A Lynx in Their Den [Shifting Desires 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Marla Monroe

  He had been feeling the same way when no glimpse of them showed up in the rearview mirror. Now all he had to do was follow their mate as she led them on twisting turns that, had he not had a GPS system for back up, Creed might have been a bit worried. Brother bear would have found the way home, but it would have entailed leaving the Jeep and the few perishables they’d picked up and traipsing cross country since bears saw no reason to follow roads that didn’t make sense. Why go around a stream when you can go right through it and maybe catch a tasty snack on the way.

  “What’s the plan once we catch up to her?” Shayne the pain asked with a smirk.

  “We talk to her. Explain that we understand she’s not keen on having bears as mates, but we’ll take things slow so she can get to know us,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll be reasonable and react logically. Finding our mates is instinctual and crucial for males just like it’s critical for a female to have a male to keep her safe. Without her mate, the female is always in danger and isn’t equipped to adequately protect herself. Females have that innate need to breed and create life. Just being around us should kick in the need, and she’ll probably all but attack us once that happens.” He stopped talking when he heard what sounded suspiciously like a snore.

  Tearing his eyes off the road for a second, Creed growled loud and thickly at his brother who had crossed his arms over his chest and proceeded to pretend to be asleep, making loud obnoxious snoring sounds in the process. He threw a punch at his sibling’s stomach, enjoying the whoosh sound and grunt when his fist made contact with the man’s abdomen with a loud thump.

  “Really, Creed. Are you that out of touch with the real world? I know we grew up spending time with Papa Bear, but some of his teachings had to be taken with a grain of salt and some tasty honey to go down. Women aren’t needy like that out here,” Shayne said, frowning.

  “Women? I’m talking about our mate, a female. Women are human. Their logic and thought processes don’t make sense to human men, much less shifter males. You can’t compare our little kitten to a human woman, Shayne.” Creed wanted to spit in disgust. Just thinking about that left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “I’m telling you that our little feline isn’t operating under normal shifter logic. She’s living out here alone, outside of a den, and without other relatives around her. That tells me right there that she’s independent and won’t appreciate your backwoods view of how she should act and react to finding her mates. Let’s not even add to this issue the fact that there are two of us, not just one.” Shayne glared right back at him, finally giving in to rub circles around the spot he’d hit.

  “Regardless of why she’s where she is now, it’s going to change in the near future. She’s ours and we protect what’s ours.” Creed focused on the road ahead of him, trying not to let his brother’s ideas lead to doubts.

  Damn him!

  Why was their little kitten living alone outside of even a human town? There hadn’t been a male or even another female scent anywhere around her home when they’d checked it out the night before. Sure, there had been a few faint human scents near the front of the house, but not strong enough for them to have lived there or even be a frequent visitor. It made him wonder what she was hiding from. It was the only plausible explanation in his mind.

  Finally, they turned onto a road he recognized by scent and sight as one that would take them around the back way to their little cul-de-sac. He relaxed his hands on the wheel, wincing at the sight of pale knuckles turning pink once more. Between her stubbornness and his brother’s suppositions of their chances with her, Creed teetered on having a meltdown.

  I don’t have meltdowns. I’m the Ursus. My control has always been faultless among all our bears. Nothing riles me, and I’ve never lost my cool under any circumstances. It must be the need to mate and have her safe in our den.

  As he pulled into the drive behind the feline’s car, Creed drew in a deep breath and slowly released it, willing his unease to leave with it. Shayne looked over at him with one arched brow and a barely hidden smile.

  “Are we going to get out and help her with her groceries, or what?”

  “You’re going to take ours over to the house and put them up. Come back when you’re through, and you can help,” Creed said with a snort.

  He heard his brother’s soft curse as he opened his door. Creed opened his and managed not to jerk when his brother’s door slammed. No reason to call him on it. Instead he focused his attention on his mate as it should be and had to swallow hard to keep from growling at the sight of shapely legs exposed a little too far from under sinfully short shorts. Her ass was heart shaped with large, soft looking globes he couldn’t wait to squeeze.

  Fuck! He was actually salivating at the thought of what she had hidden under the short shorts. Soon. Right now, he needed to focus on winning his way into her good graces so he and Shayne could claim her and get her settled in their den where she belonged. He wanted nothing more than to spend his days making her happy and his nights making her scream in pleasure.

  When he walked up behind her, she stiffened noticeably before turning around to stare up at him. Bright green eyes like new pine growth flashed daggers at him even before he spoke. He realized that his brother might have been on to something, which was a real bitch. He didn’t like to have to admit anything to the younger bear.

  “Hi. Why don’t you unlock the door, and we’ll bring in your groceries,” he said with a broad smile.

  She looked as if she were going to say no with a lot of emphasis on the hell part in front of it, but then she seemed to change her mind. She nodded once, tersely, before turning on her heel and all but stomping to the back door. If the sight of her ass swaying hadn’t distracted him, Creed would have had a load of groceries in his arms and been behind her before she’d managed to get the door open, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her delicious ass until she’d disappeared inside the house.

  “Aw, hell.”

  Creed picked up as many sacks as he could handle and strode up to the door, pausing for a second to inhale the scents from his mate’s home before stepping inside. Nope. No one else shared the space with her, and there were only very light scents of one human female.

  “Put them on the table, and I’ll sort them out while you bring in the rest.” The female was smart and planned to use them to unload her car then probably planned to kick them out once it was done.

  He carefully settled the various bags on the table then turned and walked back out the door to meet his brother with a load of bags in his hands heading in. Shayne winked at him just before they passed each other. He groaned inwardly, wanting to call his brother back and demand he behave himself. Instead he rushed to the car and grabbed a couple of bags to run back to the door where he stopped short of walking inside. The sight before him had his cock growing even harder if that were possible.

  His brother had set down the bags he’d been carrying and was standing next to the table starring at their mate as well. She was bent over the pull out drawer of the fridge that housed the freezer section, rearranging food in order to squeeze a few more things in. Her ass up in the air, swaying with her every move, was like a red flag to a bull to him and Shayne. A thin edge of lacy red panty made an appearance every time she moved something in the drawer. His incisors had lengthened and were poking his lips. His earlier fight to rein in control seemed to have been for nothing. Creed was on the edge and knew it.

  Their bears were clawing at their thin control to claim their mate. There she stood, already in position for a good fucking. Brother bear couldn’t understand why Creed wasn’t already over there ripping her clothes out of the way. He was scared to even guess at how his brother was fairing in the fight with his bear half.

  The sound of a low throaty growl startled him enough to snap out of the frozen trance he’d been in to stare at his brother with worry. If Shayne lost control and changed there in her kitchen, she’d never trust that they were strong enough to protect
her when they couldn’t control their other selves in her house. The growl came again, and Creed realized with horror that it was coming from him, not Shayne.

  * * * *

  Serenity straightened up at the sound of a low growl coming from behind her. Turning around, her eyes widened at both of the bears from the parking lot earlier standing in her kitchen. She was almost afraid to move for fear of setting them off. She didn’t know which one of them had growled, but both of them were displaying their elongated teeth and panting through their mouths. She knew what she’d find if she looked down their amazing bodies without dipping her eyes.

  They were turned on, and with the mating heat riding them, they were having a devil of a time controlling themselves. If she hadn’t been their focus, it would have been funny as hell to see two huge males reduced to slobbering dogs—uh, bears.

  The taller of the two males stood nearly six and a half feet tall with a broad chest challenging the T-shirt he had stretched across it. His equally wide shoulders accented how, once you got past his amazing chest, it tapered down to a narrow waist. She’d already noticed his ass. She loved a man with a squeezable butt. It would have been a shame for someone that looked as ripped as he did to be stuck with a flat ass.

  The coffer of goodness didn’t stop there. The big bear had beautiful dark brown hair that was rich in color and thick from the looks of it. It appeared shaggy but not long enough to pull back. He kept a close cut beard sculpted to his face that complimented his sharp features, almost softening them, but not quite. But it was his warm brown eyes the color of mocha that captured her attention in the end. Even now as they flashed from that warm brown to dark gold, they compelled her to stare in to them, holding hers until the movement of the other bear, his brother from their similar scents, jarred her attention to him.

  This one stood two or three inches shorter than his sibling but was just as muscular and sculpted. His coloring was lighter all over than the other male with brown hair a shade lighter and long enough to pull back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. She could almost say the color was a chestnut color. Then there were his eyes. Like the other male, his eyes were amazing in their lighter color that almost didn’t seem real. When his flashed with his bear, the gold was much lighter.

  His step closer to her was what had grabbed her attention from his brother. Yet he stopped when she stared at him, not moving another inch, as if just having her gaze on him now settled his bear enough that the male was able to regain control. She studied him while she waited to see if they would regain control for good or not. This bear was clean shaven and had slightly softer features without the harder planes of his brother.

  That they were both dominant males was clear, but from the flare of power coming off of them, Serenity began to wonder if they weren’t high in their sleuth. She’d never met bears in person before but had been told all about them. They were just as fierce as the cats and wolves but were usually more laid back in their family hierarchy and intersleuth relationships. There wasn’t a lot of infighting amongst them unless it was over a female. Bears tended to be born into their positions with similar males just moving on to find another sleuth rather than fighting to usurp the other.

  But when it came to their cubs, mates, or a potential mate, bears were ruthless in their protection. Though males were referred to as boars and females as sows, most bears didn’t appreciate outsiders referring to them that way. They might refer to each other in those terms, but an outsider only opened themselves up to attack over the slight.

  So now, as she waited for them to calm down, Serenity reviewed everything she knew about the shifters. Where her lynx had started to react to the bears now that they were both right in front of her, she was desperately trying to convince her to ignore them. Why couldn’t she refuse to mate with them since they weren’t lynxes, and what ever happened to one mate per cat anyway? There were two of them, and from what she could tell, they expected her to take them both on.

  Hell, no!

  What was wrong with bears that there were two of them? It shouldn’t require two males to mate with one female. She hadn’t heard that about bear shifters. They sure didn’t do that in the wild.

  The larger bear seemed to pull it together first and slowly walked over to where the other one still stood with his mouth slightly open, his breathing coming in light pants. The big male laid his hand over the other one’s shoulder, and instantly the room lost the feel of an impending disaster about to break free. Serenity realized it was easier to breathe and hadn’t realized it had been all that hard before.

  “We need to talk as soon as you have the remainder of your supplies stored away,” the apparent leader of the two said in an unnaturally deep and raspy voice.

  “About what?” she asked, despite it being obvious.

  “Who was after you, and why?” he asked, surprising her with the question.

  “I don’t know for sure. There are hunters in the area. A new group of shifter haters, intent on destroying us all.” She figured talking about their mutual enemy was a much safer topic than their elephant of a problem hovering in the room.

  “I didn’t see them, but I felt danger when I approached you. Do you know what they look like—their scent?” he asked.

  “No. I didn’t see them, but I did hear them. They were probably west of me based on the wind’s direction. One was a kid in his early twenties. The other sounded like an older man in his thirties maybe.”

  “It’s not safe for you to remain alone in this house,” the big bear said.

  “I can take care of myself,” she huffed out, thrusting her chin up and her hands on her hips.

  “Told you,” the younger and slightly shorter male said, softly.

  His sibling growled a warning at him, making Serenity smile. Maybe they would argue, and she could just slip out and go for a run. They’d never be able to catch up with her in her lynx form. The cat purred at the thought of a run.

  But the big male ignored the other one and stared intently at her. “My name is Creed North, and this is my brother Shayne.”

  Serenity hesitated. Finally she sighed and realized that withholding her name was nothing but childish. They could find out easily enough considering that they lived just across the way from her.

  “Serenity Jones. You’re bear shifters.”

  Creed nodded with a hint of a smile on his face. “And you’re a feline shifter, but we don’t know what flavor.”

  “Flavor?” Somehow that didn’t sound all that friendly to her.

  The shorter male stepped forward, a much more obvious grin in his expression. Despite his large frame, the bear moved smoothly without any sign of clumsiness. She knew it was a shifter trait, but seeing it with these two massive mountain sized males really drove it home.

  “Type, Serenity. We’re just wondering what type cat you turn into when you’re furry.”

  “Lynx.”

  She lifted her chin once more and waited for the raised eyebrows and snorts of laughter since she wasn’t sleek and thin like other female lynxes. No, instead of a normal lynx female, Serenity turned into a slightly plumper version of the lean felines that were known for their stealthy ability to slink around like the fox.

  The snorts and laughter didn’t come. Neither did she see either male lift a brow or look her over in disbelief. They just stared at her with interested smiles. Maybe they hadn’t really thought about what a lynx actually looked like and compared that image to her yet. The mating heat was obviously working on them with how deep and growly Creed’s voice was and how Shayne kept testing the air by breathing it in through his slightly open mouth.

  “I can’t wait to see you change, sweetness. I bet you’re a beauty,” Shayne crooned.

  Confusion ate at Serenity as she slowly started to put her groceries away once more. They had her mind perplexed, muddled to the point she couldn’t string two thoughts together. She hated it. This wasn’t her. Serenity was always calm and had a clear picture of where she wa
s going and what she was going to do when she arrived.

  The entire time she put her kitchen back to rights, Serenity could feel their presence in the room with her despite the distance they kept by remaining by the kitchen table. Neither of them took a seat, just stood there waiting for her to finish. It was interesting how they were able to remain so still when beneath their skin lay fur, and beneath that lay a living, breathing animal supposedly absorbed with the mating frenzy that shifters fell victim to at times.

  Serenity had seen the wildness that her kind exhibited when a true mate was encountered and their animals demanded to seal their mates to them. A male would always feel threatened that another male would take his intended from him until he had marked her as his. The female, more often than not, didn’t fight once she’d assured herself the male was worthy of her acquiescence. Some tried to run from the one nature had picked for them, and it always ended up with the male subduing the female to mark her. She’d refused to allow that to happen to her, so she’d left.

  Now, years later and thousands of miles across the nation, Serenity was faced with the very thing she’d run from with added irritants to the issue. They weren’t lynxes, or even felines, but bears, and there were two of them, not one.

  She finished folding the last of the bags and, after stashing them in the pantry, turned to face the two barely contained bear statues taking up space in her kitchen eating area.

  “I don’t need a mate, let alone two. I don’t want mates. Nothing personal, but I don’t plan to be part of a den or a sleuth. I’m sorry that you are going through this, but it can’t be helped. Once your bears realize I’m not changing my mind, they’ll settle down.” She didn’t smile, not wanting to seem unkind or vindictive. She really did feel for them, but she refused to get caught up in the entire thing.

  Her lynx growled, clawing at her from the inside. Serenity winced as she tried to get out to see her potential mates. What had happened to her animal’s strong agreement not to have anything to do with the opposite sex of any species? If the feline didn’t settle down, there’d be trouble for sure.