Southern Shifters: Fast & Furless (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Yvette Hines

  He writhed against her with a groan and sigh.

  She did the act again as she wrapped her legs around him, her boots scuffed against each other, she held him close and tight.

  They continued to thrust and push each other toward the river of pleasure. After they were sated, he stood. Still holding her close, joined, he carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. Neither of them rested for hours.

  Chapter Four

  As sure as shit the brigade began before ass crack of dawn. He figured he ought to be grateful that his cousin banged on the door instead of using Dean’s key and entering the house they allowed him to utilize. However, their insistent battering wasn’t what woke him up. No. Brita getting out of bed an hour ago was it. It had still been dark, no sign of pending sunlight when she snuck away from him. She’d moved in stealth mode. He lay still on the bed, watching her through the darkness. His vision clear.

  Her gaze remained fixed out the window toward the mountain as she sat in the chair, her feet wedged before her and knees pressed to her chest. She was dressed in the only things she had—the big shirt and her boots. The damn boots that he’d personally taken off her feet once they were upstairs. The sight of them on her feet turned him on more than a long-legged feline shifter in fuck me heels. He bet Brita looked damn sexy in stilettos. But those boots were more her style. They fit her personality like tailor made gloves. Seeing them now had his cock hard, aching for him to take her.

  “Alek, open the fucking door, now. Or we’re coming in.” Dean roared, his voice defying wood and glass.

  That was the fucking reason he hadn’t dragged Brita to the bed, bent her over and slammed his cock home in her wet, tight pussy.

  “Do you plan to answer the door, Alek?” Her voice was low, even. He wouldn’t say calm, because it held no tone or inflictions to show her emotions. She tilted her head away from the window and met his gaze.

  She’d been fully aware he watched her all this time. The knowledge didn’t shock him.

  Hauling his ass out of the bed, he rose and stretched. His jaguar would have loved to go out for a run. What he did every morning, but the hammering downstairs wouldn’t make a dawn sprint possible. “Yeah. I’m going.” He crossed the room then cupped her chin. “You good, sweetness?”

  Pushing him away, she stood. “Absolutely. I came for some answers and it’s about time I get them.” She gestured for him to come first.

  He didn’t let her bluntness, or the fact she’d completely closed herself off from any intimacy between them, shake him. After a firm nod, he went and snatched up his jeans from the floor where he’d kicked them off the night before. He put them on then went out the room door. Downstairs they were just in time to hear the jingling of keys.

  Gripping the door, he yanked it open. “Well, good morning to you too, cousins. I hope your asses brought breakfast. Guess you guys never heard let sleeping cats lie.”

  “It’s sleeping dogs,” Bhric corrected, the first to enter the house.

  “Same as.” Since he was half jaguar and half wolf either way the phrase went it still included him. Now the sexy woman on the bottom step behind him, he wasn’t sure.

  Dean entered next followed by the main person of discussion.

  Alek wasn’t shocked, but the gasp behind him clearly indicated that Brita was caught off guard.

  The subtle flash of Niki’s ice blue eyes showed she was as well, but she hid it better. Making Alek believe she’d been advised on how similar the stranger was to her own appearance.

  Still holding the door, Alek watched Niki strut past him, head high and gaze locked on Brita. She dropped a bag beside the couch. “I heard you’ve been looking for me.”

  Brita stepped off the last step and closed the space between her and her twin. Standing before each other they appeared more fraternal twins instead of identical. However, if someone hadn’t spent time taking in every line, lash, dimple and inch of Brita and Niki and spotted them apart, they could easily mistake one for the other. Brita’s eyes were aqua to Niki’s ice blue. Niki’s hair was blond where Brita’s was tawny—soft brown with natural highlights. Brita’s skin looked honey colored next to Niki’s pale, almost translucent skin. Both women were curvy, but Brita’s form was well-defined.

  “Who are you?” Brita questioned, still analyzing Niki’s features.

  “I think that’s her line,” Dean barked, his fists wedged into his hips.

  Both women shot him a look. Niki’s more endearing compared to the hard stare Brita shot at him. Alek could tell there was only one person Brita wanted to hear from, the person before her.

  Alek closed the door, his hand fisting the knob. He had to remind himself that Dean was his cousin. The man was most likely flustered and angry by the unprecedented events of the last fourteen hours. However, Alek didn’t give a damn. He wouldn’t allow anyone to bully Brita. Not while he was there. Hell, not while Brita was there.

  The hellcat could definitely take care of herself, hold her own. But, Alek didn’t care, she was his to protect. Whether she liked it or not.

  Bhric was the only one sitting. He was also the only one with a smile on his face. Amusement was evident.

  “That’s Dean, my mate.”

  “I scented,” Brita commented.

  “The other mountain of a man is Bhric, his older brother. Owner of the establishment you almost set off a riot in.” Niki’s eyes were bright with humor as she pointed toward Bhric.

  Brita gave each man a short nod, but returned her gaze back to the only other female in the room.

  “I’m Niki.” The unique hybrid crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Why are you looking for me? Who sent you? How the hell did you get my DNA? That damn mad scientist I’m sure.” She shook her head. “His ass just keeps showing his handiwork from the grave. First my damn sister, now you.”

  “You have a sister?” Strange, Brita’s voice was filled with ah, wonder.

  “Sisters actually.” Niki took a step back and eyed her again. “You one of them?”

  Brita folded her arms before her. “I don’t know. Honestly.”

  “What in the hell kind of answer is that?” Brita lowered her arms, then smacked her hands against her thighs.

  “Why don’t we all sit down? See if we can figure this out,” Alek offered.

  “Alright.” Niki headed toward the couch. She patted her mate’s cheek when she passed.

  Unmoving, Brita asked. “Do they all need to stay? I don’t plan to hurt you.”

  Dean guffawed.

  Bhric cleared his throat.

  Brita ever so slowly lifted a single brow, but remained silent.

  Alek remained quiet because he knew what Brita was capable of and had heard rumors about Niki’s skills. If the women did match up against each other, it would be one hell of a clash.

  “Men. Kitchen.” Niki inclined her head with a hard snap to the left toward the other room. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Decisively dismissed, his cousins headed out with a few grumbles and empty arguments. Alek met Brita’s gaze, held it. He wanted to tell her that he was here for her if she needed him. That she wasn’t alone in this. Whatever it was. But her blank look kept his jaw locked tight.

  With a quick pivot he followed the direction Dean and Bhric went. He tried to figure out how this female could be so copious, free when it came to giving her body. Yet, freeze him out in something that was evidently a hell of a lot more important to her.

  Damn Alpha female would drive him insane before whatever was happening between them was through.

  ~YH~

  “My name is Brita.” She was sitting across from the female, with so many DNA notes similar to her own, too many mixed the hell up to count, and did what she never did—opened up, some. “I’ll try and answer your questions. The easiest one, I don’t know any scientist, mad or otherwise. If we, which it seems as if we do, share the same DNA, I don’t know how that is possible. No one sent me. However, someone came into a store wh
ere I work in Pigeon Forge and mistook me for you. That’s why I’m looking for you.”

  “That’s it?” Niki leaned against the arm of the chair she sat in and stared at her. “They say everyone has a twin or look-alike in this world. Why didn’t you just leave it at that?”

  Shaking her head, Brita wanted to figure out a way to convey all that she had been through in her life, but felt overwhelmed. She was strangely emotional for the second time in the last several hours. First Alek and now this woman. “He was so adamant. He even seemed kind of hurt that I, rather you, didn’t know him. I’m sure he thought I was pretending.” She ran her hand through her hair and wished she had her band that Alek cut with his claw. She was sure she appeared a fright. Tugging at her shirt hem, Brita went on. “He mentioned the roadhouse and kept saying your name. I couldn’t shake it.”

  “There are clothes in the bag I brought.” Niki spoke soft, but strong. “I heard you walked out of the woods,” she gestured toward her. “In the wonderful ensemble you’re wearing now.”

  Brita glanced toward the bag still by the couch, at the opposite end from her. It could wait. “Thanks.”

  “Is PF where you’re from originally? Who’s your family? Clan?”

  “Never had one.”

  Niki’s brows scrunched in the center. “Who else was lab with you? Are they up the mountain?”

  Her heart was thumping so fast from all the questions, not to mention the uncanny resemblance to herself. She never talked about herself. She’d survived being a distant and closed book. No feelings. No attachments. “There isn’t any lab. I was raised alone, trained by various professional instructors: martial arts, engineering, survival and hacking.”

  “Fascinating. Who set up all the trainers for you? Did your family approve or have something to do with it as mine did?” Niki crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair. “Although everything I went through was more for scientific research.”

  Brita frowned. Scientific research. A lab rat? “No family to approve or disapprove. I was an orphan. Since I could remember I’ve been in training. I am…no, was, property of the government. Until recently.”

  It was Niki’s turn to scrunch her face. “Property of the government? Like some damn weapon?” She guffawed.

  “Yes.”

  There was a long moment of silence between them. In that span of quiet, Niki held her gaze.

  Brita wished she could read her thoughts. Did she see her as some kind of freak as other shifters had? The shifters who had worked with her in the sandbox whispered about her being an anomaly. Good at her job but freakish and weird.

  Ending the silence, Brita said, “I was told from an early age I was the only one of my kind.”

  Niki leaned toward her again. There was curiosity in her tone, but no aversion. “What is your kind? I’ve wanted to know what I was forever.”

  “No kind is my kind.” Brita dropped her eyes to clasped hands at her knees. They were white at the knuckles, showing her tension and anxiety. Weakness. That’s what she’d been trained that those types of feelings were. “Maybe I do have a connection to someone.” Her heart thumped with hope, even as she tried to tell herself not to.

  Rising, Niki drew her attention. “Possible. We’ll have to determine that. So much research has been done on my blood I think you could be some clone simply made from my DNA.” She jerked up her shoulder, a noncommittal gesture. “We shall see.”

  She stood as well. “How can we learn this? I refuse to go to the government for anything. I’d rather go on not knowing,” Brita bit out.

  “Calm down, sister.”

  Brita felt an odd feeling in her chest at the word. She knew Niki was using the term more as a sobriquet than a familial statement, but it still made her feel some kind of way. A way she couldn’t name. Like her emotions toward Alek they were new, odd and they didn’t fit into any training box she’d acquired.

  “How do you feel about being a pin cushion?”

  “Needles don’t bother me.”

  “Evidently, you having had enough of them jammed into you,” Niki muttered as she stepped around the chair. “Guys.” She called out then glanced at her again. “You get changed and well head out.”

  Going over to get the bag of clothes, Brita watched the brigade of men strut back into the room. All of them were striking. None as breathtaking as the last one that walked in whose gaze scanned the room and locked on hers.

  There was question and concern in his unique eyes.

  She held Alek’s stare for a moment soaking in the fact someone had cared for her, for what she maybe going through, but kept silent as she broke the contact and headed up the stairs with the stuff.

  “Where are we headed?” Dean inquired.

  “Comyn.”

  ~YH~

  “We’re here to see Simon.” Niki declared when their group walked up to the receptionist at the small Comyn clinic.

  Alek kept to the background. Not that he’d verbally been regulated to that place, but he could feel the gulf between him and Brita. At the house, he and his cousins could hear the conversation clearly in the other room. Their keen sense of hearing kept them abreast.

  Brita hadn’t said much to him. On the drive here, she’d driven her truck with Niki in shot gun and Dean in the back refusing to be separated from his mate. Alek had followed as a passenger in Bhric’s vehicle, purposely not driving his own truck.

  “He’s in room two finishing up with someone now. If you wait in there I’ll let him know you’re here, Niki.” The she-wolf directed them.

  “We’ll go it alone from here.” Niki advised her two when she took a step and then one right after her. Leaning into Dean, she kissed him. “Stay.” She winked and headed toward the room.

  Alek moved to Brita and pulled her off to the side. “Are you sure about this?” He searched her gaze as he stroked his thumb along her wrist needing the contact with her for his own sanity, even if she didn’t need it.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Even though everyone would have been able to pick up on her voice. “I need answers.”

  The urge to draw her into his arms and hold her, let her know that everything would be alright no matter what happened assailed him. However, he didn’t do it. “I’m here.”

  She started to pull her arm from his hold. “You really don’t have to be—”

  “Yes, I do,” he growled. He needed her to hear she wasn’t pushing him away. “I’m here,” he stated more firmly this time. Pulling her in, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her neck, filling his mind with her scent.

  For the first few seconds she just stood there, her arms at her side. Finally, he heard her soft sigh just before her arms slipped around his shoulders and held him. It was brief. They possibly only stood like that for a full sixty seconds, but it was enough. She caressed the ends of his hair briefly before breaking away.

  He shivered and felt his cock and heart stir at the small gesture. Their night had meant something to her, even if she couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge it.

  “Gotta go.” She walked off.

  Turning after she went into the room were Niki had disappeared and closed the door, he located his cousins where they sat in the line of chairs against the wall.

  Moving to take up the vacant seat beside Dean, he waited. Not long.

  “So, what’s the deal with you and She-ra?”

  Princess of power. Alek laughed at Bhric’s moniker for Brita. It fit in some ways. Shrugging, Alek didn’t know how to answer the question.

  “You didn’t claim her.” Dean commented.

  “I heard about how difficult your own situation was, Dean.” He tossed out at his younger cousin, keeping the hybrid from getting too puffed up in the chest about having a mate and child.

  Bhric chuckled. “Dean keeping Niki shook up the two territories and the neutral zone.”

  “Shove it, Bhric.” Dean shot a heated look at his brother. “It’s a done deal now. That’s all that counts.”r />
  “With a little one to show for your mating.” Alek glanced at Dean. “Where is your daughter?”

  Dean’s eyes lit up, and he almost looked bashful as his cheeks filled with color. Damn. How could a little one break a man down so completely? His cousin was a fierce hybrid, quick to take on and take down any opponent in his path, but the thought of a tiny little cub could make him go all soft. What the hell?

  Alek’s gut ached. He craved what Dean had.

  “She’s with her godfather. Calder loves spending time with her.” Dean went on to say, “He’s a huge guy, but is gentle with her and a great cub-sitter.”

  “I don’t know how he got to be godfather,” Bhric griped.

  “Because you got automatic uncle rights,” Dean countered.

  Alek tuned out his cousins joshing and thought about just how done of a deal Dean had gotten. His mind could not help but think of what Brita would look like swollen with his child. If she didn’t allow him to even mark her, which would need to be done between shifters for her to be primed to even conceive, would she want his child? Fuck. He didn’t even know if she’d stay around once she got some answers to all her questions.

  He rubbed a hand over his head. He wasn’t even staying around, not for much longer. Sooner or later he’d have to answer the call of the alpha. In his heart he cared too deeply for his prowl not to step up. He wanted the best for them. Wanted to see them prosper, stay safe and out of the prying eyes of the humans as best they could.

  With the leadership position, he’d need a mate—offspring. No other alpha had assumed that position alone. That was part of the reason he had decided to leave. Clear his head. There hadn’t been anyone he wanted to sink his teeth into—claim. Then along came Brita.

  His jaguar tossed him back to the night before. He thought about them on the kitchen table. The taste of her was still on his tongue. When he’d buried his cock deep inside of her, until there was no end to their connection, he’d wanted to seal that bond. Just like in the woods. However, he’d restrained himself. It took every ounce of his will power to fit the feline within. When Brita had licked along the tips of his canines. When he’d tasted her blood and it had mixed with his essence he’d almost come inside her. Together they were both savory and bitter. He coveted it again, more full-bodied next time. There would be a next time.