Mated to Two Beasts

by T. S. Ryder

  “He’s perfectly tame and gentle,” Destiny said. “Nothing like a wild bear. And you’ve both pissed him off, so you’d know if he weren’t capable of controlling himself while mad.”

  They exchanged looks again and Parker shifted back, then dressed quickly. “It’s usually better once you’ve seen it. You know that we’re no more a danger than any other human with a weapon.”

  The lawyers stared in silence for a moment, then a collection of whispers at the edge of the office caught their attention.

  Joshua spoke first. “I’ll admit I’ve never seen that before.”

  “It did seem very… calm,” Caleb added.

  “I know we’re different,” Parker said. “And that can cause people to be uncomfortable. But there’s no reason to be cruel to Destiny because of it. She’s showing her compassion and ability to see past race and species. I’d think that would be a valuable asset in an employee. Unless you value things like racism, sexism, and specism.”

  “No, we don’t,” Caleb said. “And you’ve made your point.”

  “I hope so.”

  “We better get back to that deposition,” Joshua said.

  “Right,” Caleb said. “Nice to meet you… what was it?”

  “Parker.” He stepped forward to shake his hand. “Parker Hartman.”

  Caleb shook his hand, then Joshua did and nodded to him before leaving the reception area.

  Destiny grinned at Parker. “That was very impressive. And effective.” She pressed her mouth to his. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  They walked out of the building, and Parker took her hand as they passed the rows of cars. “I hope things get better for you now.”

  “Me too.”

  Destiny turned to kiss him, but a movement by one of the cars caught her eye. A man stood up from between two cars and rushed at them.

  She saw the glint of metal in his hand and cried out, “Parker!”

  He turned, but not fast enough. The man reached them and she heard the sick sucking sound of the knife being pulled out of Parker’s gut. He stumbled back, holding his stomach, then fell to the ground. Before he could land on his knees, his clothing exploded around him and he was on all fours in bear form.

  Destiny was in such shock that he’d been stabbed, she didn’t even see that the man was running at her. Parker jumped up and pushed him out of the way, knocking the man to the hard cement.

  Parker whacked the man with his paw and he grunted like he’d been punched. Parker kicked him, then swiped at him, tearing the front of his shirt and sending trickles of blood to the ground.

  The man pushed himself to his feet, clutching his chest, and took off at a loping run. He vanished out of sight and Destiny ran to Parker.

  “Are you okay? We need to get you to the hospital!”

  She picked up her purse from where it’d fallen beside her. Parker shifted back, and leaned against her, naked and human.

  Her mind was super focused on the next thing she needed to do. Get him in the car. He has to be in the car to get to the hospital.

  She helped him slide in the back seat, then pressed hard on the gas. Turn left at this light, then it’s a quick right. She kept her eyes on the road, watching for cars and people and anything that might get in her way. She ignored the sounds of agony coming from the backseat. If she let her mind go there for even a second, the panic welled in her chest and fogged her brain.

  She pulled up to the doors of the ER and left the car running as she ran inside to get a nurse and a wheelchair. They got him into the wheelchair and she parked the car in the first spot she saw, then ran at full speed back to the ER waiting room. Parker was sitting in the chair, talking to someone behind a desk in grunts and stilted words.

  “What’s going on? Why aren’t you helping him?” Destiny said, looking around frantically at the stares they were receiving.

  “I don’t know that we can do much,” the nurse behind the desk said. “We don’t usually treat shifters here.”

  “What?” Her words came out like a shocking accusation. Here, at the hospital, where they were supposed to get the help they needed, even here, they were facing discrimination.

  “Shifters’ bodies are different than humans,” the nurse said. “They require special care.”

  “It’s just a stab wound! He needs stitches!”

  Destiny couldn’t sit there watching any longer. She took off running. She passed the nurse’s desk, despite the voices calling to her, telling her she couldn’t go down the hall she was now charging down. She saw a woman in scrubs and ran to her.

  “Do you have a problem with shifters?” Destiny demanded.

  “With what?”

  “Shifters?”

  The woman looked around, horrified. “Is there one loose?”

  Destiny pushed her out of the way and continued. She saw a doctor and nurse wearing pink scrubs up ahead and ran at them.

  “Whoa, slow down,” the doctor said.

  “Do you have a problem with shifters?” Destiny asked.

  “They require special care,” the doctor said.

  Destiny looked at the other nurse. The nurse said, “My brother is a shifter. He’s adopted, obviously, but I certainly have no problem with him.”

  Destiny grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her back, ignoring her protests and questions, to where Parker waited. “He’s been stabbed and they won’t help him.”

  The nurse looked at the other nurse behind the desk, then at Parker. “He’s got a deep penetrating trauma. You need to get him to a trauma room now!”

  The nurse behind the desk didn’t move. “We don’t have anyone to treat him.”

  The nurse in pink shook her head. She pushed the wheelchair through a set of double doors and glanced in a room. “Here. Help me.”

  They got Parker onto the table and the nurse pulled off his shirt. She started rifling through the supplies in the cabinets.

  “Don’t you know where things are?” Destiny asked, panicking fully now that Parker looked so pale and this nurse seemed clueless.

  “I’m a maternity nurse, not an ER nurse! This isn’t my department.” She pulled out a bottle of some brown liquid and squirted it on Parker’s stomach.

  She worked hard, taking his vital signs, injecting him with things, putting pressure on the wound. The bleeding slowed, and she got his wound wrapped. Some of his color started to come back.

  The nurse wiped the sweat from her forehead. “He’ll heal fast. We got it cleaned and that’s the most important thing so that infection doesn’t set in.” She handed Destiny a bottle of pills. “These are antibiotics so he doesn’t get an infection. Have him take one a day until they’re gone. I would take him home now.”

  “Now? He doesn’t need to stay?”

  “What I’ve just done might cost me my job. It’ll be better if you’re not here, and trust me, he’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  Destiny threw her arms around her in a tight hug. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t take him out through the ER.”

  Destiny nodded and slid herself under Parker’s arm as the nurse left the room. She helped him along, but already he did seem a little better. They got many strange and nasty looks, but once she got him outside of the hospital, she went to get the car and then helped him in.

  Chapter Eleven

  She drove him to her house, then got him into her bed. She pulled the bloody clothes from him and used a washrag to clean him up.

  “Do you need anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head and closed his eyes, lying his head back on her pillow.

  She checked on him through the night, sometimes just standing over him to make sure he was still breathing. She finally fell asleep sometime in the middle of the night, curled up on her couch with her phone in her hand, ready to call 911 if he showed any signs of going downhill.

  She awoke to the feeling of someone stroking and kissing her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open. “Parker?”

  He gri
nned at her. “You sleep okay?”

  She sat up and looked him over. “Are you okay? You’re up! You need to take these. Are you in pain? Are you still bleeding?”

  “Shhh.” He brushed back her hair and kissed her again. “I’m okay. Look.”

  He peeled away the bandage to show her his wound. It looked days old instead of hours, already scabbed over and pink around the area.

  “But…” She reached out and ran a finger gently over the scab.

  “We heal about four times faster than humans.”

  “So you’re really okay? You’re going to live?”

  He chuckled. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “I was so worried.” She put her hand to his cheek and for a moment imagined Jaxon in his place. How would she be feeling right now if he’d been the one to be stabbed and had come close to dying instead of Parker? When she did, she knew she finally had her answer. “Parker. I can’t live without you. I want to be with you and only you.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “You do?”

  “After all that happened, I know it would be painful to lose Jaxon, but to lose you would be unbearable.”

  He kissed her fingertips one at a time. “Maybe you should wait a few days. It might just be your reaction to seeing me injured.”

  “Parker.” She pressed her lips to his once, twice. “I love you. Only you. You’re the only one for me.”

  She called Jaxon later that day. She had been in contact with him and the rest of the Tates once she’d gotten Parker home, but now she was calling for a different sort of update.

  “How’s he doing?” Jaxon asked.

  “Great. He’s healing nicely.”

  “Good. Want me to come get him?”

  “No. He’s going to stay here for a little while with me. Jaxon…” She took a deep breath. “I’ve fallen in love with him. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh. Okay.” There was a long pause. “I knew it could go either way. I’m glad he has you, I really am. I would rather see you with him than anyone else.”

  “Thanks, Jaxon.”

  “And hey, if you guys ever want to do a threesome again, you know where my room is.”

  She laughed. “Okay. Thanks.”

  She hung up with mixed emotions. It’d been so easy for him to say goodbye to her. It stung a little, but at the same time, reassured her that she had chosen correctly.

  When she went back to work after taking a few days off to care for Parker, even if most of that time was spent in bed taking care of him in non-medical ways, she put a photo of the two of them on her desk. She wasn’t sure if her bosses or coworkers would say anything about it or not.

  When Joshua came out to the reception area, he nodded at the photo. “How is he?”

  “He’s good. Healing really well. Will be back to fighting soon.”

  “Look, I uh, wanted to apologize for my behavior. And for Caleb’s. Turns out that the man who attacked Parker was Michelle’s husband.”

  “He was?”

  Joshua nodded. “She’s been fired and while you were out, we had a sensitivity training for the staff. Specist remarks won’t be any more tolerated than racist or sexist remarks.”

  She blinked in surprise. Maybe her threats of a lawsuit had affected them more than she knew. “Thank you.”

  “We also wanted to offer our legal services to Parker, free of charge. I can’t say that Caleb and I don’t feel at least a little responsible, even if our part was doing nothing to stop the comments going on around the office.”

  “I’ll let him know.” She didn’t know what else to say. It was more than she ever could have asked for.

  Later that night when she got home and told him the good news, Parker pulled her into a fervent hug and kissed her. “You’re so amazing. I think you and I could really change the world.”

  “We already have.”

  *****

  THE END

  Paranormal Menage Romance: Heat, Hockey and Two Werewolves

  Description

  A curvy witch who is also an artist PLUS two sexy Werewolves who want her PLUS a hot hockey game!

  The only thing Piper Diamond wants to do with hockey is to stop hearing about it so much.

  For this witch, gallery owner and artist, the absolute worst time to be in her hometown of Uphoria, Alberta is when the town hosts the Werewolf League games, resulting in hockey permeating every aspect of her life. Even her normally attentive, sexy Werewolf mate, Baxter, loses his head during the hockey season and eats, sleeps and breathes hockey.

  But when the hunky center forward of Uphoria's home team, Patrick Giles, wants Piper and Baxter for his trois amour, a three-way mating group, Piper's interest in hockey suddenly skyrockets. Even though Patrick is sexy and Baxter is more than willing to have him join them, Piper's not certain that she can commit to a relationship with another Werewolf.

  Unfortunately she doesn't have much time to think about her love life. Her gallery is in financial trouble and it's all she can do to keep warlock Thor Wragge from buying it and turning her dreams into cheap reproductions. Things don't get any easier when the gallery becomes a target for vandals and burglars, so Piper has to decide what she really wants from life.

  Chapter One

  Piper Diamond tried to ignore her mate, Baxter, as he sighed, rubbing his thumbs in small circles at the base of her neck. He always knew just the right way to touch her to ease the tension in her spine. His musky Wolf scent so close to her stirred desire like it always did, but right at this moment, he wasn't after sex.

  Instead, his eyes were sad and droopy, his mouth downturned, trying to convince her to do something far different. And far less exciting.

  "Please come to the game with me."

  "Baxter, I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I have all this work to do," she gestured to the receipts and invoices strewn over her desk. "And because I don't want to. You'll have more fun without me, anyway."

  It was the Wolf League playoffs in Uphoria, Alberta. Winter howled outside and the windows rattled as sand-like grains of snow beat against them. And it always led people to bundle up in woolen hats and parkas to brave the frigid temperatures, so that they could sit in a freezing cold hockey arena and watch a bunch of Werewolves skate around on the ice, slapping around a puck with their little sticks.

  Hockey season was the worst season in Piper's opinion. Though she could easily summon up a small dragon to keep her hands toasty in the arena, she just didn't see the appeal of the sport. Not a very Canadian attitude, as Baxter repeatedly told her.

  When it came to hockey, the only delightful parts of watching a sports game–the rippling muscles of the athletes–were hidden beneath layers of padding and fur. Boring.

  What made it even more unbearable was that while the playoffs happened, they were all anybody in Uphoria, especially Baxter, would talk about. Piper couldn't even walk down the street without hearing fights over the finer points of what happened in the last game.

  Baxter leaned over her, nibbling at her neck. She tried to ignore the tingle that it created, focusing on her bookkeeping papers.

  "You have been pouring over these books for hours," Baxter nipped at her earlobe, his steamy breath in her ear. "If you come with me, I can make it really worth your time…"

  Piper swept her blue-and-purple hair out of her eyes and turned to her mate. As a Werewolf, he was able to shift forms at will and either be a man with firm muscles, dark hair, dark eyes, and a Latino complexion, or a humanoid wolf with hairy, clawed feet, hands the size of dinner plates and boundless muscles that rippled under gleaming fur the color of midnight.

  "You'll be able to enjoy the game better without me," Piper repeated. "The gallery is in the red again, I'm not sure how I'll make rent. It seems every time I break even, something happens and I'm in debt again."

  Baxter caught the arms of her swivel chair, trapping her. "Piper Diamond, you get your delicious ass out of this chair this instant. You need somethin
g to distract you, and you know how… desirous I get after we win a game."

  "You're insisting, aren't you?"

  Baxter nodded, and Piper wrapped her arms around his neck. He rarely insisted on anything, and so she knew that this was very important to him. "Okay. I'll go. On one condition. If we lose, you don't start pouting."

  Baxter flicked his tongue across her lips and she opened them readily and moaned.

  "I'll get your coat," he whispered, slipping away from her grasp.

  Piper smiled at him. She really did not want to go watch hockey, even though she had to admit the sex after Uphoria won a game and Baxter was all hopped up on adrenaline and excitement, was always mind-blowing. But Baxter was right, as he usually was. She needed a distraction and hockey was better than sitting around stressing.

  They had been mates since senior prom night. Neither of them had really understood just how permanent Werewolf mating actually was. They had been hormone-fueled teenagers with their heads in the clouds, lost in a night of music and dance.

  They hadn't even known each other prior to that night.

  Nobody had asked Piper to prom. She was the high school's fat-girl that nobody noticed, except for when she snuck candy into Mr. Breton's oh-so-boring History of Magic in the Americas class. She wasn't the only one eating chocolate while Breton droned on and on, but she was the only one the other students seemed to notice. Back then, Piper hated her body, bouncing from diet to diet, her weight yo-yoed like crazy, making her constantly sick.

  She hadn't even wanted to go to prom, but her mother wanted her to go. Her mother had just stopped chemotherapy and so Piper had agreed. During a slow song, Piper was making up an exciting story to tell her mother about how much fun she had when Baxter approached. He complimented one of her art pieces that was displayed in the school hall. Talking lead to kissing, intense and fiery.

  Piper was still not entirely certain how or why it happened, but before the end of the night, they were in the backseat of his car, clumsy, awkward, but with no second thoughts.