Jacob (Alexander Shifter Brothers Book 3)

by Selina Coffey

  The men spoke in barely accented English, conversing easily with Hannah. If she could make her tongue work, that was. She kept staring at them: they were tall, sexy, muscular gods. Both appeared to be in their early 30s, more than likely, with killer smiles stretching their faces. The only similarities were their style of clothing and the tattoos their arms were covered with. Intricate patterns that made no real sense unless you followed the lines, an image beginning to form, but their black t-shirts covered most of the shape. Hannah wanted to find out what was beneath those shirts and not just to see the tattoos. Nathan apparently hid nipple rings under his t-shirt from what she could see of the outlines there. He also had a darker shade of blonde hair than the other one did.

  Slowly, after some staring, Hannah realized the yellow eyed man had called the green eyed man Nathan and reality exploded in her brain. Now, why did she suspect the other’s name was going to be Luther? A sense of doom had Hannah tensing in her seat: her life was so far out of control right now. She thought it might be best to go check herself into hospital. Panic evident in her eyes, on her face and in the rapid pace of her breathing, Hannah was on the verge of bolting out of the door again when the other one placed his hand over hers and made soothing sounds to her. Instantly she calmed, a sense of peace encircling her the way his large hand encircled her tiny one.

  “You have a pianist’s hands, Hannah, do you play?” he asked, kindness in his eyes.

  “Yes, yes I do. How do you know my name? How do you two know me?” she asked; bewilderment evident in her voice. She was calm but she still felt lost, confused, and totally out of place.

  “We have a story to tell you. I suspect you already know my name but I will introduce myself to you anyway, because I don’t believe you’ve been told anything about us except that you needed to find us. I am Luther Harman; my over-eager friend here is Nathan Carles.” Luther paused to gesture to his friend, who was staring at Hannah with a severe case of “I want to eat you whole” coming loud and clear from his body language. Instead of being repulsed however, Hannah felt a stirring response within her own body, a “bring it on” wanting to escape from her lips. Clamping down on that feeling she turned her attention back to Luther. That didn’t really help when she could see the same attraction there, only his version had been clamped down on and was being throttled into submission.

  The longer she was with these two, the stranger her thoughts were. She seemed to be noticing things she’d have never noticed before. She could almost, she thought, hear what they were thinking. Almost. An image of herself, bent over the bar, naked and writhing with an image of Luther’s hands on her hips, flashed into her brain and Hannah gasped, covering her face. She knew it was Luther by the swirling tattoo that snaked up the outside portion of his left hand.

  “Sorry about that it slipped through, I guess.” Luther looked guilty but then made his face blank, closing his eyes as he visibly took back control of his brain.

  “Okay, somebody has to explain this to me and they have to start explaining now!” Hannah exclaimed, starting to become angry rather than panicked. Something strange was happening, she wasn’t actually going crazy and these two had the answers. She wanted those answers and she wanted them now. Apparently her glare wasn’t as intimidating as she thought because Luther just smiled at her and Nathan somehow looked hungrier. Raising her left eyebrow she stared at Nathan. He backed down.

  “Oh, wow”, she thought, “That worked!”

  She squinted at him and she could have giggled when his head went down, looking up at her with pitiful puppy dog eyes. Thrilled with what had just occurred, she looked over at Luther and remembered what she was here for. Answers, not obedience training. Right. Back to it then.

  “So what do you know?” she asked Luther.

  “Let me get someone in here to take over the bar and we can talk in our office, alright? Won’t be a second.” Turning back to Nathan, she looked him over again. She wondered what those nipple rings did for him? Picturing him thrusting beneath her as she tugged on them brought a dreamy smile to her face. Moving her eyes to meet his, she noticed he looked to be in a lot of pain.

  “You have to stop thinking like that if you want me to control myself, Hannah.” He rasped out. It sent shivers down her spine, but at the same time his words made her eyes widen.

  “How did you know what I was thinking?” she said as she leaned over the bar towards him, wanting to pull him to her for privacy’s sake.

  He stepped away, dodging her question for the moment as well. Luther came back just then, saving him from giving an answer. Before she could glare at Nathan again he practically ran back to the office Luther had indicated, as a woman with long purple hair came over to take their place. Looking the woman over, Hannah thought the woman was rather fit, but Luther pulled her along with him to the back of the office.

  “Down girl! Talk first, play later. Maybe,” he told her, his hand wrapped over hers. It sent shivers up her arm, straight to somewhere she’d rather not think about at the moment. Giggling, she followed him.

  “Alright, what’s happening to me? Somebody has got to explain this. I’m far too serious most days to be sat around giggling like a teenager. What’s going on?” she asked the men seated on a couch across from her. Luther had led her to a chair so she could face them but not be between them. She’d thought it was so she would feel more comfortable but looking at them she wondered. They looked nervous, tense even.

  “Do you know anything about dragonkin? Did your parents ever tell you anything or leave anything behind, in the case of your father?” Nathan asked her, looking calmer now there was some distance between them.

  “No, my father died when he was 28, almost the same age as me now. He died on his birthday, in fact. I’ve never known much about his family, mum simply wouldn’t talk about him. What are dragonkin?” she asked them, looking from one to the other questioningly.

  “Oh, this is going to be much more difficult then. Tell me, how did you arrive here?” Luther queried.

  “Honestly, insanity would have to be the word for it. My mother passed away not long ago and from that first day she’s been haunting me. Well, my dreams at least. At first all she would say to me in the dream was ‘Furth im Wald’, then, just before I came she told me I had to find Nathan Luther. Night after night I was having these dreams. I thought it was just my brain but here you are, Nathan and Luther, not Nathan Luther. You’re in Furth im Wald, just as she told me. And there is some really strange shit taking place here, we’re reading each other’s minds aren’t we?”

  Luther looked at her with some sympathy, knowing what he was going to tell her next wasn’t going to be easy for her to take.

  “Right, so you don’t know anything. Nathan and I are dragonkin. We can turn into dragons, at will. We share a bond with you, as we have with all of your father’s line. We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. We’ve been watching your grow up since the day he died. You are the last of your family line. We either break the curse with you or it goes on to any children you may produce.”

  Hannah’s response was far from eloquent. “Huh?”

  Pulling their shirts over their heads the men revealed that the tattoos that snaked around their arms. Nathan’s left and Luther’s right, were parts of the tail of a very large, elaborate dragon tattoo. The body ran across their backs, down below their belts, but the head was on their chest. Everything on the dragons looked like normal ink and skin but the detail was fine, the scales of each creature picked out with extraordinary skill. The eyes of each dragon were what really caught her attention. They glowed. They were the same colour as their wearer’s eyes, almost like real eyes, but not quite. The dragons seemed to slither and move beneath each man’s skin, only an impression but somehow she knew those tattoos were really the dragons within each man. Hannah almost knocked her chair over in her attempt to flee the room but Nathan caught her.

  “We aren’t here to hurt you, Hannah; we’re here to prote
ct you. I swear we will not hurt you!” Nathan attempted to calm her but his touch only made her senses swim, the panic increasing inside of her. She slumped; Nathan caught her before she hit the floor.

  “Well, that’s just great Luther, you made her faint. I hope you’re happy with yourself!” Nathan placed Hannah gently on the couch, pushing her hair out of her face. “I think we’re going to have to do this a little differently than we’d planned on. It seems her mother hid a lot of truths from her daughter. Shall we begin?”

  “This may be the only way. I just hope she doesn’t wake up freaking out even more than she already is! That’s a lot of knowledge to just wake up knowing. It hasn’t always worked out well for us in the past.” Luther looked worried but sat beside Hannah, placing her head in his lap as he folded her hands around her head.

  Nathan went to her feet, placing them in his own lap, placing his hands over them gently. Both men had an instantaneous reaction to the woman touching them, a product of their bond. Deep attraction was always a possibility with meeting one of the cursed for dragonkin. It didn’t always happen and neither had felt it as strongly as they did with Hannah. She was special, this cursed one, and they both wanted to be gentle.

  Both men started to chant words that did not sound like words, merely syllables and whispers that may have been sounds. A green glow began to surround all three of the bodies on the couch, swirling as though it were animated fog: a living being itself. The fog came from Nathan and Luther but as it swirled it drifted to Hannah’s lips, drifting between them slowly.

  Hannah’s eyes popped open, taking in a deep breath as the fog started to pour into her chest, as though it were her very life’s blood and not memories and time. The stream slowed, disappearing as it entered Hannah’s body. Her eyes closed and she seemed to peacefully go back to sleep. Nathan and Luther knew what was really happening however. She was assimilating their memories and thoughts for the last 500 years. Leaving her, Nathan and Luther went out to check on the bar. Nathan agreed to go back and stay with her. Luther would stay at the front, helping Nadia, the purple haired vixen at the bar.

  Nathan watched over her, knowing the things she was learning because they came from his own memories. The people of his past, the things he’d done, the things he’d seen and experienced. The reason her family was cursed. Nathan drifted with her, though for different reasons, reliving 500 years in less than an hour.

  Going back to his youth, when he’d been a young dragonkin. He remembered enticing the youngest princely son of the king of Bavaria to cross over to Bohemia with him, Luther coming along only to keep an eye on the pair and to hopefully keep them out of trouble. They’d spent three days carousing, burning fields and flying all over the two kingdoms, causing mayhem. Assumptions were made on both sides; the Bavarians accused the Bohemians of setting the dragons on them and kidnapping the son. The Bohemians blamed the Bavarians for the dragons’ destructive rampage and the three culprits hid, hoping it would all just blow over. That didn’t happen and there was a battle between the two kingdoms.

  The young prince, Gunther, had tried to go back home but was killed in the battle, his body returned to his father. His Bohemian wife returned to her father, taking their young child with her. The Bavarian king cursed the family, the line that would follow with the child, for the betrayal of the Bohemians and through the generations the descendants of young Gunther met their deaths before or on their 28th birthday. Every single one died and Luther and Nathan had been attempting ever since to break the curse. They had one last chance with Hannah. If they broke the curse, they would no longer be dragons, she would not die, and they would all live a normal life. Their efforts had to work this time. Time. Time travel was a drastic step but she was the last one, their last chance. They had to succeed this time.

  Hannah broke his reverie by screaming as she sat straight up on the sofa.

  “HOLY FUCKING HELL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” She screamed while holding her head between her hands.

  Nathan could hear Luther running to the office as he held Hannah, reassuring her that the pain would pass, that she was going to be ok. She was crying hysterically. Nathan thought that might partially be from the last few months of grief, confusion and pain, not simply a side effect of what they’d done.

  Luther slid behind her, running his hand up her dress, trying to soothe her by rubbing her back. She could hear the music coming from the bar, a thumping driving beat that soothed her instead of making her feel fractious. She let her head fall back against Luther’s shoulder, let the memories flow through her brain, feeling him breathe behind her, seeing Nathan breathing before her, slowly, in and out.

  “Let it all go, let it fall into place,” she thought. Slowly all of the information from two men came together into her brain, forming a solid idea, her neck muscles relaxed and the urge to run screaming, calmed.

  “We have to go back in time then?” She asked the men quietly.

  “Yes, the sooner the better. Your birthday’s in two weeks, isn’t it?” Luther asked behind her, his lips brushing her ear. His hands had moved to her front now, rubbing down her ribs, over her hips and back up again. Distracting, implausibly erotic, the feel of his skin against her silken skin was overly stimulating, exciting. Nathan at her feet, rubbing them, somehow sending shivers up to her spine, giving her ideas she shouldn’t be having now.

  “If you keep thinking like that, Hannah,” he murmured against her ear, the sound not helping, only making more images appear in her mind, “we won’t be going anywhere tonight. We’ll be naked on this couch, all three of us and I don’t know that you’re quite ready for that. So get up, go back to your hotel, and tomorrow morning we’ll come get you, alright? We have to get things ready for this. I’ll call you a taxi.” He kissed her ear as he finished speaking, his tongue sliding down the outer shell, biting at the lobe, making her squirm against him.

  “Your own thoughts aren’t helping, Luther, let her up, come on before I ravish both of you!” Nathan said out loud to them, his teeth clenched. Her feet were pressed into him, the hardness beneath her toes difficult to not identify. She sucked her breath in, wanting to discover more about the images that kept flashing in her mind. Flashes of tangled bodies, sighs and moans filling the air, hands moving and bodies writhing. Yes, she needed out of here, or she might end up doing something she’d never considered before.

  Luther seemed to be the first to get a hold on his passion as he jumped up, using a mobile to call a taxi for Hannah. He gave them the bar’s address, gathered her things, and took her to front. Nathan had written some things on a paper and handed them to her, putting them in her hand with a gentle kiss on her cheek.

  Luther handed her a shot of something from behind the bar and she swallowed it quickly, letting the burn calm her nerves. He handed her one more, and she tossed that one back too, knowing she may need it if she wanted to sleep tonight. A flash of lights outside announced the arrival of her taxi and she turned to go.

  “Hannah” Luther called out to her, “I’ll buzz you in the morning, alright?”

  “I’ll be waiting for your call” she assured him with a smile, then walked out of the door, a little wobbly in the sandals she’d put back on her feet. Thinking she needed one more drink, she went into the little shop at the hotel, brought a small bottle of whiskey and went to her room with a full ice bucket in hand. Time to assimilate.

  Chapter 3

  Hannah woke up early, the sun barely above the horizon as she cracked her eyes open. Maybe she’d had too much whiskey. Maybe. Shutting her eyes, she pushed herself up and ran for the shower, hoping some hot water would make her head feel better. As the water poured over her head she thought about the things she now knew.

  Because of the curse she could see the things that popped into Luther and Nathan’s minds, as they could hers. They were connected, that’s what caused the sexual attraction but beyond that, she found them both incredibly sexy with their soft denim and black leather. They both found h
er delicious; tall, elfin and beautiful, with an edge beneath the timidity that she’d been showing the world. They wanted to bring out her inner kitten and turn her into a full grown hellcat, apparently. But first they had to save her and themselves from their individual fates. She knew what they thought of her, what they knew and they were learning the same things about her but more slowly. She accepted it all, what else she could do after the last few hours?

  Last night Hannah had been overwhelmed, not sure how to deal with the things she discovered. She’d finished off a good portion of the bottle of whiskey, but falling asleep had taken more time than she’d hoped. She was anxious to get started and hoped the men were early risers too. Getting out of the shower, she dried off, putting on jeans, a black sweater and trainers, not sure what they day was going to bring but wanting to be functional.

  She ran to her phone as it started to buzz, flicking it to answer.

  “Hannah” she heard from her speaker. It was Annie. Oh dear, she’d completely forgotten to call her friend last night!

  “Hi Annie! I’m so sorry I forgot to call you. I met a really hot pair of guys and spent the night, well, not doing what I wanted to but it was interesting to say the least.” She just blurted it, not sure what to actually tell her friend at this point.

  “Oh, do tell, Hannah, you have to tell!” her friend purred down the line.

  “Not much to tell at this point but I’m meeting them again this evening so if I don’t call you tonight, don’t panic, alright? I’m waiting on them to call now.”

  “Well, I expect pictures and a text later, at the least alright? How’s the other stuff going?” Annie asked, concerned.

  Hesitating only a moment Hannah replied, “I’ve put it on the back burner for now. I’ll explain more later on, they’re calling me now so let me go, alright? Love you buddy!” she hung up before Annie could reply, wanting to answer the other call before they hung up. She thought it must be them; she’d not entered anyone else’s phone information into her phone under the name of ‘Sexgod L’. She must have done that when she was drunk. Eek, I’ll have to fix that, she told herself.