by Edith DuBois
“Yes,” she said. “Okay. How did you become…” Nope. She wasn’t ready to say the word aloud.
Elias chuckled, seeming to understand her difficulty. He patted her knee. “You’ve seen the town slogan, correct?”
She nodded. “Welcome to Savage Valley! No animal attacks since 1846!” she recited in a perky voice. “Aunt Agnes taught it to us when we were girls.”
“Well, the animal-shifters in Savage Valley, they’re the reason for the slogan, but our story begins a bit before that. Our story begins in the 1830s, before Colorado was even a territory, when the five founding families of Savage Valley were known far and wide throughout the area for their skill and prowess as fur-trappers. There were the Kinmans—with a known propensity for trapping and killing bears.”
“The sheriff and the deputy?” she asked. Elias nodded. “And Elena, their fiancée, she knows?”
He nodded again. “Then there were the Ashleys—known for their skill in the healing arts. Next are the Greenwoods, known for their ability to track any animal over any terrain and any distance. Then there are the Carsons, known for their shrewd eye and ability to make a few coins multiply into a few piles of coins. And finally we have the Strongs.”
Michelle noticed a small frown cross Elias’s features. “What were they known for?”
“Moonshine.”
“Oh, how exciting.”
“Yes, well, those are the five founding families. Now, some people around here may claim differently, but those families were here first.”
“Who would say differently?” she prodded, detecting that Elias would rather not discuss it.
“The lion-shifters, mostly,” Thomas said, apparently harboring no qualms.
“And who are the lion-shifters?”
“Let’s get through the bear history first.”
“I think I should know,” she said, crossing her arms stubbornly.
Elias glared at her.
“That won’t intimidate me. I want to know who they are.”
Sighing, Elias said, “I’ll tell you who they are, but that’s it.” She nodded her agreement. “Okay, first we have the Cashes. The older brother is mayor of Savage Valley. Then there’s the Popes. They own the diner. Next are the Abbotts, the Yeatses, and the Sullivans.”
“And what do they all do?”
“Ah-ah.” He held his fingers up to silence her. “Bears.”
Michelle pouted but didn’t say anything, wanting to hear more.
“The five founding families had made quite a name for themselves, and their fur-trading outpost was one of the most profitable in the region. However, the local Shoshone tribe got fed up with what they considered the slaughter of local wildlife. As punishment, Cameahwait—the shaman of the nearby tribe—cursed all five families. He transformed the men, the women, and the children into black bears and banished them to the forest until they had amended their ways.
“Strangely enough, all of the families had boys, and the eldest son in our family has always been named Elias. Our forefather, Elias, had three sons—Elias, Elihu, and Ezekiel—who were transformed into bears as cubs. All of the families were stuck in bear form for many years…”
“They all thought we’d die out as bears, with no way to transform back into our true shape,” Thomas added.
“And they had all changed. They could communicate with each other, but it was different. Their thoughts flowed with the land and the water and with the air and the trees,” Franklin said, low voiced.
“Then one day,” Elias continued, “the two Kinman brothers, Robert and Henry, went to the river for water. The rest of the families, or what was left of them, waited for hours, but the Kinmans had vanished.
“They had been the self-appointed leaders of our bear clan, still are to this day, but when they were gone, it caused a bit of an uproar. It fell to our family to take care of the rest of the clan. Up until then, none of us could leave the forest around this area. We were bound to it, but Ezekiel decided he would find the Kinmans. So one morning he woke up, and he began to walk. He walked for days and for nights, barely stopping to rest.”
“He followed his instinct, letting his feet and his heart guide him,” Thomas said.
“Soon he found himself outside of the forest. He walked many miles across the land. He traveled through mountains and across rivers and through wide, grassy plains,” Franklin said.
“And that is when our ancestors discovered that one chosen bear out of every generation would have the ability to roam the earth freely while the rest are bound to Savage Valley.”
It sounded like he was wrapping his story up, but Michelle still had too many questions. “But what about the Kinmans? What about the rest of the families? How did you all get back into human form? What happened?”
Elias grinned, and he looked a little too smug.
“Not that I believe you,” she said hastily. “It’s an interesting fairy tale. That’s all.”
“Of course,” Elias said, but she detected a grin tugging at his lips. “To answer your questions, the Kinmans were gone because that day that they’d gone to the river, a human woman had been there, bathing in privacy, away from the small town that had cropped up in the valley.
“The Kinmans caught sight of her and moved close enough to smell her. After one sniff, their bodies reacted without them being able to control it. Luckily, the woman was unclaimed by another, and when the brothers shifted back into their human form…” Elias watched her face for a moment.
“What?” she asked.
Thomas spoke from beside her. “This is one of the reasons why we want to tell you all of this before we take this relationship further. You see, when a bear-shifter catches the scent of an unclaimed woman, a kind of mating frenzy takes over. So their bodies shift back into human form, and they want to…”
“It’s more like a need,” Franklin added helpfully. “They need,” Franklin frowned. “Well, they need to…”
Michelle looked at the uncomfortable expressions on each of the brothers’ faces. “Fuck?” she asked.
“We prefer the term ‘mate,’” Elias said in a disapproving tone.
“Because essentially that’s what it is,” Thomas said. “Once the woman accepts the bear-shifters as her mates—”
“Once she fucks them?”
“Yes,” Thomas ground out. “Once that happens, then she is bound to the land just as her mates are. It’s not until a new generation of bears take over that the old generation is allowed to leave.”
Michelle thought for a moment, reminded of a conversation between herself and Franklin near the moss-covered railway tracks in the mountains. “Your parents? That’s where they are! You can all three shift, so they were allowed to leave. Right? Is that right?”
Franklin smiled. “You catch on fast.” He leaned close, pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth, tempting her to turn herself fully toward him. She let out a small breath, so wanting to give in to the sweet warmth of his kiss.
“So if I have sex with all three of you, I’ll be mated for life?”
“We have to smell you in bear form first, but yes, that’s the basic idea.”
“Who needs marriage?” she said, letting out a nervous chuckle.
“Oh, we’d still want to get married,” Elias said with a hint of a growl. “You’d marry me in name and be married to my brothers in spirit.”
Michelle stiffened. “Wow, we sure jumped to that quick.” She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “I think I need time to think about this. I can’t say yes. I mean, I barely know you.” She pulled her hands out of Thomas and Franklin’s grips. “I need to go home. Aunt Agnes will be worried.”
“Michelle,” Elias said, commanding. “Can you deny what is between us?”
She heard her own heavy breathing in the quiet room. Elias put his hand to her hips and pulled her toward him, pulled her completely off the couch until she straddled his lap. He bent his head between her breasts and turned his face so that h
is cheek lay against her breastbone and his lips rested upon the swell of soft flesh. His big hands were splayed across her back, holding her against him.
“I can’t,” she said.
“That’s right. You can’t because you know that we belong together.”
As Elias began to slide his hands beneath her shirt, tracing gentle circles across her flesh with his thumb, Franklin and Thomas each grabbed a wrist and began trailing featherlight kisses up the sensitive skin of her inner arms. She bit her lips, trying to control her trembling breath.
“No, I mean I can’t…” What the hell was she trying to say? Elias’s hands held her ribs beneath her breasts while his mouth worked fervently on each of her nipples. And Franklin was slipping his hand toward her pants. “I can’t,” she pleaded, but her head fell back. She arched against Franklin’s hand as he pressed against her hot, needy flesh through her panties. Her cunt throbbed for him, for more than his fingers.
She remembered the promise she had made him about letting him be with her first.
Her eyes snapped open. “I can’t.” This time she said it with more conviction and shoved up against Elias’s shoulders. “It’s too much. I’ve had the worst fight with my sister. My hand is stitched up. Oh my god, where’s Roy?”
“Relax, Michelle, he’s in the laundry room. I fed him when we got here,” Elias said. She hadn’t even noticed. “I gave him a few towels to lay on. I’m sure he’s fast asleep.”
She shoved against him again. “That doesn’t change anything. I need to go. I can’t…not right now. I can’t do this.”
Rising up from the couch, she looked around. “Where’s the laundry room?”
Franklin led the way, and after she had picked up a dozing Roy, he caught her elbow. His black eyes held her gaze, pleading and yet hard and burning at the same time. “Michelle, please stay.”
She couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to leave, but how could she stay?
“Franklin,” she pleaded, “I have barely broken free of Marina, and now you want me to commit my whole life—my freedom, my independence, everything I am—to you and your brothers, no questions asked?”
He stepped closer, his lips hovering above hers.
“Franklin,” she breathed, tilting her head up, wanting to give in, needing it.
“I can’t,” she gasped. He had grabbed her elbows, but she pulled her arm out of his grip. “I won’t.”
“Don’t go, Michelle,” he said, his eyes tender and yearning.
She couldn’t look at him, or else everything would dissolve. Everything she was and everything she knew would disappear, would become completely absorbed in Franklin, in Thomas, and in Elias. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ll come to you if I change my mind.” She turned away from him. “Don’t call me. Leave me be. I need space, and I need time.”
With that, she walked away from the Ashley brothers.
Chapter Nine
Skyler Fischer had been waiting at the table for almost half an hour. He’d ordered an appetizer of crispy zucchini fritte, a local favorite at the upscale Italian restaurant in downtown Denver, and a bottle of Novilo Sauvignon Blanc. He checked his watch for the third time and then, hating the nervous gesture, took his watch off and placed it in his pants pocket. His dinner companion would get here when he got here, and checking his watch wouldn’t bring the man any sooner.
The waiter came by for the second time. “Should I bring another bottle, sir?” Skyler cut his eyes toward the man and shook his head.
As the waiter swirled away in a flurry of coattails, Skyler saw him across the room.
His chest tightened, and his fingers reflexively gripped the napkin in his lap. Something in his gut jumped, but he kept his features blank, watching the man’s progress as he moved across the restaurant.
Skyler studied his features, those features he’d come to know and love and revere. The man was strongly built, with broad shoulders and a tall frame, yet he still looked sleek, lithe and powerful, able to strike out at those who were weaker at any given moment. His sharp eyes scanned the room, taking in his surroundings, pinpointing any weaknesses. Skyler knew him so well, knew how his mind worked, and he reveled in that knowledge. He had no hair on his head, and Skyler thought it made him seem even more powerful and invulnerable.
God, how the man’s power thrilled Skyler.
He could feel his mind’s stronghold on that part of himself slipping. He needed to force those sorts of thoughts away. He needed to keep his brain clear and unmuddled with emotion, but then the man caught his eyes, and he nodded.
A barrage of imagined scenarios flooded Skyler’s mind. The feel of their hard bodies slamming together. The taste of their lips, biting and tasting and tearing at each other. The weight of the man’s cock in his hands.
“Good evening, Fischer.”
Skyler blinked, forcing the false, tempting images back down, fighting with all of his mental powers to keep his thoughts under control.
A waiter pulled out a chair for the man, and he sat down.
Skyler opened his mouth, pushing the words past his dry throat and past his tumultuous emotions. “Good evening, Mr. Norman.”
* * * *
“We fucked it up,” Franklin said. Thomas watched his younger brother swing the axe high and then bring it down with all of his strength.
“Hacking that pile into wood chips isn’t going to make her come back to us any faster.”
Franklin buried the axhead into the chopping stump and turned to face Thomas with an angry glare. “Why can’t we fucking shift in front of her, catch a whiff, and then make her see reason?”
Thomas glanced inside through the glass wall at Elias, who sat on the couch entering information into a laptop he used for keeping up with all of his documentation and legal work at the hospital. Then he shrugged. “Elias says the only way to make sure this truly lasts is if she wants it to.”
“That’s bullshit. We all know what happened with the Kinmans.” Even though Elias was inside the house and couldn’t hear them, Thomas noticed that Franklin had lowered his voice and leaned in closer.
Thomas chuckled to himself when he remembered Joseph Kinman at the barbecue telling the story of how he’d thought the Carsons had mated his woman on accident, and he’d gone off the handle, tearing through the forest, howling his misery. Then he’d come across Elena unexpectedly and shifted on the spot. The next thing he knew, he and his brother were engaged and expecting a baby.
Well, apart from a few bumpy moments in between. Thomas had only met Elena Ward, soon-to-be Kinman, a few times, but she had to be quite a woman to handle the sheriff and his brother.
“But from what the Kinmans told us, they were all three pretty sure before Joseph shifted in front of her.”
Franklin yanked the ax back out of the stump and resumed his mutilation of the woodpile. “I can feel my bear. It’s always rippling below the surface, like it knows she’s nearby.”
Thomas nodded, understanding because he was experiencing the same sensation. The bear in his blood felt like miles and miles of underground water, heated from below by the earth’s lava, and when the right amount of pressure built up, the water would burst from beneath the earth’s crust, wild and hot and uncontainable.
“I’m going for a run. Be back later.”
Franklin barely glanced up as Thomas headed for the woods. Once he reached the screen of trees, he began to strip. He left his clothes in a box they’d crudely nailed to a tree. Then, after years of practice had made it as easy as breathing, Thomas felt the bear rippling out from his core. It started as a hot force deep in his gut but then spread through his body like black lightning.
His bear form rippled through his muscles, shredding his human form until he stood panting, his great bear-claws scratching at the warm earth-ground, ready to run.
He sucked in the crisp time-before-the-deep-cold air. It filled his powerful bear-belly and gave strength to his bear-blood as he moved his paws across the needle-stre
wn earth-ground.
Visions of his cream-skinned-Michelle moved through his bear-mind like the reflection of geese-wings on the surface of water or the flight of white clouds across the great-blueness above. He wanted his cream-skinned-Michelle. He wanted his mate.
* * * *
Michelle picked at her banana nut pancakes. The vanilla bean agave nectar had already soaked deep into the fluffy cakes, making them the right amount of soggy for her taste, but she had too many thoughts on her brain to give the pancakes the attention they deserved. Ever since she’d left the Ashleys’ place, her thoughts had been consumed with one restless emotion after another.
She wanted to trust them, give in to what they wanted from her, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t ready to give up the life she knew, to settle down in Savage Valley, to gain three husbands after such a short period of time. She didn’t feel brave enough for that. Besides, it was crazy. It was a crazy, stupid, reckless idea. She shouldn’t even have to think about it.
But she couldn’t ignore the way her body reacted to their presence, much less their touch. Just standing next to them made her nipples erect, made her clit pulse and her pussy throb. They drew her in like a shark to blood. She wanted to devour them. When they put their hands to her flesh and their lips to her body, she felt likely to shatter at the slightest whisper of a breath. She ached for the feel of their cocks, each one of them, sliding into the hot channel of her cunt.
She had never in her life had this sort of reaction to a man, and definitely not to three. It felt wrong to ignore that.
Of course, there was Marina, too, always churning and aggravating in the back of her mind. Michelle hadn’t heard from her sister since their big fight outside of Catdaddy’s, and it had been over a week. Aunt Agnes was rarely at her house, although Michelle thought she probably was today since it was Sunday, and her beauty salon, the Haven, was closed. It felt like she had no outlet, no vent, for all of these emotions and anxieties.