DuBois, Edith - Rugged Salvation [Rugged Savage Valley, Colorado 3] (Siren Publishing M?nage Everlasting)

by Edith DuBois

  “If y’all were already here, why is there a question?”

  “Unfortunately,” James said, “we got the curse put on us before they arrived. We spent a little time out in the forest.”

  “About thirty years.”

  “And by the time we returned to our human selves, the lions had already moved in and gotten their little claws into everything.”

  “Yeah,” Johnny said, “so then things got tense for a while until Cameahwait—he was the Shoshone shaman who put the curse on both groups in the first place—got enough of our bickering and came up with a treaty. He marked boundaries for each of the shifters and told us exactly how mating and propagating the shifter lines would work.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that Treaty Lane isn’t some random street name?”

  “Well, things are a little more relaxed between us now,” James said. “Jeremiah can do the nature walks at the Woodland Den, and all the shifters go to Catdaddy’s, both of which are technically in lion territory.”

  “And when you say ‘mating and propagating the shifter line,’ what do you mean by that exactly? I would think that sort of stuff is pretty self-explanatory.”

  “On the one hand, you’re right,” James said. “The basic act of mating is the same, but there are certain rules and restrictions that go with being a bear-shifter.”

  “Such as?”

  “Wait. James, tell her about the brothers first. And the first mate.”

  “I was getting to that, Johnny. Cool your jets.”

  “The first mate?”

  James moved his black eyes to her face, the bright red light of the setting sun gleaming across their surface. “Her name was Deheya’.”

  “Deheya’,” Marina repeated in a whisper.

  “Her full name in English was Chases Fawns. She was the most skilled huntress in the Shoshone tribe. Her aim with a bow was deadly. She could hit a bison running at full speed from twenty feet away while atop a galloping horse.”

  “At first though, before she became known as a great huntress, she wasn’t even allowed to ride with the hunters or consort with them about hunting matters,” Jeremiah said. “The male Shoshone didn’t believe a female should be a participant in the hunt. She was supposed to learn how to cure the skins, not collect them. She argued with Chief Wakini and his council, every day and every night, as soon as the sun came up until it settled again, until she ran out of air in her lungs and words in her mouth, but they wouldn’t listen.

  “One evening before one of these big hunts, Chief Wakini summoned Deheya’. He told her, ‘Enough with this foolishness. When we return from the hunt, you will choose a husband.’ Deheya’ tried to reason with him, but Chief Wakini had made up his mind, and he sent her away.

  “But Deheya’ could not give up on her dream that easily, so that night, after all the hunters and warriors had left, she snuck away. She knew that if she was going change Chief Wakini’s mind about her, she would have to do something truly impressive, something none of the other male hunters her age had ever done.”

  “Like what?” Marina asked, leaning forward with wide eyes.

  “Deheya’ didn’t know at first,” James said. “She thought maybe if she brought back three deer for the tribe, that would earn her some respect. Winter was on its way, and the tribe needed meat. Besides, Kikah was the most respected hunter, and he had only brought back two at once. Then she thought about tracking an elk. Only a couple of the hunters had managed to fell an elk.

  “But then she came across the trail of an animal that she knew would bring her the highest honor and prestige as a hunter. Only one other person in the entire tribe had brought down one of these.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was what gave Chief Wakini his name,” Jeremiah said. “The chief was the only hunter in the tribe to single-handedly track down and kill a black bear with nothing but his bow and his knife.”

  “Oh no, did she kill one of your little Care Bear ancestors? I don’t like horror stories.”

  Johnny chuckled but shook his head. “She came upon the bear’s trail before the sun had risen, so she tracked it through the night and finally came upon it just after dawn. It was angry, tearing through the forest and slamming its great paws into the ground. It was one of the largest black bears she had ever seen.

  “Of course, what she didn’t know was that this was no ordinary bear.”

  “It was one of you?”

  Johnny nodded. “It was the youngest brother, Christopher. There’d been a scuffle with the rest of the bears, and he was out blowing off some steam. In his agitated state, he wasn’t being as diligent as he should have been, wasn’t paying attention for signs of a nearby human.”

  “What did Deheya’ do?”

  “She followed the bear for a while, making sure to stay downwind, not allowing him to know of her presence. Finally, the great bear slowed its angry roving and stood on the trail, sniffing at a beehive high up in a tree.

  “Deheya’ silently pulled an arrow out of her quiver and notched it on her spruce wood bow. She knew that the only way to kill the bear was to anger it and get it to open its mouth in a roar so that she could shoot an arrow into the back of its throat, into its head. At such a close range, if she missed or if she tried to shoot it in the chest, the bear could reach her and attack her before she had enough time to shoot it again.

  “The bear moseyed within ten feet of her, so with a wild huntress cry she leapt in front of him. Her arrow was notched. Her feet were planted, and her heartbeat was steady, but the bear only peered at her. He didn’t roar or even run away in fear. In fact, he sniffed at her in curiosity. Knowing that this was her only chance and seeing that the bear would not roar at her, she pulled her bow taut. This was it, she thought. She would either return to the tribe wearing a great black bear-cloak of greatness, or she would die. She aimed for his heart and let her arrow fly.”

  The bedroom was quiet. Marina gripped the sheets, and her eyes were glued to Johnny’s face, waiting to hear what became of the bear and the huntress.

  Johnny smacked his lips together. “You know what? My throat is feeling a little dry. I need some water, I think.”

  “What?” Marina shot up. “You can’t stop now. Did she kill the bear? Did she kill the bear-shifter thingy?”

  “Yeah”—Johnny cleared his throat—“I’m parched.”

  “Come on!”

  “Don’t worry, bro. I got your water coming right up,” Jeremiah said, rolling off the bed. “Don’t finish the story without me, though.”

  Marina grabbed his shirt. “Oh no you don’t! I want to hear what happens next. You’re not going anywhere. Y’all are doing this on purpose!”

  Jeremiah grabbed her wrist and pried her fingers off his shirt. “Be right back. You want anything?”

  With a growl of frustration, she flopped back onto the pillow. “No,” she snapped.

  He winked at her and then left the bedroom.

  “So,” James said, “you think you might be getting into this bear-shifter stuff? Just a little? Maybe?”

  Marina crossed her arms over her chest, annoyed that she’d shown that much interest when they were being such teases about it. “It’s just some dumb old wives’ tale.”

  Johnny’s mouth fell open. “Marina Andrews, this is our family history. I am appalled at this blatant disrespect for our beliefs and customs.”

  “Come off it, Johnny.”

  “I don’t like you pretending you’re not the least bit interested.”

  James gripped her calf and then slid his hand slowly up her leg, his fingertips leaving a tingling trail in their wake.

  “I’m not,” she said, glaring at Johnny and trying to ignore James’s fingers, which were inching dangerously close to her pussy. “Cut that out, James.” She jiggled her leg, trying to shake him off.

  “Not until you admit that one little part of you wants this to be true,” Johnny said as Jam
es’s hand crept up.

  “I will not.”

  “Marina,” he said, his voice low and warning. “Take it from a younger brother who knows how relentless James can be when he decides to torture you. You don’t want to push him.”

  She glared at both the brothers.

  “It doesn’t have to be that big a part of you,” Johnny said. “Just say that one teeny, tiny part of you wants this to be true.”

  James’s fingers waited a scant centimeter away from her cunt. He locked gazes with her, and Marina clenched her mouth tightly closed in defiance.

  “What’s it gonna be? Will you admit it?”

  “Never.”

  At her words, James’s hand clamped down on her pussy, eliciting a yelp from her even though she’d made up her mind to remain absolutely quiet, no matter what he did to her.

  “Hold her down, Johnny.”

  “You got it,” he said, grabbing her arms and pinning them above her head. She glared at him but kept her mouth firmly closed.

  “I think ribs first,” James said as he slipped two of his fingers beneath her panties and straight into her cunt without preamble. Johnny obeyed, using his fingertips to tickle her ribs. She bit her bottom lip, her mind confused by the dueling, tortuous sensations. She didn’t know whether she wanted to moan from the fingers in her pussy or squeal at the fingers tickling her ribs.

  James curled his fingers up and up and up, sliding them along the inside of her pussy, tugging at her pleasure and coaxing it to the surface. Yet Johnny sent spikes of spasm-inducing tickles up and down her ribs and across her stomach and then dancing up through her neck.

  She refused to give them one peep, but her eyes were crossing with the explosive sensations whipping through her nerves. Johnny leaned over her so that his face was alarmingly close to hers. “Now admit that a part of you wants to believe in our story.”

  She shook her head. James’s fingers began to work her cunt harder.

  “Are you sure, Marina?”

  She nodded. James jabbed in and out faster. His fingers were frenzied in their movement. Marina had to hold her breath. If she let it out, everything would explode.

  “Come on, Marina. You know you want to give in.”

  She shook her head violently back and forth, glaring up at Johnny.

  Something clamped down on her clit. Even though she managed not to make a noise, her body jolted in reaction, and her eyes flew down to her crotch. James was nibbling on her. She closed her eyes, knowing she couldn’t take the exquisite sensations much longer without some kind of release.

  Johnny whispered in her ear. “Give in. Just a little.”

  She didn’t know why she resisted. She liked the story. She especially liked Deheya’ and her fierce spirit in the face of naysayers, but for some reason, she didn’t want to give in. Didn’t want to let them have this victory. It somehow seemed bigger than the story itself. It felt as if she gave in, she’d be offering up something vulnerable in herself, something that couldn’t easily be taken back once relinquished.

  A third set of hands grabbed her breasts and pinched her nipples. The sensation was too much, and she cried out, clenching her eyes and arching her hips up toward James’s hand. “Yes!” she cried. A gentle wave of pleasure began to swirl in time to the fingers flicking inside her. She squeezed her pussy around the fingers, helping herself move closer to the looming orgasm.

  “Yes what?” Johnny asked, kissing her ear and her jaw and her neck.

  She whimpered. She couldn’t put it into words. There were so many hands, so many warring feelings. “I can’t,” she said.

  The hands stopped, and Marina opened her eyes, momentarily confused.

  “No more. Not until you admit what we want you to admit.”

  She tried to thrust up against James, but Jeremiah’s hands darted down her body and grabbed her hips, holding her still.

  “You know you want to,” Johnny taunted.

  After a long moment of glaring at him and his brothers, Marina closed her eyes and exhaled. She relaxed. It was pointless to resist. She already knew she’d given them a part of herself. In that still moment after Jeremiah told her about his father, a connection had been forged between the four of them, and to deny it now was childish. “You’re right,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  She exhaled again. “I said you’re right, damn it.” She peeked up at the three brothers. All three of them had their mouths open in disbelief. Rolling her eyes, she squeezed her legs around James’s hand, still buried deep in her cunt. “Okay. I did what you wanted. Now get on with it.”

  James narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Not unless you really mean it, Marina.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I do mean it.” She closed her eyes, unable to think with three pairs of black eyes watching her with such a burning intensity. “Part of me says I’m a fool for believing in fairy tales and magic.”

  “And the other part?” Jeremiah prompted, running his thumbs gently over her hardened nipples.

  “The other part”—she had to swallow—“the other part says of course it’s real. Of course there’s a fairy tale for me. There’s magic I can see and feel.” She ran her fingers down Jeremiah’s cheek, tracing the faint scar. “That I can taste and smell.” She turned her face to Johnny and inhaled then smiled as his scent filled her lungs.

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” James asked.

  She met his eyes but bit her bottom lip, unable to answer him.

  “Were you scared?” he asked, and she nodded. “Did you think we wouldn’t have found out?” He plunged his fingers inside her, forcing a tiny gasp out of her lips.

  “Oh, James,” she muttered, relaxing into the sway and pull of his fingers again. Jeremiah lifted her shirt and attended to her breasts while Johnny kept her mouth occupied with his talented lips and tongue. Soon they had her gasping for breath as an orgasm swept through her. It was a gentle thing, causing the underside of her skin to tingle and filling her mind with a quiet, buzzing happiness.

  “Now,” James said, propping his chin on her stomach. “Would you like to hear the rest of the story?”

  She smiled slow and easy and then nodded.

  “Good,” Johnny said, bouncing into a more comfortable position. “We were just getting to the good stuff.”

  Marina giggled, snuggling further down the bed, getting comfortable between all three of them again, her body warm and tingly and relaxed. “So,” she said, “did Deheya’ shoot the bear-shifter thingy through the heart like she wanted?”

  “Well, as I said, she let her arrow fly, but at the last second, the great black bear in front of her transformed into a man. A very handsome, muscular, attractive, naked man, I might add.” Marina giggled at his waggling eyebrows.

  “But did she get him with her arrow?”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “No, the arrow grazed his shoulder, and he jumped back, but other than that, he was unharmed.”

  Marina smiled at the happy outcome. “And then what happened?”

  “As far as Deheya’ and Christopher go, the way our magic works is that if in bear form, once an unmated bear gets a whiff of an unclaimed woman—that’s someone like you,” Jeremiah said, poking her in the stomach, “who’s not married or mated to any other shifter, we become bonded to her. Brothers have to mate with the same woman. In other words, once Christopher was bonded to Deheya’, his brothers were bonded to her as well, although in a different way because they had yet to smell her.

  “And once we bear-shifters are bonded, the only thing we can think about, the only thing we care about, our only goal is to mate the woman we have just smelled.”

  “You mean?” Marina made a crude in-and-out gesture with her fingers.

  “Exactly,” Johnny said. “We want to fuck her.”

  “You are so crude,” James chided.

  “What? That’s what happens. It’s the facts of life, bro.”


  “And what about Deheya’? Did she have any choice in the matter?”

  “Yes and no,” Jeremiah answered. “Because as soon as a bear smells a woman and shifts back into human form, she can smell him, too, sort of, and it’s almost like she gets wrapped up in his frenzy.”

  “So what you’re saying is I need to stay far, far away from you three in bear form?”

  They chuckled, and Jeremiah smoothed her hair away from her face. “Not unless you want to be mated to us.”

  “Yeah, mated forever,” Johnny said, and Marina thought she detected a little bit of a fearful waver in his voice. But then again, that was maybe just her own projection because she did not like the sound of that word. At all.

  “Definitely not something I’m looking for. In fact, I should probably tell y’all, I’m leaving Savage Valley in January. I…um, well, my label has forced me into a sort of sabbatical. They want me to take care of some…issues. So, you know, don’t get too attached to my presence.” She flicked her hair over one shoulder and met each of their glances. “I have a whole life outside of Savage Valley. Unlike some people around here.” Her momentary bout of defiance faded as her thoughts drifted to her sister, and she frowned.

  “What is it?” Jeremiah asked, touching her cheek.

  “Michelle said something kind of strange to me the other day. She said she could never leave here. Is that right? I mean, assuming that she’s mated or whatever with her fiancés.”

  “Oh yeah, she’s mated with them all right,” Johnny said with a chuckle and then grunted when James elbowed him in the stomach. “What?”

  “Have a little consideration, would you? This is obviously a lot for Marina to take in.” James returned his attention to Marina. “But yes, that’s right. We are bound to this land, Marina, in the deepest and strongest way imaginable. It’s in our blood and in our hearts. Once we are mated, it becomes part of our mate’s blood and heart as well.”

  Chills swept over her body at the thought of being mated to the bear-shifters, never leaving this place again, never going anywhere new or meeting anyone new or doing anything new, for that matter. Just stuck. Forever.