Night of the Wild Stags

by Golden Angel

  “Bethany go put on some clothes,” the scary man growled. Even in human form he had a scary wolf’s growl.

  The blonde just stuck her tongue out at him and pranced back into the room she’d come out of; with just her head sticking out the door she smiled at Kiara. “I’m going to bet whatever he did, he totally deserved what he had coming to him, but we weren’t sure what was going on. Sorry if I ruined your fun! You’re adorable, by the way.”

  Neither Kiara nor her doe really knew how to react, but the blonde-bunny-monster didn’t seem to expect a reaction, since she pulled her head back as soon as she finished speaking and shut the door.

  Scary man (who was even taller and more intimidating than Dorian!) looked at Kiara, Sebastian still half-hanging from his hand. Sebastian looked anywhere but at her. “So what the fuck is going on and what the hell is she?”

  “I’d like the answer to the first question as well.” The cool, professional voice of Dr. Tran came from behind Kiara and her herd. Sneaky doctor, she’d moved so quietly, and Kiara had been so engrossed in the big ass bunny she hadn’t even heard the woman arriving.

  Dorian swung around to face her. Although she’d sounded completely blasé, Dr. Tran’s lips still quirked when she caught sight of Kiara hanging from Dorian’s side. For a moment Kiara considered shifting… but that would still leave her hanging because Dorian was so darned tall, and with her entire backside presented to Sebastian and the scary dude.

  No thanks, she’d pass on that particular humiliation.

  Dr. Tran looked past her and fixed Sebastian with a hard gaze. “Mr. Sirrobin, I believe I informed you that Ms. Arrio was on her way and that your concerns would be addressed. I definitely did not tell you that you could attempt to make off with her as you attempted to do.”

  Dorian turned enough that Kiara could see the men behind them. Sebastian’s attempt to draw himself back up in front of the diminutive doctor was hampered by the scary guy’s refusal to let go of his shirt collar.

  “Madam, I simply attempted to approach my mate and reclaim her from these… men.” His voice dripped with disdain as he looked at Kiara’s herd. She bared her teeth at him and he shuddered. Yeah, not so interested in her now, was he?

  Jerk.

  She couldn’t believe she’d ever thought he was her mate.

  Actually, yes, she could. She and the other females had been fed a pack of lies.

  On the other hand, believing those lies and following the rules had also kept all of them safe. She’d been out in regular shifter society long enough to know that much of the small shifter population had been decimated—some had even gone extinct.

  The Pudu deer population might be skewed towards males, but it was also stable, and no one was dying of any awful illnesses. She’d managed to catch one within months of leaving the community.

  “Since I’m no longer interested in having her, I believe I’ll be on my way,” Sebastian said, attempting to pull away from the firm grip on his collar.

  If a doe could have snickered, Kiara would have when he got absolutely nowhere.

  The door next to them all opened again, and the blonde came back out, her blue eyes sparkling. She smiled sunnily at Kiara, completely ignoring Sebastian.

  “Aren’t you just the sweetest little doe?! Bailey’s going to be so sad she missed seeing you!” Bethany said, bending forward and putting her hands on her knees. Not really sure what to make of her—and very aware of how big the bunny was in comparison to herself—Kiara just looked back at her. Thankfully it wasn’t like a response was required. She could feel Dorian chuckling though. He was totally going to pay for that later. “I didn’t even know a full-grown doe could be this tiny! And look at your teeth!”

  “She’s a freak!” Sebastian spat.

  “Alright, that’s enough,” Alec snapped, starting forward. Scary dude gave him a stern look while Gavin grabbed his arm.

  “Everybody calm down,” Dr. Tran said, stepping into the middle of everyone. “We’re all going to Eli’s office. Now.”

  On the trip to Eli’s office (she was pretty sure he was her herd’s boss), the scary dude frog-marched Sebastian in front of him. Kiara was still tucked under Dorian’s arm (which, seriously, how was he not getting tired?! She wasn’t that light, even as a doe!) and the others walked around them. The blonde walked beside Kiara, talking to her the whole way.

  “Hi, I’m Bethany. That’s my mate, Steele.” She cheerfully pointed at the scary dude. “My sister-in-law Jesse told me about you, but she didn’t tell me how small you actually are. I was kind of skeptical that deer could be small shifters, but we looked it up on the internet. I bet you were adorable as a baby.” She looked around at the men. “Congratulations on the mating… those are some nice bite marks. On all of them too! Thorough. Can’t blame you for marking them up, pronto. Nice looking herd you have here.”

  The growl which went through the hallway wasn’t Kiara’s—it was Steele’s. He shot his mate a look over his shoulder, glowering. “You have more than you can handle with one mate, sweetheart.”

  “Too true,” Bethany agreed. She leaned in towards Kiara, lowering her voice even though it wouldn’t actually hide any of what she was saying. “He’s an awfully grouchy mate. But the sex… totally makes up for it. Still… four males. Do you—“

  “Bethany.”

  Winking at Kiara, Bethany seemed completely pleased to be annoying her large and intimidating mate. Crazy bunny. Although… Kiara peeked up at Dorian just as they came to a halt in front of an office door. Steele knocked on the door with his fist.

  As if feeling Kiara’s gaze on him, Dorian looked down at her. Raised his eyebrow.

  Shook his head.

  Don’t even think about it, was the silent message she got. Dorian would never tolerate being prodded and purposefully annoyed the way Bethany was doing with Steele.

  I bet Bethany’s mate doesn’t spank her, Kiara thought a little sulkily.

  Do it anyway, whispered her doe, not at all bothered by the idea of a spanking, and more than a little amused at the prospect of copying Bethany’s outspoken ways.

  She had a feeling her doe was going to get her into trouble. If she hadn’t already, that was.

  ******

  Eli, it turned out, was definitely the big boss.

  As in, the big boss. Of all shifters. Unofficially.

  Kiara hadn’t even known there was such a thing.

  Sebastian definitely had though. The minute Eli had been introduced as Eli Mansfield, Sebastian had turned a strange pasty white under his tan and had sat down very heavily in the seat. Although the latter might have had a little to do with Steele’s hand pushing him down.

  Sitting down in the other chair in front of Eli’s desk, Dorian kept Kiara cradled on his lap.

  All things considered, she honestly was perfectly happy to stay in her doe form right now. Especially because every time Sebastian looked at her, all she had to do was lift her lip a little and flash some fang to make him immediately avert his eyes.

  Both she and her doe might be getting off on scaring him.

  Just a little.

  She could feel amusement wafting through her mind from her four mates as Sebastian glanced at her again. He seemed to be having some difficulty avoiding both Eli's gaze and hers without appearing at a disadvantage.

  Everyone went through their story, except for Kiara, while Eli listened patiently. The only time he spoke was to congratulate her herd on their mating, his eyes flicking over the marks on their necks with amusement before resting on her for a moment as if contemplating a tiny doe with such sharp teeth. When it was his turn, Sebastian tried to make it sound like he had just been trying to check on her, but he hadn't been able to completely hide his disdain for Dr. Tran's orders or his disgust and fear of Kiara now that he'd seen her shifted doe.

  Finally, Eli turned his cool, blue gaze on Kiara. He raised an eyebrow at her. He was gorgeous. Not in the same way Sebastian’s good looks were attractive, no,
Eli’s appeal went far beyond that. Blond hair, blue eyes, firm jawline, but with real charm in his face and kindness. He looked like he smiled more than he frowned, and he gave off a kind of aura of command that made Sebastian and the other elders look like pale imitations of authority.

  “So, Kiara. Pleasure to meet you. Would you like to shift to human and join in the conversation now?” He sounded amused, at least, but Kiara still hesitated.

  Bethany let out a huffy noise of exasperation. “Really, Eli? In a room full of men, fully clothed and half of them not her mates, you want her to just shift and answer questions naked?”

  Groaning, Steele dragged his hand over his face at his mate’s disrespectful chiding of the most powerful shifter in the room—possibly in the country, if Kiara had understood everything correctly.

  Kiara looked at the other woman in awe. Was there no one who intimidated her? Kiara decided right then and there, when she grew up, she wanted to be Bethany. Yeah, she was already an adult, but she felt like she had a lot of catching up to do when it came to actually being a real ‘grown-up’ in this new world of hers. When she finished growing, being just like Bethany was definitely her end goal.

  As if they could sense some of her determination, her herd shifted their own stances a little uneasily.

  Eli looked back at Bethany, amusement dancing in his eyes. Apparently, he didn’t mind the mouthy bunny shifter—or maybe he was just used to her.

  “She’s a shifter, Bethany,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  Bethany rolled her eyes. “I’m a shifter and I don’t like getting naked in front of a bunch of men I don’t know.”

  “Don’t mind when they get naked in front of you though,” her mate said grumpily. The grouchy expression on his face subsided a bit when Bethany grinned and leaned into him, rubbing her face on his chest.

  “You still win every comparison,” she whispered. Everyone pretended they hadn’t heard that.

  Sighing, Eli ran his hand through his blond locks and looked back at Kiara. “Ms. Arrio, if we all look away and perhaps one of your stags can provide you with—yes, thank you, Riley. We will all look away and you can shift and put on Riley’s shirt in peace so I can speak with you directly, that would be much appreciated.”

  Soft fabric draped over her back. Eli turned his head, Bethany pulled her mate down for a kiss to make sure his eyes were averted, and Gavin and Alec stepped in between the chair she and Dorian were on and the chair Sebastian was sitting in to make sure he couldn’t even try to peek. They were like a big wall of man.

  The thought had Kiara grinning as she shifted on Dorian’s lap, feeling a little silly there. He and Riley helped her quickly yank Riley’s shirt over herself. The hem fell down to about mid-thigh, making her feel even smaller. As soon as she had it on, Dorian’s arm curled around her waist, hauling her back to lean against him, his fingers draping over her hip and caressing.

  So apparently, she was just supposed to sit on his lap through the interview.

  Oh well. There were worse places.

  “She’s good,” Dorian said, his chest rumbling against her back. As Eli opened his eyes again, the rest of the herd arrayed themselves around the chair—Riley to the right with his arms crossed over his bare chest while Alec and Gavin kept their position between her and Sebastian. Since she was feeling a little less brave out of her doe form, she didn’t mind their protective stance at all.

  “Hello, Ms. Arrio,” Eli said, giving her an absolutely devastating smile. If she hadn’t already mated her herd, she would have probably melted into a little puddle. Dorian’s arm tightened a little around her body. Oops. She’d better watch those thoughts. Her males were definitely very good at picking up on her emotions. “It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

  “Hello,” she said, her voice soft. Despite wanting to be as ballsy and blunt as Bethany, she found herself now feeling rather tongue-tied.

  “So, Ms. Arrio, please tell me in your own words exactly how you came to be here,” Eli requested, still smiling. Good lord, the man could probably charm birds out of their nests with just a flash of his white teeth.

  She cleared her throat and started to talk. Under Eli’s sympathetic gaze, with her herd around her bolstering her confidence, and Steele’s heavy hand squeezing Sebastian’s shoulder whenever he tried to interrupt, she ended up saying much more than she’d even meant to.

  She told them about the Pudu deer community, about the elders matching up the females with their ‘mates.’ She also told him about getting a job as an editor and her first time reading a human romance, the yearning it had awoken in her, and her dissatisfaction with her mating. That was when Sebastian had first started trying to interrupt, apparently unhappy with her description of their relationship. Dorian cradled her even closer, one of Riley’s hands reaching out to play with a lock of her hair as she told Eli about deciding she could no longer live the way she had been and telling Sebastian she no longer wanted to be his mate.

  All hell broke loose in the office when she’d mentioned his enraged reaction, which had left her with bruised ribs and a black eye at the time.

  Alec was the first to go for Sebastian’s throat—and Steele couldn’t hold him back because he was too busy holding on to his own mate who was now shrieking with outrage and clawing at the back of Sebastian’s chair in her own rage. Kiara had managed to grab Gavin to keep him from doing the same as Alec—and she wasn’t sure what Dorian would have done if she weren’t literally sitting on him. She could feel him shaking with suppressed rage beneath her, his arms holding her very tightly now. Three of the bundles of emotion in her head had gone hot with anger… one was very cold, ice cold.

  A glance over her shoulder gave her a glimpse of Riley’s expression, which was completely blank and scary as all heck. Kiara suddenly had the suspicion that he was actually the most dangerous out of all her mates, which explained why he’d been leading the way into the hospital with Dorian. She’d kind of wondered about that, because he came off as the least intimidating at first glance.

  Now his gaze was hyper-focused on the tiny male Pudu deer shivering on the other side of the empty chair.

  “That’s not fair!” Alec roared in frustration, straightening up from where he’d practically thrown himself over the seat of Sebastian’s chair. He glared at the small male deer. “How am I supposed to kick his ass when he’s a fourth of the size of me?”

  “I’ll do it!” Bethany shrieked from where Steele was literally holding her off the ground in his arms. She twisted, struggling against her mate’s strong arms, trying to kick him. “I don’t care how small he is, I’ll squash him like a bug!”

  Considering she could do that just by turning into her monster-bunny and sitting on him, it was a pretty valid threat. In Kiara’s head, she could hear her doe snickering.

  Eli stood up, drawing everyone’s attention to him, and the stony look on his face had washed away all his charm. The aura of innate power around him practically pulsed and Kiara suddenly found it hard to breathe as her doe quivered in Kiara’s head, rolling on her back to show her submission to the Alpha. Blue eyes alight with anger, he gave everyone a quelling look, which had immediate effect. Bethany sagged in her mate’s arms, no longer struggling to free herself and get at Sebastian, and Alec allowed himself to be pulled closer to Kiara. She grabbed hold of his hand with one of hers, and Riley’s with the other. Gavin seemed to have himself under control now, although he’d still shifted his stance to ensure Sebastian’s tiny deer couldn’t get anywhere near her.

  Turning his gaze to Sebastian, Eli’s expression became supremely disdainful. “Mr. Sirrobin, I suggest you stay in that form as Ms. Arrio’s mates are too honorable to attack someone smaller and physically weaker than themselves. You might take a lesson from that. Also, stay away from Bethany if you want to live. If you’re too stupid to do so, I’ll consider it Darwinism.” He turned back to Kiara as he sat down. “Please continue, Ms. Arrio.”

  Still a
little bemused by everyone’s reactions—Kiara finished her story. Although, of course, her herd knew most of it. The entire time Sebastian stayed cowered next to the wall, both eyes on Bethany, who was glaring back at him. She wasn’t even sure Sebastian was listening to a word she was saying. Which was fine by her.

  When she finished, Eli nodded his head solemnly.

  “Thank you, Ms. Arrio. I think it’s clear you’re where you’re meant to be.” He smiled briefly at her before turning a much less friendly gaze onto Sebastian’s still-quivering buck. “If you would all excuse us, I think Mr. Sirrobin and I have quite a bit to discuss.”

  Chapter 9

  “Damnit,” Bethany said, pouting and staring at Eli’s closed door. “I wanted to see Eli eat him.”

  “He’s not going to eat him,” Steele said, sounding exasperated as he glared down at his mate. Kiara couldn’t help but watch the two of them in fascination. He was so huge and intimidating, and at first glance she was so petite and delicate she was incredibly easy to underestimate. “He’s not nearly as blood-thirsty as you are.”

  Making a face of disappointment, Bethany sighed. “You’re probably right. Too bad though, he sounds like he deserves it.”

  Turning around, Bethany caught Kiara’s gaze and smiled widely at her, coming forward to take her hand, which Kiara immediately offered up. “It really is great to meet you. Now I’m doubly sorry I got in your way earlier. If I’d known, I would have made sure you caught that… pretentious assbutt!”

  “Assbutt?” Alec asked, saying the insult slowly as if testing out how it tasted on his tongue.

  Steele sighed again. “She’s been catching up on pop culture and we hit the Supernatural stage about a month ago.”

  “What’s Supernatural?” Kiara asked.

  Immediately, Bethany’s eyes lit up and all five men groaned in unison.

  ******

  After dinner with Steele and Bethany—during which Alec definitely won the most brownie points with his new interest in Supernatural (what? ‘Assbutt’ was a great insult. His new interest was legitimate.)—the men all piled back into the car with Kiara to head back to the cabin. They might only have two more days left in their vacation, but they were determined to make the most of them.