The tension in the room was minimal, though we were all naked, all vulnerable, and Ruby’s once virgin body now housed all three of our seed.
“You feeling okay?” I asked our mate, our lover, stroking my hand over her belly.
She sighed and wriggled as though she would love to get up and run around, but couldn’t.
“I feel amazing,” she said, flashing us a big beautiful smile.
Jackson grunted and kissed the top of her head. “This is only the beginning.”
I knew what he meant.
All three of us had probably not been up to our ‘A’ game when it came to our lover abilities tonight. The need to bond with her, and the sheer heat of her attractiveness, had made it difficult to last.
The heat she imbued had certainly made me combustible. And I was pretty sure Jackson and Billy felt the same way.
Ruby sighed. “So true.” Then she laughed. “I just can’t believe there’s three of you! I just can’t…”
She shook her head, grinning.
I glanced at the other men, and for the first time, felt a kinship, rather than the competition, the intimidation that had been there before.
“You’re going to be very well looked after, beautiful girl,” I said. “In every way.”
Sexually, emotionally, physically. We would cover everything she ever needed, wanted, or craved.
She laughed. “If I’d known you were here waiting for me, I would have come so much earlier!”
Billy grunted and shook his head. “And if we’d known you were only fifteen minutes away in town, one of us would have come and got you years ago.”
She smiled serenely. “Oh, it probably wouldn’t have worked until I used my magic to call for you anyway.”
I froze in my movements where I’d been tracing patterns on her skin.
I glanced up. “What do you mean?”
She’d worked a spell to call for us?
Ruby nodded, swallowing hard and looking guilty. Jackson rolled off the bed and stood beside us, and Billy withdrew his hands, though he didn’t leave the mattress.
“What do you mean?” Jackson growled.
“Hey,” I snapped at him. “Back off.”
Ruby slid up the bed, moving the pillows so she could sit up against the headboard.
“It isn’t like it sounds,” she said.
I smiled at her and reached for her leg, squeezing her knee reassuringly. “They don’t understand much about magic, sweetheart. So you may want to explain.”
I was trying to sound calm, but my own magic had kicked in, the only thing I was good at: premonitions on something about to happen. Bad or good.
In this moment, a shit storm was headed our way.
Jackson
The witch better explain…
I couldn’t stop the way my wolf rose up in protest inside my head. It took all my humanity, all my strength to force him down again.
I needed to hear Ruby’s explanation. Surely there would be a good one, and I was over-reacting.
I had to be.
“Explain,” I said.
Had this witch seriously conjured a spell to make us fall in love with her?
And if she had, how would we know the difference between our own fated mate attractions to her, and those she had manufactured?
“Well, ah…” Ruby shivered as though she were cold, or terrified.
Darren pulled the blankets up to cover her.
I didn’t know why, but that was making me angry. Why was he coddling her when she very well could be the reason that the three of us had to share a mate!
I’d just got my head around the idea that this was fate. That the lack of females born to the pack meant that breeding with Ruby, bringing her into our pack, was the right thing to do.
But she may be just as hurtful and conniving as the witches that originally broke this pack.
Darren patted her leg. “Go on, Ruby.”
She clung to the blankets that covered her perky, pink tipped breasts and bit her lip. Her eyes were wide and they kept darting to me and down, and up again. She looked terrified.
Of me.
Calm the fuck down.
I took measured breaths. “I’m sorry, Ruby. Please, explain. I don’t know anything about witches, really.”
I knew only what my parents had told me, and it was all bad. They hated the witches and warlocks in town. They said the coven were power hungry, vindictive, and traitorous.
We stayed away from them for a reason.
Ruby licked her lips. “Well, ah, I grew up without a dad. We all did, my friends Tiffany and Bella and me.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Billy asked, sounding offended.
I felt the same way but held my tongue. Had we been landed with a girl with major daddy issues? Were we going to have to fix that, as well?
She shook her head. “Nothing, specifically. I just wanted you to know that our past is the reason we don’t want to make the same mistakes as our mothers.”
“What? Get knocked up and abandoned?” Billy said.
Darren swiped out with his fist, knocking Billy across the arm with intent, and more force than I’d anticipated.
“Back off,” Darren snarled.
Billy growled but Darren glared at him long enough that Billy actually backed down. He got up and grabbed his pants, huffing and puffing the whole time.
Good idea.
I grabbed mine also, feeling less exposed with my cock put away.
“Go on,” I said.
Ruby stared at Darren. “Do you want your clothes on too?”
He smiled kindly at her. “Not really. But you feel free to cover yourself if you feel more comfortable.”
A smile trembled on her lips as she closed her eyes and whispered to herself. A soft breeze moved through the room and she was clothed.
Or from what I could see, she was.
She pushed the blanket to her waist and showed that she now wore a black sweatshirt and jeans.
“Now, go on,” Darren said to her, before throwing a dirty look over his shoulder at us.
I glanced at Billy and nodded. “Let her finish.”
Both of us jumping down her throat was not getting to the end of this story quickly. If anything, I could already see the wedge we were driving between us and her—and forcing her even closer to the warlock-wolf.
Ruby took a deep breath then exhaled all at once. “Okay. Long story short. On our twenty-first birthday, which was last Halloween…”
“You were born on Halloween?” Darren asked, sounding happily surprised.
She nodded.
“What does that mean?” I asked, not wanting to slow the pace, but it seemed like I knew nothing about this world.
Darren glanced at me. “It’s very lucky, and usually means the witch born on that day would have her powers amplified.”
I pressed my lips together and exhaled sharply. Why were they boring us with the details?
He turned back around to look at Ruby. “Which is probably why you’ve never known you were half wolf shifter. Normally that would reduce your powers considerably, but with a powerful mother, and the power of All Hallow’s Eve…”
“Anyway,” she said with another sigh. “Last year, we went away together and performed a spell that would call our soul mates to us. None of us want to waste time sleeping around with the wrong guys, breaking up, bad marriages, all that crap. We just wanted the one person who was right for us, to find us. That’s all.”
It sounded well and good, except for the fact that she had probably messed with our entire lives.
I began to pace as the thoughts whirled around my head. “So you think it’s okay to use magic to call your supposed… soul mate to you?”
Anger tightened my gut. I’d been tricked, fooled… duped! By magic no less. What a fool I was.
She blinked at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how can you think this is okay? How will we ever know if what we feel for
you is real? If you’re truly our fated mate, or if we simply got twisted up in your plan. Your… spell.”
Ruby threw back the blankets and rose to her feet.
She glared at me. “You’re blowing this completely out of proportion!”
“Me?” I laughed. “I don’t think so. I think it’s you that’s not realizing what you’ve done.”
Darren went in search of his own clothes, being the only still naked person in the room.
She glared even harder, her green eyes throwing flecks of emerald at me. “What have I done that’s so terrible? I thought you were happy about finding me.”
“I was when I thought you were my fated mate, but now, how the hell do I know if any of this is true?”
“Can’t you feel it?” she cried. “I can! When I look at you. When you kiss me.”
I clenched my jaw and refused to answer her. I didn’t know what I felt now.
“Jackson!” she said, her eyes brimming with tears, then she turned to Billy. “Billy? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He shook his head and came to stand to my right, just behind my shoulder. He had my back. That was clear.
“I… can’t believe this,” Ruby said, shaking her head as the tears overflowed her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.
I hardened my heart against such a human trick. She wasn’t upset about anything other than the fact we’d found her out.
If we’d mated with her, truly giving ourselves over to this woman, there would be no going back—irrespective of the fact we may want to.
I crossed my arms over my chest, the ramifications of having to live with a dishonest mate ploughing through me. I had to do something!
“I think we need to talk about where we’re going to go from here,” I said. “I don’t know if it’s possible to undo what we did here tonight. I’ll need to speak to one of the elders.”
Ruby gasped but I was busy inside my head wondering if there was a way to undo the bonding, mating feeling I was sensing that was building inside of me.
After I’d made love to her—no, during it—I’d sensed our connection, my wolf willing to lay down his life for this woman.
“Don’t go,” Darren said and I snapped my attention back to the room.
“I think I need to. These two don’t want me… They don’t even believe that I didn’t do this on purpose!” She was sobbing between each sentence, each breath, and this time the wall around my heart cracked a little.
“Ruby…” I began, but I didn’t know what I was going to say afterwards, and it didn’t matter.
Her attention was wholly focused on Darren.
“Well, I believe you,” he said. “I need you. And I don’t care if you used a spell to call me. I’m just grateful I found you.”
A growl rose in my throat as Darren said everything she wanted to hear.
Didn’t he realize that this could all be fake? Our true mate, my true mate, could still be out there. A woman without magical blood. One I wouldn’t have to share with anyone.
The wind of Ruby’s magic began to whirl and a strange white light glowed around her, as if she were an angel.
“I want to come with you,” Darren said and grabbed for her hand.
She nodded and smiled at him with all the love and intensity I’d seen in her eyes when I’d made love to her an hour ago.
My heart broke as she glanced back at us, her gaze cold.
And then, just like that, they were gone.
“Holy shit,” Billy said, rushing forward into the space where Darren and Ruby had been. He looked left and right. “Is that what her mom did to us? Just made us vanish?”
I nodded and locked my knees to stop myself from staggering for the bed. I felt completely adrift, no foundation of strength left.
“Ah… yeah, I suppose,” I muttered.
I changed my mind about needing to sit down. There was only Billy here to see me collapse after all.
I staggered backwards, towards the large chest against the wall that not long ago Darren had sat upon, watching us have sex with Ruby.
“We did the right thing, Billy. Right?” I asked, dazed.
He shrugged, pacing the carpet where Ruby and Darren had stood. “Yeah, I hope so.”
“You hope so?”
Billy laughed, though it was dark. “You’re kidding, right? If she is our mate, if she is the one we’re meant to spend the rest of our days with, we just royally fucked up. She’ll never forgive us for tonight, then what? We’re meant to just hang around forever without her? Not fucking likely.”
I could hear the wolf in Billy’s voice, the deep, guttural sounds between each of the clipped human words.
“What do you mean, she’ll never forgive us? I just… questioned her magic, her motives. I had every right to.”
I heard the words, but found they were sticking in my throat.
Billy turned and stared at me, unspeaking.
“What?” I asked. “If you didn’t agree with me, then why stand by me?”
“Because you’re my Alpha!” he said. “And my cousin.”
“And I hope because you agreed with me!” I shot back.
We didn’t follow the Alpha/Beta rules in this pack. I hated to think that I’d made a wrong choice, and my cousin would pay for it.
Billy sat down on the rumpled bed, the scent of sex still heavy in the air.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Jackson.”
I snorted. “Well, we can fix it, I’m sure. If we find out I’m wrong… which I might not be! We may very well have our own mates just waiting to be found. Ruby’s magic could have fucked up everything.”
Billy sighed. “I know. But if you’re wrong… and we are destined to love a half blood witch, all three of us… do you really think she’s going to forgive you after tonight?”
I frowned. “After tonight? What do you mean?”
Billy shook his head and a strange smile pulled at his lips. “You really weren’t listening were you? First of all, it was her first time, and she had sex with all three of us.”
“Yeah…”
“And it was her birthday. Halloween, remember?”
My throat got tight and thick. “So, tonight was her birthday and her first time, and I accused her of tricking us into mating with her?”
Billy nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Fuck…” I stood up. “We better go speak to some of the elders then. I need to know if I did the right thing. If my instincts were right. Or if I just fucked up our whole lives.”
Billy grabbed his shirt from the ground and threw mine to me. “Let’s go.”
We headed out the door and went straight for the elders. If I’d let my pride, my temper, get the better of me tonight, I was pretty sure I would live to regret it for the rest of my life.
Ruby
The tears wouldn’t stop running, no matter what I did. So, I sat on the carpet in my bedroom, wrapped my arms around myself, and sobbed until I could barely breathe.
Darren picked me up and held me in his lap until the storm of emotion had passed, but the pain that wrapped around my heart would not stop.
“It’s okay, beautiful girl, I’m here,” he murmured. “Everything will turn out right, you’ll see.”
“How can it?” I asked him, forcing myself to look up into his face.
He wiped my cheeks with his thumbs. “Because we’re meant to be together. If those stupid assholes can’t see that yet, they will. In time.”
My lips quivered and I bit down on the bottom one. I wasn’t so sure about that. I’d given Jackson my virginity, and Billy every bit of passion I could. I didn’t have anything left to offer them. My heart was already theirs for the taking.
If what I’d given wasn’t enough to convince them that I was right for them, what more could I do?
I glanced at the funky clock on the wall. I’d magicked us home to my house, to my bedroom.
It was 11:30pm. Halloween night. I still had time to fix this!
<
br /> I jumped to my feet and grabbed Darren’s hand. “Come on. We’ve gotta get out to the witch grounds before midnight.”
“Why?” he asked, though he followed me as I ran down the stairs to the front door.
My mother was still out, which was good. Where she’d gone after she’d dropped me off, I didn’t know. Probably Judy’s.
“Because I’m going to undo the spell I did last year,” I called back to him.
I wrenched open the door that revealed the cupboard under the stairs and I grabbed my mother’s ancient book that she hid there. The book that had started it all.
“If we take my car, we’ll make it.” It probably wasn’t smart to spend more magic on getting us there quicker. I wasn’t even sure I could do this spell by myself without my friends, but I had to try.
Darren ran with me as I grabbed my car keys from the buffet and jumped into my little beat up hatchback. We drove along our street, towards the hallowed grounds.
The earth there had special powers, and if there was ever a need for a boost of my own strength, it was tonight.
“Are you sure about this, Ruby?” he asked, his tone telling me that he was worried about my decision.
“Yes.” I nodded fiercely. “It’s the only way to prove to Darren and Jackson that I haven’t put some spell over them. They’ll see, I’m sure. They’ll feel the same way after I lift it.”
Darren did not reply.
I glanced over at him, fear coursing through me. “Unless you believe it too? That my spell somehow changed the fated mates thing? Made you think you could love me when you can’t.”
He laughed. “Are you kidding me? I’ve never counted myself as lucky until I met you. And I don’t care what brought us together. Your spell. Fate. I want you, and if you’re silly enough to think you want me, then I’m taking that as a win and going with it.”
I slid my hand over his thigh and squeezed. “I’m the lucky one.”
We shared a smile, then I concentrated on the road.
We had about fifteen minutes until Halloween was over for another year. I drove as carefully, but as quickly, as I could, and pulled over into the church parking lot.
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