placing their mouths against me.
A shot of adrenaline raced through me. It wasn’t terror, exactly, but rather, the natural response of the human when faced with a werewolf.
I was prey, and I knew it.
James lifted his arms, like a priest giving a benediction. As he dropped them, he said, “You may now bite the bride.”
Even I could not tell which bite penetrated me first. They bit simultaneously, their sharp canine teeth sliding into my skin, piercing it like hot needles, sending slivers of misery shooting through my limbs. I clenched my teeth against the pain, determined not to cry out, but I couldn’t help but whimper as I fought to hold myself perfectly still.
I knew we weren’t done, either. While a single scratch of a werewolf’s tooth might be enough to effect the shift, there was no guarantee. To be certain, the bites had to be deeper than simply piercing the skin.
We had discussed the possibility of using some sort of numbing agent, by no one was sure how it might affect the lycanthropy virus. I tried to steel myself for what came next.
There was no preparing for it, though. As the werewolves’ lower fangs slid into my skin, as well, I found myself sobbing aloud. Red-hot points of agony centered my attention on my body—I couldn’t have told you what was going on in the world around me. I closed my eyes tightly, tears dripping down the side of my face as the three men I had vowed to take as my own mauled me.
The pain was excruciating. I felt the scrape of their upper and lower fangs coming together inside me and adrenaline flooded the back of my mouth, the copper taste choking me as I worked to keep from pulling away from the wolves.
I imagined their saliva coursing through me like poison pumping through my veins, and I fought not to vomit.
As soon as each wolf had completely penetrated the skin with all his teeth, they all three opened their jaws to release me. Their fangs sliding out of my skin was almost as painful as it had been for them to enter.
And each of them, without discussing it, began licking the wound he had created. To my surprise, their tongues eased the sharp pain. The screaming of my severed nerve endings quieted to a dull ache with occasional hot pinpoints.
My tightly clenched jaw didn’t relax, not for a long moment—and when it finally did, it was only to sob once.
After what seemed like hours but was probably only seconds, James and Tara finally moved my mates away from me. They all stood reluctantly, staring at me with anxiety pulsing through their eyes and shaking their half-shifted frames.
They had been careful, but blood still dripped down my skin, landing on the sheet in dark splotches. Quickly, James and Tara pressed gauze pads against the wounds, stanching the blood, then wrapped and taped bandages over them.
“Thank you,” I murmured softly. Tara’s nodded, her gaze worried.
Under any other circumstances, the wounds would have been carefully cleaned first. But because we wanted me to change, needed the lycanthropy virus to thrive inside me, they didn’t even rinse off the blood.
“Any infection beyond the lycanthropy will disappear during your first full-moon shift,” Owen said as if he were reading my mind.
This is better than dying, I reminded myself. It had been my only choice
I was married to werewolves, and I would become a werewolf. I had to get used to it.
I stood up too quickly and reeled. All three of my mates reached out to steady me. “Are you okay?” Owen asked.
“I will be.” I reluctantly put weight on the leg where Liam had bitten me. Very carefully, Liam wrapped the burgundy satin around my shoulders, covering the wound there and on my elbow. Even the brush of fabric caused the wounds to ache.
If this had worked, we would know by midnight. In the meantime, I was supposed to go out to the party and show my new pack how resilient I was.
I didn’t feel resilient. I felt fragile and wounded and miserable. And I suspected the worst was yet to come. No one had said so directly, but more than once I had heard my wolves use the phrase “surviving the bite.”
“Let’s go back to the party,” I said, my voice shaking.
My mates surrounded me, offering their support and protection.
“Here. This can help.” Dean handed me a glass of some dark amber liquid. “Drink it fast,” he suggested with a slight grin. “It’s pretty potent.”
I downed it as he suggested, and the heat of it hitting my stomach quickly spread out to my limbs, offering at least the illusion of the pain receding.
Liam stepped up to the side where my leg was injured. He put one arm around my waist and gave me his other hand to hold.
“We’ll help you to a chair,” Owen said. “You don’t have to dance, but you’ll need to be out there to accept the other pack members’ congratulations.”
I nodded and took a half step forward before he stopped me. “Wait. This first,” he said. He dabbed away my tears with a cloth handkerchief. I had never known a man who carried handkerchiefs. But of course, Owen did.
Tara stepped in with a powder compact and lipstick. “Touch up a little, too,” she advised.
When I was ready, Owen led the way, and the three of them surrounded me, mostly blocking me from anyone’s view until they had me settled in a chair with a footstool and padded arms—almost
like a throne. Definitely more comfortable than the plastic folding chairs they’d had out for the ceremony.
As long as I remained perfectly still, the wounds my mates had inflicted didn’t hurt.
15
As the afternoon wore on, more and more pack members shifted into their wolf forms. Mostly it started with the children, who would disappear for a time and wolves would reappear in their place, some of them small and bouncing, others with long, gangly, adolescent legs.
They played, pouncing on each other and growling playfully as they rolled around in the grass. The entire pack watched out for them, I noticed. Adults intervened when the play got too rough with no apparent need for direct parental supervision. Everyone helped to care for the cubs.
A steady stream of visitors visited me in my throne-like chair and people brought me food and drink all afternoon long, but I merely picked at what was offered.
The change started in me as a mild ache in the joints of my fingers and toes. At first, it felt like everything was a little tight. I stretched my hands and toes wide, rotating my wrist and ankles as I tried to work out the kinks.
Liam was the first of my mates to notice. “You okay?” He dropped into a chair next to me and took my uninjured arm with his hand. He rubbed up and down and rolled my fingers between hands, squeezing lightly.
“Oh, that feels really good.”
“There’s a chance it’s only going to get worse.”
I nodded, certain this was only the beginning. With one subtle gesture, Liam got Owen’s and Dean’s attention. They made their way to my table from their separate positions on opposite sides of the tent. When they got there, Liam spoke in a low voice. “It’s started.”
“Do we need to move her?”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I snapped, but felt instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I rolled my shoulders back, trying to loosen my suddenly tight spine.
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