Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  Shoving up from my blanket to stretch the aches from my bones, I barely realized how thoughtless I’d become regarding my own nakedness in front of Brinn. I moved too quickly, though, and the blood pulsed thickly in my scalp wound. A bit irritably I pushed on Pel’s shoulder with the ball of my foot. “Up, brother, the day won’t wait for you.”

  He sighed. Dramatic punctuation, I assumed, and thought no more of it as I rummaged in my pack for the last crumbs of hard cheese and a bit of flour to turn into breakfast. The rain eased into a drizzle and with a few breaths and a handful of dry kindle I roused the dying fire to life and set a kettle of water over it to boil.

  I stepped away then to relieve myself and upon my return found Brinn laying dried bits of rabbit on the fire to heat. I mixed the cheese and flour together with the hot water in a flat pan and considered letting the vile concoction burn rather than eat it, but the rumble in my stomach decided me otherwise.

  Only then did I notice Pel had barely sat himself up. In the drab light he looked drabber still. As tired and worn as after a night chasing demons and whatever else visited him in his night visions.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  He rubbed at his eyes before answering. “The further we get from the fae, I suspect the righter I’ll be.”

  Scowling at my own thoughtlessness, I yanked the pan from the fire to cool. Even so, I was not so quick as Brinn, who was at Pel’s side before the pan hit the dirt.

  She knelt next to him, laying her slim fingers along the bulge of his upper arm. She sought only to calm and comfort him. I knew this. I did. But a vile and evil part of me also saw them side by side, passing gentle caresses, with nary a strip of cloth between them, naked as the day God brought them into the world—and neither anywhere near as innocent.

  The dark rage of jealousy clawed through me. I could name The Beast, but I could not banish it. It buried itself inside and refused to let me free.

  “Coddling him won’t help,” I said to Brinn, more gruffly than I meant. “Do you forget you are fae and made of the very thing that diminishes him?”

  Her calm eyes on me held a reproach that shamed me for my words. “I never forget what I am.”

  A shadow passed across my brother’s face. A look of sadness. A look of doom. He shut his eyes and squeezed the bridge of nose between them. “Do not fight,” he beseeched, his voice so quiet I had to strain to hear. “If you love me, please, do not fight.”

  His eyes hidden, it was impossible for me to know to whom he spoke. Just as it was impossible to think he could have meant the words for Brinn. A brother’s love he meant, nothing more.

  “Come and eat,” I bade him, unwilling, perhaps unable, to say more.

  Until another thought raised its ugly visage in my mind. Raising my eyes over the piece of rabbit laid across a floured flat of stale bread, I asked Brinn, “Is it true what they say? That The Wild Hunt is an omen of death? That those who look upon Herne have but a year to live?”

  “They say many things. But many things said are true only if you believe them to be. What is it that you believe in?”

  “An ordered world, until you came into it,” I grumbled. “Now I believe in three things only: my father and my brothers. Beyond that there is only chaos.”

  The rain began pattering down again when we broke camp and took to our saddles.

  25. Brinn

  While I could easily live on hare and grouse, the brothers craved more to their meals. So when the wagon rut of a road we traveled led us to a wide stream where a longhouse and several outbuildings stood, the princelings pulled rein. It was not a true inn, but a weathered sign nailed to the eave indicated the occasional traveler would be welcome, for a price.

  Alain squinted at the grass-stuffed spaces between the aged and poorly laid boards of the longhouse, then glanced up at the fair-weather sky. “I think I’d rather camp again tonight than stay here,” he told Pel, who nodded in agreement. “But if they have extra in the way of bread and flour and maybe something fresh from a garden or orchard, I wouldn’t mind throwing a coin or two their way.”

  The front door squeaked open on its wooden hinges and a man as aged and gray and weatherbeaten as the longhouse peered out. Dusting his hands on his thread-bare shirt, he smiled at his guests and stepped out to greet them. Behind him came another half-dozen men and women eager to catch a glimpse of men with fine swords and horses.

  “Welcome, m’lords. If it’s lodging yer after, we’ve got a nice room put by fer travelers just such as you.”

  “No room today, I’m afraid. Our business bids us on. But we could do with some staples if you’ve enough to spare.”

  “Oh, aye, we can do you up fine. A round of hard cheese, rye and millet flour freshly threshed, sweet peas in the field my lads will go pick for you. Maybe a few young beetroots? What be yer pleasure?”

  Dismounting, Alain and Pel untied their empty food sacks from their saddles and passed them to the old man.

  “Whatever you have to fill them up that will keep on the road,” Alain said.

  An old woman missing two of her front teeth made an awkward bow toward the brothers, then skirted around to her husband, whispering in his ear.

  “Hayleigh says she baked up a couple of loaves yesterday and insists you take them.”

  “With pleasure.” Alain flashed a gracious smile toward the woman who ducked her grayed head in embarrassment.

  “Only a penny apiece for you fine young lords.”

  “A fair price,” Alain agreed. “And we’ll be paying fairly for the rest of the stores as well.”

  I approved Alain’s mix of sweet smile and subtle undertones of light threat.

  With family and extended family—perhaps a score of adults all told—helping to gather foodstuffs from their communal cellars and the fields, the sacks were quickly filled.

  I peered over Alain’s shoulder as he dropped his to the ground and took quick stock. His genuine smile of anticipation turned tense. Withered parsnips that had seen too many days in the cellar. Half-filled shells of broadbeans. Flour threshed coarse by hands no more skilled for the task than those that had built the house. And a few bits and ends from whatever they’d rummaged up from their own stores.

  “What price?” he asked, managing to keep the disappointment from his voice.

  ”Twenty pence. Each.”

  I had no concept of the worth of such things, but Pel’s stern frown said plainly what he thought.

  “We’ll give fifteen.”

  “Alain!” Pel’s stern admonishment was whispered for his brother’s ears alone.

  “They eat no better themselves,” Alain pointed out. “We could get better for half that in any town market, true, but do you see either town or market nearby?”

  “They’ll only rook the next folk by.”

  “And when might they come? I’m feeling generous today. Call it a tithing since we haven’t been to mass in a season or more. Indulge me.”

  “Charity.” Pel smiled wide with understanding. “God will reward you far quicker than He’ll ever think of me.”

  “Bah. Charity comes in many forms. Your heart has been ever more charitable than my own.” He raised his voice to the old man and repeated, “Fifteen.”

  “Done and done.” The patriarch passed the silver coins given him to his wife who hurried them inside to secret them away.

  “God ride with you,” he called after us as we jogged away.

  Whichever god that might be, I thought, He or She was with us already.

  ~ ~ ~

  The day’s ride helped ease away any unrest between us, and in the late afternoon I unexpectedly flushed our supper, grabbing it mid-launch as it startled into the air.

  We camped, and dusk turned to evening as the moon rose above the trees.

  After I ground the last of the partridge hen and swallowed the last of its delicate bones, I wiped my muzzle on the grass then folded myself comfortably between the brothers, my head stretched along Al
ain’s corded thigh. He draped his free hand atop my head, idly rubbing my ears as he finished the round a millet loaf in his other hand.

  At my hip, his own touching mine, Pel laid aside his half-finished loaf of rye and tickled the sensitive juncture between my leg and underbelly with a gentle finger.

  How easy it was for them to touch and caress the hound, as if they could forget the fae and beast were not one. For my own part, I could not forget it was two very virile young men between whom I lay, my nose barely a muzzle-length from the cusp of Alain’s legs. Feeling impish, I yawned, my long, curled tongue reaching for the barrier of the breeches that he still wore.

  Pel’s finger stilled. Had he caught on to my game?

  “I need some sleep,” he told us as he slowly stood, catching his balance against the trunk of the small tree that sheltered our fire. Closing my jaw, I narrowed my eyes to watch him as he half-stumbled to his pack and pulled out his thin blanket.

  “Are you well?” Alain called after him.

  “A tumble ball in my stomach, nothing more,” he assured us as he curled onto his blanket bed. “It will pass by morning.”

  Satisfied, Alain bit again into his heavy round of millet loaf and I returned my head to his lap. Darkness closed around us, and the small cookfire Pel had built cast only a feeble flicker as it died. The moon, however, only three days past full, rode high, the bloat of it spreading pools of moonlight in its wake.

  I shifted.

  Red hair now tumbled across Alain’s lap and beneath his stroking hand. I turned my head, and it was now fae lips only a tongue-span from his breeches. His hand froze, but he didn’t remove it.

  Keeping my head in his lap, I rolled from my side to my back—for me better to see his face and him better to see my breasts as they peaked toward the moon. There was movement by my cheek, firm and decisive.

  I smiled as I guided the hand Alain had left in my hair to my right mound and held it there.

  When Alain breathed again, the sound rasped in his throat. His wide eyes met mine, half in fear, half in lust. “Do you—?” he began.

  “Shh,” I hushed, and his thumb began sliding tentatively across the peak of my breast. Sighing, I reached up to stroke the rugged stubble of his cheek.

  He curled his tongue along the rim of his lips to moisten them, then leaned down till they were but a breath from mine, “Yes?” he asked.

  I thrust myself into his circling hand and matched his lips to mine in answer. They tasted of sweet millet and strong desire.

  His right hand closed on my breast as his left grasped at the other. His tongue stabbed between my teeth and I suckled on it a moment before parting my legs in invitation.

  Withdrawing his tongue, he raised his head to watch his left hand spread across my ribs, into the hollow of my stomach and lower, till his fingers brushed the red velvet there.

  So close. I arched my hips in silent plea.

  26. Alain

  The taste of Brinn was a memory of ambrosia, the feel of her no less sacred. From the rose-dark nub atop her full breast straining in the hollow of my right palm to the path of her, cool and naked, my left hand was discovering. My tentative touches frustrated her, but I was still too filled with wonderment that she wanted this with a passion no less than my own to be more bold.

  But as her urgency—and mine—grew, so did my daring. I cupped her there, feeling her wire-soft hair at the heel of my hand and the curve of bone in my palm. At her urging, I pressed my fingers into her soft folds, stroking till I found their center. She twisted in obvious delight, her breath deepening in obvious need.

  My own need rose prominently, insistently, and nudged at her cheek.

  She folded onto her side then, capturing my hand between the damask of her thighs, as she tugged at the lacings of my breeches. The fluttering of her fingers maddened me, making thought all but impossible as she worked the ties. Panting now, I abandoned the adulations of her breast to help her draw down my breeches and prove to her how much I craved to be inside her. To be one with her. The strength of my desire overwhelmed all else. And no sooner was I free than Brinn captured me in her deft grip.

  I groaned, willing my body still, willing myself to make it last, realizing I was about to fail abysmally.

  Another groan joined mine. It took a moment still before my lust-grogged mind recognized the sound was not Brinn echoing my need to be deep within her.

  “Pel,” she breathed.

  In that moment I could not have hated my brother more. In the next moment, a cry from Pel wilted me, shaming me with its wordless accusation. He was as bound to Brinn as I, yet here was I betraying my own brother’s claim without giving him a chance to defend it. How could I dismiss twenty years of love and loyalty for a single night with a creature not even human? Pel had every right to admonish me for what I’d done. I hung my head under the weight of the sin heaped upon it.

  “Alain, look at me.” Brinn’s hard fingers beneath my jaw lifted my gaze to her. “Pel isn’t dream-caught. It’s something more.”

  Could Brinn truly not recognize what more it was? “Of course it is,” I answered. “It’s you. Me. This.” Guilt growled at me, the more so as I lifted up my breeches and re-laced them, hiding the shriveled evidence of my betrayal.

  “No.” Brinn’s emphatic tone cut through the fog that haloed my thoughts still. Moonlight limned the concern that furrowed her brow as she listened to my brother’s cries. “This has naught to do with us or even with The Beast that rides his dreams. This is … different. Go to him.”

  Even as I levered up, struggling to tie the last lace in my rush, I heard Pel cry out again. My head snapped up as he rose from his blanket and lunged into the nearby trees. I gave chase.

  Pel ran, heedless of tangling thickets of underbrush and low-hanging branches hiding in the deep shadows. He stumbled once and shouted obscenities I didn’t even know he knew. I would have had him, too, but the same fall of deadwood ensnared me as well, and he was off again by the time I broke free.

  “Wait!” I shouted, but he plunged on. Brinn must have had it wrong. Pel had seen us together or why would he not stop? Apart from my beloved land being ravaged by wholesale war, the only thing I feared in this entire world was that my equally beloved brother would turn from me. If my unconsummated tryst had driven Pel away…

  Desperation gave me speed, made me reckless in the dark. Hollows hidden by peat caught at my feet and threatened to turn an ankle. Sharp twigs tore at my face and arms.

  I heard Pel cry out, saw the shadow of him veer sharply from a danger I could not make out. I angled toward him, gaining another few precious steps. Whatever it was panicked him again, chasing him closer yet. So close I heard him panting in his haste.

  For a moment I thought Brinn perhaps was herding him back toward me until I saw a flash of bright fur only now loping in a wide circle to drive my brother back to me.

  “Pel—” I only had breath to gasp his name. “Please—I’m—sorry.”

  He ducked as though to avoid a great blow, then skidded to a stop. I closed the last few paces between us in relief. “I never—meant to—hurt you,” I assured him, praying he would not run again, when I saw his gaze was not on me but on something beyond. Then with soundless grace Brinn appeared alongside him. But it was not she who caused the panic in his eye.

  I reached out to embrace him, soothe him in case his night terrors now manifested themselves in some new form. He struck my arms away and backed up till a broad elm trunk blocked his retreat. Fingers clenching at the bark behind him, he stared wildly from side to side like a fox at bay.

  “Pel.” I gentled my voice. “Brother. There is naught to fear. Look at me.” He seemed not to hear. I advanced a step but his muscles tautened, ready to flee again. I willed myself to pause though every sinew cried to tackle him, to hold him, to force him to acknowledge me.

  At my side, Brinn shifted. A wave of guilt stabbed through me at sight of her naked breasts and the dark vee between her legs hid coy
ly from the moon. I clutched at that guilt, willing it as I had willed patience to my command. Willing it to drown the lust that Brinn had wakened this night. I wanted desperately to find disgust in the sloping planes that were Brinn’s hips, in the perfectly tipped mounds that were her breasts, and in the dark, secret reaches that had almost been mine to have.

  But it seemed betrayal was the order of the night. She remained exquisite in my eyes. And no matter how the night might end, I knew my pursuit of her was not yet done.

  Pel side-stepped around the tree as she approached. I tore my gaze from her and focused on my brother. While Brinn had his attention, I slipped to his other side. The next step he took in retreat of her brought him into my arms.

  He tensed the moment I touched him then struggled in my grip. “Be still!” I snapped in the same tone I’d used with him when we were boys. That paused him, but only for a moment before he renewed his struggles. The back of his head slammed against my jaw. Pain triggered a rage in me that I was forced to fight as surely as I fought my brother. I truly had no wish to hurt him, but for his safety and my own I struck him hard across the face.

  I’m not sure what I hoped to accomplish, but for him to collapse so thoroughly against me was never at the top of my expectations. At the suddenness of his weight, I overbalanced and fell to the ground, bringing him down on top of me. His head struck a flare of root and he went still.

  All trace of exasperation fled as fear flooded over me. I reached to feel for the pulse in his neck just as Brinn appeared beside me and reached for his wrist. Blood fluttered weakly in the vein under my fingertips. And by the relief that washed her face, I knew Brinn had found a beat of life as well.

  “Do you still believe there’s no magic here?” I asked her.

  “I would know it if there were. Besides, he burns.” She circled my hand with hers and guided it to my brother’s cheek. Something burned within me as my hand lay sandwiched between her cool touch above and the heat of my brother’s skin below. Dearest Jesu, what had she awakened within me? I struggled to keep my focus. “What illness comes on so suddenly?”