by Becca Van
Barrett licked her shoulder right next to Edison’s mark and bit down into her flesh. He howled with rapture as the electricity arced into his balls, up his dick, and shot out deep into his mate’s womb. But his cock wasn’t the only thing that felt those sparks of energy. He felt like his mind had exploded along with his dick. His heart felt full of emotion when he didn’t know that it had any space in it, and his soul felt complete for the first time…ever. His vision dimmed and his body trembled with a weakness he’d never felt before, and he could feel her inside him like both their spirits had joined together on an eternal level. He’d known that being with one’s mate was supposed to be an extraordinary experience, but nothing could have prepared him for the actuality of making love with while marking and claiming Primrose.
Barrett felt the solid bond between him and her, but she had also solidified the bond between him and his brothers. Loving and claiming his mate was the most phenomenal thing he’d ever experienced, and from what he’d heard the other claimed wolves say, it was only going to get better and better between them.
His canines retracted and he bathed the wound in her shoulder with his tongue. When she didn’t move or make any sound, he leaned over and looked at her face. Her skin was still flushed from her orgasm, but her eyes were closed, her face relaxed, and her breathing deep and even. Primrose was fast asleep.
“I’ve never…” Barrett swallowed around the lump of emotion clogging his throat as he met Ed’s gaze.
“No words can describe it, can they?” Ed asked.
“No,” he replied in a hoarse voice.
Palmer shifted and Barrett looked to the bottom of the bed, where his older brother was reclining, his eyes fixed on their mate. “She’s damn special, but we need to know if this person tormenting our mate is a threat. She’s ours to love and protect, and there is no fucking way someone is ever going to take her away from us.”
Barrett groaned as he eased his cock from Prim’s pussy and pulled her into his arms to hold her tight. The thought of someone hurting their woman was inconceivable, but now that he and his brothers had marked her, they would do everything in their power to keep her safe.
“From what I heard her telling Mel, Sara, and Tessa, she doesn’t even know who has been bothering her,” Ed said.
“We’ll just have to make sure she never leaves our sight,” Palmer stated. “That way, if anyone comes at her, they’ll have to go through us first.”
Ed kissed Prim on the cheek and then rolled off the bed. “I can see that going down like a lead balloon.”
“Too fucking bad,” Palmer snapped. “I don’t care if she yells, screams, and stomps her foot.”
“I can see her doing that,” Barrett said with a smile. He could just imagine their smaller mate going toe-to-toe with all three of them, but he quickly pushed those thoughts aside when his cock twitched with renewed interest.
First and foremost right now was taking care of their mate’s needs. Ed had already gone into the bathroom and started the bath. Barrett rolled over to the edge of the bed, taking Primrose with him. He shifted his hold on her, and then rose to his feet and headed to the bathroom with her in his arms. After dipping a toe into the water to test the temperature, he stepped in and sat down in the large tub with Prim on his lap. Ed and Palmer got into the bath, too, and between the three of them, they washed her body and then, after bathing themselves, all of them got out.
Barrett held Prim while his brothers dried her off, and then he handed her over to Palmer while he dried. Once he was done, he walked back into the bedroom to find Palmer sitting on the sofa, cuddling their mate while inhaling her wonderful scent, while Ed stripped and re-made the bed. When the bed was finished, Palmer carried their woman over and lowered her onto the mattress. She sighed in her sleep and rolled onto her side. He couldn’t resist her, nor did he want to, so Barrett got into bed and pulled her into his arms. His wolf panted happily and sighed with contentment, just like he did at having Primrose’s body and skin against his own. Nothing was more poignant than having his mate cuddled up close to his body.
Ed got into bed on the other side and shifted until his front was plastered against Prim’s back. She whimpered in her sleep and her foot moved restlessly, reaching out and searching the end of the bed. Barrett smiled at Palmer and his brother’s eyes heated with lust as well as love. He lifted the covers from the end of the bed and lay crossways at the end of the mattress, before placing a hand on their mate’s leg and pulling the covers over himself.
Primrose sighed, her lips curved slightly, and then she settled back down again.
It seemed that their mate felt the connection between all three of them even in her sleep and didn’t like it when they weren’t all surrounding her. That was fine with Barrett, because he liked—no, “like” was too weak of a word—he loved being close to and touching Prim just as much as she seemed to need their presence and touch as well.
Life couldn’t get much better than this.
Chapter Eight
Prim whimpered with fear when she heard the scraping against the bedroom window. She had just finished showering and dressing for bed, and was standing on the threshold of the bedroom door, but when she heard that sound she froze and held her breath. The first thought that raced into her mind was to get to the phone or grab her cell so she could call the police, but she didn’t think that would help. The cops had been out to her house at least ten times in the past three or four months and each time they searched her yard and around the outside of the house, they never found anything.
Each time she met the police officers at her door after they’d knocked, she felt her self-confidence plummet and she wondered if the police were right and that she was imagining things. But she hadn’t heard any noises in the last place she’d lived, so she didn’t think that she was conjuring up the sounds she heard at least twice a week. And as her fear calmed, she realized that if she was paranoid, she would surely hear them more than she was. There never seemed to be a pattern to her nocturnal visitor’s presence. Sometimes she heard the noises early in the week, other times it was mid-week and also on the weekends. And sometimes her visitor arrived at the start and end of the week.
Prim took a shaky step toward her bedroom door and once she got one leg to move, the other followed more easily and before she knew it, she was standing in her dark kitchen near her house phone. After taking a deep, shaky breath, she picked up the receiver and dialed 9-1-1. When the dispatcher’s voice came over the line, she jumped and fumbled with the handset when she nearly dropped it. She quickly told the person on the other end where she lived and about the noises she could hear outside her bedroom window.
“Ma’am, are you on any medication?” the female dispatcher had asked.
“No!” Primrose whispered furiously.
“Maybe you should be,” the woman muttered. “I’m sorry to say that there are no officers available at this time. Why don’t you make a nice cup of tea, sit down and drink it, and then try and get some sleep?”
Prim was so angry at the condescending tone and wanted to yell at the woman, but she held her breath and counted to ten as she removed the receiver from her ear and stared at the phone. When she finally had her anger back under control and placed her ear to the handset, all she heard was a busy signal. The bitch had hung up on her. The officers who had been out to her place regularly over the last few months must have made notes in their reports that she was a nutcase.
A loud bang against the side of her house pulled her from fury back into fear, and she started shaking. She slipped from the stool near the kitchen counter and wall and sat on the floor underneath the bench, pulled her legs up against her body, and wrapped her arms around her legs.
That was where she stayed for the next hour as the scraping and banging noises continued. Every time another bang sounded, she wondered if whoever was out there would accomplish breaking into her home, and her imagination began to take over. She had images of a masked man coming into
her kitchen with a knife or gun in his hand and raping and assaulting her while he held each or either weapon to her throat or head while he abused her. By the time she came out of her fear-induced hallucinations, she had no idea how much time had passed and it took a while to realize that she could no longer hear anything.
When she rubbed a hand over her face and it came away wet, she realized that she was crying and sniffled when her nose started to run. She groaned at her stiff muscles as she pushed to her feet and shakily walked over to the sideboard, where the box of tissues sat. After mopping up her face, eyes, and blowing her nose, she crept around the house, making sure all the locks were secure, and peeked out of the windows after moving the blinds slightly aside, but she couldn’t see anyone.
Prim was so tired, but she knew it would take forever for the adrenaline to leave her system before she could fall asleep. She looked at the digital clock on the table beside her bed and saw that it was already past two in the morning. It was getting harder and harder for her to sleep, and each night she stared at her clock and watched the minutes tick over. Each and every night she lay awake, expecting another visit from whomever seemed hell-bent on terrorizing her, and each day she became more exhausted.
She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could stand without really cracking up. But she must have finally succumbed to sleep, because the next thing she knew, she was sitting upright in bed. She actually felt her ears move as they pricked up, and then she screamed as the sound of exploding glass near her bed, scared the living daylights out of her.
* * * *
Palmer got out of bed and headed straight for the kitchen. After setting up the coffee pot and turning it on, he went back to the bathroom to clean up from earlier that morning. He picked up the discarded towels, took them out to the laundry, put them into the washing machine, and switched it on before heading back the bathroom to set out a clean towel for his mate. He didn’t want her staying in this cabin anymore. He wanted her to move in with him and his brothers, but he wanted to make sure Primrose had everything she needed if she decided she wanted to have a shower after her nap. When he heard her whimper, he spun around so fast his elbow connected with the glass on the vanity and sent it hurtling to the floor. He wasn’t quick enough to catch it even though he tried, and after it bounced off his fingertips, it went crashing against the spa bath and shattered onto the tile floor.
When Primrose started screaming, he glanced to the bedroom and saw that she was sitting upright and she was shaking as that tortured sound left her mouth. Ed and Barrett sat up quickly, and Ed pulled their mate onto his lap and into his arms. Palmer jumped over the broken glass, since he didn’t have any shoes on, and rushed over to the bed. He sat down on the edge and started caressing her back, shoulder, and arm. He felt the moment she came awake and then she started crying harder. Her sobs wracked her small body as she clung to Edison.
“Shh, honey. You’re okay. You’re safe here.”
Barrett scooted across the mattress and pressed his back to her while he stroked over her head and hair. “Come on now, baby. No one can hurt you here. We’ll protect you.”
Prim’s tears finally slowed to the occasional hiccup and sniffle. Palmer hated seeing her in such pain and so scared. The sweet smell of her fear still lingered in the air, and even though it wasn’t as prevalent as it first had been, it was still pretty damn strong. He reached over and gripped her waist, lifted her, and plunked her down on his lap. He wrapped her up tight in his arms, trying to surround her with his comfort and heat, and was glad that her shivers subsided.
“Talk to us, sugar. You need to tell us what’s going on with you, why you’re so scared.” It didn’t matter that he and his brothers already knew what the problem was. What did matter was getting their mate more comfortable with them so that whenever she was troubled, scared, or just plain old moody, she could come to one or all of them to talk things through.
“I don’t…”
“Mate, you need to talk to us.” Palmer nudged her chin up and his heart clutched when he saw her tearstained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. “The lines of communication need to be open between all four of us for this relationship to work without too much angst.”
“So you’ll talk to me, too?” she asked.
“Of course we will, baby.” Barrett kissed her shoulder. “Haven’t we already told you everything from the start?”
“I guess…but not about any of you. You’ve only told me about the werewolf stuff.”
“That ‘werewolf stuff,’ as you put it, is a big part of us, honey,” Ed said.
“Yeah, I get that, but I need to know more. I’ve jumped into this relationship without knowing much of anything. I don’t even know how old you are.”
“Does our age matter to you?” Palmer asked, and hoped like hell it didn’t, because werewolves aged a lot slower than a human did. He didn’t know what he’d do if she baulked because of the years they had over her. He was relieved when she shook her head, but he wondered if she would pitch a fit when she found out how old they actually were. Shit, I hope not.
“Why don’t we get up and grab some coffee?” Ed suggested. “We can talk about anything you like. You can ask all the questions you want.”
“Okay,” Prim sighed, and then shoved off of Palmer’s lap.
She had taken two steps toward the bathroom before he remembered the broken glass. He jumped up and snagged her around the waist. “Wait until I clean up the glass I broke, sugar. I don’t want you cutting your feet.”
“You broke a glass?”
“Yeah, you were whimpering in your sleep. You were obviously having a bad dream and I spun around and knocked the glass off the counter.”
“Shit. I think I heard that and incorporated it into my dream. I thought that whoever was outside my house had smashed my bedroom window in.”
“I’m sorry, Prim. I would never do anything to frighten you on purpose.”
Primrose reached up and cupped his cheek. His cock hardened and his wolf was urging him to claim her all over again, but their mate needed more quality time with him and his brothers before they made love to her again.
“I know you wouldn’t. Please, don’t ever think I would think that.”
Palmer placed his hand over hers and then brought it to his lips and kissed the center of it. “That’s real good, sugar. Now, why don’t you use the bathroom down the hall while I clean this mess up? By the time you’re finished, we’ll have the coffee brewed and we’ll even put some sandwiches together.”
He smiled when he heard her belly growl. “Sounds good.” She stood up on tiptoes, grabbed hold of his shirt, and pulled his head down to hers. She kissed him lightly on the lips before releasing him and heading to the other bathroom.
“What are we going to do about finding the asshole scaring her?” Barrett asked.
“I don’t know.” Palmer sighed and rubbed his fingers through his hair. “Maybe we won’t have to, since she’ll be moving in with us.”
“That’s something we haven’t even discussed with her yet,” Ed said. “What are we going to do if she doesn’t want to?”
“I can’t see that happening,” Barrett said. “We already told her that we can’t be away from our mate once we’re mated. She knows that we would all die a slow, painful death.”
“Knowing something and then making a decision which will change your whole life is something totally different.” Ed got up off the bed and started pacing.
“She’s already made a life-changing decision by agreeing to be with us,” Palmer stated. “She agreed to move here. I think she’ll agree to move in with us, too. We all know how dangerous it is for mated women to be out in the world by themselves. There is no fucking way I’m letting her live separate from us.”
“That’s something we haven’t told Prim,” Barrett said. “We have to try and remember that all this is new to her.”
“It’s new to all of us, Barrett. We aren’t used to explaining things and forget t
o tell her stuff, too.” Ed headed to the bedroom door. “I’ll go make the coffee and sandwiches.”
Palmer had a quick shower in the other bathroom after Barrett. He took over making the sandwiches from Ed so he could go shower, too. By the time the food was ready, both his brothers had set the plate of sandwiches and mugs of coffee as well as the cream and sugar on the table. Prim entered the kitchen looking sweet and fresh. He inhaled her wonderful vanilla-and-cinnamon scent and wondered if the perfume came from the shower gel she used, or if it was her natural womanly scent and the pheromones she gave off to entice their wolves. It didn’t really matter, either way. To him, she smelled delectable and he took every opportunity to inhale her wonderful fragrance.
Palmer held her chair out and helped to seat her, and then took the chair next to her. He pushed the plate of sandwiches toward her and watched as she took two halves and put them on her plate. After they all had their food, they ate quietly for a few moments, each of them lost in their own thoughts, until Primrose sat back with a satisfied sigh and eyed the still-mounded platter of sandwiches.
“How many people are you feeding, a small army?” she asked.
“No, sugar, just three hungry werewolves,” Palmer replied.
“Wow, your metabolism must be really fast if you can eat all that.”
“It is,” Barrett said and smiled at her.
“So, are you going to answer my question about your age?” Primrose picked up her mug of coffee and wrapped both hands around it.
Palmer glanced at his brothers before meeting her gaze again. “How old do you think we are, sugar?”
“Oh, I guess late twenties to early thirties.”
Ed shook his head and grinned at Prim. “Nope.”