Broken Dreams (Broken Promises Book 1)

by Charlotte Brice

  The trio walked from the hardware store, and Seb led them into the next shop along. It was a clothing shop, somewhere that didn’t meet the four men’s tastes but for Heather, the expensive clothes inside would be perfect. The cashier gave them a strange look as they entered, their arms burdened with shopping. Had they given it half a thought, they would have gone clothes shopping first.

  Heather stared at the rows of clothing without a clue where to start. Seb smiled kindly at her lost expression and started gathering a few pairs of trousers from the rails. “You look around a ten to me.” Heather just shrugged and took the clothes he offered over her arm.

  Arlo browsed through the tops but knocked several of the peg with the wallpaper rolls. The cashier was keeping a very close eye on them now. Arlo blushed under her gaze and left his arm of shopping by the changing room door. If there was a limit to the number of items to be tried on at once, Heather’s selection far exceeded that. She closed the curtain door and left the two men to wait under the cashier’s eagle eyes.

  Heather just had to try on a few things, look in the mirror, and say yes or no to the damn things. But she hadn’t come out of the changing room in nearly half an hour. Arlo tapped his hands on the wall, while Heather tried on the clothes she had selected. This was taking far too long. “Are you ok in there?”

  “I don’t know what suits me.” Heather’s reply sounded lost. The men understood it must be hard not knowing her mind and her fashion sense, but it baffled them both it could take a woman this long to decide on what to wear.

  “Heather, honey, if you like it and it fits, we’ll buy it,” Seb called, pacing over to Arlo’s side. “Don’t be obvious,” he whispered, “but you see those guys there?”

  Arlo stretched and looked at his watch. He could do discrete. Yep, he saw them. Two men, just lurking in the male underwear aisle. Not really a place where two men would have cause to linger. “You think they’re watching us?” Arlo questioned, turning back to Seb.

  “I don’t know. Could be nothing,” Seb frowned, “but we’ll keep an eye on them.”

  Arlo nodded. Seb didn’t do ‘could be nothing’. Things were a worry, or they weren’t. ‘Keep an eye on them’ was Seb’s way of telling Arlo to be on alert without getting Heather worried.

  Heather came out of the changing room with her arms full, and Seb quickly intercepted her, enveloping her in his arms as he turned her away from the strange men.

  While Seb guided her away to ring her purchases through the till, Arlo hovered around near the men, watching, listening. He only caught up with Seb and Heather once the men had left the store, but he kept his wits about him. Even though they’d left, something about those men kept him on edge.

  CHAPTER NINE

  S eb fumbled with the latch on the gate. It wasn't so easy with arms full of shopping. At one point he had feared it would never end, but finally he was back to the dark familiar house he called home. He'd had to carry five tins of paint home too, thanks to Heather insisting they couldn't paint every room magnolia.

  Arlo had his arms full of rolls of wallpaper and boxes of new screws and stuff. He couldn't deny the large house needed a makeover. He was actually looking forward to making their home nicer, he'd just been distracted and edgy during the shopping trip. Just as they reached the front door, Arlo’s nose caught a brief hint of vampires. They often passed the scent of vampires, especially when out for blood, but never near their own home. There was an unwritten rule that all vampires respected each other’s home.

  “Seb,” he called. He glanced nervously around but he couldn’t see the men from the door. The garden was too overgrown to see anything from ground level. He would need height to look out properly.

  “What?” Seb response was curt and his voice was stressed as his eyes searched the garden wall. “Did they follow us?”

  Arlo nodded. He wouldn’t doubt Seb’s suspicious nature again. “We need to go upstairs to see.”

  “Get started with decorating in the lounge. Keep Heather down with you,” Seb muttered. “I’ll go upstairs and see if Ro can smell anything.”

  While Arlo and Heather unloaded their arms in the lounge, Seb took the paint inside and straight up to the library. Seb opened the library door where Roken was sorting through centuries’ worth of old literature. The room was nearly empty of books, a far cry from how it was before. “Anything?”

  “I’ve flicked through every book,” Roken answered, nodding at a box in the corner. “Those are worth reading more thoroughly. Oscar is taking the rest to the basement while we fix up this room.”

  Seb nodded, his eyes on the window. He couldn’t quite see clearly, but two fingers between the blinds gave him a better view of the street outside. “Come look. The sun fucks with my eyes,” Seb called. They always thought he was paranoid. They couldn’t see the point of half the protection spells he had in place around the house, but he knew he was right this time.

  “What’s up?” Roken asked, sticking his fingers in the blinds to pry them apart.

  “Can you see anyone?” Seb questioned. When Roken shook his head. “I’m sure there was a vampire following us at the store.” Roken frowned at Seb. The vampire knew what he was thinking, but he was not paranoid. Ok, he pointed out every vampire they came across, but he didn’t think they were stalking them home. “It’s Heather. They know about her.”

  “I could open the window?” Roken suggested, shrugging. “It’s dusty in here.”

  Seb nodded. If anyone was out there, Roken would smell them. He walked away from the window and sat back in the reading chair, clear of the stream of light that came bursting into the stale room. It was good to get fresh air in the room, even if it brought a chill. They kept the house shut up far too much.

  Roken shuffled a pile of books on the sill. His gaze never lifted once to look outside, but he inhaled deeply and Seb smiled. Roken’s sense of smell was uncanny. When he drank, his shifter senses took over, and he described it as seeing smells in 3D and in colour. If there was anyone out there, even hiding behind the overgrowth, Roken would know about it.

  There was something awkward about watching Roken with such intensity and anticipation. The innocent act of shaking dust off thick old books and moving them into a box became something else entirely. Seb ran the tip of his tongue across his dry lips. He could watch Roken work all day. Damn, I need a distraction, Seb thought as his cock stiffened in his trousers. The trouble was, he couldn’t make himself a distraction to Roken.

  “You just gonna sit there all morning doing nothing?” Roken muttered, not bothering to look behind him, and Seb sighed. Roken didn’t need to see him to know Seb’s mind was distracted. He had a keen nose for pheromones. Detecting the change in Seb’s scent was probably more of a distraction than the sight of his semi bulging in his trousers ever would be.

  “Anyone out there?” Seb inquired, standing up and doing the unthinkable. He picked up a cloth and started dusting. Damp dusting the library, he thought. What has my life come to?

  “Three vampires,” Roken announced, turning from the window and dumping his pile of books into a cardboard box. “One across the street, one further down, and one off to the left. They are watching us.”

  “Then we’ll give them something to watch,” Seb huffed, scrubbing the shelf with a little more vigour. Yep, they could bloody well watch him clean the goddamn house from top to bottom.

  Roken changed tasks, from sorting books to man handling the power drill, and Seb watched Roken’s biceps tense under his short sleeves as the drill twisted the screws from their decades old position in the wall. “Does having Heather in the house make you think more about sex?” Seb muttered, his own words making his throat dry and tight.

  “Are you thinking about sex now?” Roken asked, looking down at Seb’s crotch with a glimmer of hesitation in his eyes.

  Seb's smile broadened, a chuckle slipping through his lips, he couldn't deny his bulge.

  “You try shopping with her! We didn't just
get wallpaper,” Seb complained. It had been a long time since he had known a lady well enough to take her shopping, but Heather couldn't keep wearing Arlo’s shirt and Roken's trousers. Not knowing her size, she'd had to try on every item, and Seb had watched each one travel up and down her bare legs, dressing and undressing on the other side of the flimsy curtain. That knowledge had filled him with the sudden desire to watch her, or more the desire to be allowed to watch her. He wanted her, but it was more than that, more than sex. He wanted the intimacy that came with being together day after day. Something he hadn’t experienced since he lost Dharla.

  “She, uh... in the kitchen earlier, with her mouth,” Roken blushed.

  “Just before you went lights out?” Seb guessed. His own sense of smell wasn't too shabby.

  “She smelt really good,” Roken said, shrugging.

  “Doesn't explain Arlo and Oscar. They felt drained too.”

  “Well, they er...”

  Seb caught Roken in a hard stare, one that made Roken squirm under the pressure. He turned and attempted to resume his drilling, but Seb was quite distracted from his dusting.

  “Both of them?” Seb frowned,

  “I smelt both their scents on her, in her,” Roken shrugged.

  “What the hell is she? What creature can get us all worked up like this?” Seb clenched his fists as his protective nature bloomed in his chest, putting him on edge. He couldn’t risk putting them in danger. They had to stay hidden from the world.

  “Feel free to have a read for yourself,” Roken shrugged, abandoning his drilling to face Seb. “I’ve got a nice shortlist of books that could do with a fresh set of eyes”

  “You agree she isn’t completely human then?” Seb pushed for clarity. It made sense, but there was nothing about her that shouted non-human at him.

  “I think she knows enough about the darkling world to be part of it,” Roken agreed with a shrug. “Besides, anyone would feel all worked up like this with a hot chick in the house. When was the last time you got laid?”

  “Last week,” Seb reminded him with a grin.

  “By a hot chick?” Roken added.

  “Ok, I guess,” Seb ceded, but he wasn’t convinced.

  A hot chick in the house should have made him want her, but she was no Dharla. Knowing that meant he didn’t want her, not wanting her made him angry, and being angry made him want to pound Roken for his part in Dharla’s death.

  “Keep searching your books. Find out what she is and if she is dangerous,” Seb commanded.

  Roken sighed and nodded. More books.

  CHAPTER TEN

  H eather started picking up their stuff and putting it in a box. It was just stuff, things of little importance, but Arlo watched her intently, with a mix of regret and frustration. He knew she would have to leave sooner or later. Once Roken had read all the books, there would be little else they could do for her. Either he would find the answers, and they would be able to recover her memory, in which case she would return to her old life. Or he would find nothing, and she would have to journey elsewhere to find her lost memories. She would not be content to give up on her memories for a life with four old men. Would she?

  Arlo had no idea what Seb and Roken thought she was. To him, she was just a young woman with no name and no past. But this woman had his back up, the urge to protect her like an alpha would protect his pack. But he was no alpha and she was no wolf. He shouldn’t have felt this connection to her the way he did, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t human. There was nothing in her scent to suggest she was anything more than human. Then again, Roken has a very different sense of smell than I do. But that...

  “Come on,” Heather urged, nudging Arlo from his thoughts. “Stop daydreaming.”

  Arlo nodded and buried his doubts until he could get Roken alone to ask. He buried them so deep, he felt his wolf raise its head. Yes, he thought, maybe there is something about her. Something that could lure his wolf from its rest. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to shift into his beast form and curl up at her feet.

  No, you don't. You want to ram your cock so far down her throat, that you feel Oscar coming up the other way, he corrected himself. Fuck. It was true. He wanted to have her, but he stiffened at the mere thought of sharing her with the others. No, I can't share her! I won’t, Arlo decided, but then he wondered if sharing her had been all that bad. If he was honest, he had quite enjoyed sharing her with Oscar.

  He scrubbed the windowsill so hard the paint flaked off under the force. He couldn’t, not with Oscar. He and Oscar were rivals. They hunted the clubs for attractive women. It was a sport: who could get the best girl? They even set wagers some nights, but something about Heather made him happy to share. He shifted his semi-erection in his jeans, but the half glance at Oscar in the same predicament only stiffened him further. If he got any harder, he'd have to switch into his joggers. Life was going to get uncomfortable with Heather around if they were all going to walk about with hard cocks all the time.

  Heather slapped the pair of them on the back, and Arlo's cock pulsed at the brief contact. “Well, boys, I think we've earnt a short break,” she announced, and Arlo sighed with relief. He could certainly do with a break, and a strong coffee might help his predicament.

  “I'm just gonna slide into some old trousers. Don't want to get these messy,” Oscar said tightly, and as he slunk from the room, Arlo wondered which particular mess Oscar was trying to avoid.

  Heather returned to the living room carrying two mugs of coffee. “I feel bad asking about you guys, since I can’t tell you anything about me, but how did you all end up here together?” Heather handed the mugs to their owners, mentally noting Oscar’s change of clothing into baggy joggers which, disappointingly, didn’t show his bulge as his trousers had.

  “We've known each other a long time,” Arlo evaded. He glanced uncertainly at Oscar, and Heather realised this was not going to be the simple answer she had expected. This sounded like it might be enough to distract her from her lascivious fantasies. How had she survived before, feeling this turned on every time she looked at a hot guy? Or was it just these guys?

  “We met over a century ago, because of Roken,” Oscar revealed, speaking softly, as though volume could make their memories less real. “We were never the same after that day, the things we saw, the things we did.”

  “Roken was in beast form. He shredded everything, everyone. He was unstoppable,” Arlo added, his voice haunted by the sights and sounds of a time long past.

  They stood in the centre of the room, sipping on coffee that was too hot to swallow in the attempt to ease their minds. Whatever Roken had done, it was clear both men had quaked in their boots. Heather took them both by the hand and gave them a reassuring squeeze. Whatever horror had them sweating to this day might be better left unspoken for now, but they would come back to this later. At the moment, she could only picture bodies scattered across a moonlit field, and in her mind, Roken was both werewolf and shifter demon, together in one giant hellhound-like form. In her hands, Arlo and Oscar were like children waking from a nightmare, so she did the only thing she could. She kissed them better.

  Switching from one to the other, first the sweet, sugary kiss of Arlo, then Oscar’s bitter, coffee kiss, she soothed away their tensions, their fears, and their pain. They wanted her. They wanted to share her. And she wanted them. As Oscar kissed her deeply, Arlo’s mouth caressed her neck, his hands running down her body to her thigh. He pulled her legs wide, hooking one around his waist and cupping his hand around her rear. She felt unbalanced on one leg, clenching the other around Arlo’s hip, but Oscar clung hungrily to her lips, supporting her body with one arm to aid her balance as the other hand found its way to her left breast.

  She moaned. Last night she had pleasured them, now it was her turn. Oscar twisted her in towards him, leaning her back in one strong arm. His tongue explored every inch of her mouth as they kissed, and he unbuttoned her shirt with true one-handed skill, freeing her breasts
from their fabric constraints. In a tangle of bodies, the three dropped gently to the floor. The two men knelt on the floor and drew Heather down into their arms. Arlo kicked the coffee table further away as they lay Heather down on the rug and descended on her like the predators they were.

  Arlo shifted her hips, tugging her tight jeans down bit by bit, his mouth worshipping each new piece of exposed skin. He dipped down into her nether, lips gently caressing her sensitive skin. Ooh! His fingers worked up her inner thigh. She rocked her hips gently as Arlo’s hands enveloped her, his fingers slipping inside her folds and entering her gently, one by one until she lost count, drowning in the combined passion of these two men. Her body abandoned her, supple and pliant in Oscar’s arms, buckling under the ecstasy of lips and fingers.

  Argh, never let this moment end, Heather thought, a second before she moaned into Oscar’s mouth and came against Arlo’s.

  But it had to end. Her two men remained devoted to her pleasure until she was utterly spent, then she was laid naked on the floor, still gasping and moaning. They wanted their turn now, and they stripped down to nothing and lay beside her. Somehow Heather found the strength in her hand to stroke Oscar’s sheath, taking her first glance at the man’s girth beside her. She turned in towards him and opened her mouth, ready and willing for his entry.

  Arlo slid between her legs, pressing his tip against her but pausing slightly, the gentleman in him waiting for permission. She gave it eagerly, with the spreading of her legs and angling of her hips up to meet him. He entered with a firm thrust, burying himself to the hilt in a breath-taking push. She moaned, losing her rhythm on Oscar’s cock, but his hand knotted in her hair and took control of her head. Their timing together was beautiful, thrusting alternately, never giving her a moment, taking her completely and utterly. Their beautiful bodies enveloped her with power and pleasure, until they too were done.