Animal Attraction

by Charlene Teglia

  When I finished, David took the empty glass and set it on the bedside table. I looked from one of them to the other. “So,” I finally said. “Three of us.”

  “Yes.” Zach turned our joined hands over and looked serious. “David said you thought I was giving you away by sending him up here. I owe you an apology for that. I thought it would be easier for the two of you to work it out if I wasn’t in the same room.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I expected you to dump me for telling the truth. This is . . . unexpected.”

  “Unprecedented.” Zach brought our hands up and kissed my knuckles. “But it was the only explanation that fit.”

  I nodded. It did fit. I’d been drawn to both of them from the first, before going into heat complicated everything. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised that my feelings for David didn’t go away when things went back to what now passed for normal in my life.

  “Any news on the kitty problem?” I asked.

  “Yes. A group of people were arrested for indecent exposure after being caught swimming nude at the beach.”

  That startled a laugh from me. “Well, the Leshii did say he’d sent them to cool off. Wonder how long it’ll take them to fight free of the paperwork and pay the fines?”

  “Until tonight, best guess.” David took my other hand and held it between his. “That gives us some time.”

  “Right.” Time. How little of it had we spent together? “This is so weird. We’ve just met. How can we be sure this will last? What if one of you wakes up in a week or a month or a year and the feeling’s just gone away?”

  “Mating forms a bond that doesn’t go away. It’s for life.” Zach’s free hand stroked my hair, a comforting gesture. “You’ll have to take our word for it, but there’s never been an exception in our history.”

  “This seems like an exception,” I pointed out.

  “Expecting it to vanish?” David gave me a sharp look. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to trust us.”

  “In the meantime, accept it as a working hypothesis,” Zach suggested in a dry voice. “We do. We’re in this for life.”

  “Okay, then. The pack might swallow me having two mates, but I don’t see two leaders going over. Zach, I think you still have to be king,” I said. “David doesn’t want it, and even if he did, you’re better suited to the job. Do you both agree?”

  “God, yes,” David muttered.

  I stifled a giggle at his tone.

  “I agree,” Zach said. “The pack will be more likely to accept our relationship if we don’t try to change the rules of leadership at the same time. When the renegade wolves are at the door, we need everybody focused on the real problem, not a change in tradition.”

  “Also, the bad guys will be looking for any weakness they can capitalize on. Wrong time to switch leaders.” I settled back between them and thought, Well, that was easy. “What about, you know, accommodations?”

  “I think the house will accommodate anything you want,” Zach said. “If it doesn’t, we’ll remodel.”

  I felt myself turning pink. “I mean sleeping together. What about the three of us sleeping together? How often? Not just, you know, sex. But maybe we need to think about that, too.”

  “She’s blushing,” David said.

  “It’s cute. Also hot.” Zach teased the upper slope of my breast. “I think we’re going to have sex pretty often. How about if you just tell us when you’re too tired?”

  My skin burned darker red. “Are you both going to sleep with me? Or take turns? Or what?”

  “I think we should all share rooms.” David looked at Zach when he said it, not me. “If we’re both with her, she’s twice as safe. We can work out whatever we need to for individual time, but we should both stay with her.”

  “Agreed.”

  “That sounds ominous,” I muttered.

  “We take our role as your mates seriously,” Zach said. “Get used to it. You’re newly transformed, you’re a red queen with unknown special abilities, and you’re pregnant. You can swear at us for being overprotective, but we’re not letting you out of our sight.”

  Considering how much trouble I got into every time I was out of their sight, they probably had a point. “Okay,” I said. Then I frowned. “What do you mean, unknown abilities?”

  “You haven’t had a chance to discover them,” David said. “Jack learned he could diagnose and heal with his touch by accident, shortly after his first change. He can also do astral projection. We don’t know what you can do yet.”

  “Oh.” With my luck, my superpower was probably excessive blushing. Then a thought struck me. “There might be one thing. When I changed shape the first time, I did it the same as David. But today, with Ray, just my face shifted. Then I changed all the way. Is that unusual?”

  “Yes.” Zach met David’s eyes over me. “Partial shifting isn’t unheard of, but it’s a rare ability. Useful in a fight, as you discovered.”

  “So we know what I can do.”

  “No.” David shook his head. “We know one thing. Don’t assume there won’t be more.”

  I blew out a breath. “It’d be nice if this werewolf thing came with a manual.”

  Zach grinned at my tone. “Well, no relationship comes with a manual, so we’d have to write our own anyway. Back to accommodations, we put you in this suite for security reasons and if you don’t object, we’ll all share it. We can knock down the adjacent wall if we need more space.”

  “I don’t object.” I looked at Zach, then David, feeling unaccountably shy. “I want you both with me.”

  “I’ll want solo time,” David said. “Time when you’re mine alone and I don’t have to share you. This will be our shared space, but either Zach or I should be able to arrange some time alone with you when we need it.”

  “Not a whole night,” I said. “I don’t want either of you kicked out of your own bedroom. But we should be able to agree on privacy for an hour or two.”

  “I’ll want you all to myself once in a while, too,” Zach agreed. “We’re possessive and territorial by nature. Let’s not strain that quality by not allowing for it.”

  I nodded. “I can live with that. I like being with both of you together, but I like being with you individually, too. We can find a balance that suits all of us.”

  “Any other concerns?” Zach asked.

  Yes. You haven’t told me you love me. Either of you. I couldn’t bring myself to say that, so I said instead, “Aside from both of you losing all desire for me when I blow up like a balloon?”

  The two of them exchanged a purely male look. Then they each cupped one of my bare breasts. “You do know these are going to get bigger, right?”

  “More sensitive, too,” David murmured. He teased my nipple until I squirmed in reaction.

  “And I’m going to blow up like a balloon,” I reminded them. “You’re really okay with that?”

  “We’re kind of hoping you’ll be willing to do it again,” Zach said. “Not with Jack. With us.”

  “Oh.” I blinked at the thought. “It’s probably going to happen even if we’re not trying. But I think for the short term we all have enough to get used to.”

  “We don’t plan to keep you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen,” David said. “But you should know we both want children.”

  This was making my head spin. If I had one with each, my three children would all have separate fathers. “Is it a deal breaker?” I asked.

  “There is no deal breaker.” Zach bent his head to kiss the curve of my shoulder. “You get us. That’s the deal. The rest is details.”

  “Oh,” I said again, trying to absorb that. Nothing that would make either of them walk away from me. They might not have said they loved me, but they sure as hell were committed.

  “So how do we do this?” I asked Zach. “Is there something we do or say, something formal?”

  “It’s already done.” He looked surprised. “You acknowledged us both. Now we make an announce
ment.”

  Already done. Mated. Twice. I slid down on the bed, needing to be horizontal to take that one in. They came with me, and we shifted into a comfortable arrangement on our sides with David spooning me and Zach facing me, both of them holding me.

  “You realize we can’t get away with no ceremony at all,” I said when I thought I could string words together coherently. “I have human friends and family who are going to expect a wedding.”

  “So we’ll have a wedding.” Zach’s lips covered mine in a long, deep kiss. The sensation seemed multiplied by David’s presence. Double the pleasure, double the fun, I thought, feeling a little giddy. Then reality took me down a notch.

  “Yeah, about that.” I put my hand over David’s on my breast, pressing him closer while I looked at Zach. “Only one of you can be the groom.”

  It was David who said, “Zach. He gets all the formal titles. That way it’s consistent.”

  “And it won’t bother you?” I turned my head to kiss his upper arm as I asked the question.

  “You’re my mate. I don’t need any other acknowledgment.” His hand moved on my breast, sending a wave of heat through me. “As long as we all get the wedding night.”

  “Okay with you?” I asked Zach, knowing my lips were puffy from kissing him and my face was flushed from what David was doing to me.

  “He’ll stand up with us,” Zach said, watching me relax into David’s hold and surrender to the pleasure of his touch. “Best man. But the three of us will know the vows are for all of us.”

  I smiled. “I like that.” Then I sobered again. “We’ll have to wait awhile. We’ll have to think of some explanation for all this, too.”

  “Why wait? You’re already ours,” David growled, burying his face in the curve of my neck.

  I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see my face. “I can’t tell the people who loved me and raised me from infancy that I’m marrying a guy I met less than a week ago, but it’s okay because we have a mystical bond. Oh, and on the way to the altar I slept with somebody else who is the father of their future grandchild.”

  Zach laughed. “At least the baby will have red hair. Nobody’s going to question where that came from.”

  I scowled. “It’s not funny.” Although it sort of was.

  He kissed me once more, and that combined with David nuzzling my neck and teasing my nipple made me forget everything else for a minute. When Zach started talking again, I had to force myself to focus on the words.

  “Tell your friends and parents we’ve been serious for a while but kept it quiet because we wanted to be sure. We’re going public now because you’re pregnant and you’re moving in with me. Set a wedding date six months out. That will give everybody time to get used to the idea and not feel like you’re rushing into something you might regret.”

  I blinked. “That sounds so smart and adult. No wonder you’re in charge.” It was a good cover story, too, believable and completely omitting the outlandish truths nobody would swallow. It would even cover my pre-transformation hibernation and explain why I’d been avoiding everybody.

  He touched my lips. “I told you we could make things work with your human friends and family. I’d rather ease into it and get their acceptance than alienate people who matter to you.”

  “Thank you.” I stared at him for a minute, lost in wonder. I could almost see our wedding day.

  A garden wedding, early summer. Dancing first with Zach and then with David by the large fountain where we’d all danced for the first time. My white dress floating over the grass and a string quartet playing in the background. All twelve of my handsome men in their tuxedoes making Michelle drool.

  “Look at that,” I told Zach when David brought me back to him. “My maid of honor’s giving Matt the eye, and he’s eyeing her back.”

  We watched them watching each other and I thought how right it would be if the two of them got together. So he grew fur once a month; no guy was perfect. And he’d rock her world in bed. Then I gasped at a sudden sharp sensation and put a hand on my stomach.

  “Okay?” It was Zach who spoke, but both Zach and David moved closer, hands going to my round belly in reflexive response.

  “Yes. I think Junior wants to dance, too.” We stood in a circle of three, feeling the baby kick, our eyes meeting, and it was a moment so beautiful, so perfect, I thought my heart couldn’t contain my happiness.

  “Chandra? Jack’s coming.”

  I blinked. I was lying on my back, looking up at Zach and David. Their faces were drawn with alarm. The music and the scent of summer garden went away.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Zach answered me. “You stared off into space and stopped responding. You couldn’t hear us and didn’t blink or follow anything with your eyes. David called Jack to see what’s wrong.”

  Oh. I licked my lips. “I think another unknown ability just manifested. I was at our wedding.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “YOU WERE AT OUR WEDDING?” ZACH STROKED MY FOREHEAD, AND I wasn’t sure if he was trying to soothe me or check for fever.

  “Yes.” I frowned in concentration, going over the details in my head. “It was here, outside in the gardens, by the big fountain. About six months from now, like you said. All of you guys were in tuxes, and my friend Michelle was my maid of honor. I danced with both of you, and then we all felt the baby kicking.”

  I bit my lip in sudden worry as another thought struck me. “Or maybe I only saw a potential future. Like it could happen that way, but only if we don’t screw up.”

  “Then we don’t screw up,” David stated in a flat voice.

  I nodded. Good plan. I didn’t want to screw up. I wanted to dance with my two mates at our wedding, to celebrate with my old family and my new family. We all had too much to lose. So we wouldn’t.

  Not to mention, I had an almost gleeful desire to see Michelle dating Matt. I missed her. I missed all my friends, but I’d been surrounded by testosterone at Wolf Manor and some girlfriend time was going to be long overdue.

  “Girlfriend time,” I said out loud, feeling thunderstruck. Then I looked at Zach. “I have an idea.”

  But before I could run it past him, we were interrupted.

  “Hey.” Jack came into the bedroom and made his way over to me. “How’re you doing?”

  “Fine.” I beamed at him. “Good news. We make it through the first two trimesters without major problems.”

  Zach pulled the sheet up over me and I realized I’d forgotten I was naked. Oops. Oh, well, I didn’t have anything Jack hadn’t seen already.

  “That is good news.” He was studying my eyes, not my body. I wondered if my pupils looked funny. “And you know this how?”

  “I visited the future. Not physically. My body stayed right here. It must’ve looked like I was having some sort of seizure.”

  Jack nodded and put his hand on my forehead. I felt it grow warm above and between my eyes. “Your third eye is active,” he informed me. “The spiritual eye. Did you ever have visions before you changed?”

  I thought back to my dream of running over the moon tiles in the solarium with the pack. “Not exactly. I had some dreams. And, you know, everybody has intuition. Instincts. But not like this. This was like being there. Sounds, smells, everything.”

  “Well, fortune-teller, I think you’re just fine.” Jack took his hand away and dropped a light kiss on the spot that had warmed under his touch. “You’re a little fatigued and showing signs of stress, but that’s normal, all things considered. Your body’s still adapting to the change and you haven’t exactly been taking it easy.”

  I made a face. “It’s not my fault. Stuff just keeps happening.”

  “No, it’s not your fault.” He tousled my hair and moved back to give way to my mates. “You two should try to keep her in bed for the afternoon. By whatever means necessary. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Like that’ll be restful,” I muttered. But it might be interesting. And wa
sn’t physical exertion good for stress?

  Jack left and I held up a pre-emptive hand before Zach and David could make me forget what I’d been about to say. “Wait. No nookie until you tell me what you think of this.”

  “Think of what?” David moved up beside me and trailed his hand down my bare spine. “Talk fast.”

  “Girlfriend time,” I repeated, catching Zach’s eye. “The panthers tried to grab me, right? So what if we turned the tables on them? Took their queen and had a little heart-to-heart chat with her? Maybe we could settle things with diplomacy.”

  Zach’s lips twitched. “Diplomacy at gunpoint?”

  “Whatever works.” I shrugged. “They won’t go against their queen, will they? If she agrees to a truce with us, they have to go along with it. It’s not like they can replace her. That just leaves the rogue wolves to sort out, and I don’t think they know the Leshii’s returned. They wouldn’t go against him. I’m not sure they could.” I remembered the compulsion to go down on my belly before the lord of the forest and the way the panther had run at his command. “But no matter what, we’re younger, stronger, and we can beat them. We just can’t keep fighting all of them combined or they’ll wear us down with sheer numbers.”

  “This is a good idea.” Zach looked at David. “What’s the easiest place to get to her?”

  “When she comes out of the police station after paying her fine,” David said without hesitation. “Or if there’s no opportunity, follow her and wait for the right chance.”

  “If Jack can astrally project, maybe he can spot when she’s vulnerable and pass on the information,” I suggested. “Then Matt or somebody grabs her.”

  “I like it.” Zach pulled the sheet back and gave me a caress that made me melt. “I’ll go tell our guys the plan. You two, don’t get too carried away without me.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” I caught him by the shirt and drew him down for a kiss. “Hurry back.”