by R. E. Butler
Her wolf howled in her mind at the connection that jarred through her. Was it possible? Could they really be her mates?
“Wh-why wouldn’t you let me go if you let your sister go?” She was finding it harder and harder to think straight while they were touching her. Everything in her body screamed at her to strip her clothes off and encourage them to do the same.
“You’re ours, sweetness. Can’t you feel it?” Memphis leaned close and spoke softly into her ear.
“All of yours?” Had anything ever sounded so wicked and right at the same time? One of them would be awesome. All three? Like peanut butter and chocolate with extra chocolate.
Rome said, “Hyena clans mate one female to three males.”
“Oh.” The word slipped through her lips like a prayer. She was surprised she wasn’t drooling at the possibilities. She’d known that was true from what Whisper had told her, but she hadn’t ever considered that she might be on the receiving end of a mating with three males.
Memphis exhaled. “The two males said that they would find Savannah, and when she was calm, they would send for us so we could talk to her. They were angry at first, but they realized pretty fast that we didn’t mean any harm. Do you know why she was so upset?”
Bliss shook her head to clear her muddled thoughts. “She always wondered why she wasn’t with her real family. Social Services brought her to Mack when she was four, and they told him that she was found next to a dead prostitute in a crack house. No one even knew what she was until she shifted, and she never wanted to find any other hyenas. The only reason she came here is because Mack insisted, and she asked me to come along for moral support.”
Rome frowned. “I think we should wait to talk to them until we have more information.”
Memphis nodded in agreement. “I don’t want her to freak out unnecessarily. Hope can cut both ways.”
“What are you talking about?” Bliss asked.
“Our parents have been looking for our sister for twenty-three years. She was kidnapped one night when she was two. If we call our parents and tell them we think we’ve found her and it’s not actually her, they’ll be devastated,” Memphis said.
Link said, “I’m certain it’s her. The eyes and voice alone are enough, but she looks like Mom, too.”
“Still, we can wait a day,” Memphis said, and then looked down at her with a slow smile. “Besides, we need to get to know our Bliss better.”
Her hands tightened against theirs reflexively, and she wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or scared to death. She’d never been the focus of three gorgeous males’ attentions at the same time. Would they care that she couldn’t shift? What would her conservative parents think of her taking three men to bed?
Did they really think she was their mate?
Her wolf growled in agreement. Bliss, who had never done an impulsive thing in her life, met Memphis’s dark caramel eyes and said, “I’m all yours.”
He growled. “Good answer.”
Chapter 7
Whisper hadn’t ever been a coward in her life before, but she felt utterly overwhelmed when the three males said they were her real brothers. Leaving had seemed like the wisest thing to do. Well, not wise so much as utterly cowardly. But what was she supposed to do?
Her beast howled in dismay.
Shut up.
She raced through the woods, knowing full well that she was leaving Bliss and her brothers behind to deal with the three strangers who claimed to be her long-lost brothers. Her conscience ate at her as she ran along a trail that cut through the woods, but she didn’t slow down, not until her legs burned from exertion and her lungs threatened to burst.
Plopping down on a fallen log, she put her head in her hands and wept. She realized she was being ridiculous. A rational person would have said something along the lines of “You think you might be my brothers? Awesome! Let’s go get our DNA tested.” But no, Whisper had to behave like a complete lunatic and dash off into the woods like her ass was on fire.
Those three males had seemed so certain. They’d followed the sound of her voice and said that her laugh was the same as their mother’s. And their eyes were the same color as hers, that unique caramel brown. Hope fluttered in her heart. Had she really been found by her biological family?
Her brain was running high-speed like a freight train. She needed to go back to the firepit and apologize and find out more information. Before she could stand, a twig cracked nearby, and she froze. A delicious scent – wild and sweet – filled the air as three men she had never seen before strode towards her with purpose in their gazes.
It felt as if someone had glued her butt to the log she was sitting on. Immobilized by their dark gazes, she swallowed hard and watched as they drew close.
Holy crap.
Say something!
She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a soft squeak. The three males towered over her for a heartbeat and then sank to their knees in front of her. The motion washed their sweet scent over her again, and her beast howled in her head and clawed along the inside of her skin, desperate to touch them. Fisting her hands in her lap, she blinked a few times and tried to gather her thoughts, but all she could think about was what they looked like naked. What they would all look like together, naked, with her.
The male in the center of the group was muscular, with short, dark hair. He laid his hands on her knees at the same time as the other two males each took one of her hands.
The one on the left, with hair as dark as the male next to him but long enough to give him a carelessly tousled appearance, rubbed his thumb on the top of her hand. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice doing strange, twisty things to her insides.
The one on the right, the most muscular of the three, held her hand like it was made of glass and reached up his free hand to lightly stroke the tears from her cheeks. His voice was laden with steel as he growled, “Who hurt you?”
With all three of them touching her, she felt like her body was slowly melting with heat. Her brain refused to stop thinking about sex and naked bodies and orgasms times three. Damn Bliss.
“No one hurt me,” she assured them. “I’m just…an idiot.”
The one in the middle said, “I’m certain you’re not. What’s your name, beautiful?”
“Whisper Callahan.”
To the left was Azrael, in the middle was Nyte, and to the right was Fade. The three brothers were a clan. Their identically heated gazes and the scent of arousal that filled the air between them told her all she needed to know about them, at least for now. They were her mates.
And that was just one more complication in her suddenly extremely complicated life.
The sound of someone coming quickly towards them made the three males fly into action. Before she could make a sound, she found herself tucked safely behind Azrael, with Fade and Nyte snarling towards the dark woods.
She peeked around Azrael’s body and saw Kross and Kayne freeze in their tracks.
“What the fuck is up with these damn hyenas coming after our sister?” Kayne growled. “Let her go.”
Nyte looked over his shoulder at her with a frown. “They’re wolves.”
“I’m adopted; they’re my brothers. I have a crap-ton of stuff to tell you guys. Kayne, are those guys still there?”
“We told them they could see you later after you calmed down. Who are these guys, and why are you being hidden like you’re in danger?”
She looked up at Azrael. “Let me go.”
“Never,” he said with a low voice, but he smiled and she returned it.
“Okay, then let me see my brothers for a sec.”
“Just a sec.”
She crossed to her brothers and discovered that the three males claiming to be her biological brothers had taken Bliss with them and left a phone number so that Kross and Kayne could call them when Whisper was ready to see them.
“Why did they take Bliss?”
“They’re mates, apparently,” Kross
said, looking over her head with concern.
“Those are my mates,” she said, gesturing to the three males.
“What?” Kross’ head dropped to look at her in surprise.
She looked over her shoulder and then held out her hand. “Come meet my brothers.”
They joined them quickly, the three males putting their hands on her as if they couldn’t stop from touching her in some way, and Nyte introduced himself and his brothers. “Whisper is our mate. Our beasts let us know that she was near, and we found her crying.”
“I’m not too happy about that. Why were you crying, anyway?” Fade asked.
She opened her mouth, but Kayne spoke first. “If you’re Whisper’s mates, then you have a ton of stuff to talk about, and out here in the woods with the temperature dropping isn’t the best place. If you follow us back to our cabin, Whisper can grab her things and leave with you.”
Her brothers turned and began walking away, and she looked at her mates. “He’s right,” she said. “If you want me to come with you, that is.”
Fade made a snarling sound, and Nyte scoffed, “As if we’d let you go now that we found you.”
A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed hard. She’d had acceptance from her father and brothers her whole life, but the males with her right now — their immediate acceptance of her meant more. They didn’t know anything about her except that she was their mate, and they didn’t seem to care.
Nyte and Azrael each took one of her hands, and Fade walked behind them. He was built like a tank, and she had a feeling that he could and would fight anyone that threatened them.
At the cabin, Azrael followed her into the bedroom and helped her pack while Nyte and Fade talked to her brothers.
“Are you freaked out?” Azrael asked, tucking a pair of shoes into the corner of the suitcase.
She folded a shirt and laid it inside. “Not really. It’s strange, but I just feel very good right now. As if things are settled.” Well, at least some things in her life. Certainly, she needed to deal with this thing with her biological brothers. And also to talk to Bliss about being mated.
“I feel the same way. I think we must have run into your friend earlier, because there was this girl walking with your wolf brothers and she smelled really good.”
Whisper arched a brow.
He chuckled. “It’s your scent. She carried some of your scent, and we couldn’t figure out what it was at first because we were certain that she wasn’t our mate but our beasts were going a little crazy.”
Fade leaned in the door. “Are you ready, Whisper?”
In spite of how much crazy shit had just happened, she was. Ready for whatever the night was going to bring. Azrael zipped up her suitcase and carried it out of the room. Fade waited for her to join him and slipped his hand in hers, escorting her into the main room of the cabin.
“I guess we don’t have to flip a coin for the bed anymore,” Kayne said with a smile.
“Are you going to go home?” she asked.
“Really? Dad would skin us alive if we left you here, mates or not…no offense.” Kross said.
Nyte said, “None taken.”
Nyte and Kayne exchanged phone numbers, and Nyte said, “We can meet up at breakfast tomorrow and go together to meet her biological family when she’s ready.”
“Sounds good,” Kross said. She blew kisses to her brothers and left the cabin with her mates.
“Our cabin is on the other side of the grounds,” Nyte said as they began to walk down a trail. It was dark in the woods, but thanks to a flashlight app on Nyte’s phone, they were able to see the trail.
Fade held her hand as they walked, Nyte ahead of them leading the way and Azrael bringing up the rear. She opened her mouth several times to start a conversation but didn’t know what to say. What was she supposed to say to three strangers who were her mates, anyway? She was confused and aroused, and couldn’t stop wondering about the males who claimed to be her biological brothers.
They stopped walking, and she looked up at a cabin that was smaller than the one she had shared with her brothers and Bliss. Nyte opened the door and flipped on a light, illuminating the interior. She walked up the rickety steps and into the cabin as Fade walked beside her. Azrael carried her suitcase inside and shut the door. The cabin reminded her of an efficiency apartment, with everything in one small room, including a big bed.
Bed.
Three males.
Her mates.
Holy crap.
Nyte chuckled and took her free hand, lifting it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the top. “You said you were raised in a wolf pack. Does that mean you don’t know much about your hyena heritage?”
She shook her head. “Only what I’ve learned since I’ve been here.”
“That’s okay. But first, you should know that we won’t be mating with you while we’re here.”
Her brows rose, and she made a small, surprised squeaking sound and then flushed with embarrassment.
Azrael smiled broadly. “It’s not that we don’t want to, but our people have certain traditions when it comes to mating, and mating in a strange cabin in the woods when we’ve only just met is definitely not one of them.”
Nyte nodded. “I just wanted to put your mind at ease. There’s no rush to anything physical. Not while we’re here, not even once we’re home. You’ll lead us, and when you’re ready to be ours, we’ll be ready, too. All that matters right now is that we’re your mates and you are ours. The rest can come in time.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Okay.”
Azrael said, “I’m starving; how about you, Whisper?”
“I could eat,” she answered.
He walked over to the kitchenette and rummaged in the mini-fridge while Fade tugged on her hand and led her over to the one couch that made up the living room section of the cabin. They sat down together, and Nyte sat on the coffee table across from her, putting one hand on her knee.
They wanted to know about her and how she came to be a member of a wolf pack. When Azrael sat down on her other side with sodas tucked under one arm and a bag of pretzels, she began her story. She didn’t tell many people about her early beginnings. The pack knew, but she never shared the story with outsiders. Knowing that she’d wound up in Mack’s care because she was found in an abandoned crack house next to a dead prostitute had made her feel like her family hadn’t wanted her and had tossed her away.
“Then three hyenas followed the sound of my voice through the woods and said I sounded like their mom and looked just like her and that I was their baby sister, Savannah, who had been kidnapped as a toddler.” She brushed a few tears from her cheeks and sighed.
“Do you think they were telling the truth?” Nyte asked, rubbing her knee as he looked at her intently.
Azrael and Fade were sitting very close to her, and Fade had slipped his arm over her shoulder at one point during her story. She couldn’t remember ever feeling content the way she did with them. Like the world could fall apart around them, and as long as they were together, everything would work out.
“I think so. They had my same eye color, and there was something vaguely familiar about them. I think my beast recognized them. Of course, they probably think I’m a nutcase for running away like that. I mean, really. Who does that?”
Fade kissed her forehead with a soft rumbling growl. “A stressed out she-hyena who needs a minute to think.”
She looked up at him. “Are you always so accommodating?”
“With you I will be.”
Nyte snorted. “Alright, lover boy, first things first.” He squeezed her knee. “Do you want to contact those males? We’ll keep them away from you until you’re ready to see them.”
“I do want to see them, but I’m scared.”
“Of what?” Azrael asked.
“What if they’re wrong? What if it’s just a coincidence? Or, what if it’s not, and they want me to go home with them to me
et my biological family?”
Fade snarled angrily, and Nyte cleared his throat loudly, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about that right now. Whatever happens, whether they’re your family or not, we’ll be with you every step of the way.”
She leaned against Fade, squeezing Azrael’s hand and laying her free hand on top of Nyte’s. “I want to see them tomorrow.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. For now,” Nyte stood and tugged her gently to her feet, “it’s extremely late, and you’ve had a hell of a night.”
They encouraged her to clean up in the bathroom, and after taking out her toiletry bag and pajamas, she shut the door and leaned her head against the cool wood. Outside of the cabin she had a tornado’s worth of shit to deal with, but inside this small space with three males meant to be hers forever…she wasn’t feeling so crazed.
How wrong she’d been when she thought she could come to the gathering and not be affected. She hadn’t just made some new friends, she’d found her mates, and the attraction to them was instantaneous. Not just physically — because that was definitely there — but emotionally, too. They had sat there for over an hour while she poured out her life story. Fade with his reassuring strength. Azrael with his gentle concern. Nyte, clearly the leader of the clan, asking questions and almost seeming to anchor her to himself with just his hand on her knee. She felt like she could walk out into that cabin and be taken care of in every way. That Fade would kill for her, Azrael would take care of her, and Nyte would make sure that all was right in her world.
She turned from the door and flipped on the light, brushing at the wetness on her cheeks. The dim bulb over the sink didn’t show much but allowed her to see that her face was a blotchy red mess. After using the facilities and changing into her sleep shorts and tank, she rinsed her face off with cool water and brushed her teeth.